Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. So we will be here until at least 11 p.m. voting, and maybe not even be voting yet on the Kyl-Craig amendment.

Mr. COATS. Absent that, my last point, as a consequence we will continue this evening?

Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator. I withdraw any objection.

Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, I don't intend to object. I ask the manager of the bill if he could give us some indication of what his intention is this evening relative to the schedule. How many votes will we have? After this series of votes, it is my understanding that we are going to return to the Kyl amendment for further debate. Does that mean further votes this evening?

Mr. COATS. Is it the Senator's intention that we will stay on this bill this evening until this bill is completed?

Mr. COATS. I rise in support of the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona. And I want to, specifically, because it does address a serious growing problem of the utilization of the Internet to provide unregulated gaming activities, but also because there is a broader issue at stake here that I think we need to consider. We will not be voting on it this evening, but it is very much a part of this and it needs to be addressed. First of all, the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona is a good one because we clearly are dealing here with a new dimension in gaming, a new means by which gaming is provided to millions of Americans that is not accessible in the same way as it was before. In 1961 Congress, wisely, I believe, passed the Wire Act. The Wire Act was designed to prohibit the utilization of telephone facilities to receive bets or send gambling information. I do not have the regulative history in front of me, but I am almost certain Congress did that because it did not want the invasive nature of telephone lines and telephone access, which run into virtually every house in America, to be a means by which Americans could utilize that form of communication to enter into gambling. It did so because I am sure, if you went back and read the record, it understood the social cost, the consequences of gaming, and it wanted gaming to be a restricted activity. Of course, the advent of the Internet as a communications medium was not anticipated by Congress or even envisioned by Congress at that time, so therefore this Wire Act does not cover that. The Senator's amendment extends pretty much the provisions of the Wire Act to the Internet. I think for that reason, it is legitimate in terms of updating it to comply the law to changes in technology. The fact that it is supported by the FBI, with strong testimony from the FBI Director, the National Association of Attorneys General--as I understand, all the attorneys general have supported this from each State. Professional, amateur sports groups, including the National Football League, the NCAA, the NHL, NBA, Major League Soccer, Major League Baseball, for obvious reasons, are strongly in endorsement of this. But then one of the most adverse collections of public interest groups and consumer advocates that have come together on an issue that I have seen for a long, long time--maybe ever--ranging from Ralph Nader's Public Citizen to the Christian Coalition, the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, have all endorsed the Kyl language which prohibits the Internet gambling. Now, they have not just specifically done so because it only addresses Internet gambling. They have done so because Internet gambling is simply a piece of a much larger program that is having, in my opinion, a dramatically adverse and negative effect on our culture. They see the Kyl amendment as one way of addressing a broader question. Ultimately, I think, we as Congress, we as representatives of the people, will have to come to grips as to what the impact of gambling is as it proliferates throughout our States and as access to gambling becomes more and more available to our citizens--and not just our adult citizens, but to our young people. There is a growing concern about pathological aspects of gambling. For decades, our Nation has studied and Congress has struggled with how we deal with drug and alcohol addictions, but the rapid expansion of gambling is injecting a new narcotic into our Nation's bloodstream. The problem of pathological gambling is on the rise. The National Council on Problem Gambling places the number of Americans with serious gaming problems at around 5 percent. Most studies confirm that estimate. However, as gambling becomes more pervasive and as gambling becomes more accessible, this number is increasing dramatically. Some say it has doubled; some say it might have tripled. As with other addictive behaviors, gambling not only affects the individual who does the gaming but it affects their families, it affects their careers, virtually every aspect of their lives. Separation, divorce, spousal and child abuse, neglect, substance abuse, and suicide have all been linked as side effects of problem gambling. Studies of high school students which have recently been undertaken have indicated that gambling is spreading into our high schools and spreading into minors' use in dramatic ways. Of course, nothing is more accessible to gaming than the Internet. If you want to bypass the normal restrictions and regulations that are placed on gaming--and those have been loosened dramatically--the quickest and easiest and most effective way to do so is through the Internet. I think Senator Kyl's amendment is particularly relevant at this particular time to address a part of the gaming problem and the gambling problem that exists in America. It does so in a way that can be utilized to at least make it more difficult, significantly more difficult, for minors to utilize the Internet as a means of gaming. Knowing what the pathological results and the consequences are, as we see a proliferation of individuals entering into gambling, we know that the raw number of individuals who are affected by problem gaming is going to increase dramatically. I will just say one more word about the second-degree amendment before the Senate. I think the second-degree amendment creates a huge loophole. In a sense, it creates a monopoly. It creates a monopoly for one entity to use the Internet to provide gambling access and therefore totally undermines the intent of the Kyl amendment. I understand that there is a statute outlining procedures by which these decisions are made. Nevertheless, that doesn't invalidate the amendment of the Senator from Arizona which addresses the broader issue. If we allow a significant exception for one entity, that one entity, obviously, will take advantage of that loophole and we will accomplish virtually nothing that the Senator is attempting to accomplish. I urge my colleagues to defeat the second-degree amendment and support the underlying amendment by the Senator from Arizona which addresses, as I said, only a part, but a very significant part, of the problem, and particularly because it addresses the infusion and the explosion of gambling that is entering the lives of our children and is becoming accessible to them in ever easier ways, and particularly through the Internet. I urge my colleagues as we move toward a vote here to support the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, shortly I hope, before the Senate adjourns for the weekend, the majority leader will be propounding some unanimous consent requests. Those requests are designed to set in place the procedures by which we will move forward next week and the legislation which we will take up. One of those unanimous consent requests will involve two pieces of legislation, one which I have offered, and the second which has been offered by the Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, which deals with the question of pornography on the Internet. There is a history to this. In the last Congress, Senator Exon and I cosponsored legislation which introduced our colleagues for the first time to the dark side of the Internet; that side of the Internet that is not used for educational purposes, is not used for valid communication purposes, but which is designed to lure people into the practice of ordering and paying for pornographic images, words, and films, and other forms of pornography across the Internet. We know our first amendment prohibits