Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, today, I introduce the Keeping the Internet Decent and Safe (K.I.D.S.) Act. This legislation would give parents and educators tools to protect our children while they use the Internet. Moreover, this bill would give law enforcement officials the ability to make the Internet a safer environment for everyone. Unfortunately, while innocently ``surfing'' the web, many of our children are accidentally encountering graphic and sexually explicit images. They type in search terms as innocuous as ``toys''--only to find inappropriate images on their display terminal. According to Wired magazine, there are currently some 28,000 web sites containing hard- and soft-core pornography on the Internet. And that number is growing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that more than 30 pornographic sites are added to the Internet each day. In addition, the Internet now provides the ``strangers'' we have always warned our children about with almost unlimited access to our children. Historically, sexual predators have sought children wherever they gather--in school yards, playgrounds and malls. Today, children hang out in cyberspace. This provides the sexual predator with an almost limitless number of opportunities to exploit children because they can prowl from family room to classroom to bedroom with virtual anonymity. Clearly, this is a problem that is only going to grow worse unless we work aggressively to ensure that the Internet is a safe environment. The bill I am introducing today would build upon provisions authored by Senator Coats and myself which were adopted as part of S. 442, the Internet Tax Freedom Act. The provisions are designed to provide some safety for young people who are being exposed today to the alarming amount of pornography on the Internet. Specifically, my amendment will require that Internet access providers make screening software available--either for a fee or no charge--to customers purchasing Internet access services, and Senator Coats' amendment establishes specific measures that commercial operators of sexually explicit sites must take to restrict access to children under the age of 17. I am pleased that these provisions of the Internet Tax Freedom Act were passed yesterday and today by both houses of Congress as part of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999, and look forward to the President signing them into law. Yet, it is clear that our work is not done. I was very disturbed by a recent article in the The Washington Post which stated that law enforcement officials in the United States and abroad had uncovered an international child pornography ring in which hundreds of people were using the Internet to trade thousands of sexually explicit images of children. More than 200 ring members were arrested in the United States and 13 other countries. The U.S. Customs Service seized computers from American suspects in 22 states, including Connecticut. That is why today I introduce the Keeping the Internet Decent and Safe (K.I.D.S.) Act. In this age of the Internet, our children have unprecedented access to educational materials via the computer. However, this wonderful technology has also brought with it a dark side for our children, and we as a nation have an obligation to ensure that our children are able to learn, grow, and play in an environment free from harm. My bill would give parents, teachers and law enforcement officers the tools they need to help protect and guide our children, as they seek knowledge and wholesome entertainment on the Internet. First, my bill would make it possible for law enforcement officials to detain someone before trial who is arrested for a federal crime involving child exploitation. Currently, there is a rebuttable presumption that an individual charged with a violent crime or certain drug-related crimes should be detained. Pedophiles who exploit and prey upon children are at least as great a threat to our society as drug dealers and people involved with violent crimes, and federal law enforcement officials should be able to detain them, as well. Second, my bill would allow schools to make classroom computers safer by allowing them to use monies from such programs as Title VI and the Safe and Drug Free School Act to purchase screening software. Finally, my bill would allow materials involved with crimes involving the sexual victimization of children--such as computers, vehicles and clothing--to be permanently seized from sexual predators by law enforcement authorities. Currently, the government can seize such materials like if they belong to a convicted pornographer, but not if they belong from a convicted child molester. Property used in crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children is equally harmful and should also be able to be seized by the Government to help thwart further criminal activity involving our children. As we head into the 21st century, we know that an increasing number-- in fact a majority--of our children are going to use the Internet for both educational and social activities. This is a positive development that we should encourage. But with this progress comes new responsibilities, not only for our young people, but also for adults. We owe it to our children to make sure that they are safe when they go on-line. I believe that the KIDS Act will make significant