Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last March, the Senate passed an amendment I offered to the Education Savings Accounts bill that said schools receiving federal funds must notify parents prior to the application of toxic pesticides on school buildings and grounds. It also required the distribution of the Environmental Protection Agency's manual that guides schools in establishing a least toxic pesticide policy. I offered that amendment for a simple reason. Toxic pesticides hurt our kids, and that hurts the education of our kids. The National Academy of Sciences has found that up to 25 percent of childhood learning disabilities may be attributable to a combination of exposure to toxic chemicals like pesticides and genetic factors. Yet, current EPA pesticide standards are not protective of children, and schools across America--where our children spend 6 or 7 or more hours a day-- routinely use toxic pesticides. My amendment sought to lessen the impact of toxic pesticides on our children by urging schools to use the kinds of products that will harm children the least and to let parents know when toxic pesticides are going to be used. Again, my amendment was added to the Education Savings Accounts bill. However, that bill has not gone anywhere since the Senate passed it on March 2. I could offer my amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act bill, but it, too, appears dead. So, I drafted an amendment to the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill to provide $100,000 for the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency, to encourage school districts across the country to establish a least toxic pesticide policy--which is the policy in several school districts in California--and to notify parents prior to the use on school grounds of pesticides that the EPA has identified as a known or probable carcinogen, a category I or II acute nerve toxin, or a pesticide of the organophosphate, carbamate, or organochlorine class. At the suggestion of my friend from Iowa, the Ranking Member of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I will not offer that amendment because I understand that the managers will work to add language in the conference report that would accomplish the same thing. May I ask the Chairman and Ranking Member if that is correct?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, on July 14, Jim Dunbar will rise well before dawn, drive to San Francisco, and broadcast his morning show on KGO radio. As he has done each weekday for the past quarter century, Jim will read and comment on the news, tell a few stories, and take listeners' calls. He will help his audience start their day in a good mood, armed with good information about the world. For 37 years, Jim Dunbar has served KGO and the people of the Bay Area with dignity, intelligence, and good humor. He blends solid reporting with amiable companionship without compromising either his journalist's integrity or his personal charm. He gives his listeners a good morning and his profession a good name. Speaking as one of his many listeners, I must add the one piece of sad news in this story: Although Jim Dunbar will still contribute radio essays and special reports for KGO, July 14 will be his last morning show. Like thousands of others, I will miss Jim Dunbar in the morning, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. I was not able to hear his entire presentation, but he and I have worked together on afterschool programs. We have made some progress because, frankly, in the first budget fight that this President had, he put afterschool on the table, and he insisted we increase our participation. I don't know if my friend went over the details of how many people in this country really support what he is trying to do today. I wanted to make sure my friend knew, in the last poll I saw, about 90 percent of the people said: We need to do more for our children after school. I wonder if my friend knew that.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my friend be given 2 additional minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I am happy my friend did that. We call ourselves representatives. What we are supposed to do is represent the hopes and the dreams and the needs of the people. We have a bill that comes to the floor that is a cap bill. We understand that. But my goodness, we know there are surpluses coming. If we can't do more to meet this need, and get that 60 votes for the Senator in this amendment, I think we are failing our children. I thank my friend for his leadership.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, when discussing the profound effect of California's Silicon Valley on our Nation's economy, we too often focus on just the raw numbers: staggering revenues, high profile IPOs and the bottom line. Today, I want to focus on an outstanding example of good corporate citizenship in Silicon Valley intended to promote home ownership and honor teachers at the same time. As many of my colleagues know, the Silicon Valley is in the midst of a housing crisis which makes owning a home an impossibility for most teachers. The region's high cost of living makes it extremely difficult to recruit and retain talented teachers. Today, I am pleased to inform the Senate that Intel Corporation and the Santa Clara Unified School District have joined forces to create an innovative pilot program designed to help public school teachers buy homes in one of the country's most expensive housing markets: the Intel Teacher Housing Fund. Under this new program, which will be administered by the Santa Clara County Unified School District, Intel will provide the fund with $1.25 million over the next five years. Eligible teachers will receive $500 each month from the fund to help with mortgage payments, for up to five years. I applaud Intel's leadership in forging the much-needed local partnerships that will help lead to solutions to Silicon Valley's affordable housing crunch. It is my hope that other companies will follow Intel's lead, and show the world that America's high-technology firms are the hub and the heart of the 21st century economy.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I voted for S. 2522, the Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. I voted for the bill despite serious reservations about parts of it because it also funds some very important priorities. First, the bill provides economic and military assistance to some of America's most important allies, at the level requested by the President. The bill includes $450 million for international family planning programs, less than requested by the President but more than last year. S. 2522 also provides funding for many very important international programs, including the Peace Corps, U.N. peacekeeping operations, refugee assistance, and antiterrorism efforts. I am especially pleased that, with the passage of my amendment to add $40 million, the final bill includes $51 million for international tuberculosis control and treatment and $255 million to fight HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Unfortunately, attached to the foreign operations bill this year was almost $1 billion in emergency spending for counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia. I am disappointed that the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senator Wellstone, which I cosponsored, which would have transferred the military aid portion--$225 million--to domestic drug treatment programs. We would have done more to fight the so-called drug war by putting those dollars into proven drug treatment programs here to reduce demand. A Rand Corporation study found that for every dollar spent on demand reduction you have to spend 23 dollars on supply reduction in order to get the same decrease in drug consumption. And because I fear that the military assistance may lead to further U.S. involvement in the 40-year-old civil war in Colombia, I tried to offer an amendment to simply affirm current Defense Department policy regarding activities of DoD personnel in Colombia. This policy states that DoD funds may not be used to support training for Colombian counter-insurgency operations, participate in law enforcement activities or counternarcotics field missions, or join in any activity in which counter-narcotics related hostilities are imminent. I was not allowed a roll call vote on my amendment because the chairman of the Appropriations Committee made a point of order that it was legislation on an appropriations bill. However, less than 24 hours earlier, the Senator from Alabama, Senator Sessions, had an amendment accepted which also dealt with U.S. policy toward Colombia, and which was also subject to the very same point of order. But no senator objected to the Sessions amendment. This selective enforcement of Senate rules is a double standard and is unfair. I am particularly bothered because I had strong concerns about the Sessions amendment. This is another breakdown in comity and civility in the Senate, and I am very troubled by it.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendments Nos. 3551, As Modified; 3553, As Modified; 3555, As Modified; and 3569, As Modified