our eliminating that and banning it. The right of free speech gives the right of adults to click into that, pay for that, subscribe to that, and to order that as long as that material is not deemed obscene. Even though it is indecent, and many of us would classify it as obscene, it has to be a standard set by the Supreme Court in upholding the first amendment. It is one of the perhaps dark sides of the first amendment. But we all understand that battle. And that is not what this battle is about. This battle is about protecting children from access to that material, which most of us would turn our heads from, or say that is enough, were we given the opportunity to look at it. In fact, all of the noble first amendment arguments that were raised during the debate in the last Congress against the bill that was offered by Senator Exon and myself melted away as Senator Exon invited Members into the Democrat cloakroom, both Republicans and Democrats, to view images that were copied from the Internet, and said, ``Did you realize this material is simply a click away on your Internet?'' At that time, the Internet was pretty new. People were still discovering it. Most of us had not even signed up, or even knew what it was. Members were shocked at what they saw, because what they saw was not the centerfold of Playboy Magazine. But what they saw was some of the most despicable, some of the most brutal, some of the most sadistic, some of the most sexually explicit material they have ever witnessed-- young children being sexually exploited, bestiality, women being sexually exploited. I don't want to go into graphic detail here. But it was enough to convince the Senate that we ought to move on it and move on it right away. So it passed, despite again the pleas for first amendment freedom. That legislation, authored by Senator Exon and myself, passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 84 to 16. It was adopted by the House in exactly the Senate form, went to the President, the President signed it, signed it with a fair amount of publicity about the need to take action on this to protect minors, to protect children from this access. We had a standard in there--an indecency standard that was copied in the exact language that the Supreme Court approved for the dial-a-porn bill that went through and survived the Supreme Court review, and was declared constitutional even though actions were filed against it. We thought that since the Court approved it for telephone pornography, surely they would approve it for video pornography and pornography that came across the Internet. Picking up the phone is not a whole lot different than turning on the computer. Both are invasive. Both come into the home. Do they require some action on the part of the participant? Yes. You have to pick up the phone when it rings. You have to dial a 900 number. There is the luring of that. Again, we are saying that first amendment prohibits us from prohibiting adults from doing that. But the Court has upheld in the past, and they did in the dial-a-porn case, reasonable restrictions in terms of children having to prove that they were adults. And, if they couldn't prove that through verification of a credit card, or other means, then the material was not allowed to be passed on to them. The Court said the computer is not the same as the telephone. The computer isn't as invasive as the telephone. Well, the Court needs to understand the computer. I wrote that off to a generational problem--a generation of individuals. Maybe I oversimplify this. But I do not know how to better explain it, because it is the only possible explanation I could come up with as to why the Court made a distinction between a dial-a-porn standard and the computer standard. I don't think they understood exactly what the computer does and how accessible it is and what the Internet was, at least at that time. I think they know now. Maybe I underestimate the Court. Maybe there are other reasons. In any event, as we know now, whether you are in the classroom, whether you are in the school library, whether you are in your study hall, or whether you are in your dorm room in boarding school, or whether you are at home in your bedroom, or your den, or your family room, the computer is there, and a click away is the most lurid material we have ever seen available to children and adults, simply with the warning you have to be an adult to access this material and that is it. You click here if you agree, and we send you the material. I am going to describe as we get into the bill some of the effects this has had on our culture, on our society, and particularly on our children. My purpose here today is to plead with my Democrat colleagues to allow us to bring this bill to the floor. We have revised the bill that the Supreme Court struck down to comply with their objections, to address the question of the standard which we have changed from the indecency standard to the harmful-to-minor standard. The harmful-to- minor standard was the standard the Court laid out in the Ginsberg case, and we have taken that word for word. Second, we have restricted this, as the Court ordered that we had to do in order to meet the constitutional test, to the World Wide Web, to the commercial selling and display of these images, rather than private conversations, e-mail, chat rooms where individuals are engaging in this kind of activity. That is not how I wanted to draft the bill, but in order to get a court to uphold what is clearly the will of the American people as expressed by their representatives in an overwhelming vote in the Senate and unanimous acceptance in the House of Representatives and declarations by the President of the United States that the administration stands foursquare behind this, we find ourselves back here having to narrow the bill in order to survive court muster. That is what we have done. We have worked with constitutional experts to make sure that we have done it correctly, that we comply with the Court, and we want to give them another chance. We want to give them another chance, hopefully with a better understanding of the impact of the Internet, both positive and negative. And as I said, there is a dark side to the Internet, particularly as it relates to children, and we are trying to address that. Now, for several months I have been searching for ways to bring this legislation to the floor. It was introduced and referred to the Commerce Committee. It was debated there and passed out of that committee on a 19 to 1 vote. Some had said, look, the solution to this problem is the software packages that are being developed by the industry that parents can buy and attach to their computer or integrate into their computer and that will solve the problem and block the images. That is a partial solution to the problem but not a complete solution to the problem because the changing technology, the proliferation of web sites is so fast that no software can keep up with it. The ingenuity of the pornographers, the sellers of pornography is such that even the most innocent of words are now linked to a means by which pornography is pulled up. If you want to find out about Disney World or Disney movies or Disney characters, the pornographers have found a way to use the term ``Disney'' and click right into pornography. If you want to look up Boy Scouts, horses, dogs, cats, women, men, marriage, you name it, seemingly the most innocent of words, you are now linked directly to pornography. Why? Because the pornographers have discovered that this software is attempting to block the explicit language and they want to try to find a way in which to commercially entice people who are searching in other areas to be presented with this information so they can click into it. So what happened there, then, was Senator McCain's software bill and my Internet pornography bill were both passed out of committee. Senator McCain and I agreed that both are necessary to address the problem and that we would agree to go forward with these together. In recognition of the work that needed to be done in the Senate, we wanted to pursue a process by which we would agree to a time limit. We would agree to others offering any amendments that they thought appropriate. We would debate those, have a vote on those, let Congress express its will and go forward. This was not an attempt to tie up the Senate. In fact, we have been overly