Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I yield.

Mr. CRAIG. An interesting speech about not making speeches. I yield the floor for the offering of an amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, under the order, I send a relevant first- degree amendment to the desk.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we have just heard the arguments of Senator Lautenberg in relation to his amendment. I most assuredly in no way question the sincerity of the Senator and the environment in which this amendment has been offered. But if I can be as direct as I can be, if you want to drive a truck through the middle of the bill, then the Lautenberg amendment accomplishes just that. In the name of children, yes, and we should be sensitive to children. Of course we are. Children are as protected under this proposed law as anyone else because this law says go after the criminal, don't go after the law-abiding gun manufacturer or the law-abiding gun seller. But if there is negligent entrustment, if that can be proven, certainly if that seller or if that gun dealer or manufacturer is negligent, then anyone can and should bring lawsuits. It is the same issue we faced on previous amendments trying to carve out a special class that gets favored treatment beyond another class, and with children, certainly that would sound like we would want to be more sensitive. Most of us in the Senate are parents, but you don't have to be a parent to grieve over a child's injury or a child's death. We have many laws on the books at both the State and the Federal level, and some of them are placed by this very Senate to protect our Nation's most vulnerable--our children. We must insist on the enforcement of those laws instead of constantly trying to carve out something special that may not even be that enforceable. How do you protect children on the street? You go after the criminal who is packing the gun on the street. Every year we do that, those deaths go down in America, whether it is a child's death or whether it is an adult's death. The Lautenberg amendment speaks to those 17 years of age and younger. If those laws are broken by the gun industry, then the bill we are considering today will not shield them from the lawsuits or from the kind of harm that is rendered. If this is the same issue--and it is--we have debated several times to carve out something special, then we should not do that. But what we are saying in the alternative that has just been offered is that the bill allows lawsuits against firearms industries by and for children to the same extent that it does for any other victim of the illegal misuse of a firearm in relation to a gun manufacturer and a gun dealer. Under this, if a child is injured by some wrongdoing of the gun industry, the lawsuits are not barred. Again, remember yesterday we debated the question of negligence and reckless conduct, and it was very clearly established by a substantially large vote in the Senate that it does not take away the standards of law and the specifications within the Federal law today as it relates to the responsible and legal operation and performance of a gun manufacturer or a licensed Federal firearms dealer. How do you solve the crisis or the problem so defined by Senator Lautenberg? You enforce the law. You go after the criminal. You go after the drug dealer. You go to the streets of America and you sweep them clean of those who would break the law and those who are stealing the guns and those who are misusing the guns, instead of going after a law-abiding legal citizen manufacturing a law-abiding and legal product. I believe that is the issue, and I ask my colleagues to support us in voting for the alternative and opposing the Lautenberg amendment. I now yield to Senator Thune for any comments he would wish to make. What is the time remaining on our side?

Mr. CRAIG. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator.

Mr. CRAIG. I yield time to respond if the Senator wishes.

Mr. CRAIG. I yield additional time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, how much time does Senator Kennedy have remaining?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I send a relevant first-degree amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. CRAIG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the next vote is on the Kennedy amendment. It is a 10-minute vote. Please, everyone, stay here and vote so we can move very rapidly through the next amendments.

Mr. CRAIG. Is the Senator ready to yield back the balance of his time?

Mr. CRAIG. I would be so inclined to with this simple statement. There are 62 Senators who are cosponsors in a bipartisan way of the underlying bill. The Reed substitute, as the Senator from Texas has said, simply guts it, changes the whole intent of the bill very dramatically. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Reed substitute. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, last year, we promised the cosponsors of this legislation that we would return to this issue and seek a fair opportunity to consider a bill free of any poison pill amendments. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Frist and the cooperation of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that day has come. This bill will end an outrageous abuse of our courts and law-abiding American businesses. This bill will not prevent a single victim from obtaining relief for wrongs done to them by anyone in the gun industry. S. 397 will only stop one narrowly-drawn kind of lawsuit: predatory lawsuits seeking to hold legitimate, law-abiding businesses responsible for harm done by the misdeeds of people over whom they had no control. We called this bill the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms. That is precisely what it is designed to do--to protect lawful commerce in the firearms that supply our nation's military and peace officers, and the millions of law-abiding citizens who acquire guns as collectors, hunters, target shooters, or for self-defense. I am pleased that the Senate will shortly be voting on this legislation, but before we do, let me express my thanks to a number of people who made this possible. I would like to thank the 61 cosponsors of this legislation for their support and encouragement--and the colleagues who counseled with me on shaping the debate and who spoke on the floor, especially Senators Sessions, Cornyn, Graham, Kyl, Coburn, Burr, Thune, Chambliss, Hutchison, Hatch, Bond, and, of course, the lead Democrat sponsor of this legislation, Senator Baucus. As I have said, special thanks to the Republican majority leader and whip for their leadership and the resources of their offices, including the help of their talented staff, in particular, Eric Ueland and Sharon Soderstrom, and Jim Hippe; Kyle Simmons, John Abegg, Laura Pemberton, Brian Lewis and Malloy McDaniel. I would also like to thank the Democrat leader, Senator Reid, for his constructive input in moving us to the end of this debate. I am especially grateful to have had the help of the Judiciary Committee, and in particular Brett Tolman of Chairman Specter's staff, and James Suehr. Let me also thank the staff who spent many early and late hours working on this legislation and the debate: William Henderson, William Smith, Mary Chesser, Bob Taylor, Don Dempsey and Andy Moskowitz, James Galyean, Chip Roy, Ajit Pai, and Wendy Fleming. I want you all to know you were all part of an historic effort, and your hard work is appreciated. Finally, I would like to thank the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, for his courtesy as we worked together to manage a difficult debate. Although we disagree on the issue, he has never been disagreeable, and I appreciate the tone he brought to the debate. And now, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, last year, I promised the cosponsors of this important legislation that we would return with a fair opportunity to work our will against the wrong kind of amendments and attempt to establish a clear record on what I think is a very important decision that the Senate is about to make. I offer a very special thanks to Senator Frist for his cooperation and all of my colleagues who have helped bring this bill to the Senate floor in the method we have and the success we have had. This bill is intended to do one thing, and that is to end the abuse that is now going on in the court system of America against law-abiding American businesses when they violate no law. But because the product they sell in the marketplace may ultimately be misused in a criminal act, therefore someone, including some of my colleagues, would suggest that law-abiding business person is liable. I suggest and I think the Senate tonight will say they ought not be. But if that law-abiding citizen violates the law or produces a faulty product, then they are liable. That is the law today. What we have crafted is a very narrow exemption from predatory lawsuits seeking to hold legitimate, law-abiding people responsible for the harm done by the misdeeds of people over whom they have no control. That is what S. 397 is all about. You can put all kinds of different explanations around it, but the reality is very clear and the legislation is really very simple. It is straightforward. It is intended to be. It is intended to stop those kinds of abusive lawsuits. Mr. President, I think we have concluded. If my colleague does not have anything more to say, my colleague and I yield back the remainder of our time. Amendment No. 1606, as Modified