strides to protect our children from harmful materials on the Internet and give law enforcement officials additional tools to clamp down on criminals who use the Internet to prey on our children. I urge my colleagues to support this effort to take reasonable steps to keep the Internet safe for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, today, I introduce the Keeping the Internet Decent and Safe (K.I.D.S.) Act. This legislation would give parents and educators tools to protect our children while they use the Internet. Moreover, this bill would give law enforcement officials the ability to make the Internet a safer environment for everyone. Unfortunately, while innocently ``surfing'' the web, many of our children are accidentally encountering graphic and sexually explicit images. They type in search terms as innocuous as ``toys''--only to find inappropriate images on their display terminal. According to Wired magazine, there are currently some 28,000 web sites containing hard- and soft-core pornography on the Internet. And that number is growing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that more than 30 pornographic sites are added to the Internet each day. In addition, the Internet now provides the ``strangers'' we have always warned our children about with almost unlimited access to our children. Historically, sexual predators have sought children wherever they gather--in school yards, playgrounds and malls. Today, children hang out in cyberspace. This provides the sexual predator with an almost limitless number of opportunities to exploit children because they can prowl from family room to classroom to bedroom with virtual anonymity. Clearly, this is a problem that is only going to grow worse unless we work aggressively to ensure that the Internet is a safe environment. The bill I am introducing today would build upon provisions authored by Senator Coats and myself which were adopted as part of S. 442, the Internet Tax Freedom Act. The provisions are designed to provide some safety for young people who are being exposed today to the alarming amount of pornography on the Internet. Specifically, my amendment will require that Internet access providers make screening software available--either for a fee or no charge--to customers purchasing Internet access services, and Senator Coats' amendment establishes specific measures that commercial operators of sexually explicit sites must take to restrict access to children under the age of 17. I am pleased that these provisions of the Internet Tax Freedom Act were passed yesterday and today by both houses of Congress as part of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999, and look forward to the President signing them into law. Yet, it is clear that our work is not done. I was very disturbed by a recent article in the The Washington Post which stated that law enforcement officials in the United States and abroad had uncovered an international child pornography ring in which hundreds of people were using the Internet to trade thousands of sexually explicit images of children. More than 200 ring members were arrested in the United States and 13 other countries. The U.S. Customs Service seized computers from American suspects in 22 states, including Connecticut. That is why today I introduce the Keeping the Internet Decent and Safe (K.I.D.S.) Act. In this age of the Internet, our children have unprecedented access to educational materials via the computer. However, this wonderful technology has also brought with it a dark side for our children, and we as a nation have an obligation to ensure that our children are able to learn, grow, and play in an environment free from harm. My bill would give parents, teachers and law enforcement officers the tools they need to help protect and guide our children, as they seek knowledge and wholesome entertainment on the Internet. First, my bill would make it possible for law enforcement officials to detain someone before trial who is arrested for a federal crime involving child exploitation. Currently, there is a rebuttable presumption that an individual charged with a violent crime or certain drug-related crimes should be detained. Pedophiles who exploit and prey upon children are at least as great a threat to our society as drug dealers and people involved with violent crimes, and federal law enforcement officials should be able to detain them, as well. Second, my bill would allow schools to make classroom computers safer by allowing them to use monies from such programs as Title VI and the Safe and Drug Free School Act to purchase screening software. Finally, my bill would allow materials involved with crimes involving the sexual victimization of children--such as computers, vehicles and clothing--to be permanently seized from sexual predators by law enforcement authorities. Currently, the government can seize such materials like if they belong to a convicted pornographer, but not if they belong from a convicted child molester. Property used in crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children is equally harmful and should also be able to be seized by the Government to help thwart further criminal activity involving our children. As we head into the 21st century, we know that an increasing number-- in fact a majority--of our children are going to use the Internet for both educational and social activities. This