Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I send to the desk a modification of that amendment which my colleague from Virginia is looking at. It is a slight modification of the amendment. Hopefully this modification will be accepted.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3787.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I have a long-held interest in Latin America, and, in my opinion, the renewal of the Andean Trade Preferences Agreement is one of the most important actions this Congress can take to promote economic growth, political stability, and prosperity in the Andean region. I have come to this floor many times in the past year to draw my colleagues' attention to the fact that Latin America is a region in crisis, that we ignore at our peril. I believe that it is imperative that we remain engaged with our neighbors to the South lest our neglect encourage even more instability in the region and foster conditions ripe for terror, destruction, and the collapse of democratic institutions. While I could speak for hours about the dangers posed by the horrors of drought and famine in Central America, the Argentine economic crisis, or the turmoil in Venezuela, I will limit my comments today to the problems faced by the Andean region, and my belief that we must have a multi-faceted approach to alleviating the crisis in the region through military, humanitarian, and economic aid. The Andean region is reeling from economic crises, natural disasters, and the effects of the war against drugs. Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia confront economic and social problems that threaten the very fabric of Democracy in the region. Up till now, with the possible exception of Venezuela, the governments of these countries have done a good job of managing their problems in the face of near- impossible odds. But, I believe, without consistent and steady U.S. involvement, and a greater willingness of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru to coordinate their efforts in drug eradication with Colombia, the situations in these countries could become quickly unstable. We must remain continuously engaged and stop the cycle of neglect by which attention is focused on Latin America for short bursts of time, only to recede when a crisis is over. We cannot allow the region to languish and fester while we ignore warning signs. I have spoken about Colombia numerous times on this floor, and, in fact, just held a hearing on the Colombia situation in the Foreign Relations Committee last month. I would like to take a moment to restate some of my comments from that hearing and alert my colleagues to some horrific statistics about the state of violence in Colombia. Colombia's democracy is in crisis, and it didn't happen over night. Colombia's civil society has been ripped apart for decades by violence and corruption, and has long been characterized as having one of the most violent societies in the Western Hemisphere. Historically, Colombian civil leaders, judges and politicians have put their lives in jeopardy simply by aspiring to positions of leadership and responsibility. The introduction of illicit drug cultivation and production has only heightened further this climate of violence. Despite fears that must be pervasive in every Colombian's heart, tens of thousands of men and women have still allowed their names to appear on electoral ballots in election after election. These are truly courageous people who deserve our respect and admiration. Two years ago, I supported US efforts to become partners with the Pastrana administration's efforts to address Colombia's problems. I said at the time that I believed that it was critically important that we act expeditiously on the Plan Colombia assistance package because our credibility was at stake with respect to responding to a genuine crisis in our own hemisphere. We also needed to make good on our pledge to come to the aid of President Pastrana and the people of Colombia in their hour of crisis, a crisis that has profound implications for institutions of democracy in Colombia and throughout the hemisphere. No one I know claims that things have dramatically ``turned around'' in Colombia since the United States endorsed Plan Colombia and began providing significant resources to support its implementation. Narcotraffickers, in concert with right and left wing paramilitary organizations, continue to make large portions of the country ungovernable. Until recently their activities were restricted to sparely populated rural areas of the country--places where government order and services have never existed. Now, with the end of the FARC/ Government peace process and in an effort to disrupt upcoming elections, the FARC is increasingly focused on urban areas, especially critical economic infrastructure. In the last 15 years, more than 200 bombs have exploded in Colombian cities. The number of assassinations is egregious. More than 300,000 ordinary citizens, 4 presidential candidates, 200 judges and investigators, one half of Colombia's Supreme Court, 1,200 police, and 151 journalists, have been murdered. Politicians such as Senator Martha Daniels have been killed while trying to negotiate peace, and municipal officials are constantly running for their lives. As if this were not bad enough, Colombia also holds the world's kidnapping record, with 3,700 abductions last year alone. Among those abducted, 50 were political candidates, such as Ingrid Betancourt, who is running for President, and one was a governor. The rebel groups in Colombia have declared war on democracy and on the people of Colombia. According to recent news reports, on May 2 the largest single massacre of civilians in the recorded history of the conflict in Colombia took place. It began on May 1, in the village of Bellavista, over 300 people sought refuge in St. Paul the Apostle church from door-to-door fighting between left and right-wing paramilitaries. But, in the violence-charged atmosphere of Colombia, even the refuge of a holy place was not enough to protect the townspeople of Bellavista. Shortly before noon on May 2nd, a bomb thrown by leftist rebels of the FARC collapsed the roof of St. Paul the Apostle, and 117 innocent civilians were killed--over a third of them children. I grieve for the families of the deceased, and want them to know that their pain and sacrifice has not gone unnoticed in the United States. The massacre of Bellavista is just yet another event in a series that illustrates why the United States has a responsibility to remain actively engaged in Colombia's struggle. We must help prevent atrocities such as this massacre from ever happening again through a combination of economic, humanitarian, and military aid. This nonsensical murder of civilians in Colombia must stop, and it must stop now. While we are doing all we can to help stop these killings through Plan Colombia, the ripple effects of the region's crisis are felt by all of Colombia's neighbors--Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela. Colombia's problems have a profound impact on the stability and security of the entire region. The region's economy is in distress, causing significant unemployment and hardship among the middle class. The economic situation in the countryside is equally troublesome--a significant percentage of its rural population is barely able to eke out a living--with millions already displaced from their villages from economic necessity or fear of civil conflict. Not surprisingly, these displaced persons have become the innocent foot soldiers in the ever-expanding illicit coca production that gets processed into cocaine and ultimately finds its way into America's schools and neighborhoods. United States financial assistance has been heavily focused on the military component of Colombia's counter narcotic effort with lesser amounts available for other programs such as alternative development programs, protection of human rights workers, resettlement of displaced persons, and judicial and military reforms. The United States can do more to assist the region, particularly its economies by reauthorizing and expanding the coverage of the Andean Trade Preference Agreement. This would help the region work its way out of its current economic recession by giving a boost to key domestic industries while creating more jobs for average citizens--other than in the coca fields. Since 2000, the United States has committed almost $2 billion to the Andean region in support of Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative. As I have stated, although I continue to support these initiatives, they alone will not resolve the region's problems. We must complement this assistance with extension of ATPA. By addressing the economic needs of the area, as well as the military and humanitarian needs we can begin to address the root causes of the narcotics industry and violence, while assisting Colombia's neighbors in protecting their nations from allowing the same problem to spread. ATPA has been constructive in stimulating increased trade with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The full impact of ATPA has been somewhat lessened by the exclusion of key economic sectors from the agreement. A more robust ATPA is needed if we are truly going to make a difference with respect to the lives of people in that region. Extension of the ATPA will offer more opportunities to our Andean trading partners, while also enabling us to further pursue our own national interests in the region. Poverty and hopelessness are the incubators for lawlessness and civil strife. The job creation and economic development that is part and parcel with expanded trade opportunities are vital to enfranchising the middle class in the political process and preventing rural residents from turning to cocoa as a crop of desperation. With the ATPA, we can encourage the growth of legitimate businesses that will benefit producers and consumers in our country and within the Andean pact. Since the ATPA was enacted in 1991, the primary goal of the agreement has been to promote export diversification and broad- based, sustainable economic development throughout the region. There is evidence that this initiative has borne fruit. From 1992 to 2000, the years of implementation of ATPA, total coca cultivation in Bolivia declined by 68 percent, and in Peru by 74 percent. This decrease is the result of aggressive eradication programs coupled with crop substitution by farmers in the region who have then taken advantage of ATPA provisions to market their products in the US. In so doing, ATPA has done more than expand trade, it has strengthened America's War on Drugs and the Andean region's fight against drugs and traffickers. The renewal of the ATPA is a lifeline to Andean farmers and workers who want to have legal employment but will do whatever they have to in the absence of mainstream job opportunities to feed their families-- including the cultivation of illicit crops. ATPA has accomplished all this without negative effects at home. Between 1991 and 2000, Andean exports to the U.S. increased 124 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2000, bilateral trade was valued at more than $18 billion and the Andean Community was the 16th largest consumer of U.S. exports. In comparison, the value of U.S. exports to the Andean Community was 1.3 times greater than that which was exported to the Central American Common Market. This is nearly twice as large as exports to Eastern Europe. As we move forward to extend the ATPA, I realize that for some, the issues of textile and tuna are delicate and contentious. I think that it is important to note that the extension of trade preferences to tuna in airtight containers would promote employment in the local industries, and help depressed areas in the beneficiary countries through higher value-added exports with a true potential and minimal impact on U.S. industry. Unfortunately, the ATPA bill before the Senate contains restrictions which would grant the duty free benefits to imported canned tuna from the Andean countries, but limit the quantity to 20 percent of the U.S. domestic canned tuna production in the preceding calendar year. The quota that would be imposed makes the duty free benefit virtually meaningless. The principlal beneficiary of the tuna provision is Ecuador--a government that has been extremely cooperative in our efforts to implement first Plan Colombia and now the Andean Regional Initiative, although controversial among Ecuadorans, the Government of Ecuador has permitted to use the airfield at Manta as a forward operating location for critical activities in our regional counter rug programs. They have suffered from the spill over effects of Plan Colombia as guerrillas and peasants have crossed into Ecuador's territories and sanctuary. The Senate provisions falls far short of what Ecuador deserves in light of all its support. In my view the House provision granting duty free treatment to all imported canned tuna from the Andean countries is the more appropriate response to Ecuador's friendship and support for U.S. policies in the region. The argument that American Samoa will be harmed by the granting of this preference is bogus. One of the major employers in American Samoa, StarKist, has already indicated that it has no intention of reducing employment there even if the most generous version of the ATPA Tuna preference language is enacted into law. Expanding the ATPA to include textiles and apparel would not have a substantial negative impact on the U.S. economy. In 1999, textile/ apparel exports from Andean countries represented only 1.1 percent of the total textile and apparel exports to the United States. On the other hand, the United States is by far the largest market for Andean apparel exports, buying between 38 percent and 61 percent of all Andean apparel exports. In fact with the expansion of opportunities for Andean textile and apparel imports come increased opportunities for US fabrics, thread and even cotton exports to that region. By extending ATPA, the United States is sending a clear signal that we are going to continue the close and essential relationship we have established with our partners in the Southern Hemisphere. Given the extremely difficulties facing the region and the implication of those difficulties on US interests working to make that relationship work is very important. Taken together, these steps will generate jobs, strengthen civil society, and deter illegal narcotics trade. All steps strongly supported by the Congress and the American people.