cooperative. I wish we had not been so cooperative. We were promised this would come forward. In defense of the majority leader, I think he has made a good-faith effort to try to bring this forward. But in each instance other circumstances have arisen, primarily the inability to get the consent of some Members of this body to allow us to proceed with this bill, debate it, amend it, vote on it, and either send it on or vote it down, whatever was the majority disposition. That is what we have been attempting to do. We are frustrated--I am frustrated; I am terribly frustrated--in our inability to take something that I think has overwhelming support to at least bring it up and talk about it. It seems that every time we get ready to go forward with a unanimous consent request to bring the bill up, we are notified that someone has put a hold on the bill. We find out who that is. We go over and talk to them. We offer them--they say, well, we want to offer an amendment on it. Fine. We will add your amendment to the unanimous consent agreement. Take whatever time you want on it. We will lock in an amount of time. We will give you a vote. We will eliminate second degrees. We do not want to do anything to cause you not to have an up-or-down debate on your amendment. That person agrees. We go back to the majority leader and say we are all clear; we are ready to go. Whoops, here comes another hold. Somebody else has a problem. We solve that. Now it is a problem on the McCain bill. The next one is a problem on the Coats bill. We solve both of those. The next one is a problem on the McCain bill. We solve that. We think we are ready to go. Whoops, another problem on the Coats bill. We are running around putting out fires, and we start to wonder if we don't have some kind of rolling hold process going on here where there has been a decision to block this legislation from coming forward, and we just simply pass on the baton of objection to different people who say; ``Time is on our side. If we delay long enough, we will get into the appropriations process and we will block this and we will get through the year and we won't have had to deal with it.'' I don't want to ascribe that motive to the other side, and that is why I am making this statement today because I just want to offer to my Democrat colleagues: if you have a problem with this bill, offer your amendment. I am not here to block your amendment. I am not here to block debate on your amendment. I am not here to block a vote on your amendment. I am not here to modify your amendment. I am here to simply say let's discuss the issue, debate it, vote on it, and move on. We have spent 4 weeks on the tobacco bill, and I understand, that was an important issue and that blocked a lot of other legislation. I understand that we have appropriations bills backed up, and we need to move forward on those, which is why we are willing to do a limited time agreement on this. But we cannot move forward, and are going to be forced to have to offer this to appropriations bills in order to get the Senate to consider it--offer it as an amendment, unless we can get agreement to bring this up, debate it with a time certain and move on. I do not want to do that. I do not want to interfere with Senator Stevens and the appropriators' efforts to do the business of the Congress that needs to be done. I understand things are backed up because of the tobacco bill. We heard a lot of great speeches in that tobacco bill about first amendment rights needing to be waived, why the first amendment did not apply as it involved advertising on tobacco. But we are not getting that same kind of flexibility and understanding from some of our colleagues as it applies to pornography. I think I would challenge those Members who think the first amendment is sacrosanct, that we cannot move forward with this, to ask themselves the question: Why is it OK to waive first amendment rights and not apply the first amendment to those commercial entities who are using the symbol of Joe Camel because that is so destructive to the health and welfare of our children, but when it comes to bestiality, when it comes to some of the worst forms of pornography that is wide open on the worldwide web and available to our children with the click of a mouse, that, oh, no, the first amendment must apply here? We have to be purists on this? I ask my colleagues to ask themselves as parents, and ask the parents they represent in their States, what those parents think is the higher priority issue. If they are given the choice, are they more worried about their children modifying their behavior and taking up smoking because they see a 5-second image of Joe Camel? Or, are they more worried about their children modifying their behavior and responding in a way because they have been able to view some of the most crass, indecent, and, in my opinion, obscene sexual images that we have ever seen? I think the resounding response is going to be: Senator, let's do first things first; let's address the problems that are real problems. So I conclude by pleading with my colleagues to let us resolve whatever problems you have with our going forward with this. We have been trying to do this. We have hotlined this 2 weeks ago. Both sides know what we are trying to do. If people have a problem, we will resolve that problem. But I hope there will not be an objection to going forward with that today when the majority leader propounds his unanimous consent request to allow us to go forward with this bill. If there is an objection--after 2 weeks of hotlines, after 2 weeks of going to Members saying, ``If you want an amendment, have an amendment, but at least allow us to debate the bill''--I can only conclude there is some effort here to prevent us from even talking about it, even bringing the bill up. We have an opportunity to avoid all that today very shortly when that unanimous consent request is propounded. I trust we will be able to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, America currently struggles with a disturbing and growing trend of youth violence. Between 1985 and 1994, the arrest rate for murders by juveniles increased 150 percent, while the rate for adults during this time increased 11 percent. Every day, in our communities and in the media, we see horrific examples of this crime. A 13-year-old girl murders her 3-year-old nephew and dumps him in the trash. A 13-year-old boy is stabbed to death while sitting on his back porch. A group of teenagers hails a cab and, after the driver takes them to their destination, they shoot him dead in an armed robbery. I did not have to look far for these examples. Each occurred in Indiana, a State generally known as a safe State, a good place to raise a family, not a dangerous place, yet a State where arrests for violent juvenile crimes have skyrocketed 19 percent in the early 1990's. Juvenile violence is no longer a stranger in any ZIP code. Yet, the problem is expected to grow worse. Crime experts who study demographics warn of a coming crime wave based on the number of children who currently are younger than 10 years old. These experts warn that if current trends are not changed, we might someday look back at our current juvenile crime epidemic as ``the good old days.'' This spiraling upward trend in youth crime and violence is cause for grave concern. So one might ask, what is driving this epidemic? Over 30 years ago, our colleague Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an official in the Johnson administration, wrote that when a community's families are shattered, crime, violence and rage ``are not only to be expected, they are virtually inevitable.'' He wrote those words in 1965. Since then, arrests of violent juvenile criminals have tripled. Last Congress, the Subcommittee on Children and Families, which I chair, held a hearing about the role of government in combating juvenile crime. The experts were clear: while government efforts are important, they are also fundamentally limited and incomplete. Government is ultimately powerless to form the human conscience that chooses between right and wrong. Locking away juveniles might prevent them from committing further crimes, but it does not address the fact that violence is symptomatic of a much deeper, moral and spiritual void in our Nation. In the battle against violent crime, solid families are America's strongest line of defense. But government can be an