is a positive development that we should encourage. But with this progress comes new responsibilities, not only for our young people, but also for adults. We owe it to our children to make sure that they are safe when they go on-line. I believe that the KIDS Act will make significant strides to protect our children from harmful materials on the Internet and give law enforcement officials additional tools to clamp down on criminals who use the Internet to prey on our children. I urge my colleagues to support this effort to take reasonable steps to keep the Internet safe for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a friend and a great humanitarian--Pierce Gerety, Jr., whose life was tragically cut short last month when Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia. Pierce Gerety, Jr. was a remarkable man, and he will be dearly missed. Pierce Gerety dedicated his entire life to humanitarian causes. The nephew of two priests, Pierce once aspired to enter the priesthood himself. After graduating from Yale, he went to Paris to study theology and philosophy at the Institute Catholique, where he found time to set up a soup kitchen. However, he soon changed his mind about becoming a priest when he met his future wife Marie de la Soudiere. After he was married, he and Marie went to India to work for Catholic Relief Services. He returned to the United States in 1968, and became a social-service case worker in New York City. He then attended Harvard Law School and after graduating in 1971, he worked as a legal aid and civil rights attorney. In 1980, he began his career in refugee work in Thailand with the International Rescue Committee, and, in 1982, he went to work at the United Nations. He became a legal officer at the headquarters of the U.N. High Commissioner in Geneva, and he eventually became a deputy director to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, but he always longed to be in the field working with those who needed help. He took on a number of difficult assignments, helping refugees in crisis situations in the Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. In fact, his colleagues have said that Pierce Gerety put himself in more dangerous situations than any other person in the refugee field. When a warlord in Somalia kidnapped some humanitarian aid workers, Pierce Gerety went into that warlord's armed camp and negotiated their release. Last year, he and other officials pled with the Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila to end the slaughter of Rwandan refugees. It is ironic that this man, who repeatedly placed himself in harm's way to protect refugees around the globe, would lose his life in such a senseless accident. Pierce Gerety, Jr. brought an uncommon intelligence, courage, and devotion to his work. He has touched the lives of countless individuals in a positive way. And his impact is not only felt by refugees around the globe, it is felt by his many peers and friends whom he inspired to do more in their own lives to help persons in need. He is survived by his wife Marie and his three children Sebastian, Pierce, and Maeve. He is also survived by his mother Helen, and his three brothers Tom, Peter, and Miles. I offer my heartfelt sympathies to them all.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, two weeks ago, a number of my colleagues and many members of the Washington community gathered at the National Guard Museum for a memorial tribute to a highly respected and admired figure in modern American political life: Kirk O'Donnell. As most of my colleagues know, Kirk O'Donnell was the chief counsel to former Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. and Boston Mayor Kevin White, and he also served as an advisor to Mayors, Congressmen, Senators, and even Presidents. Tragically, Kirk O'Donnell recently died at the age of 52. As a fellow Democrat, New Englander, and Irish-American, I had many occasions to cross paths with Kirk O'Donnell, and we eventually became friends. And I have met few people in my political career who were as capable and well-liked as Kirk. Al Hunt of the Wall Street Journal remembered Kirk as ``one of the ablest and most honorable people in American politics.'' Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe said, ``he was arguably the best mayor Boston never had. . . Kirk O'Donnell's life demonstrates that all of us can make a difference and that each of us should try.'' In an era of growing cynicism toward politics, he made people feel optimistic that government could have a positive impact on people's lives. It is always difficult to lose someone who is clearly so special, but it is made all the more difficult by the fact that Kirk was so young and had so much more to offer. The afterword from the O'Donnell funeral program was Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of what constitutes a successful life: `` . . . to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better place than we found it, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life breathed easier because you have lived. . . . This is to have succeeded.'' By this measure, Kirk O'Donnell led a successful life. He was a remarkable man, and I will truly miss his friendship. Kirk O'Donnell is survived by his wife Kathryn and his two children, Holly and Brendan. I offer my heartfelt sympathies to them all.