Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to share with the Senate the memory of one of my young constituents, Nicole Carol Miller, who lost her life on September 11, 2001. Ms. Miller was a lovely 21- year-old college student when the flight she was on, United Airlines Flight 93, was hijacked by terrorists. As we all know, that plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board. Nicole's memory lives on in the hearts of those she loved. She took great joy in life and exemplified this with her wonderful outlook and tenacious personality. Nicole's radiant smile could light up a room and she energized those around her. She knew how to be an outstanding friend. Nicole was blessed with two families. Her father and stepmother, David and Catherine Miller of Chico, California and her mother and stepfather, Cathy and Wayne Stefani, Sr., of San Jose, California. In her father's words, ``She had that sweet baby quality. She could make you smile and forget your troubles for a little bit.'' Friend Heidi Barnes describes Nicole as ``very friendly and welcoming. She had a big heart and it was open to everyone.'' She lived in San Jose, CA, with her mother and stepfather, Cathy and Wayne Stefani, Sr. She attended local schools and graduated from Pioneer High School in 1998. A talented softball player during all four years of high school, Nicole won a college softball scholarship during her senior year. Even though she had never been a competitive swimmer, she tried out for the Pioneer High swim team as a freshman and made the team. At the time of her tragic death, she was a dean's list student at West Valley College in Saratoga, working part-time and weighing whether to transfer to California State University at Chico or San Jose State University. Nicole is survived by her mother, Cathy M. Stefani; stepfather, Wayne Stefani, Sr.; father, David J. Miller; stepmother, Catherine M. Miller; and her siblings, Tiffney M. Miller, David S. Miller, Danielle L. Miller, Wayne Stefani Jr., Joshua R.D. Tenorio, and Anthony D. Tenorio. None of us is untouched by the terror of September 11, and many Californians were part of each tragic moment of that tragic day. Some were trapped in the World Trade Center towers. Some were at work in the Pentagon. And the fates of some were sealed as they boarded planes bound for San Francisco or Los Angeles. I offer today this tribute to one of the 51 Californians who perished on that awful morning. I want to assure the family of Deora Bodley, and the families of all the victims, that their fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters will not be forgotten. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am disappointed that after nearly three weeks of debate, the Senate has been unable to pass a prescription drug benefit for seniors. Millions of senior citizens across the country desperately need this help. In California alone there are nearly 3.8 million Medicare beneficiaries. According to the most recent estimates, 684,000 of those Californians have no prescription drug coverage. Unsurprisingly, low- income California seniors make up the majority of those currently suffering. However, this is an issue that cuts across socioeconomic lines to affect all seniors, throughout my State and throughout the Nation. It is easy to listen to numbers and forget that there are faces behind those numbers--real people with real health care problems. But that is precisely why this debate is so important. There are seniors in this country who are being gouged by the prices of prescription drugs, who are choosing to skip doses to make their drugs last, and who are holding off as long as possible before they fill their prescriptions because they simply can't afford it. This is a travesty, and one that we must address. We had a tremendous opportunity to address this situation and to provide seniors with a comprehensive prescription drug benefit under Medicare. I supported a proposal to provide a voluntary, affordable prescription drug benefit for all seniors under Medicare, with special assistance to those with low incomes. This proposal would provide a reliable benefit for the people who spend the most on drugs and who, in many cases, can least afford it: senior citizens. Unfortunately, because of opposition from the other side of the aisle, that effort failed. Fortunately, all is not lost. While we were unable to make prescription drugs more accessible to seniors, I am pleased that we were able to take steps to make prescription drugs more affordable for everyone. I supported--and we passed--a provision that will allow drug reimportation from Canada. In Canada, the exact same drugs often cost one-third the price. However, pharmacies in this country are not currently allowed to buy drugs in Canada to sell in the United States, which would pass these savings on to consumers. That should change as long as those drugs meet strict safety standards before entering our country. This provision will allow that to happen. I supported--and we passed--a provision that will allow states to negotiate lower drug prices for all of their citizens who currently lack prescription drug benefits. States currently negotiate drug prices for their Medicaid recipients, the poorest of our Nation's citizens. This provision will give States an even