Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the clerk for reading the amendment. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this is a very simple amendment. It is a commonsense amendment. It is an opportunity for the Senate to be heard on the issue of gun violence. I thought we were making progress after Littleton when we passed--a month after Littleton--a number of very important, commonsense gun control measures. We have yet to see those measures come back to us for final passage. We have yet to see those measures come back to us from conference. We have yet to see an interest on the part of the majority to move these important, commonsense gun control measures. I am hopeful that this sense of the Senate, which calls on the Congress to act by the year anniversary of Littleton, will have some meaning to people. I trust this will pass 100-0. Children in schools have a right to be safe. It is very fundamental that they be safe, almost as fundamental as their right to a free public education. A safe school is essential to ensuring an environment where children can learn. We can stand here, from morning until night, with great ideas on education. Governors can come up with their own proposals on education. Local school districts can do the same. But if there is a shooting in a school, no one learns. The only thing they learn is tragedy, at an age way too young to deal with it. We have an unacceptable situation in our country. If children sit in a classroom wondering if they are going to hear gunshots in the schoolyard or in the hallway, they cannot concentrate on a math problem in their classroom. Again, I know the Senator from Georgia believes very strongly in his education savings account legislation. I know that we all have issues we want to put forward: smaller class sizes, rebuilding our broken-down schools. We all have a tremendous interest in improving education. But it means nothing when violence invades our schools and children are hurt or they die--schools are closed; education is disrupted. None of it means much if we cannot at least ensure safety. As we said in the resolution, in the last 12 months, at least 50 people have been killed or injured in school shootings. This week it was a little 6-year-old girl who was killed in an elementary school in Michigan. My God, what is it going to take for this Senate to act? A 6- year-old child gets a gun and kills a classmate. He got the gun because an adult left it lying around. There was no trigger lock. We have a bill dealing with that; it has been tied up. I do not think that is a very radical proposal. I do not think it is a dangerous proposal to put a child safety lock on a gun. That child would have brought the gun to school, it would not have gone off, and a child would not be dead. We would not have to see these children, at a tender age--a tender, tender age--I have a 4\1/2\-year-old grandchild, and I just think about the horror of a child at that age, 5\1/2\ or 6 or 7 dealing with this kind of violence. It is wrong. It is unacceptable. Last December, it was four middle school students who were injured by gunfire in a middle school in Oklahoma. Last November, it was a 13-year-old girl who was shot in the head in a New Mexico school. Last May, six students were injured at a high school in Georgia. Of course, last April, 15 people died and 23 more were injured in Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Anyone who has watched the followup stories in that community knows that the injuries done then are not fading. They have torn that community apart. What are we waiting for? Sensible gun control legislation was passed by this Senate. The Vice President, Al Gore, cast a tie-breaking vote on closing the gun show loophole so people who should not have a gun would not be able to get a gun. I do not know what it will take for this Senate to act. I see a couple of my friends who have come to the floor to discuss this issue with me. Yesterday, there was a multiple shooting outside Pittsburgh. There was a shooting in September in a Baptist church in Texas. Last September, there was a shooting in the West Anaheim Medical Center in California. Last August, there was a shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center's day-care center in Los Angeles. Will we ever forget those children, holding the hands of the police officers --babies trying to cope with what was going on. Last April, there was a shooting at the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City. These bullets are randomly shot. It does not matter how old you are. If you are there, you are in trouble. This is chaos, my friends. What did we do after Littleton? We came together. We passed gun control measures that are very sound. They are reasonable, they are moderate, and they will keep guns out of the hands of children. They will keep guns out of the hands of criminals. They will keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally ill. They will not take guns out of the hands of people who need to have a gun to protect themselves, who are upstanding citizens. So what are we waiting for? More and more of these deaths? I ask my friends from California, Illinois, and Michigan how much time they would like to take on this? I am delighted to yield to them. Why don't they give me that information, and then we will set up an order.

Mrs. BOXER. Done. Why don't we start with Senator Levin. I yield him 3 minutes of my time. We will then go to Senator Durbin and then Senator Feinstein. Then I will take it back and close the debate.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend from Michigan. My friend from Illinois wanted 5 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield the Senator 1 more minute. I hope he will leave time for me to ask him a question.