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to commend the crews of the United States Navy destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 61 who participated in the July 22, 1945 surface naval engagement in Tokyo Bay. That night, the squadron detached from Admiral Halsey's Task Group 38.1, avoided a typhoon, and steamed towards the Japanese mainland. The alert sailors of the squadron identified radar contacts that turned out to be a four- ship Japanese convoy. The squadron commander maneuvered his destroyers on various courses and attacked the convoy with gunfire and torpedoes. At the conclusion of the daring surface engagement, two enemy ships had been sunk, one probably sunk, and one damaged. United States forces suffered neither damage nor casualties. The nine destroyers of the squadron were: U.S.S. DeHaven, U.S.S. Mansfield, U.S.S. Swenson, U.S.S. Collett, U.S.S. Maddox, U.S.S. Blue, U.S.S. Brush, U.S.S. Taussig, and U.S.S. Moore. The sailors who manned those destroyers during this unprecedented operation are deserving of this nation's deepest gratitude, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in this small act of recognition.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, communities are not defined by physical borders. They are defined by people. People who are concerned for the well-being of their neighbors, even if they do not know them. People who want to make their town a good place to raise children. People who recognize the importance of being a part something larger than themselves. Today, I want to speak about one such person who has worked tirelessly to make Rocky Hill, Connecticut a true community: Grace M. Amodeo. Born in Italy, Grace Amodeo has lived in Rocky Hill for 44 years. Grace is a political pioneer in this town. In 1971, she ran for Mayor of Rocky Hill and earned the nomination of the Democratic party, the first woman to ever do so. Although she didn't win, she did not let that set-back deter her from actively serving her community throughout her life. Grace Amodeo was a member of the Board of Education for eight years, and she served as the secretary for four years. A woman of strong faith, she was a Eucharistic Minister at St. James Church. And Rocky Hill has known no stronger advocate on behalf of seniors. Grace was a long-time member of Rocky Hill Seniors and served as their President from 1978 to 1980. She also served on the fundraising committee for the Senior Center. In fact, she was named Rocky Hill's ``Senior of the Year'' in 1983. Grace's contributions to the community are all the more remarkable when you consider that she and her late husband Tony also raised eight children. In addition to possessing a commitment to her community, she had a passion for politics, as evidenced by her run for mayor. Grace has been active in local Democratic politics for years, and I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with her. This Friday, the Rocky Hill Democratic Town Committee will bestow upon Grace their Chairman's Award in gratitude for her work for the party. This award is well deserved, and I congratulate Grace on this honor. But, as I stated earlier, Grace Amodeo's devotion was not to a political party, it was to a community. And thanks to Grace and people like her, Rocky Hill, Connecticut remains a tightly knit community with its own identity. It is a place with a strong sense of history that people are proud to call home. I thank Grace for all that she has done for the people of Connecticut, and I wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, communities are not defined by physical borders. They are defined by people--people who are concerned for the well-being of their neighbors, even if they do not know them. People who want to make their town a good place to raise children. People who recognize the importance of being a part of something larger than themselves. Today, I want to speak about one such person who has worked tirelessly to make Rocky Hill, Connecticut a true community: Robert Deasy. Bob Deasy worked for more than forty years as an accountant with Travelers and Phoenix Fire Insurance before retiring more than twenty years ago. Throughout his life, Bob has been remarkably active in the Rocky Hill community. From 1973 to 1985, he served as Rocky Hill's registrar of voters, where he worked closely with the Secretary of State's office. He has also been a member of American Legion Post 123 in Rocky Hill for more than 30 years, and he served for eight years as the Post's commander. Through the American Legion, he reached out to young people in the area by coordinating their Boys State and Girls State activities, which provide young people with an opportunity to see how their government works. He also organized Rocky Hill's Memorial Day parade on many occasions, which earned him a citation from the city for exemplary service. In 1990, he was recognized for his outstanding service to the community by the Wethersfield/Rocky Hill Elk's Club when they named him their ``Citizen of the Year.'' Bob also sat on the finance council at St. James Church for ten years, where he helped to strengthen this important house of worship. But even greater than his commitment to his church and his community is his devotion to his family. Bob has been a devoted husband to his wife Mildred and together they have raised three children, and they enjoy the company of five grandchildren. Bob