larger market power to ensure even deeper discounts for all residents who lack prescription drug coverage. Finally, I supported--and we passed--a proposal to close the loopholes that currently allow brand-name drug companies to keep generic drugs off the market, even after the original patent on the drug has expired. Bringing generics to market ensures greater competition and ultimately reduces prices. This should not be unfairly stalled by brand-name companies that want to maintain their monopoly on the market. These are all important ways in which we will be able to bring the costs of drugs down for all Americans, young and old, rich and poor. We must provide seniors with a true Medicare prescription drug benefit, so that they are no longer forced to choose between drugs and food or rent. We may not have succeeded today, but I will keep fighting to see it happen in the very near future.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like to take this moment to reflect on the work of a very special woman and friend, Dr. Mimi Silbert, whose extraordinary commitment and compassion have greatly enhanced the quality of life for so many people in California and across the Nation. The Jewish National Fund will present Mimi with its Woman of Valor Award on September 24 in Los Angeles. Mimi serves as President, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Delancey Street Foundation, which, since 1971, has helped thousands of substance abusers and get back on their feet. The foundation is known to be the largest of its kind in America. The Delancey Street Foundation has centers in New York, New Mexico, North Carolina and Los Angeles, but its headquarters in San Francisco are the most well-known. Located on the San Francisco waterfront, the 400,000-square-foot complex is the largest self-help facility in the country. The complex houses 500 residents and contains Delancey's national moving company, catering company, a screening room, the Delancey Street Restaurant and Crossroads Cafe. Athough best-known for her work with the Delancey Street Foundation, Mimi also serves as a powerful voice for reform. She recently wrote, designed and implemented a new juvenile justice system for the city of San Francisco, which has served more than 2,000 young people. City agencies and community-based organizations worked together to create a one-stop Community Assessment Center for arrested young people, two afterschool facilities, and other programs. Mimi also used her extensive expertise to work as a prison psychologist and police trainer, as well as teach at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and the Wright Institute. Mimi truly personifies the Jewish National Fund's Woman of Valor Award. I am proud to be on her long list of admirers and friends. I extend to her my most sincere congratulations on this distinguished honor, and, as always, wish her every success as she continues her exceptional work.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I came to the floor to give my deepest thanks to Senator Sarbanes and Senator Leahy for leading us in just the way we needed to be led toward a tough, fair reform that would lead to confidence in our financial system. I also thank Senator Enzi for his work. I was a stockbroker years ago, decades ago, and in those days the big accounting firms were known for their integrity, and CEOs were highly respected. That check and balance was lost along the way and it must be restored. I believe this bill will do it and our people will, once again, have trust and confidence in our financial system. They will know when they read an annual report and it is signed off on by an accounting firm that it means what it says and says what it means. That will bring the stock market back into balance. It will not happen tomorrow. This isn't magic legislation. But over time confidence will be restored and our economy will be on solid footing once again. I thank my friends.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the bill I am introducing today is long overdue. The Child Support Enforcement Act will bring much-needed relief to the millions of families who are not receiving the child support they are legally due. The importance of this bill is clear. Each year, nearly 60 percent of parents owed child support receive less than the amount they are due. And more than 30 percent receive no payment at all. California is no exception: preliminary findings from the 2000 Census Report found that of the more than 2.3 million Californians who were owed child support, only 39 percent received those payments. Clearly, millions of individuals, women and children, are in crisis when it comes to child support. It is time to treat delinquent child support the same way bad debt is treated in the tax law. The Child Support Enforcement Act would allow custodial parents to deduct the amount of child support they are owed from their adjusted gross income on their income taxes. This is true for all taxpayers, regardless of whether they itemize. So while we are not providing the full amount they are due, this bill will provide much-needed relief. This bill will also penalize the non-custodial parent who is not paying his or her legally obligated child support. It will force the deadbeat parent to add the owed amount to his adjusted gross income, creating a tax penalty. This is not creating new tax law. It is extending current tax law on bad debts to delinquent child support payments. It's that simple. The relief provided in this bill is extremely important for single parents. Child support payments can literally mean the difference between paying rent or being homeless; the difference between putting food on the table or being forced to let children go hungry; the difference between making ends meet or going on welfare. I am pleased to be joined in this effort by Senator Snowe. And Representative Cox is introducing the House version of the bill today as well. As you can see, this is not a partisan issue, this is a family issue. It will help families and children nationwide. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Individual investors, saving for their retirement or their children's education, count on business leaders to play by the rules. They also count on financial industry professionals including accountants and research analysis to produce reliable, professional, and honest work. But recent business scandals at Enron, Tyco, Merrill Lynch, WorldCom and others are proving that without strong government oversight and regulation, greed will lead executives, accountants, and investment analysts to abuse the trust that American workers and investors have placed in them. We have to restore that trust. This bill is a good first step. It has the necessary teeth to clamp down on corporate irresponsibility. First, it creates a full-time independent board to set ethical auditing standards. Second, it prevents companies from providing most consulting services for the very same companies that they audit. Third, if enforced, it would send corporate executives who mislead shareholders to jail. Fourth, it forces Wall Street investment research analysts to disclose any conflicts of interest that they or their financial institution might have in the investment recommendations that they make. And finally, it protects whistleblowers who reveal unethical acts by the companies for which they work. I support this bill and would have supported even stronger legislation. I remain concerned that the public members on the board created in this bill are not chosen according to specific independence standards. I am also concerned that disclosure requirements do not include the holdings of family members of influential research analysts on Wall Street. And most importantly I had hoped we could do more to get funds to workers who lose their jobs as a result of executive misconduct. Those concerns aside, this bill is a good first step in restoring confidence in the system. Unfortunately, the House recently passed a bill that is weak and will not get the job done. It fails to establish a full-time board to design and enforce auditing standards, does not mandate jail time for securities fraud, and fails to protect whistleblowers. On the conflicts of interests that investment analysts are forced to disclose in the Senate bill, the House bill calls only for a study of the issue. I urge the President to go beyond rhetoric and endorse the Senate accounting reform bill so that we can get a strong bill out of conference. I also urge the President to join us in fighting for meaningful pension reform to ensure that American's retirement savings are protected.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I am pleased to note that the University of California, Davis Cancer Center has achieved National Cancer Institute, NCI, designation. With this designation, the UC Davis Cancer Center becomes one of only nine centers in California. The NCI designation is most prestigious, awarded to cancer institutions that have significantly contributed innovative cancer research to the scientific community. Furthermore, this notable distinction provides ongoing Federal support for research in the fight against this disease The center is a collaboration of over 200 scientists, working at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, the main UC campus in Davis, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The partnership with Lawrence Livermore, the first of its kind in the Nation, was a major factor in winning the NCI designation. Physicians and scientists work together to use technology developed for the defense industry and other non-medical uses to advance cancer diagnosis and treatment. In addition to hundreds of cancer studies underway at the cancer center, joint research collaborations with Lawrence Livermore include such innovative projects as photonic probes testing, which is used to instantly detect cancer and save patients from unnecessary biopsies. The center serves a population of five million people throughout Northern and Central California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon and cares for about 3,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year. I commend the UC Davis Cancer Center on this impressive achievement, and I extend my confidence that the center will make meaningful contributions to our search for a cure for this devastating disease.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Presiding Officer advise me if the time of the Republicans has run out?

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President. What is the order now?