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I want to first of all apologize to the Presiding Officer and others for taking a few extra minutes in what has been a long day and evening for all of us here. But I wanted to take a few minutes to close business in the Senate today and express my views on the final passage of H.R. 3009, the Trade Promotion Authority bill. My friend and colleague, the Presiding Officer, will appreciate the reasons when I get through with these remarks. I normally submit my statement and have it included in the Record. But I wanted to take a few minutes and express my thoughts publicly. I rise this evening to talk about the omnibus trade bill the Senate just voted in favor of on final passage. The bill which was before us granted the President with what is called fast-track trade authority. The bill we just voted on has a fundamental flaw, in my view. Unfortunately, it lacks the minimum protections of environmental labor standards by countries that seek enhanced trade relationships with the United States. Senate passage of this bill will signal reverse progress made over the past decade to ensure that free trade does not come at the expense of American workers and American principles. Let me also quickly add that this is the first trade agreement, with the exception of one 14 years ago, I ever voted against. I am a strong supporter of trade agreements. I had hoped very sincerely to vote for this one because I believe it is critical to portray the well-being of our own Nation for the promotion of democracy and enhancement of economic opportunities for others around the globe. I tried as hard as I could to find my way to vote for this particular bill, but I just could not at the end of the day. Fast-track authority, as we all know, eases the way for American Presidents to be able to negotiate international trade agreements by limiting congressional approval with just an up-or-down vote, and with no amendments on trade accords that come before the U.S. Congress. This makes it much easier for Presidents to be able to negotiate agreements, and then let the Congress just have one vote--yes or no. I have understood the value of that in times past. But that value and that agreement to allow Presidents, regardless of party, to be able to do that, has always been contingent on certain objectives that an American President and his negotiating team would have to pursue which we felt strongly about as a people, and very much wanted to see as part of any negotiations not just for our own citizenry but values and principles which we believe are inherent in the right of all people endowed by their creator with those rights. Unfortunately, as a result of what happened here over the past number of days, I think we took a step backwards and not forwards in the evolving process of objectives of a free, open and democratic society that tries to enhance those common values for others with whom we negotiate. Although Congress has continuously granted Presidential fast-track authority between 1974 and 1994, it has refused to renew that authority since then. The reason for this change of heart was simple: There were many in Congress who believed that a policy of unfettered trade with countries with weak or nonexistent labor standards, environmental standards, and the like were putting U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage--costing American workers hundreds of thousands of jobs and pressuring the United States to lower our own workers' health and safety standards. Instead of lowering our standards, our trading partners should be raising theirs. President Bush contends that America has missed out on portrayed opportunities due to the lack of fast-track authority. I contend quite the opposite is true. Since 1994, the United States has become a party to nearly 200 trade agreements with countries in the Caribbean Basin, which I strongly supported; the Sub-Saharan-African agreements; Southeast Asia; the Middle East; and elsewhere in the world. Far from hampering free trade, Congress's role in helping to craft the final language of trade agreements over the past 8 years developed new international norms and protected people's rights across the globe with whom we have entered into those agreements. The most recent of these agreements--and the one which I had hoped would become the basis--in fact, Bob Zoellick, who is the chief trade negotiator, mentioned back some months ago that he wanted to use the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement as the model for this fast- track authority. All of us here unanimously voted for the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. I can't tell you how enthused I was when Bob Zoellick made those remarks. I thought this administration understood the evolutionary process of trade agreements. The Jordan-United States Free Trade Agreement was, in my view, the best free trade agreement we had negotiated, and should have been the standard by which all future trade agreements would be judged. But unlike previous trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement--which I strongly supported, along with the Presiding Officer; and the Jordan FTA--the Jordan FTA actually includes provisions safeguarding minimum labor standards in the main text of the agreement, and it permits sanctions should our trade partner fail to comply with their own labor laws in order to gain an advantage over us in trade. The Jordan Free Trade Agreement passed 100 to zero in this body. It was unanimously supported by every single Member only a few months ago. With Congress poised to renew Presidential fast-track authority, it is now, it seems to me, more important than ever that the President's freedom to negotiate free trade agreements operate within a framework that upholds universally recognized labor standards. Because the Jordan language provides such a framework, there was a great deal of optimism--myself included--that the Jordan standards would be strongly included in the legislation renewing fast-track authority. That was the evolutionary process. However, the fast track bill that passed the House and the one that just passed this body does not include Jordan standards, and the Senate version, although going a little further, also fails to obtain the Jordan language. An amendment that I offered requiring new fast-track authority to be in parity with the Jordan standards was voted down by a vote of 52 to 46. That would mean that the fast track bill that goes to the President now will not prevent our trading partners from violating domestic labor laws in their own country to gain a competitive advantage over American workers and businesses, which was one of the major provisions of the Jordan FTA. Nor, as it is currently drafted, does the trade bill require countries with whom we trade to strive--to strive; that is all it is as an objective--to meet the standards of the International Labor Organization's declaration of workers' rights. There are 27 pages of negotiating objectives covering every imaginable issue that the Finance Committee saw in its wisdom to include, such items involving insurance, and e-commerce, technology, and the like. None of those objectives are absolutely required to be in every agreement. We merely state that trading negotiators should have them as their objectives to try and pursue during those negotiations. I found it rather stunning that the members of this Senate with the support of the administration could not agree to take the exact language out of an agreement that had passed 100 to zero, in the year 2001, and include it as part of the objectives of the fast-track authority dealing with labor rights. To not do this was a major setback, and it raises too many concerns in my own mind about whether or not this administration or successor administrations would pursue those values and ideals which we have so strongly made a part of our own society and pursued as trying to be included in the rights of others around the globe, that I felt I had no other choice, at the end, but to vote against this bill. Since neither the House bill nor the Senate bill includes the Jordan labor standards or something comparable, the President may not be in a position to prevent our trading partners from violating domestic laws in their own country to gain a competitive advantage over American workers and businesses. Nor, as it is currently drafted, does the bill require countries with whom we trade, as I said, to strive to meet the standards of the ILO. This means our trading partners may fail to prohibit child labor or forced labor if no such domestic laws exist. That was part of the language in the Jordan Free Trade Agreement that is missing from this bill: abolish child labor, eliminate discrimination--these are basic labor rights. To be turned away, after we already agreed to an agreement back only some months ago in the Jordan Free Trade Agreement, I found rather remarkable; that is, that we would not accept those as negotiating objectives--not requirements, but objectives--in the 27 pages that included everything else you could possibly imagine. But abolish child labor, eliminate discrimination, again these are basic rights. I saw that as a step backwards. We have entered the 21st century, we ought to try to pursue at least those rights and raise them with people who want access to our markets, I found that terribly disheartening. Instead of including provisions to protect not only hardworking Americans but hardworking people around the globe, and improve conditions with nations who want access to our markets, the Senate, in my view, seems to be content to continue increasing the amount of trade adjustment assistance paid to hundreds of thousands of American workers who lost jobs due to trade agreements with countries that disregard their workers' rights. While this assistance is desperately needed by working families hardest hit by trade agreements, it is not a long-term solution, and it certainly is not a trade policy. I am all for providing trade adjustment assistance. But it almost seems like raising a white flag in many ways in terms of what happens in our own country, so that all I can do is go back home to my own constituency and say: Don't worry; if you lose your job, I am going to see to it you get some assistance in the process. I am glad we are doing it, but in a way it is an abdication, in my view, of what we ought to be doing when it comes to workers' rights here and workers' rights around the globe. As I said a while ago, I have long supported efforts to promote free trade for the simple reasons that trade opens markets for American goods and services, and trade allows us to compete globally, which is generally good for American businesses and workers. Over the years, I have supported virtually every one of these agreements. So I am saddened, as I stand here this evening, that I was compelled, as a result of what was excluded from this bill, to vote against this trade promotion authority. But I feel very strongly that in order for trade to be a vehicle for improving the lives of men and women in this country--for it truly to be a ``rising tide that lifts all boats''--trade agreements must uphold international standards that the United States has long supported in the areas of labor and the environment. I remain unconvinced that the Bush administration is committed to including such standards, absent Congressional action in these areas. That is why I voted against the renewal of Presidential fast-track authority, despite my support for similar authority in the past. I do not dispute that there are many important provisions in this bill. I have strongly supported the renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act, which, again, I know the Presiding Officer has fought for very, very hard over the years. He and I have spent a lot of time talking about how to move that forward. It saddens me deeply that I am thrown into the position, because of what happened here, to have a vote cast against an agreement that I think is extremely important. But I am quite confident had the Andean Trade Preference Act been a freestanding proposal here, an overwhelming majority of Members would have supported it, and that act would have become law in its own right. That act, of course, expired last December because Congress failed the act. I wish we had done the Andean Trade Agreement as a freestanding bill because it has broad-based support that would benefit both the United States and the Andean nations who are participants in the agreement. My vote against the underlying bill should not be interpreted as any opposition, whatsoever, to the Andean agreement. I will speak separately about that agreement. In fact, I have added some remarks for the Record to be printed prior to the adoption of the bill this evening specifically talking about the Andean Trade Agreement. Were the Andean agreement the only issue we were being asked to vote on today, my decision with respect to how to vote would be an easy one. I would have voted overwhelmingly, strongly for that bill. Unfortunately, there is a lot more in this bill than the renewal and expansion