Mrs. BOXER. This is, at the suggestion of my friend, for a sense of the Senate. It shows support of rules for engagement in Colombia for the Department of Defense.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the managers of this legislation on both sides for agreeing to this. It isn't everything I had asked for regarding tuberculosis and the HIV/AIDS fight, but it is helpful. It will also take into consideration Senator Feingold's request on the flooding in Mozambique. It will give an additional $30 million for the worldwide fight against HIV/AIDS, an additional $10 million for the worldwide fight against tuberculosis, and $10 million for the flooding in Mozambique. I am proud that Senators Feingold, Leahy, Durbin, Dodd, and Kerry are sponsors of this amendment. I want to take a moment of the Senate's time, because we won't need to have a rollcall on this, to simply say that if we are looking at a true emergency, we have one here. The U.N. Security Council met on the issue of HIV, and it was the first time the Security Council ever met on an international health issue. Last month, our own National Security Council declared that the global spread of AIDS is a direct threat to U.S. national security because of the destabilizing impact of this deadly disease. One of the reasons they so found was that the CIA did something they call the National Intelligence Estimate. They titled it ``The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United States.'' I am simply going to read a tiny bit from this report. New and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and compromise U.S. and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger United States citizens at home and abroad, threaten U.S. Armed Forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability and keep countries and regions in which the United States has significant interest. I know that my colleagues are very aware of the horrific problem of AIDS in Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. President, 84 percent of all the people in the world who have died of AIDS have been from that region. It is now predominantly a women's disease. Many children are left as orphans. Lastly, as far as tuberculosis is concerned, this is a disease we thought we had eliminated in the 1950s. However, the disease is making a comeback. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 2 million people die of tuberculosis-related conditions annually. One- third of the entire world's population is infected with tuberculosis-- an extraordinary number when you think about it. I am pleased we have this amendment and it is in agreement. I trust and hope and pray for the sake of people all across this world and in our own Nation that these numbers will hold up in the conference. Believe me, it means so much. We know how to treat tuberculosis. We know how to stop HIV transmission from mother to child. It would be a real sin, it seems to me, if we didn't push as hard as we could to fight these diseases. I yield to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mrs. BOXER. I am happy for a voice vote, if the manager is ready to do that.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to reconsider the vote. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3542, As Modified