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to direct the Senate's attention to the life and achievements of Walter Johnson. Walter is the Secretary-Treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council, a position he has held since 1985. He is a man of great compassion and determination. He is also, I am proud to say, a trusted friend and confidante. On July 18, 2002, Walter is being honored by the San Mateo Central Labor Council for his lifetime of service. He certainly deserves it. He has been a leader in the Bay Area labor movement since the 1950s. He got his start with the Department Store Employees Union Local 1100 while working as a salesperson at Sears. Once in the union, it did not take him long to work his way up to be president and eventually secretary-treasurer, the top post. Over the years, Walter has never wavered in his commitment to advancing the interests of working men and women and the larger community. He truly believes in social justice and equal rights. As the head of an organization comprised of 125 unions and 175,000 workers, he lives his beliefs every day. When it comes to the lives and livelihoods of those he represents, he never lets elected officials forget that we work for the people, not the other way around. While this may make him an occasional irritant, it also makes him a constant inspiration. Walter Johnson is the very embodiment of the labor movement in San Francisco and the Bay Area. If it seems like he has been there for years, it is because he has. Over the course of a half century, he always put the people first. It is high time he sat still long enough to let those he has helped return the favor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I want to conclude and say I could show you other charts that show the impact on other States. But I have made my point. This nuclear waste is going to go by schools, it is going to go by hospitals, it is going to go by our families, it is going to go by our children, it is going to go by our homes, and it is going to go by our businesses. And post-9/11 we don't even have the final plan. I am proud to stand with my friends from Nevada. I am going to be in this fight if they need me because I believe there are some moments on this floor when you have to step up and realize you are here for a brief time, but decisions we make can come back to haunt us. I hope today people will think about that and vote with my colleague from Nevada. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. There are 231 hospitals within 1 mile of the proposed route. There are 3,500 schools within 1 mile of the proposed route. Nuclear waste shipments in California over the life of the project, if done by truck, will be 14,000-plus; if done by train, 13,000-plus; 2,040 metric tons of nuclear waste at facilities throughout California now--which means that even with the Yucca Mountain we are going to have nuclear waste in the State, which is also the case with most of our States. Our Attorney General had a press conference about the potential of a ``dirty'' bomb. We worry about where the terrorists are going to get this material. This administration has been backing the transportation of the most dangerous nuclear waste and not even mentioning 9/11. It is almost like a Rip Van Winkle situation when it comes to Yucca Mountain. Well, we have done it; we spent the money; and, we have invested it. It doesn't matter--9/11, or anything else. You could have another terrorist and it would still be here for Yucca Mountain. Loud special interests are behind this vote. That is the only way you can come to any other conclusion. I will tell you some of the people who oppose this. I mentioned the PTA. I will give you some more: The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, American Land Alliance, American Rivers, American Public Health Association, Clean Water Action, Environmental Action Foundation, Environmental Defense, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Friends of the Earth, and the Government Accountability Project. It goes on: League of Conservation Voters, International Association of Firefighters. Do you want to be a fireman and get called to a fire when one of these accidents happens? The Department of Energy has said they know already there are going to be accidents. Is that 100 accidents? They predict that already. The International Association of Firefighters knows what that could mean to their lives. Who are we fighting for here? I say to my colleague, this is a moment of truth for every person here. You could look at the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Wilderness Society, and the Women's Legislative Lobby in Washington. These are people who have spoken out. I ask unanimous consent to have this entire list printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. Given the track record of this administration in terms of its energy policy and the President's lack of anything very exciting in terms of how we are going to regain the confidence and trust of the people, it is very possible--indeed, probable, in fact--that these companies, or certainly their representatives, met with the Vice President. I will tell you, when that comes out, we will know even more why, even after 9/11, they had this plan. This is just one area--Sacramento. I want to show you Los Angeles. We are not talking philosophy or ideology. We are talking about the hottest, most dangerous waste known to humankind coming near schools and hospitals in my State and in almost every other State. Again, the red area is within 1 mile of the route. The yellow area is within 3 miles. The light yellow area is within 5 miles. We have 446 schools within 5 miles of these routes. Is this what we owe those little kids? Is this what we owe them? Are they going to close the school down when they transport this near by? There are 23 hospitals within 5 miles. I am amazed we are debating this issue. I am amazed we are debating this issue. The Department of Energy doesn't tell us what the final plan is. You know why? It is because of the outcry in the country when that final plan comes forward. Attorney General Ashcroft has said we should worry about a ``dirty'' bomb. And we all do. We already know it has been disruptive. That is a ``dirty'' bomb. That is material that doesn't even come close to the danger of this material. I want to give you the facts about what happens in California with the transportation of this waste. We have 35 million people in our State. Seven million people in California live within 1 mile of the proposed route. I ask my colleague for 5 more minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I am certainly aware of that.