of ATPA. There are also a number of important provisions that have been excluded from the bill. I believe that the adoption of the Dayton-Craig amendment allays some concerns that I had; namely, that the Bush administration was prepared to jettison U.S. trade laws designed to protect U.S. companies and workers against unfair trade competition. I believe that the Senate has put the administration on notice that this is unacceptable. And it remains to be seen what will happen to this provision during conference. The Senate began consideration of trade legislation on April 29, and there have been more than 18 rollcall votes on amendments offered by myself and other colleagues of ours in this Chamber. Many of these amendments were crafted in order to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that working men and women in our own country will not be adversely affected by future trade agreements. By and large, the Republican Members of this body have voted in lockstep against these amendments, regardless of their merits. I think that strategy was extremely unwise because it sends the wrong signal to U.S. negotiators and to foreign governments with whom we will be shortly entering into negotiations. The bill's provisions related to negotiating objectives with respect to labor and environmental matters, human rights, and the like, are inadequate, in my view. I would like to think we have finally reached common ground with respect to the importance of including enforceable labor and environmental provisions in trade agreements. Trade agreements can no longer just be about investments, tariffs and duties. Trade agreements must also include provisions that ensure that the environment and workers' rights will also be protected. I see no reason we should not want to take steps to make sure that such trade agreements include language which would encourage countries to improve their labor laws so that someday we will see child labor abolished and discrimination eliminated. Unfortunately, last week this body took a step back from the progress we made in the latter part of the 20th century, when it comes to trade agreements, when the two workers' rights amendments that both Senator Lieberman and I introduced were tabled. My amendment simply attempted to carry forward protections that have already been approved overwhelmingly in this body in the context of the United States-Jordan agreement. This was not some killer amendment. It was merely commonsense language already adopted unanimously by this body. The managers of this bill have mistakenly been saying that the bill follows the labor conditions contained in the Jordan agreement. My amendment would have made sure that these basic labor rights we have already approved once were fully incorporated into this bill. The few Jordan standards that are in the bill have been made meaningless by the rejection of Senator Lieberman's amendment which would have deleted four lines from the bill that were added by Senator Gramm of Texas. The Gramm language states that a party has the right to establish its own domestic labor standards and levels of environmental protection regardless of how these domestic laws may deviate from accepted international norms in these areas. That is the language of the bill now. If the Gramm language is retained in conference, as I suspect it will be, other countries can weaken their labor and environmental laws to gain a competitive advantage, and we will have no recourse against such actions. That is clearly contrary to the interests of the United States of America. I believe it is unwise that this bill has moved forward without language that would have ensured enforcement of worker rights and environmental protection in future fast-track trade agreements. I believe strongly that by not including these amendments, the Senate has reversed the bipartisan progress we made only a few months ago when we passed the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. I believe the managers of the bill will regret that they have not been more forceful in their directions to the Bush administration and successor administrations because it has shown little or no sensitivity with respect to these matters. The managers may have been able to get this legislation passed, as they have, but I will predict that if the administration ignores concerns expressed by myself and others on these subjects, they will find it extremely difficult to get congressional approval for future agreements that are concluded pursuant to the authority in this bill. I have no doubt that this legislation is going to survive the House- Senate conference and will shortly become law. It will then fall to the administration to build minimum labor standards into future trade agreements. It will be up to Congress to vote down agreements that fail to ensure that our trading partners respect and uphold workers' rights. The continued growth of international trade will only benefit workers in America and around the globe if increased trade goes hand in hand with respect for labor rights, protection of the environment, and a shared commitment to making the lives of working people around the globe better. I hope the administration takes note of this free traders vote today. They didn't need it. It wasn't necessary. The bill passed overwhelmingly. But I know there are many who voted for this legislation who did so with a great concern considering the progress we have made over these past number of years; then to have as an underlying agreement a major step backwards from the achievements we have accomplished as a Congress. I believe if the administration fails to do what it ought to do, it is likely to find more Members of this body who have been traditionally free traders walking away from future agreements that could enhance the opportunity for people in this country and elsewhere around the globe. I apologize to the Chair and members of the staff who have to listen to these remarks at this late hour. I wanted to be on record publicly about a vote I cast, I regret I had to cast, given a long, strong record of supporting trade agreements over the years. This bill has gone in the wrong direction. I could not in good conscience lend my name to a proposal I think will cause serious problems in the years ahead. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate the Town of Wilton, CT, on celebrating its bicentennial anniversary as a separate municipality. Incorporated by the Connecticut General Assembly from the parent Town of Norwalk, CT, on Monday, May 20, 1802, Wilton is a vibrant community steeped in both history and culture, and a paradigm of the quintessential New England town. Settled as early as 1640, Wilton grew from 40 recorded families in 1726 to its present population of over 17,000. While the town has been successful in maintaining a small tight-knit community atmosphere, it has greatly benefitted from its location in Fairfield County and proximity to New York City. Modern Wilton is blessed with a diverse population, a strong economy, and a plethora of different industries. From the day 263 residents volunteered to fight to uphold American liberty in the Revolutionary War, the people of Wilton have continually demonstrated admirable patriotism during many different eras. Over the years, the town has also become keenly aware of its own heritage. Through a variety of innovative preservation efforts undertaken by the Wilton Historical Society, dozens of historical houses and buildings dating from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries have been protected for the benefit of future generations. One of these estates happens to be the only National Park in Connecticut, the Weir Farm National Historic Site. Home to impressionist painter Julian Alden Weir for over 40 years, the residence is considered a birthplace of the American Impressionist movement in the 1890s. To celebrate the town bicentennial, the people of Wilton will be holding several different traditional festivities during the month of May. In addition, 20 Wilton residents will be cycling from Washington, DC, to Wilton in a special ``BikeCentennial.'' The entourage will travel across Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and part of Connecticut before arriving at Wilton on July 4. Once again, I would like to commemorate the town of Wilton on its bicentennial anniversary. I wish the town and its residents continued vibrancy and success for many generations to come.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my understanding is that there are 5 minutes of debate equally divided on the Dodd amendment. I was going to ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment, but I understand that it will be a tabling motion, so let me hold on that. Briefly, I will describe what I thought would be a fairly straightforward, small, uncontroversial amendment, but some have not made it as such. What I tried to do with this amendment was to take three provisions of the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement out of the six that are incorporated in the agreement. The three that are missing, are critically important to have as part of the 27 pages of standards that we ask our negotiators to try to pursue as we enter trade negotiations with individual countries. The United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was adopted 100 to zero only a few short months ago in this body, and as part of that agreement we added the three standards that are excluded in this bill. The three standards ensure that other governments will not relax or ignore their own domestic labor laws to gain a competitive advantage, to strive to ensure that other governments' labor laws are consistent with core labor standards that have already been agreed to with the ILO and, thirdly, to agree that core labor principles, freedom of association, prohibitions on child labor, elimination of discrimination in the workplace, are all going to be efforts we would strive to promote. They are goals. They are objectives. Unfortunately, they have been excluded from the underlying bill. My purpose in offering this amendment is to include those important objectives. If we can include objectives dealing with e-commerce, investments, insurance, is it really asking too much, out of 27 pages of standards, to add 3 that would deal with child labor, job discrimination, and seeing to it your domestic labor laws are not eroded, making it disadvantageous for U.S. workers as we try to compete with these countries? I hope this amendment can be adopted. I regret it has come to a vote of motion to table. It seems to me we have had a dynamic process with regard to trade negotiations over the years. It used to be in the past we dealt with tariffs and quotas, and that was it. Over the years, we have added a dynamism to that, so we have added other interests that we want our negotiators to pursue when we are allowing countries to have access to our markets. I do not think it is asking too much to ask our negotiators, in the process of negotiating with countries, that they try to abolish child labor. The International Labor Organization has been signed by 163 countries. We have already agreed to these provisions under the Jordan FTA. It seems to me that including these provisions in the trade promotion authority legislation now before us is a modest request.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I commend our former Chief Executive of the country--former President Ronald Reagan. I just attended a ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol honoring former President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. We are from different parties, and we had disagreements during his administration. But one thing can be said about President Ronald Reagan: Whatever disagreements or agreements you may have had on specific policy issues, Ronald Reagan gave this country a strong sense of confidence and optimism. We had come through a difficult time in the 1970s, with Watergate, the Iranian crisis, and the energy crisis that had been debilitating to our spirit. Ronald Reagan restored our Nation's confidence in itself. I commend the President. I know he is suffering from Alzheimer's, and Mrs. Reagan has taken on the heroic efforts of being his eyes and ears in the sense of speaking for him where appropriate. It was a very moving ceremony in the Rotunda, where both the President and First Lady were recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal. So as one Democrat, to a former Republican President, but more importantly a great American President, I express my gratitude to him for his service, and Mrs. Reagan for her remarkable service both to her husband and family and this country.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I have some remarks on another subject I would like to make. I commend our colleague and friend from New York for her comments. I associate myself with her remarks. I think all Americans would. Obviously, it is critically important we know all that we possibly can of what occurred. If there was, in fact, information that should have been acted on, it is critically important we know about it, what happened, and why actions were not taken, so we minimize the possibility of the events of September 11 from occurring again. We all realize, as our colleague and friend from New York has pointed out, it is a difficult job being the Chief Executive Officer of this country, the Commander in Chief. And there is a voluminous amount of material that arrives every day from our national security agencies and services. But when you get information this specific, this detailed, arriving from a variety of different sources, then someone should have taken better action, in my view. So I am hopeful we will get a response. It is critically important for the healing process and for understanding exactly what occurred. So I commend the Senator for her remarks and associate myself with them.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I do not know if other Members want to be heard on this amendment. I am prepared to yield the floor, and I will suggest the absence of a quorum shortly, unless the Chair, obviously, wants to do something. If others want to speak, or if Senator Kyl wants to come over and start his debate, I am perfectly amenable to that. If other Members, all of a sudden, want to come and discuss the Dodd amendment, the Dodd-Lieberman amendment, there will be a period to do so before we actually get to a vote, I assume, at 4 o'clock. With that, Madam President, I thank, again, the distinguished chairman of the committee and the ranking member and their staffs for their patience. They demonstrate great patience in these debates, and I thank them for that.

Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, as I understand it, in the unanimous consent agreement, we will come back to this debate, and there will be 5 minutes, where the time will be equally divided, to make summations before the actual vote occurs.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I will be very brief. My colleague and friend from Montana has been very patient. He has an awfully difficult job chairing this important committee and dealing with the various issues that are raised. As I said at the outset of my remarks, I commend the committee for its effort. I thought this might be an amendment that would be easily accepted. I did not expect it to evoke the kind of debate we have had from my colleague from Texas because it really should not be a huge debate. My colleague from Montana is right, we should just accept this and move on. I will tell you why, very simply. Again, not to be arcane, but the language of the bill, on pages B-4 and B-5, starting at the bottom of page B-4, says: to promote respect for worker rights and the rights of children consistent with core labor standards of the International Labor Organization (as defined in section 2113(2)). . . . Section 2113(2) defines those labor standards. They include: the right of association; the right to organize and bargain collectively;. . . . It says: a minimum age for the employment of children; and acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages [and the like]. That is very different from the ILO standards. So the ILO standards, as defined in section 2113(2), are different from the ILO standards. The ILO standards say: the effective abolition of child labour; and the elimination of discrimination. . . . ``The elimination of discrimination'' is not included in section 2113. So they are different. I thought the amendment would have just been accepted. It says: ILO ``as defined.'' It is different from ILO. That is the reason we wanted to use the language as the principals in the Jordan agreement, because our trading partners are not foolish. They will understand there is a difference. So ``the effective abolition of child labour'' and ``the elimination of discrimination'' are in the ILO standards but not in the standards we are going to negotiate. So that is the reason we offer the amendment. I really expected it, as I say, to be something that did not provoke a significant debate. But there is a distinction.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman. Before I get into the details of the amendment and why I think it is an important amendment, let me state what I think many of my colleagues may have been aware of over the years. I have been a longtime advocate of promoting free and fair trade throughout my tenure in this body of more than two decades. I have historically supported the granting of fast-track authority. I voted for trade agreements that have resulted from that authority. So the Member who offers this amendment is one who has a strong record over the years of advocating and supporting expanding trading opportunities. I come from a State that has been tremendously dependent over the years on export markets for the health and well-being of the people who live there. I say that as a background so you understand what my thinking is about this amendment, and why I think this amendment is so important to people such as myself who have been supporters of trade agreement. The adoption or the defeat of this amendment could have a profound effect, I say to my colleagues, on someone such as myself, who likes to believe that we have progressed, over the years, in trade agreements, expanding and fighting for the rights that we demand not only for our own citizenry but in trying to expand around the globe to benefit and improve the quality of life for people elsewhere with whom we have trading agreements. What I have observed over time is that the evolution and the content and scope of these agreements, their depth and their breadth have grown dramatically since I first arrived in this body more than 20 years ago. No longer are we simply dealing with tariffs and duties and quotas to be levied on tangible goods. That was the case when I arrived. But because good people in this body, of both parties, over the years have fought to expand what would be a part of these agreements, we have improved dramatically these trading accords. We now deal with virtually every facet of our economy. The process has evolved. And matters once totally outside the realm of trade agreements no longer are. And that is good news for America. I am thinking, for example, of the NAFTA agreement, which I supported and which passed the Congress only after the Clinton administration negotiated side agreements related to labor and the environment. Those side agreements were controversial to some in this body, but they were so essential to the passage of NAFTA. Throughout my 20 years in the Senate I have been a strong supporter of trading agreements and fast track. I am very proud of my record of support for these agreements. It has been a critical issue for my State and the country. You are not listening to a Member who historically has objected every time a trade agreement or fast-track authority has come up. Quite the contrary, I have been one who has stood in support of these agreements because I believed they were in our country's best interest. Over time there has been an evolution in the content and scope of these trading agreements--that has been wonderful news for the United States--as their depth and breadth have grown dramatically. It used to be we just negotiated agreements that dealt with tariffs, duties, and quotas on tradeable goods. That was it. You didn't consider anything else. Those days are long since past. We now deal with virtually every facet of our economy in the context of trade negotiations. The process has evolved, and matters once considered totally outside the realm of a trade agreement no longer are. I am thinking of NAFTA, which I strongly supported, which was an important agreement that passed the Congress only after the Clinton administration negotiated side agreements relating to labor and the environment. Those side agreements were controversial to some in this body, but had they not been included, we would never have passed NAFTA. That is a fact. What I am saying about the amendment I am proposing--I will get to the details in a minute--for people such as myself, the adoption of this kind of an amendment is critically important to our votes when it comes to final passage. Maybe they are not necessary, but I would hate to think as we begin the 21st century that we would take a step back from exactly the progress we have made in the latter part of the 20th century when it comes to trading agreements. That is all I am suggesting we do here: To maintain this progress as we go forward. More recently, both the House and the Senate unanimously endorsed the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. The Bush administration in fact urged Congress to do so. The Jordan agreement broke new ground and set a standard, a floor by which other agreements will be judged as they relate to the support and protection of core internationally recognized labor standards. The United States-Jordan Agreement also contains a mechanism to resolve disputes related to violations of the terms of the agreement, including violations of labor rights equal to violations that in the context of commerce and other economic transactions between our two nations. The Jordan agreement was very forward looking, dynamic, and supported by 100 percent of the Members of the Senate. As part of that agreement, the United States and Jordan pledged not only to uphold existing domestic labor laws in conjunction with the trade agreement, but we also recognized that ``cooperation between them provides enhanced opportunities to improve labor standards'' in the future. Last week, King Abdallah of Jordan was in Washington. Many of my colleagues had an opportunity to see him. The Middle East crisis was foremost on his mind for obvious reasons. He also took the time to mention that the implementation of the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was working very well. For those who may say this places onerous burdens on developing countries, Third and Fourth World countries, and this is too difficult a task, King Abdallah of Jordan made the point that the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was working extremely well. No one expects every country with which we will be entering into negotiations to have the same standards and protections the United States has with respect to protection of workers' rights, just as they don't have as well developed patent and copyright laws or environmental standards. We know that. But we do believe that if every country had identical standards and practices, negotiations would be unnecessary. The purpose of engaging in negotiations and reaching comprehensive trade agreements is to encourage other nations to stretch themselves to do more in these areas. Trade agreements should be viewed as a dynamic process for ratcheting up global standards across the board. The Jordan standards, unanimously adopted by Members of this body, are a mechanism for making that happen in the labor sector. One of the reasons I am offering the Jordan standards as a part of this bill is that they passed 100 to nothing here. There was no debate about whether or not these standards ought to be included in that agreement. My concern is, if we don't raise the level on this trade authority, we will be taking a step back. My amendment merely takes three provisions of this agreement and incorporates them in the underlying bill. I commend the committee because they took three of the provisions of the Jordan free trade agreement included them in the legislation. But in the absence of these three I will discuss shortly, this is a flawed proposal. For those reasons, my amendment ought to be adopted. We don't expect everyone to have the exact standards we do. But we think these rights are not just unique to this country. We think the people's right to collectively bargain, the people's right to be protected against child labor are good standards. These are standards we want the rest of the world to try to reach. We don't want the world to hire children to produce products that are sold in America. We want the environment to improve not just in our own country but around the globe as well. By including the standards in the Jordan agreement in this agreement, we advance the very cause of those ideals which we have championed as a people, regardless of party. In many ways it has been the bipartisan insistence on these inclusions that has made them so important and so dynamic for the rest of the world. Is there any doubt that it is in the economic and foreign policy interests of the United States to encourage respect for workers' rights, abolish child labor, or to protect the environment? Those ought not belong to a party, they belong to a Nation. Is there any doubt that governments that treat their workers with respect, that allow them to freely associate, that have adopted laws against child labor, that have established minimum wage standards, are governments that tend to be strong and stable democracies, or that governments that don't value and protect their citizens are generally tyrants who are not only a threat to their own citizens but to their neighbors as well? President John Kennedy once said that a rising tide lifts all boats. The growth in international commerce can certainly be that rising tide. But it will only lift all boats if we ensure that increased trade goes hand in hand with respect for internationally recognized labor rights and have a shared commitment to making the lives of working people better. That is why I believe it is so critical that we send a clear signal that we truly are seeking to get our trading partners to adopt standards that our friends in Jordan readily agreed to and find are working extremely well. What an irony it would be that we demand it of Jordan, a country with all of its difficulties, with a remarkable leader in King Abdallah who finds he can live with it, and we turn around, after a unanimous vote in the year 2001, passing the United States-Jordan agreement, and adopt a trade accord here that would allow us to take a walk away from the very standards that only months ago we applied to the nation of Jordan. The Jordan Agreement is living well with the agreements and standards we applied there. To now take a hike on the standards we agreed to under Jordan, and to say to everyone else that they get to adopt a lower standard would be a tragedy. This agreement ought not to be adopted if we exclude these provisions that we have already adopted 100 to nothing in the Senate only a few short months ago. Let me explain what the amendment does. It is not complicated. It is very straightforward. My colleagues will understand this is not an