also possesses a passion for politics. He has been active in local Democratic politics for years, and I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him and to become his friend. I am particularly thankful to Bob for encouraging his granddaughter Adria to become involved in public service. For the past four years she has worked in my Washington office. It has been a pleasure working with her, and she has only enhanced my already high opinion of the Deasy family. This Friday, the Rocky Hill Democratic Town Committee will bestow upon Bob their Chairman's Award in gratitude for their work for the party. This award is well deserved, and I congratulate Bob on this honor. But, as I stated earlier, Bob Deasy's devotion was not to a political party, it was to a community. And thanks to Bob and people like him, Rocky Hill, Connecticut remains a tightly knit community with its own identity. It is a place with a strong sense of history that people are proud to call home. I thank Bob for all that he has done for the people of Connecticut, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President. I rise today to offer my strong support for Senate passage of the conference report on S. 1260, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998. This important bill will help to close a loophole that allows for the continuation of frivolous and abusive securities class action lawsuits, while ensuring that investors will still be able to bring suits when defendants have acted recklessly. In 1995, the Congress enacted legislation, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, that was designed to curb the many abuses that had cropped up in that system over the years. Ironically, it was the very success of the 1995 act in shutting down avenues of abuse on the Federal level that created a new home for that abusive and frivolous litigation in state courts. Prior to the enactment of the 1995 Reform Act, it was extremely unusual for a securities fraud class action suit to be brought in a state court. But by the end of 1996, it became clear from both the number of cases filed in state court and the nature of those claims, that a significant shift was underfoot as some lawyers sought to evade those provisions of the Reform Act that made it much more difficult to coerce a settlement. John Olson, the noted securities law expert, testified in February before the Subcommittee on Securities that: In the years 1992 through 1994, only six issuers of publicly traded securities were sued for fraud in state class actions. In contrast, at least seventy-seven publicly traded issuers were sued in state court class actions between January 1, 1996 and June 30, 1997. Indeed, the increase in state court filings may be even greater than indicated by these dramatic statistics. Obtaining an accurate count of state court class actions is extraordinarily difficult, because there is no central repository of such data and plaintiffs are under no obligation to provide notice of the filing of such suits. In April, 1997, the Securities and Exchange Commission staff report to Congress and the President found that: Many of the state cases are filed parallel to a federal court case in an apparent attempt to avoid some of the procedures imposed by the reform act, particularly the stay of discovery pending a motion to dismiss. This may be the most significant development in securities litigation post- reform act. Even though the number of state class actions filed in 1997 was down from the high of 1996 it was still 50 percent higher than the average number filed in the 5 years prior to the Reform Act and it represented a significant jump in the number of parallel cases filed. 1998 looks to maintain those historically high levels. This change in the number and nature of cases filed in State court has had two measurable, negative impacts. First, for those companies hit with potentially frivolous or abusive state court class actions, all of the cost and expense that the 1995 Reform Act sought to prevent are once again incurred. Some might question whether a state class action can carry with it the same type of incentives that existed on the Federal level prior to 1995 to settle even frivolous suits. In fact, they can and let me provide just one example of how this is so. Adobe Systems, Inc., wrote to the Senate Banking Committee on April 23, 1998, about its experience with state class action lawsuits. As many of my colleagues know, one of the key components of the 1995 Reform Act was to allow judges to rule on a motion to dismiss prior to the commencement of the discovery process. Under the old system, Adobe had won a motion for summary dismissal but only after months of discovery by the plaintiff that cost the company more than $2.3 million in legal expenses and untold time and energy by company officials to produce tens of thousands of documents and numerous depositions. With the 1995 act in place, those kinds of expenses are far less likely to occur on the federal level. But in an ongoing securities class action suit filed in California state court after passage of the 1995 act, Adobe has had to spend more than $1 million in legal expenses and has had to produce more than 44,000 pages of documents, all before the State judge is even able to entertain a motion for summary dismissal. In fact, in that April 23 letter to Banking Committee Chairman D'Amato, Colleen