effective tool if it joins private institutions (families, churches, schools, community groups, and non- profit organizations) in preventing and confronting juvenile crime with the moral ideals that defeat despair and nurture lives. Today, I rise to introduce the National Youth Crime Prevention Act which will empower local communities to address the rising trend in youth violence. Specifically, this legislation authorizes the Attorney General to award $5 million annually for five years to the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise to conduct national demonstration projects in eight cities. These projects would aim to end youth crime, violence and family disintegration by building neighborhood capacity and linking proven grassroots organizations within low-income neighborhoods with sources from the public sector, including local housing authorities, law enforcement agencies, and other public entities. The demonstration projects will take place in Washington, DC; Detroit, Michigan; Hartford, Connecticut; Indianapolis, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois; San Antonio, Texas; Dallas, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. With these funds, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise will work with the grassroots organizations in the demonstration cities to establish Violence Free Zone Initiatives. These initiatives would involve successful youth intervention models in partnership with law enforcement, local housing authorities, private foundations, and other public and private partners. To be eligible for the grants, the nonprofit organizations within the demonstration cities must have experience in crime prevention and youth mediation projects and must have a history of cultivating cooperative relationships with other local organizations, housing facilities and law enforcement agencies. Funds may be used for youth mediation, youth mentoring, life skills training, job creation and entrepreneurship, organizational development and training, development of long-term intervention plans, collaboration with law enforcement, comprehensive support services, local agency partnerships and activities to further community objectives in reducing youth crime and violence. The success of this approach has already been demonstrated. Last year, The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise assisted The Alliance for Concerned Men in creating a ``Violence Free Zone'' in Benning Terrace in Southeast DC. The Alliance of Concerned Men brokered peace treaties among the gangs that inhabit, and frequently dominate, the city's public housing complexes. Benning Terrace in Southeast Washington, known to the DC police department as one of the most dangerous areas of the city, has not had a single murder since the Alliance's peace treaty went into effect early last year. Subsequently, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise brought the Alliance, the youths, and the DC Housing Receiver together to develop and implement a plan for jobs and life skills training for the young people and the community itself. Grassroots organizations are the key to implementing the most effective innovative strategies to address community problems. Their efforts help restore hardpressed inner-city neighborhoods by developing the social, human and economic capital that is key to real, long-term renewal of urban communities. The National Youth Crime Prevention Demonstration Act will provide critical assistance to our Nation's inner-cities as they combat the rising trend in youth violence by linking proven grassroots organizations with established public sector entities. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the National Youth Crime Prevention Demonstration Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, America currently struggles with a disturbing and growing trend of youth violence. Between 1985 and 1994, the arrest rate for murders by juveniles increased 150 percent, while the rate for adults during this time increased 11 percent. Every day, in our communities and in the media, we see horrific examples of this crime. A 13-year-old girl murders her 3-year-old nephew and dumps him in the trash. A 13-year-old boy is stabbed to death while sitting on his back porch. A group of teenagers hails a cab and, after the driver takes them to their destination, they shoot him dead in an armed robbery. I did not have to look far for these examples. Each occurred in Indiana, a State generally known as a safe State, a good place to raise a family, not a dangerous place, yet a State where arrests for violent juvenile crimes have skyrocketed 19 percent in the early 1990's. Juvenile violence is no longer a stranger in any ZIP code. Yet, the problem is expected to grow worse. Crime experts who study demographics warn of a coming crime wave based on the number of children who currently are younger than 10 years old. These experts warn that if current trends are not changed, we might someday look back at our current juvenile crime epidemic as ``the good old days.'' This spiraling upward trend in youth crime and violence is cause for grave concern. So one might ask, what is driving this epidemic? Over 30 years ago, our colleague Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an official in the Johnson administration, wrote that when a community's families are shattered, crime, violence and rage ``are not only to be expected, they are virtually inevitable.'' He wrote those words in 1965. Since then, arrests of violent juvenile criminals have tripled. Last Congress, the Subcommittee on Children and Families, which I chair, held a hearing about the role of government in combating juvenile crime. The experts were clear: while government efforts are important, they are also fundamentally limited and incomplete. Government is ultimately powerless to form the human conscience that chooses between right and wrong. Locking away juveniles might prevent them from committing further crimes, but it does not address the fact that violence is symptomatic of a much deeper, moral and spiritual void in our Nation. In the battle against violent crime, solid families are America's strongest line of defense. But government can be an effective tool if it joins private institutions (families, churches, schools, community groups, and non- profit organizations) in preventing and confronting juvenile crime with the moral ideals that defeat despair and nurture lives. Today, I rise to introduce the National Youth Crime Prevention Act which will empower local communities to address the rising trend in youth violence. Specifically, this legislation authorizes the Attorney General to award $5 million annually for five years to the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise to conduct national demonstration projects in eight cities. These projects would aim to end youth crime, violence and family disintegration by building neighborhood capacity and linking proven grassroots organizations within low-income neighborhoods with sources from the public sector, including local housing authorities, law enforcement agencies, and other public entities. The demonstration projects will take place in Washington, DC; Detroit, Michigan; Hartford, Connecticut; Indianapolis, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois; San Antonio, Texas; Dallas, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. With these funds, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise will work with the grassroots organizations in the demonstration cities to establish Violence Free Zone Initiatives. These initiatives would involve successful youth intervention models in partnership with law enforcement, local housing authorities, private foundations, and other public and private partners. To be eligible for the grants, the nonprofit organizations within the demonstration cities must have experience in crime prevention and youth mediation projects and must have a history of cultivating cooperative relationships with other local organizations, housing facilities and law enforcement agencies. Funds may be used for youth mediation, youth mentoring, life skills training, job creation and entrepreneurship, organizational development and training, development of long-term intervention plans, collaboration with law enforcement, comprehensive support services, local agency partnerships and activities to further community objectives