exaggerated, new idea. I am merely taking the language that already exists, that was adopted unanimously in the year 2001. The amendment, for those who want to follow the details of this, would modify section 2102(b)(11) of the underlying managers' amendment as it relates to the principle trade negotiations with respect to labor by adding language drawn from the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. The language proposed in my amendment is an addition to the language included in the managers' package. I commend the managers. They did include language, very specifically, from the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement in this bill. That is very helpful. But we are missing some language here. Let there be no doubt. When you are dealing with traders around the world, they will make clear note that the absence of language was not a mistake, not some oversight; the intentions are quite clear that all of a sudden we are changing the rules of the road. I don't think we want to send that message. So I know there will be arguments that the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement is included entirely in this bill. It is not at all. I commend the managers for what they have done. The managers were working, of course, from the House version of this bill. That placed certain constraints on them in committee. I hope that the full Senate will act on this matter now, so we can be more flexible and fully reflect the important precedent set by the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement in the areas of labor and the environment. I have prepared a chart that replicates article 6 of the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. It relates to the obligations of the United States and Jordan with respect to labor. Let's look to the provisions of that agreement and compare it with the text of the bill and the additions my amendment would make to that text. Article 6.1 of the U.S. Jordan Agreement, is reflected in section (C) of the pending amendment. This amendment would establish as a principal negotiating labor objective, the reaffirmation by parties of their obligations and commitments as members of the ILO--International Labor Organization--in the context of labor negotiations and in the context of future trade agreements and a commitment to ensure that domestic labor laws are consistent with the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. What does that mean? It is a lot of language. It means, in the context of the negotiating process, that governments that are members of the ILO, of which there are 163--virtually everybody we are trading with--must be mindful of the obligations that have already been assumed as members of that organization. That is a radical thought, isn't it? It was signed on to by 163 countries. We are saying, if you want to trade with us, we want you to live up to the commitment you made when you signed on. That is what we said to Jordan. We said: Look, you are a member of the ILO and we are going to say if you want to have a trading relationship with us--and we want it with you--we want to have clear language in the agreement that says you must live up to those obligations that you already signed on to. That is not exactly a radical point in this context. What are those obligations? To respect, promote, and realize fundamental labor rights, such as freedom of association, elimination of forced labor, abolition of child labor, and the elimination of discrimination with respect to employment. I hope I will not have to debate in this Chamber, as we begin the 21st century, whether or not it is in the interest of the United States, when we enter trading agreements, that somehow we are going to sit back and remain silent when it comes to discrimination, child labor, and the right to promote respect or fundamental rights and the elimination of forced labor. I don't think that is terribly radical for the U.S. in this century to be talking about having or advancing those standards in future trading agreements. So if you are going to defeat this amendment, understand we are going to step back to what we agreed to 100 to 0 a few months ago and to say to every trading partner we have, you can disregard this--disregard forced labor, child labor, and the notions of free association and the elimination or discrimination with respect to employment. I don't know of a single Member of this body, Republican or Democrat, who wants to be associated with a trading agreement that retreats from those very principles we have adopted in this body already. We are not asking these countries to do anything more than they are obligated to do as members of the ILO. That is all. This provision is not currently included in the managers' principal negotiating objectives, and I think it should be. Let's look at the next provision. Article 6.2, embodied in section (E) of my amendment, namely, that the parties recognize it is inappropriate to seek a competitive trade advantage by relaxing or waiving domestic labor laws. I hesitate to even explain this one. We are saying we don't want you to step back in your own domestic laws in order to create a more favorable trade environment. That would be so damaging to our own country. We are saying, if you want to have an agreement with us, if you want to sell your products in America, you cannot start retreating on your own laws and putting American workers and American companies at a disadvantage. We included this provision in the United States-Jordan agreement. We said we want a guarantee that you are not going to slip back and undo the laws you already adopted. You don't have to trade with us, but if you want to, we insist that you live up to the laws you have already written. That is not a radical thought. Certainly, it seems to me that by excluding specifically that language from this agreement, having specifically ratified the trading agreement only a few short months ago, that we would be sending a signal with which I don't think many people in this Chamber would want to be associated. So it is extremely important. What is the harm in including this provision? Do we support other countries gaining a competitive advantage over U.S. industries, businesses, and manufacturers by ignoring their own laws? I don't think so. And I certainly hope not. Article 6.3 of the Jordan agreement is embodied in section (D) of my amendment; namely, to recognize the rights of parties to establish their own labor standards, but also the commitment to strive to ensure that their laws are consistent with the core labor standards, and that we should be trying to, over time, improve working conditions. Again, this doesn't seem terribly radical to me. Articles 6.4 and 6.5 of the Jordan agreement are already contained in the underlying bill, as is 6.6, the definition of labor laws. Again, I commend Senators Baucus and Grassley, and other members of the committee, for already taking the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement and including the provisions I have just mentioned. So we have already set the precedent of taking the exact language of the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement and explicitly included some of the language in this bill. The obvious omission of the articles I have just mentioned, involving the points I have raised, I think, would be glaring in terms of our retreat from those principles we think are extremely important. My comparison of the agreement with the underlying bill and with the provisions of my amendment show that this bill does not incorporate all of provisions in the United States-Jordan agreement. I believe that only with the adoption of this amendment Senator Lieberman and I have offered can we fairly assert that there is parity between this bill and the United States-Jordan accord. Let's assume for the moment that you agree with the managers of the bill, that they have already accomplished Jordan parity. I might ask, what is the harm of accepting this amendment, which I clearly have shown is no more or less than what is in the United States-Jordan agreement? It seems to me by taking this additional language, we have done nothing to damage the statements made by the authors of this bill. I fail to see what great damage could be done to this bill or to the President's negotiating authority with the addition of a few additional negotiating objectives. There are currently 27 pages of principal negotiating objectives in the pending managers amendment, covering 14 areas, such as trade barriers, services, investment, intellectual property, e-commerce, agriculture, labor, environment, and dispute settlement. I don't think we believe that U.S. negotiators will be successful in delivering on every single one of these objectives. But the point of including them is to encourage U.S. negotiators to pay attention to the issues of discrimination in employment, forced labor, and child labor. We think those are worthwhile objectives that should be payed attention to. If you can pay attention to e-commerce, to investments, to intellectual property, tell me what your rationale is for taking a hike and walking away when job discrimination, child labor, and forced labor ought to be on the table as well as part of our standards. If it is OK to watch out for the banks, for the high-tech companies, how about watching out for people who have no one else to watch out for them and to insist that if you want to trade with America, sell your goods in Nevada, or in Connecticut, or in Texas, or anywhere else, at least you have to put these standards on the table. So we urge adoption of an amendment to incorporate these standards, to encourage our negotiators to pay attention to these objectives that have been delineated, and send a signal to our trading partners that we care about them--at least the Senate does. Republicans and Democrats care about these issues. We care about trade, but we also care about working people. We care about them at home and around the globe. If you are going to have the luxury of selling your products and services here, for the Lord's sake, please pay attention to some things that go to human decency. That is all we are talking about. That is why we truly believe our negotiators should be attempting to achieve standards that already apply. I suspect if I were offering this language for the first time, people would say I am breaking new ground. I am not breaking new ground. In the year 2001, this Senate unanimously voted for the agreement. This body, at the urging of President Bush, adopted the United States- Jordan Free Trade Agreement, and the very standards written here are written into that law. Should we say to other countries we insist Jordan do something, but the rest of you can just ignore these important standards? As I said earlier, our partners in negotiation are not foolish; they are not naive; they are not stupid. They are going to know there is a difference between this bill and the Jordan agreement. They are going to assume rightly--or, more importantly, wrongly--that there is a message sent by that difference. If we do not want to send such a signal--and I do not believe the managers of this bill do--then I think we should be careful with the language we incorporate here. I believe, without the adoption of this amendment, the Jordan standards will not be fully on the table for discussion, and we will have missed a unique opportunity to insist they be a part of all future agreements. Madam President, I urge the adoption of this amendment. It is not complicated. It is very straightforward. It is not precedent setting, and I think it is where America is. These are American values. If we can add standards in every other imaginable area to protect every financial interest one can think of, should we not also try to do something about kids who get hired to produce some of the very clothes people are wearing every day; shouldn't we see to it that job discrimination and forced labor are not going to produce the products we sell on the shelves of our small communities and large cities of this country? I do not think that these ideas are radical. They are about as American as it can get. I hope my colleagues will think likewise and support this amendment.

