Jon Corzine

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce an important piece of legislation that I worked on in the 107th Congress, the Chemical Security Act. I am proud to be joined by Senators Jeffords, Boxer, Clinton, and Lautenberg in reintroducing this bill. Senators Jeffords, Boxer, and Clinton were all strong allies in the 107th Congress, and I thank them for their continuing support. And I am pleased to have Senator Lautenberg as a cosponsor. He has a long history of working to protect communities from all types of chemical threats. I particularly want to thank Senator Jeffords for his hard work on this legislation in the 107th Congress. As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works committee, he provided critical leadership in bringing this bill through the committee successfully. I thank him and his staff for their hard work and look forward to continuing to work with them on this important issue. I'll describe what the bill does in a minute. But first I want to briefly explain why I think this legislation is so important. September 11 shocked us into the realization that our assets can be turned against us by terrorists. If you are a New Jersey Senator, you don't have to think about that idea for too long before you realize that chemical plants and other facilities that have hazardous chemicals would be high on a terrorists' list. The fact is, that we have a lot of those types of facilities in my State, and because we're such a densely populated State, chemical releases from these facilities pose grave risks. In fact, according to EPA data, there are eight plants in my State where a worst-case release of toxic chemicals could threaten more than a million people. But this is not a parochial issue. The same EPA data shows that there are 110 plants nationwide where such a release could threaten more than a million people. These plants are located in 22 States. And there are 44 States that have at least one facility where such a release could threaten more than 100,000 people. I want to be clear that I am stating these facts here today in an effort to advance a measure that would protect workers and communities, not in an attempt to vilify our nations' chemical companies. Indeed, these companies are a key part of our industrial fabric, providing jobs and producing products essential to our lives. This is certainly true of my home State of New Jersey, as I have already indicated. But when you look at the numbers, as I have laid them out here today, you realize that we have a problem to deal with. I'm certainly not unique in recognizing this issue, EPA, the Justice Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions, industry groups, and public safety groups all agree. In addition, the White House Strategy for Homeland Security recognizes the chemical and hazardous materials sector as an infrastructure protection priority. Governor Ridge amplified this point in his testimony before the Senate Environment Public Works committee on July 10 of last year. He said that: The fact is, we have a very diversified economy and our enemies look at some of our economic assets as targets. And clearly, the chemical facilities are one of them. We know that there have been reports validated about security deficiencies at dozens and dozens of those. I want to pick up on that last point that Governor Ridge made about security deficiencies, because it speaks to why I am putting this bill forward. Some companies have taken actions and are continuing to work to implement security measures in light of the post-September 11 environments. Others, however, are not. That's one crucial reason why a Federal program is needed. We need to be able to assure our constituents that this major vulnerability is being addressed in a swift and effective manner. We also want to assure them that certain minimum standards are being met throughout the country. We already do that to address certain infrastructure vulnerabilities. Most notably, we require nuclear power plants to meet extensive security standards as a condition of their operating licenses. I think we ought to tighten those standards, but the fact is that we have no standards at all for our chemical facilities. Before I go into specifics, I want to outline the general organizational scheme of the bill. In my view, addressing the risk to communities from a terrorist-caused release of hazardous chemicals requires two fundamental components. The first is improving security, so that the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack is lowered. The second is reducing hazards so that the impact of a successful attack is minimized. This requires two fundamentally different types of expertise and skills. That's why the bill involves both the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security. EPA has the chemical hazard expertise, and the Department of Homeland Security has the security expertise. EPA has a lead role in most of the bill, because it already has relationships with chemical facilities through its existing accident prevention programs. As to the specifics of the bill, I think it is a common-sense approach to dealing with the issue. I want to note that this bill is nearly identical to the version of the bill that was reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last July by a 19-0 vote. Two minor technical changes have been made to clarify the intent of the legislation, but it is otherwise exactly the same as the committee-reported bill that was acted on unanimously by the EPW committee last year. The heart of the bill is section 4. This section requires EPA and the Department of Homeland Security to identify ``high priority'' chemical facilities and then require those facilities to assess vulnerabilities and hazards, and then develop and implement a plan to improve security and use safer technologies. Section 4(a)(1) establishes the priority setting process, by which the EPA Administrator, in consultation the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as States and local government entities, is directed to identify high priority chemical facilities, based on factors identified in section 4(a)(2). These factors include the severity of harm that could be caused by a chemical release, proximity to population centers, threats to national security or critical infrastructure, threshold quantities of substances of concern that pose a serious threat, and such other safety or security factors that the Administrator considers appropriate. Because of the way the bill is structured, this means that EPA and the Department of Homeland Security are directed to start with the facilities that are subject to EPA's Risk Management Program requirements. This program applies to approximately 15,000 facilities in the United States that use, produce or store large quantities of hazardous chemicals. By applying the factors I mentioned, the priority setting process is meant to shorten this list of 15,000 facilities considerably. But the bill leaves it up to the Administration to determine exactly how many facilities within this universe ought to be covered by the bill. So that's step one, setting priorities, and that has to be done within one year of enactment. At this point, I want to mention the first of the clarifying technical changes that I have made to the bill. It was never the intent, nor I believe the effect, of the bill to include propane retailers as potentially regulated entities under this bill. But there was some confusion about the point after the bill was marked up last July. So last fall, I worked with the National Propane Gas Association on language that eliminates this confusion, and it is included in this bill. So I again want to make clear that the same propane retailers who are not subject to the EPA Risk Management Program requirements will not be ``high priority'' facilities under this bill, and therefore will not be subject to its requirements. In addition to identifying high priority facilities within the first year, EPA and the Department of Homeland Security must also promulgate regulations to require the high priority facilities to take the following steps: conduct a vulnerability and hazard assessment within one year after the regulations are promulgated; prepare and implement a response plan that addresses those vulnerabilities within 18 months after the regulations are promulgated. I want to say more about the assessments and response plans, because these requirements are really the core of the amendment. First, the amendment requires chemical facilities to work with local law enforcement and first responders, such as firefighters, in developing the assessments and plans. The second of the clarifying technical changes that I referred to in the opening part of my statement is simply to make clear the firefighters are among the first responders that the bill is referring to. September 11 showed us how brave and important these our first responders are. Every day, they are willing to risk their lives to respond to terrorist attacks if they need to. So it makes sense that they ought to be a part of the process of developing vulnerability assessments and response plans, as this bill would require. The same goes for employees of the high priority chemical facilities. They're on the front lines, which means two things. First, they are most at risk in case of a terrorist attack on their plants. Second, because they work in the plants every day, they will have ideas about how to secure the facilities and reduce hazards. So employees are part of the process as well. As to the assessments and plans themselves, the requirements in the bill are fairly general. There are a variety of vulnerability assessment tools that have already been developed by groups such as Sandia laboratories and the Center for Chemical Process Safety. I would expect that EPA and DHS would take advantage of existing methodologies such as these, but the bill leaves it up to the experts to decide what types of approaches make the most sense. And that probably won't be the same for everyone, I'm not advocating a one-size-fits-all approach here. But I do want to be sure that all of the high priority chemical facilities do a credible vulnerability assessment. The response plan requirements are also fairly general. Each facility is required to prepare prevention, preparedness and response plan that incorporates the results of the assessments. The plan must include actions and procedures, including safer design and maintenance, to eliminate or significantly lessen the potential consequences of a release. What this means in simple terms is that each facility has to develop a plan and take steps to reduce both the likelihood of a successful attack and to the harm that would occur if an attack were successful. In other words, they have to look at traditional security measures, such as fences, alarms, and guards. But they also have to look at whether they can make the plant safer. In other words, can less hazardous chemicals be used? Can containment technology such as fans or scrubbers be improved or employed to contain chemicals that may be released? Chemical facilities ought to evaluate the full range of options, look at the tradeoffs among them, and go forward with the best mix of security and technology options. Facilities are then required to send their assessments and plans to the EPA. EPA and DHS must review those assessments and plans, and certify compliance with the regulations. Any deficiencies identified by EPA and DHS can be remedies by issuance of an order. But the order can only be issued after a deliberate process that includes notification, compliance assistance, and an opportunity for a hearing. The certification process is there to ensure the public that facilities are complying the law. Those certifications will be the only information from the assessments and plans that is publicly available. The bill exempts all other information produced under the bill, most importantly, the assessments and plans themselves, from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. I don't take FOIA exemptions lightly. I believe strongly that, in general, the public has a right to information collected by the government. But I think it's pretty obvious that in the case of the information that would be submitted to the government under this bill, the vulnerability assessments and response plans, we simply can't allow the security details in these plans to be publicly available. But I think it does make sense that people who live near a chemical plant be able to find out from EPA and the DHS whether or not that plant has complied with the law. The bill goes even beyond FOIA exemptions to protect the assessments and plans. To ensure that the assessments and plans are properly safeguarded, the bill includes a requirement for EPA and Homeland Security to develop protocols to prevent unauthorized disclosure of those documents. And it attaches penalties to unauthorized disclosure. That's the essence of the bill. First, identify ``high priority'' chemical facilities. Second, require those facilities to assess vulnerabilities and hazards, and then develop and implement a plan to improve security and implement safer technologies. Third, EPA and the Department of Homeland Security review the assessments and plans, and they have the authority to require changes if deficiencies are identified. Fourth, assessments and plans are protected from unauthorized disclosure through a FOIA exemption and penalties that apply to unauthorized disclosure. The bill also includes an early compliance section that is designed to address concerns that the bill might slow ongoing voluntary security efforts. This provision enables companies to submit assessments and plans prior to promulgation of the regulations and have them judged by the standards in the Act. So companies don't have to wait for the regulations to come out to continue work or to submit plans. In conclusion, I think this is a balanced bill that puts common-sense requirements in place to deal with a significant problem. I think the bill has moved a long way from the introduced bill. It has accommodated many of the concerns that industry raised about the bill I introduced in the 107th Congress. It reflects intensive bipartisan negotiations, and I think it's a good bill. At the same time, I recognize that some of my colleagues have continuing concerns about the legislation. Last fall, I worked with Senators Inhofe, Breaux, Landrieu and Lincoln on these issues. I want them to know that I remain open-minded and committed to working with them, the rest of my colleagues and the Administration to resolve these issues so we can move quickly to protect Americans from the threat of attack on chemical facilities. And I want to extend the same commitment not only to the environmental and labor organizations that have supported the bill in the past, but also to the various industry groups that have worked on this bill. It's vital that we all find common ground quickly, and I stand ready to work with all interested parties. I want to close by expressing both my sense of urgency about this issue and my optimism that we will be able to move legislation quickly. Last fall, Governor Ridge and Administrator Whitman wrote to the Washington Post expressing their support for bipartisan legislation to deal with the chemical security threat. I ask unanimous consent that that letter be printed in the Record. I believe the letter was sincere, but the Administration has not yet engaged the Congress on this issue. I urge President Bush to provide leadership to ensure that his Administration works with us as the process moves forward. I am also encouraged that Senator Inhofe has identified chemical security as a legislative priority as he assumes the Chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works committee. I congratulate him on his new post, and again express my willingness to work with him on this important issue. With that, I yield the floor and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce an important piece of legislation that I worked on in the 107th Congress, the Chemical Security Act. I am proud to be joined by Senators Jeffords, Boxer, Clinton, and Lautenberg in reintroducing this bill. Senators Jeffords, Boxer, and Clinton were all strong allies in the 107th Congress, and I thank them for their continuing support. And I am pleased to have Senator Lautenberg as a cosponsor. He has a long history of working to protect communities from all types of chemical threats. I particularly want to thank Senator Jeffords for his hard work on this legislation in the 107th Congress. As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works committee, he provided critical leadership in bringing this bill through the committee successfully. I thank him and his staff for their hard work and look forward to continuing to work with them on this important issue. I'll describe what the bill does in a minute. But first I want to briefly explain why I think this legislation is so important. September 11 shocked us into the realization that our assets can be turned against us by terrorists. If you are a New Jersey Senator, you don't have to think about that idea for too long before you realize that chemical plants and other facilities that have hazardous chemicals would be high on a terrorists' list. The fact is, that we have a lot of those types of facilities in my State, and because we're such a densely populated State, chemical releases from these facilities pose grave risks. In fact, according to EPA data, there are eight plants in my State where a worst-case release of toxic chemicals could threaten more than a million