Pouliot, Adobe's general counsel, noted that ``There are a number of California judicial decisions which permit a plaintiff to obtain discovery for the very purpose of amending a complaint to cure its legal insufficiencies.'' This one example makes clear that while Adobe, which has the resources for a costly and lengthy legal battle, might fight a meritless suit, these litigation costs provide a powerful incentive for most companies to settle these suits rather than incur such expenses. The second clear impact of the migration of class action suits to state court is that it has caused companies to avoid using the safe harbor for forward looking statements that was a critical component of the 1995 Reform Act. In this increasingly competitive market, investors are demanding more and more information from company officials about where it thinkgs that the company is heading. The California Public Employees Pension System, one of the biggest institutional investors, in the nation stated that ``forward-looking statements provide extremely valuable and relevant information to investors.'' SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt also noted in 1995, the importance of such information in the marketplace: Our capital markets are built on the foundation of full and fair disclosure. . . . The more investors know and understand management's future plans and views, the sounder the valuation is of the company's securities and the more efficient the capital allocation process. In recent years, the Securities and Exchange Commission, in recognition of this fact, sought to find ways to encourage companies to put such forward-looking into the marketplace. Congress, too, sought to encourage this and this effort ultimately culminated in the creation of a statutory safe harbor, so that companies need not fear a lawsuit if they did not meet their good-faith projections about future performance. Unfortunately, the simple fact is that the fear of state court litigation is preventing companies from effectively using the safe harbor. Again, the SEC's April 1997 study found that ``companies have been reluctant to provide significantly more forward looking disclosure than they had prior to enactment of the safe harbor.'' The report went on to cite the fear of state court litigation as one of the principal reasons for this failure. Stanford Law School lecturer Michael Perino stated the case very well in a recent law review article: If one or more states do not have similar safe harbors, then issuers face potential state court lawsuits and liability for actions that do not violate federal standards. . . . for disclosures that are . . . released to market participants nationwide, the state with the most plaintiff- favorable rules for forward looking disclosures, rather than the federal government, is likely to set the standard to which corporations will conform. If the migration of cases to state court were just a temporary phenomenon, then perhaps it would be appropriate for Congress to tell these companies and their millions of investors to simply grin and bear it, that it will all be over soon. But the SEC report contains the warning that this is no temporary trend: ``if state law provides advantages to plaintiffs in a particular case, it is reasonable to expect that plaintiffs' counsel will file suit in state court.'' The plain English translation of that is that any plaintiffs' lawyer worth his salt is going to file in state court if he feels it advantageous for his case; since most state courts do not provide the stay of discovery or a safe harbor, we're confronted with a likelihood of continued state court class actions. While the frustration of the objectives of the 1995 Reform Act provide compelling reasons for congressional action, it is equally important to consider whether the proposition of creating a national standard of liability for nationally-traded securities makes sense in its own right. I certainly believe it does. In 1996, Congress passed the National Securities Markets Improvement Act which established a precedent of national treatment for securities that are nationally traded. In that act, Congress clearly and explicitly recognized that our securities markets were national in scope and that requiring that the securities that trade on those national markets comply with 52 separate jurisdictional requirements afforded little extra protection to investors and while imposing unnecessarily steep costs on raising capital. Last July, then-SEC Commissioner Steven Wallman submitted testimony to the Securities Subcommittee in which he said: . . . disparate, and shifting, state litigation procedures may expose issuers to the potential for significant liability that cannot be easily evaluated in advance, or assessed when a statement is made. At a time when we are increasingly experiencing and encouraging national and international securities offerings and listing, and expending great effort to rationalize and streamline our securities markets, this fragmentation of investor remedies potentially imposes costs that outweigh the benefits. Rather than permit or foster fragmentation of our national system of securities litigation, we should give due consideration to the benefits flowing to investors from a uniform national approach. At the same hearing, Keith Paul Bishop, then-California's top state securities regulator testified that: California believes in the federal system and the primary role of the states within that system. However, California does not believe that federal standards are improper when dealing with truly national markets. California businesses, their stockholders and their employees are all hurt by inordinate burdens on national markets. Our businesses must compete in a world market and they will be disadvantaged if they must continue to contend with 51 or more litigation standards. SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, at his reconfirmation hearing before the banking committee on March 26, 1998, said that the legislation we are debating today: [a]ddresses an issue that . . . deals with a certain level of irrationality. That to have two separate standards is not unlike if you had, in the state of Virginia, two speed limits, one for 60 miles an hour and one for 40 miles an hour. I think the havoc that would create with drivers is not dissimilar from the kind of disruption created by two separate standards [of litigation] and I have long felt that in some areas a single standard is desirable. The message from all of these sources is clear and unequivocal: a uniform national standard of litigation is both sensible and appropriate. The conference report under consideration today accomplishes that goal in the narrowest, most balanced way possible. Before I discuss what the legislation will do, let me point out a few things that it won't do: it will not affect the ability of any state agency to bring any kind of enforcement action against any player in the securities markets; it will not affect the ability of any individual, or even a small group of individuals, to bring a suit in state court against the issuer of any security, nationally traded or not; it will not affect any suit, class action or otherwise, against penny stocks or any stock that is not traded on a national exchange; it will not affect any suits based upon corporate disclosure to existing shareholders required by state fiduciary duty laws; and, it will not alter the national scienter requirement to prevent shareholders from bringing suits against issuers or others who act recklessly. There has been a lot of talk about this last point, so let me address it head-on. It is true that in 1995, Congress wrestled with the idea of trying to establish a uniform definition of recklessness; but ultimately, the 1995 private securities litigation reform act was silent on the question of recklessness. While the act requires that plaintiffs plead ``facts giving rise to a strong inference that the defendant acted with the requisite state of mind * * *,'' the 1995 act at no point attempts to define that state of mind. Congress left that to courts to apply, just as they had been applying their definition of state of mind prior to 1995. Unfortunately, a minority of district courts have tried to read into some of the legislative history of the reform act an intent to do away with recklessness as an actionable standard. I believe that these decisions are erroneous and cannot be supported by either the black letter of the statute nor by any meaningful examination of the legislative history. There are several definitions of recklessness that operate in our courts today, and some of them are looser than others. But I agree with those who believe that reckless behavior is an extreme departure from the standards of ordinary care; a departure that is so blatant that the danger it presents to investors is either known to the defendant or is so obvious that he or she must have been aware of it. The notion that Congress would condone such behavior by closing off private lawsuits against those who fall within that definition is just ludicrous. And if, by some process of mischance and misunderstanding, investors lost their ability to bring suits based on that kind of scienter standard, I would be the first, though certainly not the last, Senator to introduce legislation to restore that standard. The Statement of Managers that accompanies the conference report on S. 1260 clarifies any misconception that may exist on the part of some courts about congressional intent with unambiguous language: It is the clear understanding of the Managers that Congress did not, in adopting the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 [PL 104-67], intend to alter the standards of liability under the Exchange Act. Let me also address another issue that has been raised about recklessness. Some have suggested that while the PSLRA did not remove recklessness as a basis for liability, it was removed as a basis for pleading a securities fraud class action. This is just plain wrong. Again, the Statement of Managers accompanying this legislation is instructive on this point: It was the intent of Congress, as was expressly stated during the legislative debate on the PSLRA, and particularly during the debate on overriding the President's veto, that the PSLRA establish a heightened uniform federal standard based upon the pleading standard applied by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals The 1995 act clearly adopted the second circuit's pleading standards. The Statement of Managers accompanying this conference report definitively shows that it was also our intent that the application of that standard was also based upon the second circuit's application. While I agree that both this act and the 1995 