Mrs. BOXER. I just want to share with the Senator two numbers because he had a lot of important statistics. This is from Time magazine: Fifty percent of children ages 9 to 17 are worried about dying young, and 31 percent of children ages 12 to 17 know someone their age who carries a gun. I ask my friend to respond to that, and take as much time as he needs, and then we will yield 10 minutes to Senator Feinstein.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator from Illinois for his leadership. I yield to my colleague, the senior Senator from California, who, I think it is important to note, brought us our first victory on commonsense gun control several years ago with her assault weapons ban. She has kept on this issue continuously, and I am very honored that she is here to speak in connection with this sense of the Senate. I yield to Senator Feinstein for 10 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, Mr. President. I say to my friend from California how proud I am to have her support. She brought to the floor of the Senate today the voices of the children. How can we possibly have a bill dealing with education that doesn't address these voices begging us to act? I am so pleased she took the time because I know she has another amendment which she has to get ready for. I appreciate the Senator coming over to the floor. Thirteen children every single day are killed by gun violence--13 innocent lives. There is not one Senator who doesn't agree with the statement that our children are our future. How many times do we put that in our speeches? I am saddened that I don't see Members from the other side of the aisle on the floor. I don't understand why we don't have unanimity in this. In April, it is going to be a year since the tragedy of Columbine. The vision of that tragedy is on everyone's mind--the young man, not even 18 years old, trying to get out of the window of a school library with his limbs dangling from the injuries he received, the faces of the parents, and the tearing apart of that community, which has been happening ever since that tragedy. If we don't act by that date, we don't deserve to be here. I agree with Senator Feinstein. This is harsh talk, yes. But what are we here for if we are not protecting our citizens and our children? What could be more important? An education savings account that gives people $7 a year? That is lovely. Great. But what does it mean if they lose the child for whom they are saving this money? This is in many ways, yes, an emotional issue. It is frustrating for so many of us. Senator Feinstein told you about the four commonsense gun control measures that were voted out of the Judiciary Committee and that passed on this floor. There was one more that requires the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorney General to study the gun industry's marketing practices for children. I think the American people would be stunned to know these manufacturers are now producing shocking pink guns and green guns and guns that look like camouflage. They are making real guns now look like toy guns. We used to have a problem with toy guns looking like real guns. Now they are making real guns look like toy guns. That needs to be studied, too. This is an amazing place. I offered the simplest amendment to an appropriations bill that passed unanimously. All it said was, if you are obviously inebriated--in other words, drunk--you cannot walk into a gun store and buy a weapon. Talk about a no-brainer. We already have a law that says if the vendor thinks you are high on drugs, you can't buy a gun. So we said: Gee, this must have been an oversight. And after a little bit of debate, the other side said: Oh, OK. That is fine. They asked if I thought there ought to be a breathalyzer test. No. Of course not; this is just common sense. If you walk in and you are, obviously, inebriated such that it is obvious to the vendor, he or she cannot sell you a gun. It passed unanimously. But something happened on the way out of the conference. When the bill came back--the appropriations bill for Commerce-State-Justice--guess what was missing? This amendment. A simple amendment such as that was dropped because the NRA didn't like it. Let us not be vague about this. This is what it was. We have to start thinking about the welfare of the people of this country, the welfare of the children of this country, the well-being of the families of this country, and the well-being of the students of this country ahead of some special interest group that has it in its head that because you would enact a few sensible gun control measures you are threatening the country. No one is threatening the country. Our European friends look at us; they cannot believe it. Our Japanese friends look at us; they cannot believe it because of these rates of death. To me it is not even common sense to argue with them that we are right and they are wrong. This is from 1996: New Zealand, 2 people were murdered by guns; in Australia, 13; in Japan, 15; in Great Britain, 30; Canada, 106 in that year; Germany, 213; and, in the United States, in that same year, 9,390 of us died by gunshot wounds. What are we doing? Nothing is the answer. We are doing nothing because of a special interest that gives a lot of money. This is a war that is going on in this country. In 11 years of the Vietnam war, which was a tragedy, 58,168 of our citizens were killed. Their families will never be the same and they have never been the same. Mr. President, 58,168 of our brave men and women were killed in 11 years of the Vietnam war where this country came to its knees. Do you know how many gun deaths there were in America in 11 years? 396,572. Let me say that again: In 11 years of the Vietnam war, roughly 58,000 deaths; in 11 years of gun violence rampant in our country, 396,000- plus deaths. Does it make any sense that our country would come to its knees over the Vietnam war--as we all did, whatever side one was on--and have the biggest debate we have ever had in the history of our country over a war--many Members got into politics because of that situation--and yet with 396,572 gun deaths in America over the same period of time we cannot get out of the conference committee five commonsense gun control measures? It is not to be believed. In 49 days it will be the 1-year anniversary of Columbine. In this sensible measure before the Senate, we are calling for the President, the Senate, and the House to work together and get these commonsense proposals into law. That must be the finish line. Mr. President, 49 days; that is a long time. It is enough time to do this job. After all, these proposals have gone through rigorous debate and they have passed. It is the sense of the Senate that before April 20, 2000, Congress shall make schools safe for learning by implementing policies that will reduce the threat of gun violence in the schools. Pretty simple. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a listing of the recent school shootings in our Nation and, in addition, a list of the multiple shootings in general, in public places such as McDonald's.