people. But this is not a parochial issue. The same EPA data shows that there are 110 plants nationwide where such a release could threaten more than a million people. These plants are located in 22 States. And there are 44 States that have at least one facility where such a release could threaten more than 100,000 people. I want to be clear that I am stating these facts here today in an effort to advance a measure that would protect workers and communities, not in an attempt to vilify our nations' chemical companies. Indeed, these companies are a key part of our industrial fabric, providing jobs and producing products essential to our lives. This is certainly true of my home State of New Jersey, as I have already indicated. But when you look at the numbers, as I have laid them out here today, you realize that we have a problem to deal with. I'm certainly not unique in recognizing this issue, EPA, the Justice Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions, industry groups, and public safety groups all agree. In addition, the White House Strategy for Homeland Security recognizes the chemical and hazardous materials sector as an infrastructure protection priority. Governor Ridge amplified this point in his testimony before the Senate Environment Public Works committee on July 10 of last year. He said that: The fact is, we have a very diversified economy and our enemies look at some of our economic assets as targets. And clearly, the chemical facilities are one of them. We know that there have been reports validated about security deficiencies at dozens and dozens of those. I want to pick up on that last point that Governor Ridge made about security deficiencies, because it speaks to why I am putting this bill forward. Some companies have taken actions and are continuing to work to implement security measures in light of the post-September 11 environments. Others, however, are not. That's one crucial reason why a Federal program is needed. We need to be able to assure our constituents that this major vulnerability is being addressed in a swift and effective manner. We also want to assure them that certain minimum standards are being met throughout the country. We already do that to address certain infrastructure vulnerabilities. Most notably, we require nuclear power plants to meet extensive security standards as a condition of their operating licenses. I think we ought to tighten those standards, but the fact is that we have no standards at all for our chemical facilities. Before I go into specifics, I want to outline the general organizational scheme of the bill. In my view, addressing the risk to communities from a terrorist-caused release of hazardous chemicals requires two fundamental components. The first is improving security, so that the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack is lowered. The second is reducing hazards so that the impact of a successful attack is minimized. This requires two fundamentally different types of expertise and skills. That's why the bill involves both the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security. EPA has the chemical hazard expertise, and the Department of Homeland Security has the security expertise. EPA has a lead role in most of the bill, because it already has relationships with chemical facilities through its existing accident prevention programs. As to the specifics of the bill, I think it is a common-sense approach to dealing with the issue. I want to note that this bill is nearly identical to the version of the bill that was reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last July by a 19-0 vote. Two minor technical changes have been made to clarify the intent of the legislation, but it is otherwise exactly the same as the committee-reported bill that was acted on unanimously by the EPW committee last year. The heart of the bill is section 4. This section requires EPA and the Department of Homeland Security to identify ``high priority'' chemical facilities and then require those facilities to assess vulnerabilities and hazards, and then develop and implement a plan to improve security and use safer technologies. Section 4(a)(1) establishes the priority setting process, by which the EPA Administrator, in consultation the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as States and local government entities, is directed to identify high priority chemical facilities, based on factors identified in section 4(a)(2). These factors include the severity of harm that could be caused by a chemical release, proximity to population centers, threats to national security or critical infrastructure, threshold quantities of substances of concern that pose a serious threat, and such other safety or security factors that the Administrator considers appropriate. Because of the way the bill is structured, this means that EPA and the Department of Homeland Security are directed to start with the facilities that are subject to EPA's Risk Management Program requirements. This program applies to approximately 15,000 facilities in the United States that use, produce or store large quantities of hazardous chemicals. By applying the factors I mentioned, the priority setting process is meant to shorten this list of 15,000 facilities considerably. But the bill leaves it up to the Administration to determine exactly how many facilities within this universe ought to be covered by the bill. So that's step one, setting priorities, and that has to be done within one year of enactment. At this point, I want to mention the first of the clarifying technical changes that I have made to the bill. It was never the intent, nor I believe the effect, of the bill to include propane retailers as potentially regulated entities under this bill. But there was some confusion about the point after the bill was marked up last July. So last fall, I worked with the National Propane Gas Association on language that eliminates this confusion, and it is included in this bill. So I again want to make clear that the same propane retailers who are not subject to the EPA Risk Management Program requirements will not be ``high priority'' facilities under this bill, and therefore will not be subject to its requirements. In addition to identifying high priority facilities within the first year, EPA and the Department of Homeland Security must also promulgate regulations to require the high priority facilities to take the following steps: conduct a vulnerability and hazard assessment within one year after the regulations are promulgated; prepare and implement a response plan that addresses those vulnerabilities within 18 months after the regulations are promulgated. I want to say more about the assessments and response plans, because these requirements are really the core of the amendment. First, the amendment requires chemical facilities to work with local law enforcement and first responders, such as firefighters, in developing the assessments and plans. The second of the clarifying technical changes that I referred to in the opening part of my statement is simply to make clear the firefighters are among the first responders that the bill is referring to. September 11 showed us how brave and important these our first responders are. Every day, they are willing to risk their lives to respond to terrorist attacks if they need to. So it makes sense that they ought to be a part of the process of developing vulnerability assessments and response plans, as this bill would require. The same goes for employees of the high priority chemical facilities. They're on the front lines, which means two things. First, they are most at risk in case of a terrorist attack on their plants. Second, because they work in the plants every day, they will have ideas about how to secure the facilities and reduce hazards. So employees are part of the process as well. As to the assessments and plans themselves, the requirements in the bill are fairly general. There are a variety of vulnerability assessment tools that have already been developed by groups such as Sandia laboratories and the Center for Chemical Process Safety. I would expect that EPA and DHS would take advantage of existing methodologies such as these, but the bill leaves it up to the experts to decide what types of approaches make the most sense. And that probably won't be the same for everyone, I'm not advocating a one-size-fits-all approach here. But I do want to be sure that all of the high priority chemical facilities do a credible vulnerability assessment. The response plan requirements are also fairly general. Each facility is required to prepare prevention, preparedness and response plan that incorporates the results of the assessments. The plan must include actions and procedures, including safer design and maintenance, to eliminate or significantly lessen the potential consequences of a release. What this means in simple terms is that each facility has to develop a plan and take steps to reduce both the likelihood of a successful attack and to the harm that would occur if an attack were successful. In other words, they have to look at traditional security measures, such as fences, alarms, and guards. But they also have to look at whether they can make the plant safer. In other words, can less hazardous chemicals be used? Can containment technology such as fans or scrubbers be improved or employed to contain chemicals that may be released? Chemical facilities ought to evaluate the full range of options, look at the tradeoffs among them, and go forward with the best mix of security and technology options. Facilities are then required to send their assessments and plans to the EPA. EPA and DHS must review those assessments and plans, and certify compliance with the regulations. Any deficiencies identified by EPA and DHS can be remedies by issuance of an order. But the order can only be issued after a deliberate process that includes notification, compliance assistance, and an opportunity for a hearing. The certification process is there to ensure the public that facilities are complying the law. Those certifications will be the only information from the assessments and plans that is publicly available. The bill exempts all other information produced under the bill, most importantly, the assessments and plans themselves, from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. I don't take FOIA exemptions lightly. I believe strongly that, in general, the public has a right to information collected by the government. But I think it's pretty obvious that in the case of the information that would be submitted to the government under this bill, the vulnerability assessments and response plans, we simply can't allow the security details in these plans to be publicly available. But I think it does make sense that people who live near a chemical plant be able to find out from EPA and the DHS whether or not that plant has complied with the law. The bill goes even beyond FOIA exemptions to protect the assessments and plans. To ensure that the assessments and plans are properly safeguarded, the bill includes a requirement for EPA and Homeland Security to develop protocols to prevent unauthorized disclosure of those documents. And it attaches penalties to unauthorized disclosure. That's the essence of the bill. First, identify ``high priority'' chemical facilities. Second, require those facilities to assess vulnerabilities and hazards, and then develop and implement a plan to improve security and implement safer technologies. Third, EPA and the Department of Homeland Security review the assessments and plans, and they have the authority to require changes if deficiencies are identified. Fourth, assessments and plans are protected from unauthorized disclosure through a FOIA exemption and penalties that apply to unauthorized disclosure. The bill also includes an early compliance section that is designed to address concerns that the bill might slow ongoing voluntary security efforts. This provision enables companies to submit assessments and plans prior to promulgation of the regulations and have them judged by the standards in the Act. So companies don't have to wait for the regulations to come out to continue work or to submit plans. In conclusion, I think this is a balanced bill that puts common-sense requirements in place to deal with a significant problem. I think the bill has moved a long way from the introduced bill. It has accommodated many of the concerns that industry raised about the bill I introduced in the 107th Congress. It reflects intensive bipartisan negotiations, and I think it's a good bill. At the same time, I recognize that some of my colleagues have continuing concerns about the legislation. Last fall, I worked with Senators Inhofe, Breaux, Landrieu and Lincoln on these issues. I want them to know that I remain open-minded and committed to working with them, the rest of my colleagues and the Administration to resolve these issues so we can move quickly to protect Americans from the threat of attack on chemical facilities. And I want to extend the same commitment not only to the environmental and labor organizations that have supported the bill in the past, but also to the various industry groups that have worked on this bill. It's vital that we all find common ground quickly, and I stand ready to work with all interested parties. I want to close by expressing both my sense of urgency about this issue and my optimism that we will be able to move legislation quickly. Last fall, Governor Ridge and Administrator Whitman wrote to the Washington Post expressing their support for bipartisan legislation to deal with the chemical security threat. I ask unanimous consent that that letter be printed in the Record. I believe the letter was sincere, but the Administration has not yet engaged the Congress on this issue. I urge President Bush to provide leadership to ensure that his Administration works with us as the process moves forward. I am also encouraged that Senator Inhofe has identified chemical security as a legislative priority as he assumes the Chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works committee. I congratulate him on his new post, and again express my willingness to work with him on this important issue. With that, I yield the floor and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. I appreciate very much the courtesy of the Senator from New Hampshire. Mr. President, we have a problem in the States. And the tie in of the taxes that States collect to the Federal tax system is one of those places where there is a problem. Another, on which I will not go into great deal, is the issuance of municipal bonds, tax-exempt bonds, the fundamental element of how you fund infrastructure, schools, and all the other elements at the local level. They are going to have to compete now with tax-free dividends and are going to suffer very seriously on a competitive basis in the financial markets. I can assure you, interest rates for State and local government bonds, on an equal basis--regardless of where the markets go, where interest rates go--will be higher than they would have otherwise been. So there is a real problem. I will go back and just mention briefly, the lack of attention to these exhausted unemployment benefits is going to put greater burdens on States and create greater rolls in Medicaid. Lots of support is going to have to be delivered to the individual families who are suffering from those kinds of situations. I think we have a real problem there. I also want to say I think there are other issues involved. Maybe the most important is, where are our priorities? We are at a time of great national insecurity, with good reason. We need to protect the American people at home, abroad, and against terrorists. We had almost 700 New Jersey people lose their lives on September 11. People are concerned about security. We need to be investing in it. Why and wherefore are we having such a program that brings little sacrifice to those who are doing well at a time when there are such great needs? I could go on further about some of the complexities of this and how it will offer great opportunity for financial engineering, chicanery, if you will, almost the repetitive nature of some of the things that we saw in the last several years: The unfortunate implication for 401(k)s and IRAs and tax-exempt pension funds with regard to dividends, the disincentives it will create for longrun savings for retirement, the problems it may very well cause to the real estate industry because of the competitive disadvantage of REITs and the financial structure which is an important thing for housing for people. There are serious, serious flaws in this. Instead of directly addressing the fundamental economic problem, which is excess capacity, both in labor and manufacturing, this reflects, in my view, a return to the discredited economics of radical supply siders. I don't want to quote only a Republican commentator, but I will. Kevin Phillips put it this way: This isn't even trickle-down economics. It's mist down economics. We are on the wrong track. We have a new economic team at the White House. I hope they will step back and evaluate some of these elements. There are places where we can work together on this plan, but 90 percent of this proposal that is focused on the longrun restructuring of economic structure, in my view, is a bad idea. It truly hurts our States and potentially undermines investment at the corporate level, and it has some issues on the fairness side. It is time that we take a rethink. I hope we can have a great debate over the next few months in the Senate to make this a better program to help all Americans.