Mrs. BOXER. I would be happy to.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. I knew this waste was so hot that it would have to be cooled down, but I wasn't aware that it was for 5 years. Post 9-11, you would think this administration would think twice, or three times, or six times, before they would go ahead and give the order for this waste to move. We have given the airlines billions of dollars. We are spending so much to make airports safe and here we have this administration, the one that tells us we are in a war--there is not a speech this President makes that he doesn't remind us that we are in a war--is ready to put this kind of material on our roads. I am just incredulous. The only thing I can come up with is, who is really behind all of this? I have a list of some of the people who are pushing for this. Let us put that on the floor since we are talking about corporate power this week. We have the Nuclear Energy Institute. There are 260 companies in the Nuclear Energy Institute pushing this. They include Enron, First Energy, Bechtel, Duke Energy, and General Electric, to name a few. There are a lot of special interests--260, to be exact--pushing this. But where are the people? The people will be living in fear, I guarantee you, when this starts. Let me show you a map which I think my colleague must have shown before. Let me show you a map first of just one area, Sacramento. The red area is within 1 mile of one of the proposed routes. The yellow area is within 3 miles of the proposed route, and the light yellow is within 5 miles. If you look at all of this, you see these little arrows. They are actually schoolhouses. These are the schools located so close to this traffic. The H's are the hospitals. We have 167 schools that are within 5 miles in this area. There are seven hospitals within 5 miles. The PTA has sent us a letter against this project. Where are my colleagues? You would think 9/11 never happened. You would think 9/11 was just something in a movie. The PTA has basically told us: Don't do this until you have a plan that you can prove is safe.

Mrs. BOXER. Five years.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, it is indeed an honor to stand with my friend from Nevada on this issue because there can be no higher calling that we have than to protect the health and safety of the people we represent--no higher calling. It seems to me very interesting that, as we are about to address a very important subject of corporate irresponsibility and try to fix the mess that is happening on Wall Street, we would be disrupted from that task to go to an issue such as this, which is so very harmful to our people. I am going to take some time to explain it. My State of California is one of the most affected by the Yucca Mountain project because Yucca Mountain is only 17 miles from the California border and from Death Valley National Park. Scientific studies have shown that the regional ground water aquifer surrounding Yucca Mountain discharges into Death Valley because Death Valley is down gradient from Yucca Mountain. If the ground water is contaminated, that will mean the demise of the park and the surrounding communities. The tests that have been done on the site are not what we would want to see. We see leakage; we do not see dryness. We see problems with Yucca Mountain that would lead most people to assume there will be a problem with leakage into the ground water. It is an absolute travesty waiting to happen to my State. The long-term viability of the fish, the wildlife, and the human population is dependent on this aquifer. Water is life in the desert. Water quality must be preserved. Given the threat posed by Yucca Mountain, I have opposed it, and that was before 9-11. Since 9-11, we have a whole other area of concern and that is taking this waste from all over the country and putting it on trucks or trains and shipping it across this country. It is an absolute disaster waiting to happen. This is so hot that it has to be cooled for--I say to my friend from Nevada, Senator Reid, am I correct in saying that waste is so hot that it has to be cooled? And for how long does it have to be cooled?