in reducing youth crime and violence. The success of this approach has already been demonstrated. Last year, The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise assisted The Alliance for Concerned Men in creating a ``Violence Free Zone'' in Benning Terrace in Southeast DC. The Alliance of Concerned Men brokered peace treaties among the gangs that inhabit, and frequently dominate, the city's public housing complexes. Benning Terrace in Southeast Washington, known to the DC police department as one of the most dangerous areas of the city, has not had a single murder since the Alliance's peace treaty went into effect early last year. Subsequently, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise brought the Alliance, the youths, and the DC Housing Receiver together to develop and implement a plan for jobs and life skills training for the young people and the community itself. Grassroots organizations are the key to implementing the most effective innovative strategies to address community problems. Their efforts help restore hardpressed inner-city neighborhoods by developing the social, human and economic capital that is key to real, long-term renewal of urban communities. The National Youth Crime Prevention Demonstration Act will provide critical assistance to our Nation's inner-cities as they combat the rising trend in youth violence by linking proven grassroots organizations with established public sector entities. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the National Youth Crime Prevention Demonstration Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of the sweeping Social Security Legislation introduced by my colleagues-- Senators Gregg and Breaux. The ``21st Century Retirement Security Plan of 1998'' is designed to strengthen Social Security now, encourage personal savings, and expand the availability of private pension plans. Senators Gregg and Breaux recently co-chaired the National Commission on Retirement Policy. This bipartisan commission of lawmakers, economists, pension experts, and businessmen released a report calling for legislation including, among other things, personal savings accounts and a gradual increase in the retirement age. The ``21st Century Retirement Plan'' implements both these provisions and aims to serve a two-fold purpose: It strengthens the Social Security system-- ensuring payment to all of the hard-working Americans that have paid into it. And it expands opportunities for private retirement savings-- which will provide Americans with more options to save and invest in their future. As we approach the dawn of the 21st century, it is common knowledge that the aging baby boom will create huge financial problems for future generations. Without changes, the Social Security trust funds will be unable to pay full benefits beginning around the year 2030. Therefore, a thirty-eight year old individual, making an average wage, will have to live until the age of 91 to get back what he paid into the system. This is not the time to propose patchwork solutions to this problem, but rather to seize this unique opportunity to restructure the entire system. I believe that this legislation is a logical first step toward achieving that goal. President Clinton has also jumped on the save Social Security bandwagon, although his plan is to sit back and wait until we have three or four ``national town meetings'' to discuss the ramifications of changing the system. Coincidentally, those meetings conclude at the end of this year--which just happens to be an election year. This epitomizes the lack of courage of the part of most of our elected officials. This legislation will save the Social Security system through the next century without raising taxes. In fact, under this plan, taxpayers would be able to invest 2 percent of their current payroll tax in private savings accounts modeled after the Government's thrift savings plan. This change would not affect current retirees, but would rather assist current tax-paying Americans preparing for their retirement. As a tax-paying American, I trust myself to manage my money much more than I trust the Federal Government to provide for my future. This allocation of part of the payroll tax would be offset by our current budget surplus and a gradual rise of the retirement age from 67 to 70 by 2029. Further, these accounts would provide a higher rate of return for recipients. This would, as provided by the bill, lower guaranteed Social Security payments and ease the burden on the system. This plan improves retirement security and protects future generations by strengthening the safety-net aspect of the Social Security system and providing Americans more options for savings and investment. The ``21st Century Retirement Security Plan of 1998'' contains the courage and common sense necessary to save our children and our children's children from the economic strife that is bound to arise if we do not address this impending problem.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of the sweeping Social Security Legislation introduced by my colleagues-- Senators Gregg and Breaux. The ``21st Century Retirement Security Plan of 1998'' is designed to strengthen Social Security now, encourage personal savings, and expand the availability of private pension plans. Senators Gregg and Breaux recently co-chaired the National Commission on Retirement Policy. This bipartisan commission of lawmakers, economists, pension experts, and businessmen released a report calling for legislation including, among other things, personal savings accounts and a gradual increase in the retirement age. The ``21st Century Retirement Plan'' implements both these provisions and aims to serve a two-fold purpose: It strengthens the Social Security system-- ensuring payment to all of the hard-working Americans that have paid into it. And it expands opportunities for private retirement savings-- which will provide Americans with more options to save and invest in their future. As we approach the dawn of the 21st century, it is common knowledge that the aging baby boom will create huge financial problems for future generations. Without changes, the Social Security trust funds will be unable to pay full benefits beginning around the year 2030. Therefore, a thirty-eight year old individual, making an average wage, will have to live until the age of 91 to get back what he paid into the system. This is not the time to propose patchwork solutions to this problem, but rather to seize this unique opportunity to restructure the entire system. I believe that this legislation is a logical first step toward achieving that goal. President Clinton has also jumped on the save Social Security bandwagon, although his plan is to sit back and wait until we have three or four ``national town meetings'' to discuss the ramifications of changing the system. Coincidentally, those meetings conclude at the end of this year--which just happens to be an election year. This epitomizes the lack of courage of the part of most of our elected officials. This legislation will save the Social Security system through the next century without raising taxes. In fact, under this plan, taxpayers would be able to invest 2 percent of their current payroll tax in private savings accounts modeled after the Government's thrift savings plan. This change would not affect current retirees, but would rather assist current tax-paying Americans preparing for their retirement. As a tax-paying American, I trust myself to manage my money much more than I trust the Federal Government to provide for my future. This allocation of part of the payroll tax would be offset by our current budget surplus and a gradual rise of the retirement age from 67 to 70 by 2029. Further, these accounts would provide a higher rate of return for recipients. This would, as provided by the bill, lower guaranteed Social Security payments and ease the burden on the system. This plan improves retirement security and protects future generations by strengthening the safety-net aspect of the Social Security system and providing Americans more options for savings and investment. The ``21st Century Retirement Security Plan of 1998'' contains the courage and common sense necessary to save our children and our children's children from the economic strife that is bound to arise if we do not address this impending problem.