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I say to the distinguished Senator from Utah, I could very much agree with many of the broad principles I hear. How we rearrange them to get to those longrun growth numbers that do compound and make our economy stronger is an area where men have a difference of opinion. That is one of the things I will discuss. We are seriously at a point in the path of economic history, at least of our Nation, where those choices lead to long-term structural problems, ones we have visited at other points in time, ones that with regard to alternatives could actually stimulate the economy, get us into an investment cycle that could drive that same kind of growth rate that the Senator speaks so eloquently about and which I could agree. If we could get that economy growing from 2.9 percent to 3.5 or 3.4, we could create the kinds of incentives for people to invest and go forward. The real issue is how do we get on to that path of growth? There are serious differences of opinion. That is a debate we need to have on the floor of the Senate in front of the American people. I will take a few moments to actually talk through at least my perspective on some of the issues that arise from the President's proposal. I have certainly heard a lot of commentary on it. We have heard from some that it is bold. We have heard from some that it is risky. We have heard from some that it is reckless. From my point of view, it is more towards the imprudent, at best, and in some ways I find it is reckless with regard to long-term fiscal health and stability. I consider myself a fiscal conservative, on balance, over a period of time. I think we need to live within our means. I don't think that is going to be accomplished here. I am pleased the President recognizes our economy has major problems. It is a reality. Unfortunately, it is past the time when we should have addressed some of these issues, but it is an important admission. This and changing the economic team has been an important statement. We needed a new look at where we were. Since March of 2001 when the recession was declared by a blue-ribbon panel of economists led by Mr. Feldstein, a prominent conservative economist, we have lost 2.1 million American jobs in the private sector. Actually, with this morning's announcement on unemployment, that would be about 2.2 million jobs. The unemployment rate, again, as many have heard, stands at 6 percent. The most important element of the announcement today is that over the last 2 months we have lost 188,000 jobs. By the way, the President is predicting that the program that we put in place will only produce that amount of jobs over the next 12 to 18 months. Mortgage foreclosures are at a high. I think everyone knows all too well the kind of lost value we have had in the stock market over the last 2 years, even more substantial over the last 3. Consumer confidence is bumping along at historic lows. Demand has declined to an extent that businesses are operating at 75 percent of their capacity. The average for the country over the last 25 years is about 81 percent. We are running Federal budget deficit rates of about $200 billion this year. Just yesterday there was a new study of the State governments. They are running budget deficits cumulatively of about $90 billion. Many of our local communities are suffering from the same kind of pressures in their local budgets. We are seeing increases in property taxes. I think, in short, we have a serious economic situation in this country. It is one that does deserve attention and I am glad we are having the debate with regard to it. Frankly, the people of New Jersey have known this for some time. I live in a State where Lucent Technology has shrunk its workforce from 180,000 employees--not all of them in New Jersey but on a worldwide basis--to roughly 30,000. We have closed essentially one of the great intellectual research institutions that created some of the innovation that has driven the American economy--Bell Labs. We are seeing an impending shutdown of the two remaining auto manufacturing plants, certainly cut shifts to one, and they are talking about closing one of those plants in New Jersey. In the northern part of the State we are seeing significant if not massive layoffs in the financial services industry, among others. We are having about a $4 billion budget deficit in the State of New Jersey in fiscal 2003 and projections for about $6 billion in fiscal 2004. Our Governors and mayors know we have a problem. I am glad we are now coming to that recognition here in Washington. California is looking at a budget deficit, I saw in the paper this morning, of about $35 billion over the next 15 months to 18 months. The Texas deficit is $12 billion, New York's is $10 billion, New Jersey, as I said, is someplace between $5.5 billion and $6 billion. We have to understand we have to deal with growth in this economy and it has to happen now or we are going to have incredible stress and strain and I think actions that will end up undermining our longrun economic security here at home. We need a serious and focused action to get our economy moving. On that front I think there are several parts of the President's program that deserve support. For example, I totally would back accelerating an expanded child credit, the adjustments in the marriage penalty, tax relief for the middle class in the 10 percent bracket, the small business, the AMT provisions. These are all sound and reasonable provisions. Unfortunately, though, they are a relatively small part of the overall package. I think we need to make sure we are providing help to those who need it most. These do. I think they will help get our economy on track. Unfortunately, so few of these will be hit today, in 2003 and 2004, to really give that drive, that thrust to the economy that I think will make a difference in a way that deals with some of those problems I talked about. We have 1 million people with 95,000 a week already on long-term extended unemployment. These are people who dropped off the rolls that will allow for benefiting from the unemployment compensation program we put in place this week. I think it is important that we get moving. There are some elements in the President's plan that I think are supportable, but they are relatively a small piece--about 30 percent--of the overall program. I think in many ways--and I will try to go through this and will make some comments on specific elements of it--you could argue there are elements of this program that are antigrowth. I would particularly like to talk about some of this cash issue I heard the Senator from Utah talk about. He and I agree that cash is king. It is one of those things that actually drives the valuations of corporations and their ability to do things. I just come out with a different perspective on how we are addressing that in this particular program. We really do, though, need to stimulate our economy now to provide jobs, absorb excess capacity, get into that investment cycle that I think will drive our economy to creating jobs. Let's remember, most economists and business people believed--and by the way, so did all of our budgeteers around here--that there were some simple principles we need to follow with regard to stimulus programs. They articulated those last year when we were going through these programs. We need short-term stimulus. That should be immediate and temporary. We need long-term fiscal discipline, long-term fiscal health and, in my view, the plan we saw put on the table on Tuesday just the reverse. Less than 10 percent of its 10-year cost will go into the economy this year, a very small percentage. By the way, if we talk for a while longer here on the floor of the Senate, there will be even less going to the economy this year, before the program is implemented. There is very little argument with the view that it will undermine our long-term fiscal discipline leading to what I believe will be higher long-term interest rates down the road. People argue about whether deficits create interest rates. They only do that when we are operating at full capacity. When there is not full capacity, there is no crowding out issue. What we need to worry about is what are interest rates going to do when there is real competition for money in a fully operating economy. I think those shortfalls that are going to be built in structurally when we come out of this are going to lead to disastrous deficits when we come out of this down the road. When the baby boomers retire--we have 35 million seniors now--we will have 70 million in 20 years. That will put incredible pressures on our medical system, Social Security system, all elements of our society. I do not think anyone has planned, particularly in the context of these tax cuts, how we are going to get through that. The bottom line, in my view, is this is a plan that will not work. It is antijobs and antigrowth, from my perspective, on balance, and in many ways it is imprudent. First, this plan--and this gets at one of the things on which I think the distinguished Senator from Utah and I agree, in principle--the plan to encourage corporations to shift cash from corporate investments and employment into dividends will reduce overall business investment and either cost jobs that could be created, or even the maintenance of them. Certainly in the short run that is going to be the case, and potentially over the long run. Few people seem to get focused on the fact which I think should be obvious: You can't spend the same dollar twice. So for each dollar contributed as a dividend, companies will have one less dollar to invest in plant and equipment; one less dollar to plow into research and development, one less dollar to hire new personnel. The end result will be investment in fewer jobs in the short term and potentially less economic growth in the long term as well. By the way, I have some sympathy for this double taxation of dividend argument. But if you were going to do that, it ought to be a deduction against taxable income on the balance sheet of the corporation. Then the cash is held, they can make the decisions and treat it as an equivalent of interest, and then we would not have the bias in our system towards debt as opposed to equity. And it should, in my view, be accompanied with reform, other tax reforms, that take away some of the causes of why reported income is about 100 percent higher than what taxable reported income is. It just strikes me we are addressing this problem wrong, even if we wanted to reduce the double taxation of dividends, but it is absolutely obvious and certainly common sense if you take cash off the balance sheet of the corporation it has less ability to invest in its future, less ability to invest in hiring more people going forward. Cash is king. It is part of the valuation. But it strikes me, as we are approaching this, it is a wrong formulation. The Bush plan does contain one element that I think is a reasonably decent and dampening incentive to shift money in cash dividends. It is very complicated. It adjusts the shareholder base. Their stock profits are not distributed in the form of dividends. I accept the fact that it will marginally offset the shift of cash dividends. I think that will be the minor scheme of things because I think the competition among corporations showing different returns will be high. But I do think that it is a reasonable attempt to try to make some offset to getting cash off the balance sheet for those who think they have to do marginal rates of return in which they can invest. It is an incredibly complex concept to be able to explain to the vast majority of Americans. To understand the differences and the increased bases for the vast majority of Americans will be a hard concept to get their minds around. It is going to lead to an absolute deluge of paperwork and shifting of information back and forth between investors, brokers, tax preparers, and all other kinds of folks which I think can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences. Beyond the lack of fiscal stimulus in the first year and what I believe will be a perverse impact created by the structure of the different proposals, I am also concerned about the distribution of tax benefits provided in the President's plan. Many of my colleagues tried to explain or at least talked about the obvious unfairness of that distribution in a progressive tax system. The Bush administration, in my view, and those who often talk about this obscure distributional impact of the proposal, focus the tax burden exclusively on Federal income taxes and ignore the severe burdens imposed by Federal payroll taxes, all shapes and forms of State taxes, and local taxes, and especially property taxes and sales taxes. In New Jersey, the budget deficit required us to cut services and raise property taxes 7.1 percent. The State of New Jersey, by the way, also had to put on a business tax to be able to raise about $1 billion to close that budget deficit. In the city of New York, which has been troubled by current events, will have to raise property taxes 18.5 percent this year to try to make up for the holes that are being created and the lack of support from the Federal Government. These additional taxes that I am talking about, such as property taxes in particular, which weigh very heavily on the middle class, and taking into account the distribution of the American tax burden, create an entirely different profile than if you just take a small slice of the pie and look at the Federal income tax. Without taking a more comprehensive approach, the President is really misleading the American people based on the secondary impacts that will occur. Rather than focusing on the fairness issue, I wish to focus instead on the ineffectiveness of the administration's proposal in promoting economic growth. I am one of those guys who believes a rising tide does lift all boats, and if we do well everyone will benefit. Grow the pie. There is a broad agreement among economists that low- and moderate- income people are likely to spend the tax cuts rather than the high marginal income people who would not have a propensity to spend it. It is a well-known fact and it is a matter of economic policy that any stimulus program ought to focus its tax cuts marginally on those who will turn around and spend it because then you will get the multiplier effect on the economy. You will get that growth that we are both trying to get. My friend from Utah has talked about trying to get it up to 3.5 or 3.1 or 3.2. We can do that if we can get the people to spend the money--reducing inventories of manufacturers and people going back to work. I think the Bush plan does precisely the opposite. Over the next 10 years, just looking at some of the distributional interests, lots of people with annual incomes of more than $1 million-- by the way, this is a 10-year look--those with $1 million of income or more will get a break worth $900,000. Middle-class-income families--by the way, I define, at least in New Jersey, the middle class as being in the $75,000 to $125,000 range because there are different views about what that is. But let us take middle-class-income families of $75,000 to $125,000. In that same 10- year period, they would get $18,000 over 10 years. I think that is roughly 2.5 percent of the $900,000. Let us consider people who would be in moderate-income classes. In some parts of the country maybe this is defined as the middle class. Even in New Jersey, it is between $30,000 and $40,000. The median income for an individual in the United States is about $27,000. But using a $30,000 to $40,000 range, I think the total 10- year cumulative value of this is about $3,500 under the Bush plan. This is .4 percent of the total benefit that the million-dollar earners get. Consider the 25 million taxpayers with purported gross incomes of less than $10,000. They make up 20 percent of the population of taxpayers. They will get, over the 10 years, a total of $50. By the way, they are paying payroll taxes. Many of them are paying property taxes. Many of them are paying State sales taxes, and all the other nonconsidered taxes in this view. I think that is a tough way to look at it. This is not intended to say, wow, this is bad; people at the top end are getting such great breaks. It is just that there is a distributional reality that doesn't make sense: $900,000 over 10 years for those making more than $1 million; $18,000 for those between $75,000 and $100,000; and $3,500 for those between $30,000 and $40,000; and $50 for those $10,000 and below. I think you can make a fairness argument. But I think the most important piece is that it will not stimulate the economy. The people who will spend money--particularly in the short run--are not going to be receiving the resources to be able to go off to their Wal-Marts or Targets and other places and put the demand into this economy. I know that the administration and many have argued and are pointing out that those of us who make the kind of case that I just made are entering into what is tantamount to class warfare. My point has nothing to do with that--nothing at all. It is, in fact, just the opposite. As other Democrats, I believe our goal