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss a matter that is very related to the whole issue of corporate responsibility. Sometimes the people do not connect the issue of the environment with corporate responsibility, but I am going to do that this morning with the Senator from Illinois, as we touch on some of the policies of this administration, which are really, in my view, putting us in a very dangerous situation in terms of taking a stand with the corporate polluters versus the people of this country who deserve to have protection from environmental hazards. This is not a discussion about ideology, it is really a discussion about the checks and balances that there have to be in this country so we can have robust economic growth along with the sense that there will be responsibility and people will be protected. I have found out, in my long history in politics, that in fact if you are good to the environment and if you care about the health and safety of people, you will have, actually, development of new businesses to deal with pollution and you will have prosperity. We go back in the environmental movement to the days when rivers in this country were on fire, they had so many hazards in the waterways, such as in Ohio and other places. That is what started the Clean Air Act. We go back to the days when you could literally see the air in some of our big cities. We turned it around in such a way that the people benefited both from a healthier environment and a robust economy. So this argument that we should step away and no longer say to corporations that pollute: You have a responsibility to clean up your mess--the fact that this administration seems to take that position is at odds with our history and is at odds with what we ought to be doing. On Monday, July 1, a report by the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general was released stating that the EPA has designated 33 sites in 18 States for cuts in financing for the Superfund cleanup program. The reason this administration decided to do this is, frankly, they are depleting the Superfund, which is a fund that is set up via a fee by polluting corporations, and the administration is not interested, at least to now, in making sure that we have that fund, that that fund is not depleted. The report that was commissioned several months ago by Democrats in the House finally did come back. I have to say, as the chair of the Superfund Subcommittee in the Environment Committee, we have been trying to get this information from EPA for several months. We have not been able to get it. I thank my colleagues in the House for going to the inspector general. The 33 sites are National Priorities List sites, and they are among the most toxic in the country. So instead of saying, we are going to clean them up, the administration is walking away from them. What do these sites contain? Let me say, you may want to know this information but you would not want to get near it. The sites contain arsenic, Agent Orange, dioxin, and industrial pesticides. The report indicates that EPA's Atlanta regional office staff say there is a bottleneck on new starts for cleanup and that there must be maintenance of cleanup progress. The Dallas office reports they have problems. They did not receive $56 million. The Kansas office says they need $100 million. The Denver regional office at EPA says they did not get the $10 million they were to receive. Here is the point. For an administration that says, trust the people who are working in the field, this administration has turned its back on their regional offices. One of the excuses the administration comes up with--and then I will yield to my friend from Illinois--is that, well, it is true the Clinton sites were cleaned up--I have a chart showing progress that was made under President Clinton. We see, in the last 4 years of his administration, 88, 87, 85, and 87 sites. That is the number of sites that were cleaned up. Under this administration, they told us, when we asked them, they wanted to clean up 75, 65, and 40 sites. Now it is 47, 40, and 40 sites. We are looking at a terrible diminution in the number of sites cleaned. One of the things they say is: Well, there are no tough sites left. They were cleaned up by Clinton. So we did a little research. One of the sites that was cleaned up by the Clinton administration is the Illinois site. I want to bring this up so my colleague can hear this. The NL Industries Corporation smelter site in Illinois was cleaned up. For them to say they didn't clean up any hard sites is ridiculous. The site was used for lead smelting operations from the turn of the century until 1983. It included 100 square blocks and 1,600 residences were affected. Ten percent of the children living near the site had blood levels of lead above 10 micrograms, which is an unsafe level. The responsible parties fought the EPA. We had to go to the Superfund to get the money. It was not a simple site. The cleanup was important for the children. The site was cleaned up. Why was it cleaned up? Because the Clinton administration used that Superfund, and they were committed to cleaning up the site. I am sure my colleague will attest to the fact that the site is quite different today. That is the reality. That is why we are on the floor--because this is a great program. It had some problems in the early stages. It wasn't moving. But by 1992 it really started. It is a sad day when I am here to tell you that this administration is not cleaning up its act.