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I just want to join my colleagues here in urging our leaders and urging the Senate to move forward on legislation that has been debated and discussed and passed by the Senate that needs to be revisited. The Supreme Court struck down language I offered more than a year ago that was passed by this body by a 84-16 margin, passed by the House of Representatives, and signed by the President of the United States. That legislation attempts to address the commercial purveyors of pornography over the Internet--as invasive a practice as anything that we have seen. It makes the corner pornography shop pale in comparison in terms of access to some of the rawest, most explicit material that is available today, and it makes it available to children through the click of a mouse--in their room, in their home room, in their library, wherever a computer terminal is placed. It is easy access. In fact, it is an invasive practice that even the most innocent of typed-in requests can bring a flood of material that should never be accessible to children. It is even questionable whether it should be accessible to adults. The first amendment puts some pretty severe restrictions on us in terms of what we can do. We carefully drafted and designed our Internet pornography bill to address first amendment concerns. For some reason, the Court chose to distinguish the Internet from other forms of communication, and the very standard which the Court approved for telephone dial-a-porn messages was rejected for computer messages, saying that the Internet is a completely different mode of communication, not as invasive as the telephone. I think the Court is behind the times in terms of understanding how the computer works. I understand that. I am of the generation that is not quite sure even how to turn the thing on. For the younger generation, it is as easy and accessible and as comfortable for them to operate as for those of us who learned to drive a car when we were young or the technology that we adapted to in our generation. Nevertheless, the Court has ruled. We took that ruling. We modified the language to comply with the Court's restrictions. I have been attempting to bring this bill to the floor for several months. We have been blocked in doing so, not because it does not enjoy a majority of the vote but because the computer industry and the Internet industry do not want any restraint whatsoever. We are trying to protect the innocence of children. We are trying to give parents a tool by which they can protect their children. We are trying to put penalties in place which will allow us to enforce restrictions against commercial purveyors of pornography that is harmful to minors. We have revised the standard to comply with the Supreme Court dictates, and we trust that this new legislation will pass Court muster. But in order to do so, it has to pass this body first. I think we are at the point of resolving the holds and the differences of opinion on how to proceed with this legislation. Senator McCain has legislation which provides access to software packages that are a help, but an imperfect help, in terms of dealing with the problem. I have legislation which I guess would be described as a stick to go along with the McCain carrot, the hammer to lay down the enforcement and put the penalties in place, put the restrictions in place. I think the two are very necessary for us to try to get a handle on this problem. It will not fully solve the problem. The first line of defense has to be the family. It has to be the parents, has to be their oversight of what their children have access to--not only in the home but in the school, in the library. It is disappointing that schools and libraries--in particular, library associations--have opposed what we are trying to do. We think we have a consensus now on how to move forward. I am pleased that we are closing in on that and urge our colleagues to support the efforts that will take place shortly. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the hour is getting late. I doubt too many Members are listening to this debate. I will be brief because I know we want to move on to get these amendments finished so we can begin voting. I would like to just briefly respond regarding this amendment. And I will not repeat the benefits that flow to students under this legislation. Senator Jeffords of Vermont outlined those benefits: almost $10 billion in new student benefits paid through extensive loan provider cuts and other means over a period of years. I think it is important to recognize that students benefit greatly from this legislation. It is kind of ironic that we are spending this amount of time debating a bill that came out of committee on a unanimous vote, 18-0. We felt we had a bipartisan package put together that would sail through the Senate here, but we are obviously tied up a little bit on some of the provisions. Hopefully, we can resolve some of them. I think it is important to recognize that what those of us who oppose the Harkin amendment are doing, as we have done on a number of other amendments, is trying to preserve a viable, competitive system in terms of providing service and collection and the provision of loans to students. There has been a concerted effort over the past 6 or 7 years to eliminate the private sector loan program in favor of a full Federal-run program. There were efforts to take it to 100 percent. Those were thwarted after a lot of contentious debate under previous Congresses. But I thought at least finally we had settled on the concept that competition is good, competition within the system is good, and we ought to have two programs side by side--a direct loan program run by the Federal Government, the Department of Education; and a private program that was operated in the private sector, involving guarantor agencies and banks and others that provided students benefits for years. And it was, of course, backed by the Federal guarantee. But it operated pretty well. There were concerns that those guarantor agencies were reaping too much benefit from that particular program. So over the last several years there have been a variety of measures enacted which substantially reduce the fees that go to the guarantor agencies. This bill takes $500 million from the guaranty agencies to pay for student benefits. Between 1993 and 1997, revenue to student loan guarantors was cut by $2 billion. That is $2.5 billion we have taken out. Student loan guarantors get back another $1 billion in reserves over the next 5 years under the Balanced Budget Act that the Congress entered into last year. As a consequence of that, the concerns that were raised by the Senator from Arkansas become very real. Ten student loan guarantors have ceased operations due to increased risk, declining revenues. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education, Delaware Higher Education Loan Program, Maryland Higher Education Loan Corporation, Mississippi Guaranteed Student Loan Agency, Ohio Student Loan Commission, Puerto Rico Higher Education Assistance Corporation, the State Education Assistance Authority of Virginia, the State Student Assistance Commission of Indiana, the Student Loan Funds of Idaho, and the Virgin Islands Board of Education have all ceased operations. I don't think it is possible to accurately predict just which future agencies will go out of business as we keep squeezing the private sector and keep expanding benefits and provisions through the public sector, but a list has been put out that guaranty agencies would fail in a number of States over the next several years if the Harkin amendment is adopted and if the process of continuing to impose restrictions and squeezing the revenues of the private sector so they can't compete equally with the public sector continue to be enacted. Now, the ultimate decisionmakers shouldn't be Members of Congress or the Department of Education. The Department of Education, obviously, has a bias in favor of expanding their scope in this program and becoming the only provider. That is what their intent was originally. That is what they have been working for. They have had the support of some Members of Congress on that. I think we ought to go back to some basic philosophic understandings of what it is in this country that has proven over time to provide the most effective service and benefits at the most effective cost. And it hasn't been the Federal Government. You