Mrs. BOXER. I am very proud that Senators came to the floor, with their very busy schedules, on behalf of this amendment. Again, I don't know whether the Republican side of the aisle will support this amendment. I hope they will. I cannot imagine why they would fail to support it. I want to have a vote on this. I want everyone to be on record. If they vote for this, they are saying that by April 20 we should have these proposals back before the Senate on the way to the President's desk. How many more shootings is it going to take? How many more people have to write condolence notes or call parents and families? I trust, my friends, that we will not take any more time. We have done the heavy lifting. We have had the debate. We have had the Vice President in the Chair. He has cast the tie-breaking vote so that we can close the gun show loophole. God bless him for that. Without him in that Chair, that would not have happened. Closing that gun show loophole means people who are mentally imbalanced, people with a criminal record, people who are underage, will not get guns. I could spend a long time on this floor reading more into the record about these instances that have occurred in our Nation, but I think I have said what I have to say. I trust the other side will not offer a second-degree amendment to this. I trust the other side will reach over and take the hand of those on this side of the aisle who believe it is important to work on this in a bipartisan fashion. How much time remains of the 45 minutes?

Mrs. BOXER. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask my friend another question. As I read these hair- raising accounts of what happened in Michigan with this little baby of 6 years old bringing a gun to school, shooting a child, and then actually after it was done, coloring something, drawing some pictures, having no concept he committed this murder, if you will, I think this points out to us that kids do not understand what gun violence can really do. I commend my friend and ask him if he has read those accounts and how chilling it is and how appropriate it is to have a vote on this. As my friend said, the underlying bill gives $7 a year. Now they want to give help to people even in higher incomes while our kids are losing their lives. I am very pleased my friend has offered this amendment, and I am proud to join him.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I commend my friend from Illinois. A long time ago, he and I talked about the importance of having a school safety fund where if schools felt they needed assistance, whether it was to purchase equipment--a metal detector--whether it was to teach the children about how to resolve their differences without violence, that we should set this up in a way that local schools could put together their own programs. I want to ask my friend this: There is a lot of talk around here of local control. Isn't this what my friend is doing, he is designing a grant program so if school districts decide they want to partake, if they have this problem, they have an opportunity to do so?

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, that is fine with the Senator from California. I thank my friend from Georgia. We made a small change in my amendment. Essentially, what we are telling parents now is that if the schools their kids go to are going to be sprayed with dangerous pesticides that are known carcinogens, that could cause nerve damage, they will be notified 48 hours in advance of the spraying that will be taking place. In addition, what we do is we instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to take the booklet they have already produced on how to get away from using these very strong and toxic pesticides and send it to every school district in America. I am very pleased this is being done. I have a larger bill, the Children's Environmental Protection Act, on which I invite everyone to join me. Children are not little adults. I am a little adult, but children are growing and changing. Their bodies are changing, their hormones are changing, and they are absolutely more adversely impacted by these toxins. I thank my colleague very much. I hope we can have a voice vote.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Nevada would like to speak for 1 minute, in addition to my 5 minutes; is that all right? Are we discussing the pesticide amendment or the gun amendment?