Mrs. BOXER. That is an excellent analogy. If a corporation makes certain promises to the people they employ and that is part of the contract and if a corporation comes into a community to be a good neighbor and that is part of the deal, then they should not walk away from either. That is why it is important sometimes that the Government, the House and Senate, the President, make sure that we get in and restore justice. Talk about justice, a lot of these sites--take a look at the sites shown in purple on the chart--are the major polluted sites. They are in every State but North Dakota. My State has the second number. New Jersey has the first. Illinois is up there, unfortunately. There are many States that are affected. We are talking about walking away from a lot of places when we deplete the Superfund. We are walking away from ``polluter pays.'' I thank my friend. There is a definite analogy to be made. He has made it very clearly, as he usually does when we talk about the issue of corporate responsibility. Today we are concentrating on the WorldComs and Global Crossings and the Enrons and Arthur Andersens and the ImClones. We know those names now. Those names and what is behind those names has propelled us in the Senate to take up the very important Sarbanes bill. The Leahy bill will be added, and the bill will become the Sarbanes-Leahy bill. We have been propelled into action because of, as President Bush says, these bad actors. I think it goes beyond that to the system. There are no checks and balances in that system. If we don't have a Superfund, I say to the Senator, we have no check and balance on those bad actors who would walk away. Let me say to my friend, is he familiar with that site I talked about that was cleaned up?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I first thank the Senator from Illinois for his eloquence on this subject. Again, this isn't really a theoretical thing at all. We see the progress that has been made during the last 8 years. It is amazing to look at the difference because there were, frankly, problems with the Superfund Program for a while. They weren't really doing a good job of it. Under Carol Browner began a shake-up, and they began to get through all the problems. Here we are. My friend is right. This is not only important for the environment, and not only bipartisan, as he pointed out, but it is really, in my view, a probusiness situation. When they leave behind a mess such as this, then they go somewhere else and go before the planning commission in some little place in Illinois, or California, or Louisiana, and this big company XYZ wants to come in and do some work over here with a plant, what is their record? Now the county supervisor or the planning commission can look back and say: Oh, my God, the XYZ company left a mess in California. The truth is that the company is not going to be welcomed. To me, it is probusiness to clean up your mess. It is going to help your business. It is, in fact, a part of corporate responsibility. It is our responsibility to make sure that polluters pay. I want to share a chart with my friend that shows what has happened with this program. In 1995, 82 percent of the cleanup was paid by industry. Either through responsible parties coming forward and paying for the mess they made, or the Superfund itself--as my friend points out, as opposed to the dollars that are collected from a fee on polluters--only 18 percent had to be made up by the general taxpayers. By 2003, if the situation continues to deteriorate under this President, 46 percent of the cleanup is going to be paid for by our constituents who had nothing to do with the dumping of those materials. This should fall on the people who made the mess. The polluters should pay. It is part of the Superfund. As we talk about corporate irresponsibility and as we talk about ways we can put confidence back into the system, we shouldn't forget that corporate responsibility is reflected in the Superfund Program. It has been reflected. It has been a successful program. That is why it was embraced by many Republicans. That is why I hope it will be again embraced by many, although I am very concerned, frankly, that the bipartisan nature of this is slipping away in this atmosphere today. I am very proud to have Senator Chafee of Rhode Island as the key Republican sponsor of the Superfund legislation.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I say to my friend and my colleagues who may be listening, during wartime I remember a bumper sticker that said ``Imagine Peace.'' It was a pretty simple thing, but you really have to think what something could be. We could really imagine this country connected by a rail system that serves all our people. What an improvement in the quality of life; what an improvement in the economy; what an improvement in air quality; what a better way for us to go when we are competing for economic dollars. This is an efficiency plan. So whether it is the economy or national security, we do need some bold leadership. I am glad my friend raised this issue. We certainly have it from my friend from Delaware. I am glad he is on the floor tonight. I am going to do everything I can. Our State of California puts a lot of money into our rail system. We step to the plate and match these dollars. We don't want to see Amtrak go away. It would be a disaster for many areas of my great State. I thank my friend for yielding.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. Right now, I am very concerned about a doubledipper recession. I am very concerned we may have real problems in this country with unemployment. We see what is happening in the last 17 months since this administration took over, and what is happening to the crime rate. It is going up. One of the reasons it is going up, experts say, is that the economy is bad. We know we are not spending money to put cops on the beat. That hurts. We have a quality-of-life situation and it is spiraling out of control. I say to my friend, on all fronts, this is a national security issue, whether or not we say we want to have a rail system as does every other great nation in the world. We are playing around with this issue and it has to stop. It is bad management on the part of this administration to be taking us to the 11th hour on this deal. We could have thousands of people unemployed, thousands of people stranded, who cannot get to work, shutting down a system that could be a backup to our air system, especially at a time of terrorist threats. My question to my friend is this: Is it true this Congress voted to give $15 billion to the airlines, $5 billion of that in a direct check, and then loan guarantees for the rest because we believe it is very important to our economy, to our national security, to keep travel going? Is it not ironic that when the people's own train system needs $200 million to keep it going, we cannot get a direct answer from this administration, and they are taking it to this 11th hour?