Mr. DODD. While we are waiting, my good friend from Texas and I have worked on a lot of things together. We disagree on this particular point. For clarity purposes, we are talking about 27 pages of standards that are part of this trade promotion authority. We are talking about the addition of three principle negotiating objectives. It is not one-size- fits-all any more than it is one-size-fits-all on the other 27 pages of standards. We are taking, what is already partly in the bill, to the credit of the manager of this bill, several provisions in the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. My colleague said this was a foreign policy document, not a trading agreement. If that were the case, why did we add provisions that expanded the concerns about child labor and discrimination in the workplace, forced labor, the rights of free association? If we merely wanted to do a foreign policy document, we would have had a barebones agreement with Jordan, if it was just to send a message that we wanted to be of some help. But, no, we incorporated collective wisdom and included the dynamic principles we care about into the Jordan Agreement. This is about America. It is not fair to Americans who lose their jobs because of a trading agreement, where some other country can hire children, discriminate in the workplace or disregard the rights they signed on to in the International Labor Organizations. That gives them a tremendous advantage at the expense of America. Jordan may be small; these principles are not small. They may represent twenty-five one-thousandths of 1 percent, but forced labor, child labor, discrimination in the workplace, and the right of association are not twenty-five one-thousandths of 1 percent of what Americans care about. We care about these principles. And we fight for them. We eliminated them in our own country years ago. We struggle every day to make them work, even in the 21st century. We are saying if you want the right to sell your goods in America, these are principles and objectives we think you ought to try to achieve. They are objectives. The idea that we would exclude these objectives--I just don't understand the rationale of that. With 27 pages of objectives in this bill, that include objectives on e-commerce, investment, and many other standards--how about including some standards that apply to working people? How about that? Is that so radical a thought? We have already adopted by 100 to zero a United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement establishing principles, adding 3 more principles, to a 27-page set of negotiating objectives. Not every country is America. We are not foolish. We do not say you must absolutely meet the standard of the United States when it comes to job discrimination, child labor, forced labor. It would be ludicrous if I were to write and say you must absolutely achieve the same standards we have. That is unrealistic. We have not done that. If I cannot write this into a trade promotion authority, where do I write it? Do I have to do it agreement by agreement by agreement? Why not just make this part of the principles of our negotiators? These are not radical ideas. All that I am saying is that as part of the principal negotiating objectives, including the provisions you already added from the free trade agreement with Jordan, these three Jordan standards ought to be included. It is not too much to ask. I appreciate my colleague from Texas and his colleagues on the Finance Committee spending time getting their ideas incorporated into the bill. I am chairman of the Rules Committee, and a bill recently came out of the Committee. I had 100-some-odd amendments; 43 were dealt with on the floor. I was not offended. I prefer that everyone did everything I wanted them to do. I don't know a Senator who doesn't feel that way. The reason we have 100 Members representing 50 States is, people have a right to raise concerns and offer amendments. We are doing that. I commend the committee for what they have done. The Finance Committee, under the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, have done a terrific job. It is not easy. They have incorporated parts of the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. But they left out three that I think are important. I am merely suggesting, and I regret this requires a recorded vote. These are objectives, that is all. My Colleague from Texas mentioned Europe. We are worried about trading with Europe? Is this such a difficult job in Europe, with forced labor, child labor, and employment discrimination? I don't think so. The problems arise with smaller countries that are still emerging where the problems exist. If, by requiring our negotiators to raise these principles, we might improve the quality of life of people in these developing countries, is that such an outrageous suggestion? Is that something that America should retreat from as a nation that takes pride in the fact we try to recognize the rights of all people? When our Founding Fathers wrote the cornerstone documents of this country, they didn't talk about these rights, those inalienable rights, only occurring if you manage to make it to America. Those inalienable rights are rights that are endowed by the Creator to all people. In the 21st century, to try to slow down the abolition of child labor, forced labor, job discrimination, and to suggest we ought to keep it out of this bill, this trade promotion authority, I don't think reflects who we are as a people. It is a step back from where we are as a people. This is not one size fits all. We know fully well as we enter trading agreements, there will be nations that will do a better job or not as good a job in the areas I have mentioned. I don't think it is so radical to ask our negotiators to have these, along with the other 27 pages of standards. Every business interest in America is guaranteeing their interests are going to be negotiated when it comes to reaching agreements. What about working people? Why can't they be on these 27 pages, as they have in many places? I don't think it is a lot to ask by adding these three. I urge my colleagues to support this effort. The role of the full Senate is not to be a rubber stamp. What I am offering I think is more of an oversight. The managers were dealing with a House version of the bill, and they added the three provisions of the Jordan agreement, and they left these three out. I think it is the intent of the managers to include the principal negotiating standards of the Jordan agreement. And really denouncing this because the country we negotiated with was small--these principles are not small; the fact we negotiated with a small country does not mean the principles are not large in the minds of the American people. We ought to make them principles, regardless of the size of the country with which we negotiate. It is a great tribute to the nation of Jordan, a small struggling country, one of the most crisis-ridden areas in the world, that they could live with these standards as part of the negotiation we entered with them. If a small, struggling country can accept this, representing one tiny percentage of our trading partners, then certainly larger countries should do no less. Therefore, the very argument of my colleague from Texas when he says this is like arguing about the price of a tire when you try to buy GM-- child labor, forced labor, job discrimination are not tires. Those are not just small consumer items in the list of human principles and values. We think they are important principles and they ought to be given a status--more than a sale of a tire on a car. I urge my colleagues to join us in this and support this language and put it in the bill. It makes it a stronger bill, a better bill, a bill we can be proud of when we negotiate trading agreements in the future with other countries. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Secondly, Mr. President, I commend President Carter for his work this week. I have been so impressed with the efforts that President Carter has made in Cuba during the past 4 or 5 days. I think he has spoken for many of us in this country during his visit to Cuba. While in Cuba, President Carter addressed the Cuban people on national radio and television--a unique opportunity in a country that is a totalitarian regime where democracy has had no expression now for more than four decades. In having been granted permission to address the Cuban people, President Carter was given a right that no Cuban other than the President of the country, and those who agree with him, has been given--the opportunity to speak freely about democratic values, values that we embrace as a people and the 11 million people of Cuba embrace as well. In his address, President Carter urged the government of Cuba to allow democracy to be restored, and asked that pro-democracy petitions be allowed to be collected, and respected. He simultaneously called for the U.S. government to allow free travel to Cuba and stated his belief that our government should begin to lift our embargo. I commend him for those comments. The only place I know of in the world that we prohibit our citizens from traveling to is the island of Cuba. You can go to Iraq. You can go to North Korea. You can go to Iran. You can go to any other country around the globe, some of which are our most devout enemies when it comes to terrorism. You may be stopped from entering by the governments of those countries, but our Government does not prohibit you from going. Cuba is the only country where Americans are prohibited from entering by our country. And for the hundreds of thousands of Cuban Americans who have family and loved ones there, who are only allowed to go back once a year, who would like to go and see their family members more than once a year, perhaps to go see an ailing parent or grandparent, I find this to be a particularly onerous provision in American law. I hope it will be changed, just as I am hopeful that change will come to Cuba and democracy will arrive on that island so the people will have the opportunity to elect and choose their political leadership. In summary, President Carter, by calling upon the Cuban Government to change its ways and our own Government to change some policies, I think gave the appropriate message; one that can be appreciated not only here, but on the island of Cuba by the Cuban people and freedom-loving people around the globe. So today, I take this moment to express my gratitude to this former President who, in his retirement, has accomplished so many wonderful things and become such a wonderful symbol for human rights and dignity and democracy around the globe. I am proud to stand here and honor two former Presidents who faced each other in an election 1980, but in their own way have made unique contributions to our Nation. President Carter continues to do so. I commend him for his work in Cuba and look forward to his return and hearing from him. I am hopeful that he will come before us in Congress in some setting in which he might be able to describe his feelings about events in Cuba while sharing his opinion of what the prospects hold for the future. With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to call the attention of my colleagues in the Senate to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on May 2 which provides an important perspective on the challenging and vital process of developing new medicines. It is no coincidence that the article features Pfizer Inc., a world leader in pharmaceuticals and a company that made its home in my home State of Connecticut. Pfizer's contribution to changing the quality of health care by developing new therapies for conditions such as epilepsy, depression, arthritis, high blood pressure and more has been invaluable. This sort of innovation has increased the quality of care we deliver as well as changed the nature of it, with new medicines resulting in fewer trips to hospitals, doctor's offices, and better overall care for so many patients. The article details the company's efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to discover, develop and test a new medicine to strengthen muscle, thereby helping to prevent injury and possibly osteoporosis in the elderly. In the process, Pfizer committed a team of scientists, $71 million, and 10 years of effort, and this was before the development process even progressed to advanced clinical trials, underscoring the tremendous investment required in developing each new therapy. Despite this infusion of resources and time, the project ultimately failed to produce the desired therapy. But the accounting of this process in an excellent example of the risks, costs and efforts involved in innovation. We must continue to recognize and support these research and development efforts because we know the value they can provide. As we work in this Congress, and we must, to expand coverage and increase access to new medicines, we should strive to craft policy that continues to encourage the development of innovative products that can change and even save lives while helping to ensure that all our citizens benefit from such innovation. I ask that this article be printed in the Record. The article follows. Drug Prices--Why They Keep Soaring--Bleeding Cash: Pfizer `Youth Pill' . . . the wall street journal via dow jones About a sixth of Pfizer's portfolio of drugs in development were approved by Dr. Clark and his colleagues, including the frailty drugs, which got the green light in December 1995. He was confident the frailty compound would succeed, ranking it among the top third of candidates at the time. But even among the fortunate drugs that pass muster initially with Dr. Clark's committee, the odds remain stacked against their ever making it to market. Dr. Clark's group also guides the researchers, funds interim studies and establishes milestones for judgment. And at any point Dr. Clark's committee can kill the very projects it has approved. Last year, the committee terminated research on five of seven promising medicines it had previously ``canned.'' The growth-hormone project quickly surpassed all the researchers' expectations. From the time the project was canned, it took only nine months to develop a drug that was safe enough to test in humans--a speed record for the research center in Groton, Conn., across the river from administrative headquarters in New London. The drug ``had no bumps or warts,'' marveled Gordon Gruetzmacher, project manager for the frailty drug. Though increasingly optimistic, Pfizer scientists and managers were sober about the challenges the potential new medicine faced--especially the elusive nature of the condition it was intended to treat. Frailty, which they came to define as an ``age-related decline in physical performance,'' wasn't a recognized disease, like osteoporosis or Alzheimer's. A drug to treat the chronic condition, like many the industry is now tackling, would require lengthy and especially expensive clinical studies because its effects might be subtle and take months or years to understand. To make sure that an experimental drug deserves such a sizable investment. Pfizer blends marketing with R&D early on. A marketing specialist works with each drug team to ascertain commercial merit. In particular, will the drug meet a compelling unmet medical need and will Pfizer be able to differentiate its medicines from those of its competitors? For the frailty drug, researchers believed they would have to show that it