can't point to agencies of the Federal Government--whether it be Post Office, which used to be under the Federal control, but now is semi-independent--you can't point to any agency and compare it to a private agency and say the Federal Government is a more efficient provider of services at a more effective cost. I remember asking the First Lady when she presented the Clinton health care plan, I said, ``Mrs. Clinton, you have done a lot of work on this particular plan, but there is, in my opinion, a faulty assumption underlying the entire proposal, and that is that the Federal Government can provide services more efficiency and cost effectively than the private sector.'' I said, ``In my experience here in Washington, I haven't come across any Federal Government program that has been able to do that. When matched head to head, they haven't been able to do that.'' The reason they haven't is because they don't have to compete. They don't have stockholders to whom they are accountable. They don't have a bottom line they have to reach. They simply turn to Congress for additional funds to fund whatever service they are providing. The very nature of bureaucracy and the very nature of monopoly leads to the inevitable conclusion that the taxpayer loses in the long run when the services aren't provided. So here we are yet again with yet another amendment designed to put the private sector at a less competitive advantage. As I said, the real decisionmakers in this process ought to be the users of the product. And the users of the product are the schools. Despite credible efforts by the Department of Education, in fact, some fairly heavy-handed tactics in some cases, two-thirds of all students choose to use the private sector to provide their loans and only one-third choose to use the Department of Education. The Department of Education, even within that one-third, which is less than what they had planned for, is having trouble even providing effective services to that one-third. Let me refer to a GAO account which gave failing marks to the Federal Government and a number of Federal credit programs. Their report is not news to anyone who has followed the debacle that has occurred at the Department of Education in administering the Direct Loan Program. During its first 5 years, institutions have been unable to fully reconcile disbursements received in Federal funds. There have been cost overruns estimated at $40 million, despite ongoing problems in the Direct Loan Program and their attempts to protect it, either through the imposition of additional fees, cuts, additional revenue squeezes on the private sector, and additional protections for the Direct Loan Program. So I think putting aside the intricacies of this program and whether there was an origination fee or an insurance fee, whether there is enough in the reserve fund for 5 years or 3 years or whatever, we ought to go back to the basic premise of, do we want to substantially expand the role of a department of government which has not proven itself an efficient administrator of these services, which has not proven itself as an entity capable of providing services in an efficient manner? But if we are not going to do that, do we at least want to have a viable, competitive process, whereby the users of the product can make the choice? I think that is really what this is all about. We need to remember that last year's bipartisan balanced budget agreement called for the preservation of two healthy loan programs and that if there were cuts, those cuts should be equally divided between those two programs. That has not happened under the Harkin amendment. The cost of the 25-percent reduction that the Senator from Iowa is talking about doesn't come out, it is not equally divided between the Direct Loan Program and the FFEL Program, the entire cost savings comes out of the FFEL Program. So it is a violation of what the agreement was last year, the balanced budget agreement. It violates the principle of that agreement by taking the fee from the private sector program and using it to cover the cost of loss of revenue in the public sector program that results from the change that occurs under the Harkin amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Harkin amendment, preserve the benefits and the balance that was created by the committee, supported by the committee in an 18-0 vote, and move forward with this education program that I think is important for our students and important for education initiatives that are in it. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. I join the Senator from Connecticut in saying I think the Senator's efforts are laudable. I do think, as the Senator from Vermont has enumerated, there is a lot of language in this bill which I think reflects what the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from Mississippi are attempting to do, yet it does it in an encouraging way rather than a penalizing way. Given the fact there is a lot of confusion about how this amendment applies to these States, and there is no way we could determine that this evening, I wonder if the Senator wouldn't be interested in withdrawing his amendment--at least working with us to try to accomplish these goals, but not in a way that puts us in a position where we will penalize our State.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I will be brief. I just want to make a couple points. Point No. 1, the legislation that is before us, the base legislation, already contains a carefully designed analysis and feasibility study of market-based mechanisms for student loans. The Kennedy amendment goes much further than that. We have a study in place. We will get the information needed to make a determination as to whether or not we want to move to an auction market-based program. Secondly, the last thing the Department of Education needs right now is another big responsibility. It can't handle the responsibilities it currently has. It has not been able to successfully manage the Direct Loan Program and the FFEL Program. Why would we want to consider giving it something else to manage? Let me just cite a few things from the inspector general relative to the Department's administering of the Direct Loan Program. The IG has concluded that audits at 16 direct loan schools found 8 major weaknesses in 16 of those programs. They also stated that in their audit, the weaknesses they found were representative of the majority of direct loan schools. They said: They are very likely to exist at these other direct loan schools. The Department reviewed disbursement amounts recorded at one school and found a total of nearly $300,000 hadn't been entered into the direct loan system. The IG's report said that 3 of the 16 schools maintained excess cash as a result of improper cash management practices. Let me quote again from the IG's analysis of the department's ineptness in running the programs that it has now. And I quote: The Department does not currently have a process in place to match specific drawdowns with specific disbursement transactions. The IG goes on to say: 53 percent of student status reporting was inaccurate. On average 71 percent of student records in the national student loan data system were inaccurate; 58 percent of transactions were not reported by schools through the department in a timely manner. The IG says that today, if data is not reported timely, due diligence and timeliness of reconciliation of loan data may be adversely impacted. We probably all remember, or should remember, that in the 1995-1996 academic year, 1 million applications were backlogged at the Department of Education which caused families and students all over the country to be put in a position where they didn't know whether they were going to get a loan or not. Two years later, the Department sent out 2.7 million forms to fill out and had the wrong shading on it, and therefore the forms were not processed right, and they ended up with hundreds of thousands of backlog as a result of that. This goes on and on and on, the inability of the Department to handle the one-third of direct loans that it now has. So why do we want to throw in another major initiative at the Department of Education. Let them at least get the initiatives that they currently have jurisdiction for under some control. So I would urge my colleagues to join with the chairman of the committee in defeating the Kennedy amendment.