Mrs. BOXER. I should be here at 6:45.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am happy to do this in 5 minutes or maybe, at the most, 6. I thank my friend from Georgia, my friend from Nevada, and my friend from Louisiana, who graciously agreed I could go ahead of her. Amendment No. 2880 (Purpose: To require schools that receive Federal funding to notify parents of certain pesticide applications on school grounds)

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend very much because I think we could all be proud of this amendment. It is quite simple. Again, we are giving parents information they should have, and we are essentially telling the Environmental Protection Agency to do a better job of getting this booklet out to all the school districts. I thank my friends for their indulgence and yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, I didn't hear the rest of it. We had an arrangement to speak for 5 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am very hopeful that this amendment, unlike the other one that I have pending, will get the support of my friends on the other side of the aisle. For a long time I have been talking about the need for a children's environmental protection act. It is very important we understand that our children are not little adults; they are quite different from adults. They are growing; they are changing; and certain exposures are much more harmful to them than they would be for us. My amendment does two things. It gives parents notification before toxic pesticides are applied in their children's schools. It also requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to distribute to schools its guide on the establishment of a least-toxic- pesticide policy. In other words, we have already got the work done. Here it is. It talks about how we can lessen the bad impact on our children by using the kinds of products that will harm them the least. Right now, the EPA does send this out, but it is a spotty situation; they don't send it to all of the schools. What we are asking for is a 48-hour notice so parents know that these substances are being sprayed, if they are, in fact, toxic, and if they are, in fact, a product that could harm the children. Of course, what we really want to do is lower the use of toxic pesticides. That would be the very best thing we could do. That is our ultimate hope. That is why we are encouraging the Environmental Protection Agency to work with our schools. But, unfortunately, we have very toxic products being sprayed on our schools today. Why is it important that parents know this is occurring? Because pesticides, by definition, are meant to kill living things. Exposure to pesticides has been linked to cancer, neurological disorders, and learning disabilities. A common insecticide schools currently spray on baseboards and floors to kill cockroaches and ants--it has an active ingredient called chlorpyrifos--is classified by the EPA as a nerve toxin. Since we know some of these common pesticides contain a nerve toxin, we have to ask what are the effects of our children's exposure to nerve toxin. The acute effects of this type of toxin include headaches, dizziness, mental confusion, and vomiting. We know potential effects include decreased neurological performance. We know that because there have been some studies about which I will discuss. These risks are much more prevalent in children than adults because, again, children are not little adults; they are different. A 1993 National Academy of Sciences report, Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, documented what has long been known by children's health professionals: Children are at greater risk to experience the harmful effects of pesticide exposure than adults. The National Academy explained that children face greater exposure to pesticides because, pound for pound of body weight, they eat more food and drink more water and breathe more air than adults. In other words, they are smaller and therefore their intake is greater as a proportion of their body weight. Children are rapidly growing, and their developing systems are more vulnerable to harmful effects of pesticides. I referred to a study. A study conducted in Mexico had children exposed to these very harmful pesticides make a drawing of a stick figure. I have that in the cloakroom, if anyone is interested in looking. The children who were exposed to the pesticides could not put together a stick figure. The ones who had no exposure were able to do it as a normal child would. That study certainly helps demonstrate why we should encourage schools to adopt the least toxic pesticide program. I will close with this: My amendment is not some new idea, because many schools in my home State go beyond what is provided for in this amendment. For example, in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mendocino, and Arcata school districts in California, they have all adopted policies to prohibit the use of these toxic pesticides. I am not even going that far. My amendment merely requires, if we are going to use them, let the families know in advance. We should try to help schools get off of these products. My amendment takes the first step toward reducing the use of toxic pesticides in schools nationwide by encouraging schools to adopt similar policies to those I have cited in my home State. I think it is important, since we look to parents to protect their children, that those parents have the information and can decide how to proceed. Maybe if they find out there is toxic spraying going on, they will get together and try to come forward with a different brand of pesticide. All in all, I think we are giving parents more tools to be able to control the lives of their children and what their children are exposed to. I am very hopeful that the Republican side of the aisle will reach across the aisle and accept this amendment. If they do so, I will not require a recorded vote; a voice vote will do just fine. I ask my friend from Georgia does he have any information as to whether this amendment will be able to be accepted and disposed of by a voice vote at this time?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to reconsider the vote.