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. I believe it is not fair play, and if there is one thing I expect in the Senate--and I think we all stand for it--it is fair play. We voted huge amounts of money into this region of the world. We have horrible problems there. We have a few disagreements here, but I had hoped we could agree that the Secretary of Defense is correct when he puts limits on the use of DOD personnel. I am very saddened by this. I do not want to keep repeating it, but it is sad. The people in this country are going to be upset about it. The people in this country, when we get involved in a foreign place, want to know that we in the Senate put restrictions on the use of our personnel. We have had a lot of experience in this. We have had a lot of tears over this. Yet yesterday we had an amendment from Senator Sessions that was clearly legislation on an appropriations bill, which I believe gets us deeper involved because it says we should support the military and the political policies of the Government of Colombia, and no one raised a point of order. But a simple amendment supporting the Secretary of Defense, and where are we? We get a point of order. I am not going to play that game. I am not going to get caught in a procedural vote. I will just let it go, but I want to make it clear that we have a lot of options later when this bill comes back. If there are going to be things in this bill that violate our parliamentary procedures, some of us are going to get tough on it. It is not right. This is a sad day, frankly, for this Senate. It is also a sad day for our men and women in uniform that we cannot vote on a simple sense of the Senate supporting our own Secretary of Defense on his views as to how we can, in fact, make sure our people over there are as safe as they can be. I thank the Chair. I have no need to retain any further time. We will await the decision of the Senator from Alaska.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I will be happy to yield.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am deeply distressed that the Senator from Alaska raised a point of order. I want to explain why. Yesterday we voted for almost $1 billion to get involved in a very serious problem in Colombia. Our people will be exposed to a lot of danger there. All we are simply trying to do with this sense-of-the- Senate amendment is to protect them. Further, all we are trying to do is say to Secretary Cohen: You are right on your guidelines that you have issued. And those guidelines simply say our people should not be involved in counterinsurgency, that our people should not be in the line of hostile fire. It is very straightforward, and it is very simple. Frankly, the way the Senate has responded to this shows me I did the right thing when I never voted for this in the first place. If we cannot stand up in the Senate and support the Secretary of Defense in his very straightforward directive, then I am very concerned about what we are getting ourselves into. I hope I am wrong. I am distressed the Senator from Alaska did this. When Senator Sessions from Alabama, from his side of the aisle, offered legislation on an appropriations bill yesterday, no one said the amendment of the Senator from Alabama, which dealt with this very same subject, was legislation on an appropriations bill. I do not think it is fair to have a double standard. If we are going to use that rule, we ought to use it. I did not like Senator Sessions' amendment yesterday. Frankly, I viewed it as a way to get us far more involved in the counterinsurgency, but I did not make a point of order. The fact the Senator did this is distressing. I am not going to ask for a vote on a procedural motion because that would not even be close to the kind of vote I think I could get on this sense-of-the-Senate amendment. That is what I fear is happening. People do not seem to want to vote on the sense-of-the-Senate amendment. It is not fair.

Mrs. BOXER. How much time remains to explain this next amendment?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, after I make just an opening remark, I will yield 5 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Vermont. I am offering an amendment which is completely consistent with the Department of Defense guidelines on the activities of their own personnel in Colombia. It actually says that we support these guidelines, we think it is good to put limits on our involvement, and we should express ourselves on that point. The first part of the amendment supports the prohibition of the DOD using its personnel, equipment, or other resources to get involved in the counterinsurgency; in other words, to get involved in what some call the civil war between the left and the right in that country. Again, written by the Secretary of Defense in March 2000: I am directing that no DOD personnel, funds, equipment, or resources may be used to support any training program that engages solely in counterinsurgency operations. That supports that DOD guideline. The same thing occurs on the second part of my amendment; that we support the fact they shouldn't be involved, our own personnel, in law enforcement activities in Colombia. Again, that mirrors the position of our Secretary of Defense. The third part of the amendment says we agree with the Secretaries that our personnel shouldn't conduct any counterdrug field operation in which counterdrug-related hostilities are imminent. That is to protect our people from harm. Finally, we say we agree with the Secretary of Defense that U.S. military personnel should make every effort to minimize the possibility of confrontations with civilians. Clearly, what we should do here is support our own Secretary of Defense and our own administration. I don't think it should be controversial. I am hopeful it can be accepted because I believe we ought to go on record in support of these limits. I think it is sensible. I think the DOD is correct on this. Yesterday, we voted millions and millions of dollars to send advisers. I think it would be wonderful if we stood with our own DOD and said there ought to be limits on the participation of our own personnel. I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Vermont.

Mrs. BOXER. I assure my friends I do not intend to take anything near that time. Mr. President, I send my modified amendment to the desk on behalf of Mr. Leahy and Mr. Feingold.

Mrs. BOXER. That is correct. Senator McConnell has offered a modification.

Mrs. BOXER. I do not yield my time back.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send a modification to my amendment No. 3541 to the desk.

Mrs. BOXER. That is certainly my understanding. I ask Senator McConnell if he would comment on that further.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Of the addicts in my State are not getting treatment. Only 50 percent can get treatment. The other 50 percent, unless they are rich, cannot get the treatment on demand.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I will.