should be to grow the economy to the benefit of every American--for all Americans. I want to create more millionaires. I want more people to be more successful--not fewer. Handing out tax cuts so disproportionately to the top of the income scale is a highly ineffective way to grow our economy. They just do not turn around and drive the economy--certainly not in the short run. There are real debates about whether that actually gets back into the investment system, particularly if a lot of it goes off to seniors and a lot of it goes into bonds and coupons and into Federal Government securities. It is just not certain that it is going to grow productive capacity, and certainly it isn't going to eat up the excess capacity we have today. I don't think this is going to grow the pie larger, which is what all of us should look for. We made more millionaires in the 1990s than we did in any other period in the history of the United States. I think it is absolutely essential that we talk about growing the pie as opposed to getting into this discussion about how we are dividing it. Keep in mind that all Americans, including the very wealthy, in my view, benefit from a strong economy. Those at the top income scale, as I said, did well in the 1990s. We adopted policies based on a commitment of fiscal discipline, along with targeted investment in priorities such as education. Abandoning those policies for tax breaks such as the proposed dividend exclusion clearly will not mean more cash in hand for those who invest in our society. There is nothing wrong with that in its own right. But is it going to grow the economy? I think this, in many ways, runs the risk of being antigrowth. It certainly runs the risk of higher interest rates down the road given the fiscal implications that may very well come about. I just have to say that it seems odd after the growth experience of the 1990s. I know there were problems at the end of the 1990s. But we created 22 million new jobs, we had a balanced budget, and we had tremendous growth and productivity in this country because of investment in technology and the spread of American entrepreneurial skills. Why we need radical surgery on America's tax structure is just a hard concept to get your mind around. Clearly, we have cyclical problems that can be addressed by dealing with an inventory cycle and investment cycle. And I think that calls for short-term stimulus and managing carefully our long-term fiscal situation. Next, I want to move on and talk about one claim that has been made repeatedly by proponents of the administration and the administration officials that gets sort of tied up in this class-warfare charge; that is, the administration's tax cut supposedly benefits seniors. This claim, in my view, is about as misleading as anything I can imagine. There are 37 million seniors in the U.S. Yet only one-fourth of them--less than 10 million; about 9.25 million--will receive dividends. Some 75 percent--or 27 million--of America's seniors will get absolutely nothing from the President's dividend exclusion. Moreover, only a small fraction of the wealthiest seniors will enjoy most of the benefits. Nearly 40 percent of the dividend tax cut for seniors will flow to those filers with incomes exceeding $200,000. That is a mere 2.5 percent of tax returns filed by senior citizens. I am trying to figure it out because there are married couples in there, but I think it is around 250,000 seniors out of 37 million seniors who will get 40 percent of that so-called benefit for seniors. So it is highly misleading to argue that seniors will benefit from this plan. Only a small number of the wealthiest seniors will benefit. And when you take the potential cost of this--in maintaining the real value of Social Security benefits, the ability of our Nation to truly deal with a prescription drug benefit, regardless of what kind of plan comes forward--to talk about this benefiting seniors on a relative basis to the overall needs of the seniors is hard for me to get my mind around. It is virtually mind-boggling. In fact, one could make the case that seniors are among the biggest losers in the President's plan because we are not going to have the ability to deal with this baby boom generation, going from 37 million seniors to 70 million seniors over the next 15 years. So far, I have discussed the small size of the stimulus in the first year, its incentives for companies to shift cash away from investments and jobs, and targeting the tax cuts to those who are least likely to spend it. I have responded to some of the claims that I think are relatively bogus with regard to benefits for America's seniors. Now I want to focus on another and critically important issue, which is the failure to address the severe fiscal problems facing our States. In many ways, it makes those problems worse. In fact, it is in this vein that this plan is also seriously antigrowth. And if it isn't antigrowth, it is absolutely antistate when you come to considering the impact on State finances. While many of us in Washington are talking about putting more money into the economy, as I suggested, most of our Governors and our State legislators are having to deal with how we pull money out of the economy. That is because almost all of our States have strict balanced budget requirements--48 out of 50 States--and face severe fiscal problems. The total of the projected deficits, as I said, was just reestimated--about $90 billion, give or take $10 billion. I agree with the distinguished Senator from Utah; some of these economic projections are hard to put in print. But if we do not get the economy going, the only way that number is going to go is up. The crisis facing State treasuries is not just a problem for elected officials; it is a problem for all of our citizens and for our economy. States and localities already have begun to raise taxes. In New Jersey, property taxes have increased 7.1 percent; in the city of New York, 18.5 percent. Across this country, we are raising property taxes because people care about the education of their children, they care about transportation, and they are investing heavily in homeland security to protect the American people. It is a big deal that we are not taking on a fair share of that at the Federal level. By the way, we just created another unfunded mandate with Leave No Child Behind. And our budget proposals are not meeting our promises according to it. We have not done that with IDEA or in special education. And there are real needs with regard to our homeland security. We are putting burdens on the States and local governments and not coming up with help to make it happen. These tax increases and spending cuts that the individual States and localities are doing not only hurt taxpayers but they really undermine the efficacy of Government and the program beneficiaries they serve to depress the economy further. That deficit among the States, in fact, more than offsets the entire stimulus proposed for fiscal year 2003 in the President's plan. And I suspect you will be able to say the same thing about fiscal year 2004. We have different timings on when the two fit together. But we are taking out of one pocket and putting it into another. I think it is really wrongheaded policy and really will limit growth in the country. I think it is really putting unfair burdens on our State and local governments. Only the Federal Government is in a position to counter these pressures. Instead, the administration's plan does absolutely nothing to address these fiscal crises in our States or to reduce the need for State tax hikes or spending cuts. It just does not deal with these issues. I hope we can understand and adjust this plan to take into consideration the plight of all of our country, all of our various entities that service the American people, by pulling this all together. By the way, the proposal actually worsens the situation on not only the support level, but every State ties its State income tax--those States that have an income tax--to the Federal tax system. And the States are going to directly lose $4.5 billion--almost $100 million in my State of New Jersey, but over $1 billion in the State of California. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. CORZINE. I appreciate very much the comments of the Senator from Utah. I think we need a healthy debate to get the best policies. I will make one observation about the S corporations and K-1s, which I know something about. The fact is, I try not to use the sort of distributional numbers. You will notice I did not use the top 1 percent; I used people making $1 million or more as the basis on which I compare numbers. So there is some element of that which translates into comparability. I think you and I can sort through those in detail. But the fact is, people at $1 million or more in adjusted gross income are going to have an advantage of $900,000 cumulatively over the 10 years, and the other brackets are at $18,500, $3,500, and $50. I believe that a rising tide lifts all boats. That is the theme about which I am talking. We may have differences about how you get there. I want to make sure that we distinguish between talking about percentages, and what I am trying to talk about is the people who actually get the benefit.

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to respond for 1 minute, if the Senator from Ohio will not object.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. I request I be permitted to speak up to 30 minutes.

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I understand we are in a period of morning business.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Madam President, I rise today to say a simple thank you to a number of my retiring colleagues, good people who have done good things to serve the citizens of their States but, more importantly, serve our Nation. I particularly mention Max Cleland and Jean Carnahan, who are exceptional and special people. They are heroic in their own way, as the term is truly defined. The courage and optimism they have shown in their lives strengthened mine. The grace they brought to their service in the Senate, to their States and the Nation, is truly remarkable. Max Cleland does not need extensive description to know that he is a patriot, one who cares about America, worked hard to voice support for veterans and supports working people across this country. I worked with him closely on the economic plans we thought would stimulate the economy. He is a remarkable winner. He came into New Jersey and helped me as I was a fledgling, aspiring Senator. He took me into worlds I had not known, and I truly will miss him, as will all of us in the Senate. Jean Carnahan is my desk mate on my right, No. 96 out of 100, me being 97. We sat together, laughed together, worked together, learned together. She showed me how to be a little bit better at being a Senator than I might otherwise be. She is an inspiration. In her own life, she dealt with tragedy and turned it into opportunity. A remarkable woman who truly cared about the people of Missouri and this Nation, she brought great grace to everything she did. Max Cleland and Jean Carnahan are an inspiration to the lives of all of us now and as we go forward. So I congratulate them in their service and celebrate their lives. From a different perspective, less personal because I have worked less frequently with them and certainly have a different partisan perspective, but I commend their service and respectfully congratulate Strom Thurmond, Bob Smith, Jesse Helms, and Tim Hutchinson. They are remarkable people in their own right. Certainly, Strom Thurmond is someone with whom it is an honor to be in the Senate, to see the courage he brought every day to his service in the Senate while I was here, but to the Nation in general. For years, Bob Smith, his great leadership on the environment I saw firsthand as a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I thank Jesse Helms and Tim Hutchinson for their service. Each has been a major contributor to America's political life and the deliberations in this great body. So, again, a simple thank you. Finally, maybe most importantly, I want to say a few words about my colleague, my political mentor and my friend, Bob Torricelli. Let me begin by saying most certainly that, like Senator Torricelli himself, I was deeply disappointed in his admitted errors of judgment. The subsequent reprimand by the Ethics Committee was a most unfortunate blemish on a career and life of extraordinary service, certainly to the people of New Jersey and I believe to the Nation. In the fullness of time, we all are judged not always by one event in our lives; we are judged by the complete contribution we make or we do not make. Senator Torricelli is one who has made many contributions to individuals, to my State, and to the Nation. It is remarkable, frankly, that his whole adult life has been dedicated to public service, stretching 20 years in elected office and probably 25, 26 years from his early days in college. He was a part of the political environment and public service, starting as a deputy legislative counsel for New Jersey's Gov. Brendan Byrne--I think that actually means he was his driver--but he was an important part of one of the most successful administrations and leadership of the State of New Jersey. A great man, Governor Byrne, gave Senator Torricelli his start. Then he worked in the Carter White House with Vice President Mondale as a senior staff person, one who was close to many of the important issues in foreign affairs and domestic policy on which the Vice President worked. In 1982, he was elected to the House of Representatives and served there for 14 years, a strong, constant voice, a representative of New Jersey. He worked on matters relating to transportation systems, environmental issues, concerns about our educational system, public housing, all those things that make a big difference to the most densely populated State in the Nation--in the most densely populated county in our Nation. Senator Torricelli built an unimpeachable career in the House of Representatives and used that as a platform to be elected to the Senate in 1996--always, always a tough fighter, tough elections, tough fighter for the issues he believed in, and particularly a tough fighter for New Jersey. Together we have been able to have a very positive and constructive dialog with the White House, with five judges appointed to district courts, all as a package. This is a very important contribution to our judicial system, one where high-quality people agree to work. We were pleased to work together to respond to the tragedy of September 11 and the 691 families in New Jersey who lost a loved one, with regard to working on the funds, to assure tax deductibility for families was allowed, making sure the New York-New Jersey metropolitan region was properly or appropriately supported with financial resources. Bob Torricelli was a fighter for that. He was a fighter for making sure we resisted domestic violence in the home, provided more housing for battered women, pushed to take guns away from wife beaters and child abusers, fought for middle-class tax relief. Senator Torricelli and I did not always agree on some of the proposals. Some, we did. He certainly made a major contribution in our most recent tax relief proposal that the President and the Senate and others came to include, the college tuition tax deductibility, which he fought for, which was included, expanding deductions for student loans, a tax credit for lifetime loan. All these are major contributions that will live long beyond a term in the Senate. He was a strong advocate for those suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, eliminating restrictive Medicare rules with regard to that. On foreign relations issues, he was a constant and ever-present voice to make sure American foreign policy was broadly attentive to human rights and making sure America's interests were represented not only in meaningful defense terms but that we were involved in carrying a strong posture with regard to the values in which we believe in the Nation. Finally, we cannot talk about Senator Torricelli's efforts without his strong political advocacy and representation of the need to make sure we have a strong two-party system in this country, with a voice, that ideas are openly debated, and the public has a choice. He certainly was most effective in leading the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but most importantly, in representing the view that we need to have a debate about ideas. It is with a sad sense, from my perspective as a close friend and someone who cares about another human being, that I congratulate him on service and thank him for all he has done personally. But most importantly, for the people of New Jersey, the people of this country, I thank him for his service to all for those 27 years. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. If the Senator will yield for a unanimous consent request, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding passage of H.R. 695, it be in order for the Senate amendment to be corrected as follows: On page 57, line 9, insert a ``$'' before ``10,000,000.''