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator was to allocate 90.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I think all of us stand here tonight happy that a work product is before us, and it would be remiss of me not to congratulate both of the Senators from New Mexico but clearly to recognize Senator Domenici for his chairing of the Energy Committee here in the Senate and the work he and Senator Bingaman have done to operate in a bipartisan way to bring us to where we are tonight. You have heard from both of these Senators, and they have spoken clearly about the substance of the conference report that is before us. I will not go into the detail of that substance. At the outset, let me thank at least two of my staff members, George O'Connor and Corey McDaniel. Both of them have worked on these issues. George O'Connor has been with me literally all of these years as we have worked and struggled through the process. I thank them and thank the staff of the full committee for the tremendous effort at hand that has produced this important conference report. In the 5-year struggle that many Members have been engaged in developing a comprehensive energy policy for this country, at times we thought it was for naught. We would bring it to the Senate, we would spend weeks voting on it, we would work with the House, but we could not produce a final conference report. That work was not for naught. In that process of the last 5 years, not only did we learn there were issues we simply could not arrive at a solution on, but over that 5 years there was a learning process for all of us and for all Americans on a variety of issues. Senator Domenici spoke tonight of a new, comprehensive national policy to deal with nuclear energy and to bring it online. Five years ago we could not have accomplished what we accomplished in the last several months. Why? The public was not with us in general nor was there a growing realization that obviously did occur that the way to build new base load, to turn on the lights of America 10 years out, was with an existing technology while we worked on future technologies. And we wanted it to be clean. That new technology was an existing technology: It was nuclear. Once again I believe the world is increasingly excited that America has decided to take a leadership role in the area of nuclear instead of to hide behind the politics of the issue, as we have as we have lost that leadership role over the last two decades. In our action here, comprehensive work has been done of a bipartisan character. Senator Domenici also reminds me, as he should, he wrote a book on the issue, a book that is selling pretty well, but also a book that was part of that educational process that caused us, along with the critics of the issue, to begin to understand if we want clean energy, and we do, and we want abundant energy, and we must have it, under current technologies there is only one place to go to get it. Clearly, we have incentivized that. The Senator from New Mexico is right. If you cannot begin to design and ultimately build new nuclear production facilities in this country, new electrical productions in this country fueled by nuclear reactors, then we will not get it done. But we will, and not only will we go through a new generation, we will go into new technologies. That is laid out in this bill. It is critically important. So while we are working on the new, we also do something else. We realized the old must be renewed, and that was hydro. For the Pacific Northwest, it was critical. In the Energy Policy Act of the mid-1980s, we created a problem. We included everybody except the producer and said, You have a right to shape the new facility when it is relicensed, no matter what the cost and no matter what the demand, as long as it fits the environmental desire of the stakeholders involved. We could not get licensing completed. It went on for years and years and cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and nothing got done. When it did get done, the production plant usually produced less than it had before. That is unacceptable when we see so many of our hydro facilities needing to be relicensed in the next 20 years. I and many others worked and we have what we believe is a new and better way to relicense our facilities with that clear recognition. There are many key components in this critical legislation that, as both the Senators from New Mexico have said, put us back into the business of producing energy, clean energy, appropriate for our national needs, meeting the demands, creating jobs, and saying to our young people, there is a variety of abundant energy future for our country. I applaud my colleagues for working with us in accomplishing what I believe to be a very comprehensive piece of work. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 28, 2005, at 10 a.m., on pending committee business.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 28, 2005, at 2:30 p.m., on issues related to MGM v. Grokster and the appropriate balance between copyright protection and communications technology innovation, in SR-253.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, July 28, 2005, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.