could do more than boost hormone levels or even muscle growth. Early talks with the Food and Drug Administration confirmed the higher standard. Insurers, too, would need evidence that the frailty drug would be worth their expense. to persuade regulators and insurers to embrace the drug, the Pfizer team aimed to prove beyond a doubt that elderly people who took it could walk faster and longer and avoid the kinds of falls that force many of them into nursing homes. Such a drug also could appeal to a younger, healthier but worried market, people who might use the medicine as a lifestyle enhancer, like Viagra, decades before they faced a real danger of frailty. For Pfizer, a medicine to stave off the ravages of old age, unlike an antibiotic taken for a week, could provide a long-term revenue stream: ``People will take it for 20 or 30 years--it'll be like a vitamin,'' predicted John LaMattina, a senior research executive, early last year. In late 1996, the frailty drug hit its first setback when an otherwise healthy man participating in a small safety study in the Netherlands developed a mysterious, mild rash. The test was halted while the team investigated. The cause was never found, though the leading theory remains that he had a reaction to laundry detergent or hand soap. After a few months, the team concluded that the drug was safe enough to continue. Pfizer recognized the growth-hormone workers as the best research team of 1996 for their trail-blazing accomplishments. And they continued on the fast track, initiating in late 1997 a larger clinical test of the drug, involving 114 people who randomly received one of four different doses or a placebo for a month. At this stage, the researchers sought to substantiate the safety of the drug and to pinpoint the best dose to use in subsequent tests of effectiveness. To their happy surprise, the scientists found that even a one-month regimen with the experimental drug produced measurable growth of muscle. ``it was great,'' Dr. Gruetzmacher recalls, ``We didn't expect an increase in less than six months.'' Though encouraging, the results didn't prove the drug was working. The test could have been a fluke. Besides, increases in muscle mass, even if they were real, wouldn't convince regulators to approve the drug, everyone had previously agreed. After lengthy discussion, the team decided to propose a six-month trial of the drug to Dr. Clark and his committee for approval and funding. But the scientists realized that showing that the drug halted or reversed aging would take months or even years. Dr. Clark pushed the research team to reconsider its time frame and ``go for the home run'' by pursuing a longer and much more expensive test that could detect subtle improvements in patients' ability to function. The team took six months to design a trial that would provide a definitive answer on whether the drug worked. They eventually proposed a two-year study in elderly patients that would measure muscle and some biochemical markers in the bloodstream. They also would test the subjects' walking speed and endurance and their ability to get in and out of a chair. Dr. Clark's management committee agreed to fund the study in about 350 patients, much larger than usual for such an early stage. To hedge the outsize bet and ensure that the project was on track, the study included interim analyses at six and 12 months. Last summer, three senior managers unconnected to the project, including a statistician, were chosen to review the data after six months. As outsiders, they were expected to be unbiased, and they would share their findings with only a few senior managers. In less than a week, they had reached their conclusion and called Dr. Clark. He decided to break the secrecy and inform the research team of the news. The patients taking the frailty drug had gained some muscle mass--but less than 3% more than the placebo group, which had also experienced muscle increases. There were no safety problems with the drug. But the study was stopped within a month because the drug appeared ineffective. Nobody is quite sure why. One theory is that the patients selected for the study may have been too healthy, so there was less room for improvement in the treated group. Another idea is that the drug caused the pituitary gland to release growth hormone in a way that was out of tune with the body's system for using it. In the end, Dr. Clark's committee ``took pity on us,'' Dr. Landshulz says, and allowed the team one last chance to salvage the medicine. They were permitted to collect and analyze data on the group of early patients in the study who had taken the drug for a year--just in case its effectiveness emerged later than six months. That was a long shot, everyone agreed, but worth the modest incremental expense. The final analysis was completed this spring, and the results were the same. Later this month, Dr. Clark's committee will review the file one last time and officially lay to rest the frailty drug, which Pfizer says cost the company $71 million to research and develop. The Clock Is Ticking Half of Pfizer's top-earning drugs face patent-expiration pressure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Expiration 2001 of basic revenue, Drug and Purpose U.S. in patents billions ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lipitor: Cholesterol............................ 2010 $6.45 Norvasc: Blood Pressure......................... 2006 3.58 Zoloft: Depression.............................. 2006 2.37 Neurontin:\1\ Epilepsy.......................... 1994, 2000 1.75 Viagra: Impotence............................... 2011 1.52 Zithromax: Antibiotic........................... 2005 1.51 Celebrex:\2\ Arthritis.......................... 2013 \3\ 1.16 Diflucan: Antifungal............................ 2004 1.07 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ \1\ Pfizer claims a separate patent concerning chemical stability of Neurontin protects drug until 2017 \2\ Pfizer co-promotes Celebrex for Pharmacia Corp. \3\ Estimate.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator for his comments. He is exactly right. In addition to the organizations he mentioned, this means jobs. Business cannot get lending from the banks because the banks will not lend money without terrorism insurance. There is no proposal that allows us to bridge the gap since September 11. It is very difficult to get this insurance because it is very difficult to price. Prior to the events of September 11 we had some acts of terrorism, but they were isolated and limited. What happened on September 11 has changed so many aspects of this country, including the question of how to calculate the cost of terrorism insurance. Banks do not want to lend money. This is a practical matter. I wish it were otherwise. They do not want to lend money when the terrorism insurance will not be written, and it will not get written because people do not know how to price or cost it. The idea was to frame some proposal to allow a bridge for a couple of years while the pricing of this product could be calculated, and to get the Federal Government out of it altogether but have us presently involved as a backstop should some catastrophic event occur. We would have a backstop so it would not wipe people out. I am told today that if we have an event such as September 11 again, the insurance that exists today could only deal with about 20 percent of the cost of what happened on that day. Knowing that, we begin to understand why banks are not lending the money; why, then, developers, contractors, and so forth, are not going forward with their projects; and why people are being laid off. We have a ripple effect. That is the reason we need this bill. I am not suggesting this is a perfect bill. But we do believe this proposal provides that gap for 23-36 months to allow for the pricing and free market factors to take over the costing out of terrorism insurance. In the absence of that happening, we get further delays. All the insurance contracts are being rewritten this year. It is a major economic issue, one that cries out for an answer. I urge my colleagues on the other side not to hold this up any longer and not object to moving forward. If Members have a proposal, come forward and we will accommodate that amendment and vote on it one way or the other but don't stop the bill from moving forward altogether. That is what is happening today and what has gone on for several months. It is causing great economic damage to the country. Talk to any major financial institution, talk to any major insurance company in this country, and they will say the same thing. The Republican objections to going forward on this bill are costing this country dearly. We need them to lift those objections, consider this bill, up or down, vote it up or down, but move on. Quit objecting to moving forward. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I note the presence of the distinguished Senator from Nevada who has spoken to me on numerous occasions about the efforts to get a bill passed dealing with terrorism insurance. In his State, and I think particularly Las Vegas, major construction efforts have been slowed down tremendously because of the inability to acquire terrorism insurance. We have been very close since last fall in coming to an agreement to bring up a bill and to allow a series of amendments to be offered, debated, disposed of, and then to move on to reconcile the differences with the House-passed bill so that we might eliminate this roadblock that is causing a slowdown in economic growth in this country. I hope my colleagues on the other side--I have worked very closely with Senator Gramm of Texas, with the minority leader, the Republican leader, Trent Lott, to try to come up with a framework that can work. On this side of the aisle, Senator Daschle, our Democratic leader, along with Senator Schumer and others who have been interested in the subject matter, we have received unanimous consent--my colleague from Nevada can correct me if I am wrong on this side to move forward with a proposal allowing for a series but limited number of amendments, to a defined period of time to be considered and then final passage of a bill. There have been objections filed on the other side so we have not been able to proceed. Let there be no doubt, there is 100-percent agreement on this side of the aisle to move to the terrorism insurance bill. Every day we wait, a day delayed is a job lost, a project gets stalled and the economy suffers. This is a serious issue. We ought to be able to get to a bill, consider amendments, let there be a decision by this body whether to support or reject amendments, get to final passage and try to resolve this issue. To those who call my office on an hourly basis wondering whether we will get a terrorism insurance bill, let me be as clear as I possibly can: There is no objection on this side of the aisle; there is on the other. My hope is we can resolve the objections. This has gone on week after week after week. There is no reason we cannot define amendments, allow for their consideration, allow for their disposition, and get to the third reading and final passage of a bill. My hope is that will happen this week so we can resolve the differences with the House and send a bill to the President for his signature.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to express my deep disappointment at the announcement made last week by Under Secretary of State John Bolton with respect to the ``unsigning,'' as they have called it, of the International Criminal Court. This decision, in my view, is irresponsible, it is isolationist, and contrary to our vital national interest. Many of our closest allies--in fact, every one of our NATO allies-- has put their faith and vision in this new legal instrument, the International Criminal Court. To date, 66 nations have ratified the International Criminal Court and over 130 nations have signed on to this particular effort, including those nations I mentioned--all of our NATO allies--countries such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the like. These are governments with deep ties to our Nation. We share a deep sense of common values, a deep sense of democracy, and a deep sense of justice. It is outrageous that the United States has now put itself in a position of joining only a handful of rogue nations that are frightened to death of the International Criminal Court as we enter the 21st century. We should be joining these countries and supporting them in their commitment to making the Court work and strengthening international respect for the rule of law. That is what we stand for as Americans. That is what we are trying to export around the world. In addition, we try to export the notion of justice, of fair justice, such as the symbols we see outside this building a block away: The Supreme Court, Justice blindfolded with the scales equally divided. That is what we have stood for as a nation for more than two centuries. What a great shame it is that as we enter the 21st century, in an effort to establish an international criminal court of justice, the Bush administration is going to ``unsign'' a document, a treaty, that I think would have gone a long way to helping us achieve the very goals incorporated in the Treaty of Rome. We should have been rejoicing that finally with the entry and divorce of the court, any individual who commits genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity would be on notice that he or she would be prosecuted for those offenses. I find it disheartening there is a lack of historical perspective when it comes to this issue. Let's remember it was the atrocities of World War II, the Holocaust, that lead to the establishment of the Nuremberg Tribunal to bring those who committed such acts of violence and human rights violations to justice, which highlighted the fact