Mr. COATS. Will the Senator from New Mexico yield for a question?

Mr. COATS. I am pretty sure the Senator from Connecticut doesn't know. If he does he knows more about the education in my State----

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this bill represents a strong bi-partisan consensus on the Labor Committee to ensure that students maintain access to post-secondary education through vital student opportunity programs, such as TRIO; healthy, stable, and streamlined loan programs; and a simplified student aid process. I am pleased to have contributed to this important bill and look forward to its quick passage today and on the floor. This bill was developed using several guiding principles. First, we strove to maintain the primary focus of the Higher Education Act since its inception in 1965, which is to ensure that students have access and opportunity to pursue higher education. We have strengthened the major student opportunity programs in the Act by focusing more on the needs of low-income students through an expanded Pell Grant program, and making needed reforms to the TRIO programs. In an effort to ensure continued access to higher education programs for all students, these amendments also include a new, low interest rate for student loans. This legislation sets a student loan repayment rate of 7.43 percent which represents a significant reduction in the interest rate for students. The interest rate that was scheduled to take effect on July 1, 1998 would have destabilized the successful Federal Family Loan Program by causing thousands of lenders to stop making student loans which would have left students without loans for the school year. The interest rate included in these amendments provides a significant reduction to students while maintaining the long-term viability of the student loan programs and ensuring that students will continue to have access to private loans at the lowest interest rate in 17 years. Another vital principle for these amendments was the improvement and modernization of the student aid delivery system. This legislation creates a Performance-Based Organization (PBO) within the Department of Education aimed at providing quality service to students and parents. The utilization of this PBO which will incorporate the best and most successful practices in the private financial sector, coupled with other reforms aimed at streamlining the student aid regulatory requirements will result in a better managed and higher quality federal student aid system. A third principle which guided these amendments was the need for much-needed reform of teacher preparation programs. A recent report found that 36 percent of teachers in the core subjects, such as math and science, neither majored nor minored in those subjects. Annually, more than 50,000 under-prepared teachers enter the field, which means about 1 in 4 new teachers are not prepared to meet the enormous responsibilities of teaching. This shortage of qualified teachers is the only real shortage of teachers in this country, and it most seriously impacted inner-city students who are often taught by teachers who lack a degree in their subject matter. This problem is growing-- between 1987 and 1991, the proportion of well-qualified new teachers entering the field declined from 74% to 67%. I am very pleased that these amendments include a new initiative for teacher training and professional development aimed at addressing the shortage of qualified teachers in this country which replaces most of the existing teacher preparation programs with a two-pronged approach. This initiative encourages state level reforms intended to produce well trained and highly competent teachers, and local level partnerships intended to improve under-performing teacher education programs. States will compete to receive some of these teacher training dollars and can use the grants to strengthen their teacher certification requirements, create or expand alternative certification programs to attract highly qualified people from other occupations to the teaching profession, to decrease the shortage of highly qualified teachers in high need areas, or to develop programs which reward excellent teachers and remove unqualified teachers. This reauthorization was also guided by a strong desire to streamline and consolidate the many programs and activities which are found in the Higher Education Act. This Act has become increasingly complex over the years and these amendments make great strides in simplifying the Act and better targeting its programs and activities. I would like to thank the staff who have worked on this important legislation for the last year: on Senator Jefford's staff, Susan Hattan, Jenny Smulson, Scott Giles, Cory Heyman, and Pam Moran have done excellent work on this bill. In addition, Marianna Pierce with Senator Kennedy and Suzanne Day with Senator Dodd have worked diligently to ensure that this bill represents a strong bi-partisan consensus. Thank you all so much for your long hours and excellent work. Again, I am pleased to have been a part of crafting this important legislation. olympic education scholarship

Mr. COATS. I thought I heard the proposal that the virtues of the market system were so wonderful that the whole thing ought to be put out into the market system, and that is probably a good idea. So why--I don't understand; you can't have it both ways. You cannot try to attract it into the public sector and not provide competition in the Department of Education and yet kick everything else into the free market. So I am saying we may have the makings of a deal here. If the Senators think the whole thing ought to go in the market, why, we can probably get that done pretty quickly and it might benefit everybody. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I ask the Senator for an additional minute.

Mr. COATS. I think I have the floor, Mr. President? Do I not have the floor?

Mr. COATS. Let's take the whole program.