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Am I not correct this was neither in the original Lieberman proposal that came out of the Governmental Affairs Committee, nor was it in the compromise proposals that were on the floor before we went into recess? This is another one of these midnight strikes, additions, that is completely outside of any of the review process that we normally have, is that right?

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia has done a tremendous service to our Nation by pointing out, over the last several hours while we have been in session, some of the flaws in this 484-page bill, which many of us have been trying to study. One of those flaws--and I would love to hear the Senator's comments-- is with regard to freedom of information and the provision of that information to the American people, and to the people in Congress who are responsible for oversight of this new Department. Is it not true that in this new Department there have been given broad waivers of opportunity for the administration--any administration--to pick outside advisory committees to come in and give advice, to make specific policy recommendations with regard to the direction of the country--not unlike what we saw with regard to our energy policy--and then not have any of that information made available to the public, where it can be challenged in situations where there is a serious concern about conflicts of interest and about how people might approach these issues. I think, if I have read this right, there is an almost blanket ability for the administration--any agency, and not necessarily Republican or Democrat--to completely keep from Congress, keep from the State, keep from others the ability to understand what is taking place within the policymaking arrangements of this new Department.

Mr. CORZINE. Will the Senator yield for one more quick question?

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, before I begin, I commend the Senator from California on raising not only the issue regarding childhood vaccines but the whole issue of adding riders about which I am going to speak in a moment on a whole series of issues. It makes a complicated and troubling piece of legislation even more difficult to weigh and balance as to whether it is truly one that gets us to a more secure future for America. All of us want to protect our freedoms and protect the lives of citizens across this country, but one has to think about it in the context of what is the give and take and whether it actually works. My first comment is not dissimilar to what I heard from a number of Members who are supportive and not supportive of the direction we are taking. It is hard to conceive of how we can put 170,000 or 175,000 people together who had trouble in the organization that was in place before when it was smaller and more manageable and come up with a sense of security that we are actually going to make things better by pushing them together. At least in my experience in my private life, sometimes mergers do not always amount to what is intended, and value is not always created. It certainly leads to a question of whether we have the flexibility and responsiveness in an organizational structure. I am certainly troubled by the idea of creating a larger organization made up of parts that apparently have not been working so well historically. Clearly, we need to take positive steps. It may very well be we are doing that with the proposal with regard to homeland security, but at least as one individual, I am troubled with the overall size of the operation and whether it will bring about the responsiveness to the need, which I think all of us feel quite clearly needs to be addressed, of protecting the American people. I also am equally concerned about a number of these provisions that were added in a closed manner. I have to second my colleague's comments with regard to liability protection for pharmaceutical companies on vaccines. That should be an issue that is debated openly and understood. It should be fully vetted. It is an open question about whether this is a serious problem, but I do not think adding it as a rider that is particularly attractive to a particular segment is germane to the context of homeland security. It attacks the fundamental premise about which we are talking. I wish to relate that to something about which I will talk which is really the heart of my comments today--chemical plant security--which I think is missing from the homeland security debate. It is also troubling and hard to understand why pieces of the Wellstone amendment which prohibited contracting with corporate expatriates is pulled out of the bill. We have some adds and we have some drops. I am not sure why we are doing that. This was unanimously accepted by the Senate. I find it very difficult to understand why we are resourcing, promoting, or allowing those companies which choose not to be supportive of America with their tax dollars to have equal access and participate in contracting with the Federal Government with regard to homeland security issues. It is hard for me to understand why this particular amendment was dropped. There are a whole series of these. There are special earmarks for a given university. There are liability protection issues that really get at tort reform debates which we ought to have on the Senate floor--no question about that--with regard to airport screening, negligent manufacturing of homeland security devices. All of those issues should be the subject of fair debates. So why are they added as a so-called element of compromise, on the floor of the Senate, without a debate? It is unclear to me, other than we are more interested in rewarding special interests than the general interests, which is what I think is the basic theme of both the administration and certainly Senator Lieberman's initial proposal coming out of the Governmental Affairs Committee with regard to homeland security. There is a need. We all embrace that concept and think we should move forward. For the life of me, I do not understand why we are putting down new barriers to the Transportation Security Agency with respect to rules for rail transportation in this country--it is one of those areas of vulnerability assessments that almost anyone would talk about--other than we are responsive to special interests and that it is going to cost too much. As I earlier entered into a colloquy with the senior Senator from West Virginia on the freedom of information activities, I continue to be troubled as to why we are writing a blank check to cover up the kind of advisory meetings that could be held with private industry, hand- picked advisers, with regard to setting policy within an administration. There may be things that should be carved out from public view, but when private sector individuals can have a perspective of conflict of interest in the advice, it seems perfectly clear that ought to be made available to the American public, and I am very troubled by the blank check mentality we are taking with regard to secret activity, particularly when it involves the private sector. We have had that debate with regard to our energy policies, and I think we are now making that a normal course of events. So for all of those reasons--and those are mostly adds, except for maybe the drop with regard to the Wellstone initiative--I am troubled. Finally, this National Commission on September 11 and the review, to me, is incomprehensible. Hopefully we will find another way to bring this back, but in my 30 years in the world of management I have never seen a situation where you have a failure, a breakdown, a problem that people do not stand back and say, what went wrong and what could we have done differently to make sure we are secure going forward, without an independent review that people can have confidence that all of the facts are laid upon the table, including, by the way, observing whether congressional oversight is operated with its most effective provision. I find it difficult to understand why we are investing so much with so great certainty about the direction we should be taking with regard to homeland security. As I said, this is going to be a tough weekend for me because I have trouble with the conceptual issue of putting so many people together. Now that the senior Senator from West Virginia is present, we could argue that the Constitution he is carrying in his pocket would also raise serious questions about some of the authorities there. These special additions and drops at the end are particularly concerning to me. So for all of those reasons, this is going to be a very difficult weekend for weighing and balancing these various elements because, like everyone else, and particularly for the people of New Jersey who lost 691 lives on September 11, there is an expectation that we have a responsibility to protect our homeland. It is obvious. It is self- evident. But it is not obvious and self-evident that we are, in my view, improving dramatically that effort. I certainly believe there are risks in the transition from where we are today to the full implementation of this measure and that we may very well be operating under the analogy that people talk about of running a marathon while you are performing open heart surgery. Whether we are going to be more secure while that process is going on in the midst of a war is an open question. It has not been proven to me that we are actually developing greater certainty. Now, there is another issue which has not been discussed on which I have worked very hard through most of this year and feel deeply about because it deeply impacts my State. Actually, it impacts almost every State in the Union. I see the ranking member from the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Senator from New Hampshire, who has heard much of this discussion in the committee, which I think is something that is missing from this bill, and that is the need to protect Americans from attacks on our Nation's privately owned chemical facilities. I realize this is also one of those things that is futile in the context of the cloture debate, but it is absolutely essential that America be aware of an issue that needs to be focused on and needs to be moved forward. I would be remiss in not having brought this farther in the process, and hopefully this discussion and the efforts that have gone on before will keep it in the debate, in the committees, and in this new Department which is most certainly going to come to pass. I will discuss it in the context that there are literally thousands of chemical facilities in the United States where a chemical release could expose tens of thousands of Americans to highly toxic gases. That is why these facilities are potentially so attractive to terrorists. As a matter of fact, if one goes to a chemical facility in Israel, they will see it protected by a security infrastructure that is not unlike what one would see at a nuclear powerplant in the United States. As I will relate, if someone visits some of these facilities in the United States, they will see an entirely different standard by which we are securing them. In fact, there are currently no Federal security standards for chemical facilities--none--so that the private sector is left to do whatever it desires or believes it can afford. It is a completely voluntary situation. Many facilities simply have not fulfilled their responsibilities, in my view. Many are certainly vulnerable to attack. As the statistics and studies show, literally millions of Americans are at risk. They are at risk in New Jersey. If one flies into Newark Airport and looks at the chemical plant storage facilities, the refining facilities that are right in the path of the landing strips, they will get a sense of the kind of exposure we have. Also, if one looks at how easy it is to access, which I will speak more clearly to in a minute, they get an even greater sense of the insecurity with regard to this area of our infrastructure. According to the EPA, there are 123 facilities in 24 States where a chemical release could expose more than 1 million people to highly toxic chemicals. One of these plants in New Jersey has exposure to 7\1/ 2\ million people inside the metropolitan region of New York. A lot of chemical plants are located in our urban communities, not scattered out into the hinterland but right smack dab in the middle of where we have high concentrations of populations. There are about 750 facilities in 39 States where chemical release could expose more than 100,000 people to toxic chemicals. There are nearly 3,000 facilities spread across 49 States where a chemical release could expose more than 10,000 people to highly toxic chemicals. I think the numbers speak for themselves, and they are staggering. There is a large exposure in a broad context in our Nation. A single attack on a facility could unleash highly toxic chemicals such as chlorine, ammonia, and hydrogen fluoride that cause widespread injuries and death. Considering the literally thousands of potentially deadly facilities across the country, we cannot escape the conclusion that it represents a major vulnerability, a major homeland security problem. It is not just my opinion. In fact, the Justice Department issued a report on this matter a year and a half before September 11. I will read a brief excerpt from a summary of the report issued April 18, 2000. We have concluded the risk of terrorists attempting in the foreseeable future causing industrial, chemical release is both real and credible . . . Increasingly, terrorists engineer their attacks to cause mass casualities to the populace and/or more large-scale damage to property. Terrorists or other criminals are likely to view the potential of chemical release from an industrial facility as a relatively attractive means of achieving these goals. That report was issued before September 11. Its conclusions have been echoed by several other Government agencies and individuals since. For example, Governor Ridge said the following in recent testimony before EPW: The fact is, we have a very diversified economy and our enemies look at some of our economic assets as targets. And clearly, the chemical facilities are one of them. We know that there have been reports validated about security deficiencies at dozens and dozens of those. Let me talk about the reports Governor Ridge may have been referring to. Earlier this year, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conducted a major investigation of western Pennsylvania. Here is what they found: A Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigation has shown that intruder has unfettered access to 30 of the region's deadliest stockpiles of toxins and explosives, despite repeated warnings from the Federal intelligence agencies to safeguard large chemical tanks. This Tribune-Review went on to say: Security was so lax at the 30 sites that in broad daylight a Trib reporter--wearing a press pass and carrying a camera-- could walk or drive right up to tanks, pipes and control rooms considered key targets for terrorists. After this initial story, the Tribune-Review expanded the scope of investigation. They went to Houston, Baltimore, and Chicago to see if what they found in western Pennsylvania was a fluke. They looked at 30 or more facilities in 3 other States and the findings were equally disturbing. I point out in metropolitan New York the local television station has done similar sorts of walk-ons to chemical plant facilities, including the one that has the 7.5 million people exposure in metropolitan New York. This is troubling, to say the least. There is a pattern. Perhaps that is why the chemical industry got low marks for post-September 11 terrorism response. On September 10 of this year, the Washington Post graded critical infrastructure sectors, giving the chemical industry a D. Newsweek, which is owned by the same people, did a similar piece. They were even tougher. Newsweek gave the chemical industry an F. I have seen this repeatedly in a number of surveys of America's infrastructure. While some companies may be doing everything they can, and I know there are some that are working very hard, they are concerned about it for security reasons and protecting their people and maybe themselves. But the fact is we need to do a lot more. We need to be a lot more certain the breadth of the industry is being attended to. That is why in October 2001 I introduced the Chemical Security Act. That is why I worked with Senators on both sides of the aisle to move the bill through the EPW Committee. This is the hard part. Ultimately, the committee approved the legislation on a vote of 19-to-0. Not a single Senator voted no. I note Senator Inhofe did, in fairness, express concerns about the bill at markup and I agreed to continue to work with him on those issues afterwards, particularly so we could potentially add it as an amendment to homeland security. In fact, as I suggested, I talked with other Members and we tried to keep the concerns of the bill, deal with them, and while I will not go through the post-markup negotiations, there were substantial revisions so it could get added to the bill. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get to conclusion in that process even though it was a 19-to-0 vote in committee for it. Sometimes I wonder whether special interests sometimes trump the people's interests. I will not be offering my amendment; it is not germane. But I think we need to come back and go to work on this issue as soon, as forcefully, as possible. It is absolutely relevant to homeland security and protecting the American people. I know that is the case in New Jersey. I will not go through it in detail, but the first thing we have to do is be very specific about identifying high priority chemical facilities. That can be done relatively straightforwardly. It will take cooperation between EPA and the new Homeland Security Department. There is some debate about that. We need a list. It does not have to be published on the front page of the New York Times, but we need to understand what the exposures are and get about protecting the American people. Second, we need to have audits of what that process is so there is a reality to what has been talked about. There is not a moral hazard saying we have done something and nothing really has occurred. In a nutshell, that is what this is about. It is a little more complicated than that in detail, but I suggest this is something that really should be a priority when we return. I hope we do not face the stonewalling that has come up from some elements in the industry. The need to act is urgent. This is, by the way, consistent with some of the things other people who have looked at homeland security on a broader basis have talked about. I will quote from a recent op-ed piece by Warren Rudman and Gary Hart, who have been following homeland security as effectively as any two Americans studying this. They have an op-ed page written in October of this year: America's corporate leaders must accept their new responsibilities to protect the privately owned critical infrastructure and cease the behind-the-scenes lobbying against measures requiring them to do so. If necessary, the President must deliver this message bluntly and directly. Some of those things that were added in the middle of the night, the kind of experience that I have experienced with regard to trying to deal with chemical plant security, is indicative that that process of resisting, protecting the American people, is not fully embraced in the private sector. I could not agree more. We need to work together as a Congress, with the administration, and deal with this issue. Homeland security in general, time is of the essence, as someone said around here. It is not neutral. So I hope we can move very quickly on this. I am sorry we have not been able to deal with this. There are some good voluntary efforts with regard to chemical security. But I don't think we have gone far enough. Voluntary efforts alone are not going to be sufficient. We need to work in Congress to make it happen. Finally, I am proud to be an author, a promoter, a sponsor of this legislation with regard to chemical plants. I am also proud to be a cosponsor of the Daschle amendment that will deal with some of these other special interests. I think the two relate in the sense that we are not all on the same page pushing forward to protect the American people on homeland security. We need to get there. With both the private sector and the public sector. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from New York for her gracious and most appropriate words with regard to the service of the Senator from Minnesota, who was such a special person. I rise to add my words of respect and praise and thanksgiving for the life and leadership of my friend and colleague and, in fact, political hero. Paul Wellstone was a good man who did his very best to do good things--very simply, good things for others. With his wife Sheila, their lives were about service, service and advocacy for others. In fact--I think the Presiding Officer probably knows this--they may well have been the most unselfish people I ever observed. The drive was not to power. It was not to popularity. It certainly was not to wealth. It was to service--service to those without a voice. Paul Wellstone really did believe all men and women are created equal and therefore should be treated accordingly. As a friend, Paul was always supportive and full of counsel for a fellow progressive--or should I say liberal. While our paths to the Senate could not have been more different, our paths in the Senate were much alike. He was a pathfinder for me and for many others because of his personal passion and principle with which he was so secure--it was deep in his soul. It gave him vision. His words and deeds were an example for all who seek to lead. As he so often implored, our actions cannot be separate from our words. All men and women are created equal, and he believed our Nation must act, also, accordingly. He fought for that every day on this floor. We have heard about his principled fight for mental health parity. We have heard about his fight to make sure education was something other than high stakes testing, and to make sure welfare reform was about something other than reducing the numbers on rolls, but was really about reducing poverty levels; on labor rights and defending the right to organize, defending the right of working men and women to have access to the American promise on an equal basis with those who are granted more; and on women's rights, which we have heard so much about, and domestic abuse, in which he carried the words and deeds of his wife so ably; on veterans' care and the homelessness problems of our Vietnam vets. On these and many other issues he really was a man who spoke for those without a voice. Paul's passion and vision will be deeply missed. For those honored to have shared his life, it is now our responsibility to pursue his vision. His commitment to equality and justice must not be lost and, with God's will, it will not. To this challenge, earlier today I heard Senator Stabenow cite great words from Frederick Douglass that bear repeating. When you think about Paul Wellstone you think about how he handled himself in this world. Those words are: If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to prefer freedom and yet deprecate agitation want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Paul Wellstone led his struggle for freedom with thunder and lightning--his struggle for progress. We will miss him. We will miss his struggle. We must take it up. All of us pray for his family and the families of the others lost on that tragic day of the crash. Our hearts are saddened. And we, as Senator Clinton has so ably articulated, commend his loyal and dedicated staff, and those thousands of volunteers who made his voice multiples of what it otherwise would be, through their activism and organization. We say thank you for all of them. Our love goes out. We respect them for what they have done, and their service. We hope they will not turn away from the effort and the fight. We thank them all. They mourn. We mourn. But we must not quit. We will not quit. Our deeds must match his deeds in the days and years ahead. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a resolution calling on the United States Postal Service to issue a commemorative postage stamp honoring an extraordinary American hero: Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone. Basilone is the only person in American history to be awarded both the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. Only one USPS stamp has ever commemorated an individual Marine, a stamp featuring John Phillip Sousa; it bears noting that although Sousa was a Marine, he was not selected for his service on the battlefield. It is time to remember the tremendous sacrifice of at least one individual Marine, John Basilone, an American Patriot. John Basilone was raised in Raritan, New Jersey, one of ten children in a large Italian-American family. Soon after he turned 18, Basilone heeded the patriotic call and enlisted in the US Army. Basilone was immediately sent to the Philippines where he earned a nickname that would stick with him for the rest of his career. ``Manila John.'' Following his tour of duty in 1937, Basilone returned to Raritan. But he wouldn't stay there long. In July 1940--with much of Europe at war an the United States on the brink ``Manila John'' left New Jersey, enlisting in the military once again, this time joining the United States Marine Corps. On October 24, 1942, Basilone earned his Congressional Medal of Honor. He was sent to a position on the Tenaru River at Guadalcanal and placed in command of two sections of heavy machine guns. Sergeant Basilone and his men were charged with defending Henderson Airfield, an important American foothold on the island. Although the Marine Contingent was vastly outnumbered and without needed support, Basilone and his men successfully repelled a Japanese assault. Other survivors reported that their success can be attributed to one man: ``Manila John.'' He crossed enemy lines to replenish a dangerously low stockpile of ammunition, repaired artillery pieces, and steadied his troops in the midst of torrential rain. He went several days and nights without food or sleep, and the US military was able to carry the day. His exploits became Marine lore, and served as a patriotic inspiration to others facing daunting challenges in the midst of war. For his courage under fire and profound patriotism, Basilone was the first enlisted Marine to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II. When he returned to the United States, he was heralded as a hero and quickly sent on tour around the country to help finance the war through the sale of war bonds. The Marine Corps offered to commission Basilone as an officer and station him far away from the frontlines. But, Basilone was not interested in riding out the war in Washington, D.C. He was quoted as saying, ``I ain't no officer, and I ain't no museum piece. I belong back with my outfit.'' In December 1944, he got his wish and returned to the frontlines. General Douglas MacArthur called him ``a one-man army,'' and on February 19, 1945 at Iwo Jima, Basilone once again lived up to that reputation. Basilone destroyed an enemy stronghold, a blockhouse on that small Japanese island and commanded his young troops to move the heavy guns off the beach. Unfortunately, less than two hours into the assault on that fateful day in February, Basilone and four of his fellow marines were killed when any enemy mortar shell exploded nearby. When Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone died, he was only 27, but he had already earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, the Purple Heart, and the appreciation of his Nation. Basilone is a true American patriot whose legacy should be preserved. Now more than ever, the United States needs to honor and praise the courageous efforts put forth by the men and woman of our military. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution as an important message to our soldiers that we appreciate and admire all of their efforts in the war on terrorism.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce important gun control legislation that would shut down permanently the guns for felons program. For too many years the Federal Government spent millions of dollars a year to restore the gun privileges of convicted felons. Fortunately, for the last ten years, Congress has seen fit to defund the program, through annual funding restrictions. Congress was right to defund a program that, according to the Violence Policy Center, restored gun privileges for thousands of convicted felons, at a cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayer. As the Violence Policy Center demonstrated, a number of these felons went on to commit violent crimes. I believe strongly that we must do all we can to keep guns out of criminals' hands. I am pleased that every year Congress has renewed the funding ban, which prohibits ATF from processing firearms applications from convicted felons. Indeed, by introducing this legislation today, I do not in any way intend to imply that the annual funding bans are not sufficient to shut down the guns for felons program. Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could jeopardize our efforts to ensure that convicted felons do not have access to guns by possibly giving Federal judges the power to rearm those felons regardless of the Congressional funding ban. I have been active in pushing for the funding ban, and it certainly was not my intention, nor do I believe it was anyone else's intention, to give judges power to unilaterally give felons their firearm privileges back. It is hard enough for ATF, after conducting an intensive investigation, to make judgments about an individual felon; for a court to do it on its own is completely inappropriate. To put it simply, courts will lack the resources to make an informed judgment in this regard. In any case, Congress' intent, and the appropriate rule, is that felons should be prohibited from owning guns period. Enacting my legislation will eliminate the guns for felons program permanently and prevent the need for Congress to revisit this issue every year.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce important gun control legislation that would shut down permanently the guns for felons program. For too many years the Federal Government spent millions of dollars a year to restore the gun privileges of convicted felons. Fortunately, for the last ten years, Congress has seen fit to defund the program, through annual funding restrictions. Congress was right to defund a program that, according to the Violence Policy Center, restored gun privileges for thousands of convicted felons, at a cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayer. As the Violence Policy Center demonstrated, a number of these felons went on to commit violent crimes. I believe strongly that we must do all we can to keep guns out of criminals' hands. I am pleased that every year Congress has renewed the funding ban, which prohibits ATF from processing firearms applications from convicted felons. Indeed, by introducing this legislation today, I do not in any way intend to imply that the annual funding bans are not sufficient to shut down the guns for felons program. Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could jeopardize our efforts to ensure that convicted felons do not have access to guns by possibly giving Federal judges the power to rearm those felons regardless of the Congressional funding ban. I have been active in pushing for the funding ban, and it certainly was not my intention, nor do I believe it was anyone else's intention, to give judges power to unilaterally give felons their firearm privileges back. It is hard enough for ATF, after conducting an intensive investigation, to make judgments about an individual felon; for a court to do it on its own is completely inappropriate. To put it simply, courts will lack the resources to make an informed judgment in this regard. In any case, Congress' intent, and the appropriate rule, is that felons should be prohibited from owning guns period. Enacting my legislation will eliminate the guns for felons program permanently and prevent the need for Congress to revisit this issue every year.