that there was a void in the international legal system. Those who participated in the Nuremberg process came to believe strongly that a permanent international criminal court should be established to try future heinous international criminals. The hope was that the existence of such a court would also serve as a deterrent to those who might consider committing such crimes. Unfortunately, the proposal floundered during 50 years of superpower rivalry, but the United States kept arguing that we ought to do this, through Republican and Democratic administrations. Conservatives, liberals, moderates all suggested and all argued at one time or another for the importance of the establishment of such a court. I have no doubt that such a court would have been extremely useful had it existed during the last quarter of the 20th century. It should still be fresh in our minds the fact that the end of the cold war, and the explosion of ethnic brutality led to the necessity of creating ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, but there was no means available for trying the Idi Amins and Saddam Husseins of this world, or others who have been able to evade their nation's justice. With very few exceptions, the world has stood helpless in the face of such crimes against humanity. Had the court existed, it just might have deprived these tyrants of the safe havens from prosecution. It just might have deterred some of the worst atrocities and also prevented the U.S. service members from being sent into harm's way to reestablish the rule of law. President Clinton, to his credit, appreciated that fact, and that is why he signed the treaty. He was not starry-eyed about it. However, he recognized that additional safeguards with respect to the operation of the court were needed in order to reassure those skeptical about the international organization, and he rightly decided that since the court was still a work in progress, and given the role of the United States as a leader in the promotion of the rule of law, that it was in the national interest of the United States to remain engaged with our allies as they moved forward to bring the Rome statute into force. Some in the United States harbor the unreasonable fear that Americans will be taken before this tribunal on politically motivated charges, fears that I believe are unfounded but fears that have not been dispelled with the erasing of our signature. U.S. men and women in uniform are no safer today than they were before Monday's announcement. In fact, I argue they are in greater jeopardy because the court, as it is presently construed, does have flaws because we disengage from rewriting the court to try to establish better rules--the court is going into existence in a matter of weeks. Whether we signed it or not, it is becoming the international rule of law, and today that court could have been stronger had we decided to remain engaged in helping frame the structure of the institution. These men and women in uniform may be in some jeopardy, and my hope would be they would not, but had we stayed engaged in this process, we could have eliminated even that slight possibility. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, what we have done with respect to the ICC, the ``unsigning'' of a treaty, is without precedent. I am sure there are legal scholars on diplomacy that can correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot find a single example in the more than two centuries of history where an American President has unsigned an agreement. Think of the precedent-setting nature of that act. Let's be clear: The U.S. withdrawing its signature, if it can so be done, does not annul the court. In fact, it does not do that at all. But it would encourage other nations to remove their signatures from treaties that are vital to U.S. interests, and they will cite the example of an American President who unsigned a treaty for which he did not particularly care. The fear in Washington is that American soldiers abroad, as I said, would be charged unjustly with war crimes. Such a possibility is very remote. The court already contains strong safeguards that ensure it will deal only with the most serious of international crimes and can take a case only if a nation's own judicial system has declined to carry out a conscientious investigation of the charges. Does anyone really believe that in this country we would not pursue a person in uniform who had committed heinous crimes to come before a bar of justice? The Rwandan and former Yugoslavian tribunals, which have rendered fair and reasonable judgments, show that America has little to fear from such a court. The Clinton administration negotiators were able to significantly improve the court's rules. Continued engagement, as I said a moment ago, by the Bush administration could have built upon that record. One would have thought it was in the interest of the United States not to miss a chance to affect the selection of judges in the definition of new crimes, issues that should matter to us and to our allies. Apparently that is not the case. A few weeks ago, on April 11, governments gathered in New York to mark what they called the depositing of the 66th instrument of ratification of the Rome statute, meaning that the international criminal court will come into existence this July. The court is going to exist and, unfortunately, we are going to be on the outside. We have made further announcements we will not even support or assist the court as it tries to gather information against those who may have committed these dreadful crimes that the court would have jurisdiction over. I am deeply disturbed by this action. I think it is a huge mistake. What are the implications of this course the Bush administration has set for the United States? The United States no longer can credibly voice its opinion on who should be selected to be the court's judges and prosecutors, nor will we be taken seriously if we attempt to use our seat in the U.N. Security Council to refer situations to the court, such as the current conflict in Sudan that has already claimed over 2 million lives as a result of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Finally, our words will fall on deaf ears when we purport to act as an unbiased watchdog of the court's integrity having denounced its fundamental purposes. We have also lost the opportunities that ensure the court stays focused on its primary task, that of bringing to justice the world's worst criminals. I have cited a number of vital American interests that are wrapped up in this institution, the court. Those interests are not going to be erased with the name of the United States gone from the Rome statute. The administration may have struck a responsive cord with a right-wing antimultilateralist constituency with this announcement, but it has jeopardized the interests of all Americans in so doing. The administration could have taken the higher road, the responsible road, recognizing that there is a constructive and useful role the United States could perform without making a decision at this juncture concerning U.S. ratification. Sadly, President Bush has chosen not to do so. While some may be cheering the administration's decision, those of us who care deeply about promoting the rule of law are not. The issue has particular significance for me. My father, Thomas Dodd, was an executive trial counsel at Nuremberg in 1945 and 1946. The Nuremberg trials of the leading Nazi war criminals following World War II was a landmark of the struggle to deter and punish crimes of war and genocide, setting the stage for the Geneva and genocide conventions. It was also largely an American initiative. Today, instead of America being a leader in the pursuit of global justice, we would act to throw up roadblocks toward that goal. Make no mistake about it, today was a setback in the promotion of global justice. Today was a setback for what America is supposed to stand for, and I regret this decision very deeply indeed.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from North Dakota for several comments he made. I particularly commend him for his comments about the issue regarding Cuba and how we might do a better job than we have over the past 40 years of bringing democracy to that country. After 40 years of failed policies, one might think a new approach would be in order. I take note as well that as we speak today, a former President of the United States, President Carter, is in Cuba speaking to dissidents and human rights activists, as well as members of the Government of Cuba. That kind of exposure, that kind of engagement is going to do more to bring about the change we want to see in Cuba than the insistence of a failed policy we have followed for the past four decades. I commend my colleague from North Dakota for his comments.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the town of Ridgefield, Connecticut, as it celebrates its rich historic and cultural heritage. Located in Southwestern Connecticut, Ridgefield was established by Norwalk settlers in 1708 on twenty-three square miles purchased from the Ramapoo Indian chief Catoohnah. A year later the town was chartered by the Connecticut General Assembly. At its founding, Ridgefield was a small town of farmers organized along a remarkable 8 mile long main street, then called Town Street. Slowly, shops and public buildings began to spring up on Town Street, including the Keeler Tavern, founded in 1772, which served as a meeting-place for the early Colonial settlers, and an inn for tired travelers. Indeed, the Keeler Tavern, which coincidentally still stands today as a museum, was a place for lively debate among Loyalists and Patriots in the nascent days of the Revolution, and became a meeting place for early Revolutionaries. As Keith Jones, a town historian, has reported, on April 27, 1777, the Revolution arrived at the doorstep of the Keeler Tavern, as the village of Ridgefield became host to Connecticut's only in-land battle of the war. On that date, a small band of revolutionary colonists led by General Gold Selleck Sillman and General Benedict Arnold, before his traitorous switch to the British, arrived on Town Street shortly before noon with 500 Fairfield County men where they joined forces with Colonel Philip Burr Bradley and other troops from the Ridgefield-based 5th Connecticut line and the recently formed 1st Ridgefield militia. General Arnold quickly took command, and a barricade was formed on the north end of Town Street to await the British troops under General William Tryon who were advancing Southward from Danbury to retreat from the advancing Patriot Major General David Wooster who was closing in from the East. The three forces engaged in what has now become commonly known as the Battle of Ridgefield. The fighting was fierce, with casualties on both sides, including the mortal wounding of General Wooster. In hours, British reinforcements joined Tryon's beleaguered forces, greatly outnumbering the Patriots while advancing on the barricade. Superior numbers carried the day, and the British stormed down Town Street, seizing the town. With 12 dead, and 24 wounded, General Arnold ordered the Patriots retreat. As he moved his troops back, Arnold's horse was shot out from underneath him, pinning him to the ground. He escaped and made it to rendevous with supporters the next day. Despite the valiant efforts of the Patriots, the battle was a clear victory for the British who encamped South of town after burning six homes and the Episcopal church. On the way out of town, the British fired on the Keeler Tavern a few times, after having correctly learned that musket balls were being made in the basement. That day, a small cannonball was fired into the walls of the tavern, and today, the cannonball is still embedded in one of the corner posts of the Keeler Tavern. Word of the battle of Ridgefield spread quickly, and within six hours of the British army's departure, thousands of Patriot soldiers poured into the area to block future British attacks. They were successful in deterring new attacks, and no more inland battles were waged in Connecticut. Beginning in 1877, Ridgefielders have held some form of ceremony remembering the battle every 25 years. This year, on the 225th anniversary of the battle, the town is planning an ambitious program called ``Patriot Weekend.'' This weekend will include Revolutionary war storytelling for children, historical fact scavenger hunts, special theatrical performances, and a period craft fair. In addition, the Keeler Tavern will host a special exhibit of battle artifacts. Capping off the weekend, a large-scale recreation of the Battle of Ridgefield, complete with black-powder musketry, will be conducted by the Brigade of the American Revolution. Over 130 units representing all the various infantry, cavalry, artillery, artificers, and musicians of the war, will re-create the military tactics and maneuvers of the battle in painstakingly reproduced clothing, weapons, and gear. This will be a truly amazing spectacle, and one that brings the rich history of Ridgefield, and Connecticut, alive. Ridgefielders are justly proud of their heritage, and I commend them for organizing this truly remarkable historic celebration. What began as a small farming town in the 1700's grew to become a weekend retreat for New Yorkers in the 1900's, and is now a vibrant town of 23,000. Historic Town Street, now called Main Street, still houses small shops and restaurants, and signs mark the locations of the key points of this exciting battle, while the world-renowned Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art looks forward to the future. Connecticut is fortunate to be home to such rich cultural treasures as the town of Ridgefield, and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly express my commendation for this weekend's activities.