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Levin amendment to the underlying resolution and am proud to be counted as a cosponsor. I believe Senator Levin's legislation represents a rational and measured approach to military action against Iraq's tyrannical regime. The Levin amendment emphasizes the importance of multilateralism and understands that the cooperation of the world community is an important component of American success in disarming Iraq and in Iraq's eventual reconstruction. As I said in my statement last night, if the world community is not with us when we take off, it will be hard to ask for their help when we land. Although the administration at times appears to believe otherwise, multilateralism is not an unnecessary inconvenience, but an important precondition for success not just for actions to disarm Iraq but more importantly is prosecuting our war on terrorism. We rely on other countries for logistics, intelligence, and overflight rights. We have called on other countries to help cover the costs of previous military engagements. And we rely on other countries to provide peacekeepers to help restore law and order around the globe, including most recently in Afghanistan. And we most certainly depend on the 90-odd countries in our global coalition to combat terrorism at home in the post 9-11 government. However, if we adopt a unilateral approach, we undermine cooperation of the world community we have so often enjoyed. Furthermore, the Levin amendment wisely stops short of codifying the Bush preemption doctrine, a dangerous and reckless new development in American foreign policy. Many countries have adversaries who they believe present continuing threats, maybe even imminent threats, to their security. If we establish a precedent of preemption, how in the future can we criticize Russia for attacking Georgia, stop India from taking action against Pakistan, or oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the court of world public opinion. Nothing in the Levin amendment precludes unilateral action by the United States in self-defense where imminent and immediate threats exist. And nothing in the Levin amendment prevents the Congress from authorizing force at a later date if the U.N. does not take action. I urge my colleagues to support the Levin amendment. I believe that it presents an excellent balance between the desire to contain and eliminate potential threats to American interests while demonstrating leadership in the post-cold-war world, and the value of devising a multilateral approach. Thank you and I yield the floor.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CORZINE. I thank the Chair. I thank the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma for the opportunity to go forward. I rise tonight to express my views on what has become the overriding issue before the Senate and our Nation as we close out the 107th Congress: the authorization of the use of military force against Iraq and in what context and under what circumstances such an operation might take place. This issue has been one on which I have given much thought and careful analysis. This decision quite literally has life-and-death implications, not just for our courageous men and women in uniform but for all Americans across our homeland, for your family and mine. No decision we take can weigh more heavily on our hearts and minds, particularly in light of the exposed vulnerabilities and tragic events of September 11, 2001. This is as important an issue as any of us will ever face. It requires a sober and calculating weight of the costs and benefits to our Nation. Ultimately, our decision will shape the nature of the U.S. leadership as the first among equals in the post-cold-war world, and our decision sets a precedent for ourselves and for those who take our lead in the 21st century for good or evil. No one argues that Saddam Hussein's brutal and criminal regime should be tolerated. He and his regime are evil. We all accept that Hussein uses torture and terrorism to advance his political goals. He constructs palaces while his people starve. He stockpiles biological and chemical weapons. At times, these weapons of mass destruction have been unleashed against the Iraqi people and his enemies. All of us are concerned that the Iraqi regime is seeking to develop nuclear weapons contrary to international law and U.N. resolutions. With deference to these circumstances and probable facts, the United Nations and the world community must act swiftly and decisively in response to the Iraqi threat. As my colleague Senator Kerry said earlier today: The question is not whether Saddam Hussein should be held accountable to disarm; the question is how. Should disarmament be imposed by the United States alone or with the weight of global public opinion behind it? To answer the question how, one needs to consider the context of the broader role America plays as a single remaining superpower. As I see it, America should make every effort to build a global coalition to achieve our objective of disarming Iraq. This effort should be considered our first priority in these grave circumstances. Building an international coalition will give moral authority to our challenge, share the sacrifices that will be incurred, and set a positive precedent for the future in foreign relations among nations. The benefits of working cooperatively with other countries have been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. That is why the United States worked to create the United Nations in the very first instance. Strangely, this administration has sometimes appeared to consider multilateral support for a military campaign to be an unnecessary inconvenience. Even in light of our unprecedented international support and cooperation following the tragedy of 9/11--some 90 nations if I am not mistaken--it was only after the President delivered his September 12 speech at the United Nations that he began visible and serious outreach to the global community. This week, the President in his speech in Cincinnati went further to embrace a multilateral approach. I support what he expressed in that speech. In my view, we must reinforce his recent instincts. We all know at the end of the day the United States always retains the inherent right to act unilaterally in self-defense. With that understanding, I believe strongly we must not stop pursuing, however, the support of the world community before acting alone. The United States may be the strongest country in the world militarily. We still need allies. We need help with logistics. We need intelligence cooperation and overflight rights to help us succeed. That is in the short run. And after the military campaign is over, we will need help in the long run reconstructing Iraq and rebuilding a civil society. But if the world community is not with us when we take off, it will be hard to ask for their help when we land. Our Nation has been well served if we share the human and financial sacrifices required to prosecute the war and keep the peace, and we will be well served in the future if we follow that pattern. Unless we have the support of our allies, it will be difficult to ask them for humanitarian assistance in helping to feed, clothe, and heal the Iraqi people or reestablishing the rule of law. It will be difficult to ask for assistance for peacekeeping and nationbuilding activities. In the past, the current administration has been somewhat reticent to support these kinds of operations. As a case in point, we relied on the armed forces of other countries, for example, to restore law and order in Afghanistan. Yet if other countries had not been committed from the beginning, they would have been much less likely to participate once the fighting was over. Unilateralism also brings with us great costs--most importantly, costs in the precious lives of our men and women in uniform, people who serve us bravely. It also brings us costs as we saw in the gulf war. The United States had relatively low out-of-pocket expenses. The reason was, we had a coalition of nations. Although the Congressional Research Service notes that war cost about $80 billion, much of that was covered by allied contributions. Without allies, the United States, it is projected, will have to shoulder by itself the $100 billion to $200 billion pricetag suggested by the administration for the current war. I have seen higher estimates. It really depends on how long our participation in the peacekeeping and nationbuilding efforts will go on afterwards. It should not be lost on the American people that we are still in Korea, 50 some years after our intervention. In other words, unilateralism is expensive and its cost--crowd out other priorities on the Nation's agenda from our first responders to our first graders. Unfortunately, by authorizing force before a multilateral approach has been devised, the President's resolution provides no assurance that the world community will be actively involved in either the military campaign or, more importantly, the reconstruction efforts. In the long run, the Bush doctrine of unilateral preemption embedded in the underlying resolution would set an awful example for the world community--a precedent based on the concept of survival of the fittest. For generations, the United States has decried the aggression of foreign governments across the globe. We fought the patriotic and just fights against the Nazis and Communists who sought world domination. How in the future can we criticize Russia for attacking Georgia or stop India from taking action against Pakistan or believe Taiwan will be safe from China? Many countries may feel threats, continuing or imminent. They, too, could argue preemptive rights. The underlying resolution would codify the Bush preemption doctrine in precedent and could undermine our moral authority and leadership credibility in limiting future conflicts around the globe. Furthermore, by advancing a policy of unilateral preemption, we could be encouraging state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Syria to form unholy alliances with just the kinds of agents of terror that caused the horrific events of September 11. Iran, Iraq's mortal enemy, actually opposes a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Why is that? Perhaps because Iran fears that if the U.S. attacks Iraq today, we might attack Iran tomorrow. Clearly, the thawing of relations between these two U.S. adversaries should give us pause. One can only wonder what Iran's instructions to their agents of terror will be in a world where they feel threatened under a preemption doctrine. Earlier this week, Senator Graham introduced an amendment which authorized the President to use force against several identified dangerous terrorist groups, including Iranian-linked Hezbollah and Hamas. I supported that amendment because I believe that those foreign terrorist organizations represent an even higher order risk to American security than Iraq. Like al-Qaida, these organizations have the clear means of delivery. These terrorist groups may already be operating in our homeland. I am concerned that, at some level, Iraq may be a dangerous distraction from America's war on terrorism. While the United States military has certainly disrupted the activities of the al-Qaida network, no one should doubt that al-Qaida and its sympathizers continue to operate. The administration tells the American people this almost every week. These groups continue to plot ways to undermine the American way of life and our security. As the United States considers its future course of action with respect to Iraq, a potential threat, we must assure the American people that we will not be distracted from the effort to destroy a proven threat, al-Qaida and these other terrorist organizations. That should be our No. 1 priority. It certainly has been in repeated statements by the President. I am also concerned that the resolution we have before us is structured with an overly broad scope. It refers to UN Security Council resolutions that are unrelated to the primary goal of disarming Iraq and eliminating its delivery capacity of weapons of mass destruction. We must remember that the threat we feel is not from the Iraqi people but from the criminal regime's control of weapons of mass destruction. And second, because the underlying resolution refers to UN Security Council Resolution 678, a resolution that discusses the importance of returning security to the ``area,'' we may inadvertently be permitting military action beyond Iraq. Potentially, some of these structural concerns were addressed by other resolutions that were circulated including one drafted by Senators Biden and Lugar. There were attempts to define away some of the broader aspects of the concerns I relate to in the underlying Lieberman-Warner resolution, but I am fearful, as I have suggested, that by their reference to other U.N. resolutions that may not be the case. I certainly believe we could have done better through the Biden-Lugar approach. Finally, I am troubled my the fact that Congress is being asked to make a decision on a matter of this gravity without being fully informed with all relevant intelligence. It is an unfortunate fact but many of us, and I can speak for myself, have often learned more by reading the New York Times and the Washington Post than by attending the secret briefings provided to Senators. Even today, we hear about a conflict between what it is the CIA says is the likely response of the Saddam Hussein regime when they no longer have other options and would be the case as presented by the administration. In the future, I hope that the administration will be more open earlier with secure briefings in the process so that Members of Congress can make fully informed decisions. I think they should be built upon true intelligence. It is in this overarching context, that I will cosponsor and strongly support the Levin amendment which authorizes the use of force pursuant to a new UN security council resolution demanding swift council resolution demanding swift, certain, and unconditional inspections and Iraqi disarmament. The Levin amendment in no way comprises the US' inherent right to self-defense or Congress' ability to authorize unilateral actions if the UN fails to act. But it embraces the multilateral approach as a first priority. This course of action, will bring with it all the benefits I have sought to outline, a multilateral approach, without giving up the right of unilateral approach as a last resort. In my judgment, the Levin amendment embraces the need for the U.S. to lead a dangerous world to disarm Saddam Hussein today with a multilateral approach, while setting a pattern and precedent that provides for greater security to the people of the United States and around the world. That security will be in today's circumstances but it will equally be true as a guide to the future by its precedent. As a matter of conscience, barring substantive changes, I intend to oppose the underlying Lieberman-Warner resolution. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I, too, rise in support of the efforts about which Senator Bingaman was speaking. Senator Bond, Senator Lincoln, and the Presiding Officer have also been supportive of working to expand the access to prenatal care for pregnant women. I thank all those involved for efforts to pass this legislation. I have to say I am disappointed we are not able to get this unanimous consent, given the overwhelming support in the Finance Committee. There was unanimous passage there of all the elements Senator Bingaman just spoke about with regard to funding. I will speak to it a bit myself. But this is something that, given our record as a nation, being 21st in the world with regard to deaths of children at birth, just is hard to understand--why we are not taking the steps to address this fact and give those States the flexibility to deal with it. As I said, I am pleased the Finance Committee unanimously passed the legislation, S. 724, which includes, as the Senator from New Mexico mentioned, the major provisions of legislation we introduced about 18 months ago called Start Healthy, Stay Healthy. Many of us have been supportive of that legislation. The bipartisan bill, as it now stands, seeks to expand pregnancy- related care to low-income women who fall above Medicaid eligibility levels. Under this bill, pregnant women would be eligible for the full spectrum of prenatal and postpartum care, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Unfortunately, what many of us believe is noncontroversial legislation is being held up for reasons of which I am not completely certain. There were a number of questions raised last week by the Senator from Oklahoma which have been answered in detail in a letter about which the Senator from New Mexico spoke. But the main objection is that it somehow contradicts a rule published by the Bush administration to expand health insurance to unborn children but not to pregnant women. Actually, many of us believe this legislation complements the administration's rule and will result in pregnant women receiving more comprehensive pre- and postnatal care, which will clearly result in healthier births and give newborns a better start in life. Furthermore, S. 724, as amended, guarantees health coverage to children born to eligible women until age 1 regardless of income eligibility. The administration's rule would only guarantee that health care for 3 months of their lives. So we think it does an outstanding job of broadening the coverage to make sure that kids really do start healthy and that they will stay healthy as they go forward in their lives. The administration has stated that the goal of its new rule is to increase a woman's access to prenatal care. I think all of us applaud that. I certainly do. Why, then, is the woman explicitly left out of that rule? For example, under the administration's rule, it is uncertain whether pregnant women will be offered treatment for ailments that may not be directly related to pregnancy. For instance, under the administration's rule, a pregnant woman would not be eligible to receive care for cancer, diabetes, medical emergencies, accidents, broken bones, or mental illness. It is also unclear whether or not a woman would be provided certain types of care during delivery. In order to have an epidural covered, for instance, a doctor would have to certify that it was in the best interest of the fetus. Finally, the rule provides for absolutely no postpregnancy care. Treatment of postpartum complications, including hemorrhaging, infection, and postpartum depression, would be inaccessible to the mother. These things are hard to put in the context of what is the desire of, I think, most of us to see that there is a good continuum, a good start for our children. I think there are some conflicts that are put in place by the regulations that would be very hard to enforce and could be endangering to both the child and certainly to the mother's health. I think they do not meet the commonsense test. It contradicts also ACOG's standard of care, which views pregnancy- related care as including prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum care. Second, surely we can agree that neglecting the mother's health is not the best way to give a newborn a healthy start in life. If the administration and Members of Congress are serious about providing meaningful health care to pregnant women and their children, I believe we should support passage of the bipartisan initiative, S. 724. This legislation gives the States the option to enroll low-income pregnant women into their CHIP programs, a proposal that HHS Secretary Thompson has endorsed verbally and in writing many times, which is indicated in the letter Senator Bingaman has forwarded to Senator Nickles. This legislation will provide for all of the care related to the fetus outlined under the administration's rule, but it will also provide full access to prenatal and postpartum health care, other essential health care for pregnant women, and 1 year of continuous coverage for newborns. Let me be clear, States will still have the option of expanding care to fetuses under the administration's rule. But by passing this legislation, we would also give the States the option of expanding care to pregnant women along the lines of what I talked about earlier. My own State of New Jersey has already received a waiver from HHS, and a number of other States have; a number are applying. It is actually a very complicated and onerous process to get these waiver procedures in place. I think we ought to make it legislatively appropriate, statutorily appropriate, for all States, so they have the choice of moving in this direction if they so choose. Every week in our country 8,500 children are born to mothers who lack access to prenatal care. This is one of those areas where insurance coverage can actually be provided and make a big difference, so we do not end up paying more for health care for children who are brought into the world in poor health conditions, who then end up costing society even more because they have had poor prenatal care. Every day we wait to pass this legislation, more children will be born with serious health problems because their mothers cannot afford health care. I hope we can address this issue. There is strong bipartisan support. I think it is time to move. I very strongly support the efforts of all my colleagues who are pushing for S. 724 and hope we can put the politics aside and vote today to pass this important legislation. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a resolution calling on the world community to reject, or continue to reject, calls for an academic boycott of Israel and reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom and cultural and scientific exchange. This legislation also calls on the international educational establishment to reverse any actions it has taken in support of an academic boycott of Israel, and on the U.S. to support efforts to increase academic cooperation and encourage cultural and scientific exchange between the United States and Israel In recent months I have been troubled by reports that a movement is brewing to limit contact between European Governments, institutions, and academics, with their counterparts in Israel. Petition drives are underway in Europe and elsewhere to encourage decision-makers and scholars to academically isolate Israel as a way of expressing dissatisfaction with Israeli policies regarding the Palestinian population. Campaigns in support of an academic boycott are as counterproductive as they are unjustified. They breed intolerance, disrupt important scientific inquiries, and undermine efforts towards peace. Yet groups ranging from the Association of University Teachers, a labor union in England, to the University of Lille in France have made the unfortunate decision to allow their misguided political beliefs to disrupt constructive academic collaboration with colleagues in Israel. As you may be aware, in June of this year, two Israeli scholars were dismissed from the boards of translation journals based in Manchester, England. No one asserts that these two fine academics were dismissed for incompetence or for poor scholarship. No one argues that the remarks or actions of these intellectuals reflected poorly on their institutions or on these publications. No one even claims that they were dismissed for their political views. They clearly were not. Rather, they were dismissed simply because of their nationality. They both are Israeli citizens and carry Israeli passports. What makes their dismissal all the more ridiculous is that one of the academics discharged is Miriam Schlesinger, an Israeli human rights activist who has been a consistent voice of dissent within Israeli society. As the former chair of Israel's chapter of Amnesty International, Professor Schlesinger has been highly critical of some of the Israeli policies that the boycott is also seeking to reverse. The case of Miriam Schlesinger highlights an important fact seemingly overlooked by proponents of the boycott: in free societies, like Israel, academics often provide a range of viewpoints, many of which will differ from official government policy. In addition to working against peace and cultural understanding, an academic boycott will stifle meaningful scientific advancements. Despite the nascent quality of the campaign against academic exchange with Israel, the announced boycott has already confounded research projects intended to foster cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians in many important areas, including water resource management and cancer treatment. In fact, in one particularly shocking example, a Norwegian veterinary school refused to provide an Israeli research center, Goldyne Savad Institute of Gene Therapy at Hadassah Medical Center, with material it needed to conduct an important medical study. This thoughtless bureaucratic decision disrupted research intended to develop new therapies for treating anemic Palestinian children. By passing this resolution, the Senate will join a growing chorus of institutions and publications that have condemned the practice of restricting academic exchange with Israeli and academics and institutions. For example, an editorial in the well-respected British scientific journal Nature, argues that an academic boycott of Israel will undermine regional progress. The article explains, and I quote, ``Israel is a research powerhouse that, given an eventual improvement of relations with its neighbors, could rejuvenate science and development in the region through collaboration and training. Rather than signing boycotts, which will achieve nothing, researchers worldwide can help the peace process concretely by actively initiating more . . . collaborations and encouraging their institutions to do the same.'' The European Union has already made it clear that an academic boycott is unhelpful at best and counterproductive at worst. Philippe Busquin, the Commissioner for Research for the European Union, explained in an open letter that sanctions against Israeli academic institutions would undermine efforts to create a constructive dialogue. In that letter, Busquin appropriately emphasized the role that European, Israeli and Palestinian institutions and scientists play in ``addressing critical regional issues such as agriculture or water management . . . which, is certainly more effective than many well-intentioned words without any concrete impact.'' Sharing ideas and learning about another culture leads to greater tolerance and understanding, while severing intellectual and cultural ties only breeds ignorance and stultification. This senate must send a message that an academic boycott of Israel is not a catalyst for peace, but rather an unwarranted impediment to progress in the region. Because cultural understanding and scientific advancement improve the human condition, the US should seek to encourage cultural and scientific exchange between our country and our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President today, along with Senator DeWine, I am introducing legislation that addresses the serious national problem of drunk driving. This bill, ``The Higher-Risk Impaired Driver Act,'' would help protect the public from those intoxicated drivers who pose the greatest threat to our safety. This bill would target a specific population of drivers who pose a special danger on our roads. These are drivers who are convicted of driving while intoxicated within 5 years of a prior conviction; drivers who are convicted of driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content of .15 or greater; drivers who are convicted of driving while their license is suspended, when the suspension happened due to a driving while intoxicated offense; and drivers who refuse a blood alcohol concentration test while under arrest or investigation for involvement in a fatal or serious injury crash. The statistics documenting the threat posed by these drivers are startling. Nationally in 2001, about 1,461 fatalities that occurred in crashes involving alcohol-impaired or intoxicated drivers who had at least one previous driving while intoxicated conviction, according to the National Institute of Highway Safety, NHTSA. Further, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, in an analysis of NHTSA data from 1982 to 1999, found that over half the drivers who were arrested or convicted of driving while intoxicated during that period and 64 percent of drunken drivers who were fatally injured had a blood alcohol level of .15 or greater. There are tragic stories behind these statistics: In my own State of New Jersey, for example, Navy Ensign John Elliott was killed by a driver who had a blood alcohol level that exceeded twice the legal limit. In that case, the driver had been arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated just three hours before the crash. After being processed for that offense, he had been released into the custody of a friend who drove him back to his car and allowed him to get behind the wheel. The legislation I am introducing today would require states to enact a law that penalizes these higher risk offenders, reduces the threat that they pose, and gets offenders into appropriate substance abuse programs. The penalty provisions in such a law would include the suspension of an offender's drivers license for no less than one year and the requirement that the offender pay both a $1000 minimum fine as well as restitution to any victims of the offense. The reduction of the threat occurs through the requirement that the offender's motor vehicle be impounded for no less than 90 days and the requirement that the offender be imprisoned for a period of time and then shall either wear an electronic bracelet or be assigned to a DWI specialty facility. The treatment provision requires the assessment of the offender for placement into a substance abuse program. This legislation follows the recommendations of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, in their Higher-Risk Driver Program. I look forward to working with the members of MADD nationwide to see this legislation enacted into law. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORZINE

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President today, along with Senator DeWine, I am introducing legislation that addresses the serious national problem of drunk driving. This bill, ``The Higher-Risk Impaired Driver Act,'' would help protect the public from those intoxicated drivers who pose the greatest threat to our safety. This bill would target a specific population of drivers who pose a special danger on our roads. These are drivers who are convicted of driving while intoxicated within 5 years of a prior conviction; drivers who are convicted of driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content of .15 or greater; drivers who are convicted of driving while their license is suspended, when the suspension happened due to a driving while intoxicated offense; and drivers who refuse a blood alcohol concentration test while under arrest or investigation for involvement in a fatal or serious injury crash. The statistics documenting the threat posed by these drivers are startling. Nationally in 2001, about 1,461 fatalities that occurred in crashes involving alcohol-impaired or intoxicated drivers who had at least one previous driving while intoxicated conviction, according to the National Institute of Highway Safety, NHTSA. Further, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, in an analysis of NHTSA data from 1982 to 1999, found that over half the drivers who were arrested or convicted of driving while intoxicated during that period and 64 percent of drunken drivers who were fatally injured had a blood alcohol level of .15 or greater. There are tragic stories behind these statistics: In my own State of New Jersey, for example, Navy Ensign John Elliott was killed by a driver who had a blood alcohol level that exceeded twice the legal limit. In that case, the driver had been arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated just three hours before the crash. After being processed for that offense, he had been released into the custody of a friend who drove him back to his car and allowed him to get behind the wheel. The legislation I am introducing today would require states to enact a law that penalizes these higher risk offenders, reduces the threat that they pose, and gets offenders into appropriate substance abuse programs. The penalty provisions in such a law would include the suspension of an offender's drivers license for no less than one year and the requirement that the offender pay both a $1000 minimum fine as well as restitution to any victims of the offense. The reduction of the threat occurs through the requirement that the offender's motor vehicle be impounded for no less than 90 days and the requirement that the offender be imprisoned for a period of time and then shall either wear an electronic bracelet or be assigned to a DWI specialty facility. The treatment provision requires the assessment of the offender for placement into a substance abuse program. This legislation follows the recommendations of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, in their Higher-Risk Driver Program. I look forward to working with the members of MADD nationwide to see this legislation enacted into law. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.