act envision other courts following the most stringent of the second circuit's cases applying the pleading standard, we do expect other courts to look to the second circuit for guidance. Under the second circuit's most stringent application, the strong inference of the required state of mind may be pled by either alleging circumstantial evidence of scienter, or by alleging a rational economic motive and an opportunity to achieve concrete benefits through the fraud. Where motive is not apparent, the strength of the circumstantial allegations must be correspondingly greater. Anyone who claims that either the 1995 act or S. 1260 raises the pleading standard beyond that point is engaged in wishful thinking-- that kind of statement simply cannot be borne out by even the most cursory examination of either the statute or of the legislative history. As I mentioned a moment ago, Mr. President, S. 1260 is a moderate, balanced and common sense approach to establishing a uniform national standard of litigation that will end the practice of meritless class action suits being brought in state court. This conference report keeps a very tight definition of class action and applies its standards only to those securities that have been previously defined in law as trading on a national exchange. That is why, on March 15, the Securities and Exchange Commission stated that ``we support enactment of S. 1260''; and that is why again on October 8, the Commission again voiced its support by stating: ``we believe this bill and its Statement of Managers . . . will contribute to responsible and balanced reform of securities class action litigation.'' And that is why the Clinton administration has also expressed its support for the legislation. In the final analysis, it is the millions of Americans who have invested their hard-earned dollars in these nationally traded companies and the men and women who will hold the new jobs that will be created as a result of newly available resources, whom we hope will be the real beneficiaries of the action that we take here today. I strongly urge my colleagues to join the Securities and Exchange Commission, dozens of our colleagues, the Clinton administration, dozens of Governors, State legislators, and State securities regulators in supporting passage of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998.

Mr. DODD. I agree with the comments of my colleague from New York. I, too, did not intend for the PSLRA to alter the state of mind requirement in securities fraud lawsuits or to adopt a pleading standard more stringent than that of the second circuit. In fact, I specifically stated during the legislative debates preceding and following the President's veto that the 1995 Reform Act adopted the second circuit's pleading standard. This continues to be my understanding and intent today. Ensuring that the scienter standard includes reckless misconduct is critical to investor protection. Creating a higher scienter standard would lessen the incentives for issuers of securities to conduct a full inquiry into potentially troublesome areas and could therefore damage the disclosure process that has made our markets a model for other nations. The U.S. securities markets are the envy of the world precisely because investors at home and abroad have enormous confidence in the way our markets operate. Altering the scienter standard in the way envisioned by some of these district court decisions could be very damaging to that confidence.

Mr. DODD. At a hearing on S. 1260 last October, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voiced concern over some recent federal district court decisions on the state of mind--or scienter--requirement for pleading fraud that was adopted in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ('95 Reform Act or PSLRA). According to the SEC, some federal district courts have concluded that the 1995 Reform Act adopted a pleading standard that was more rigorous than the second circuit's, which, at the time of enactment of the PSLRA, had the toughest pleading standards in the nation. Some of these courts have also suggested that the '95 Reform Act changed not only the pleading standard but also the standard for proving the scienter requirement. At the time we enacted the PSLRA, every federal court of appeals in the nation--ten in number--concluded that the scienter requirement could be met by proof of recklessness.

Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator from New York, the chairman of the Banking Committee, for his leadership on this bill and for engaging in this colloquy with me. In proceeding to create uniform national standards while some issues concerning the 1995 Reform Act are still being decided by the courts, we must act based on what we intended and understand the 1995 Reform Act to mean. As a sponsor of both the Senate bill that became the 1995 Reform Act and the bill, S. 1260, that we are debating today, I am glad that we have had this opportunity to clarify how the PSLRA's pleading standards will function as the uniform national standards to be created in S. 1260, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998.

Mr. DODD. It appears that these district courts have misread the language of the 1995 Reform Act's ``Statement of Managers.'' As I made clear in the legislative debate following the President's veto, however, the disputed language in the Statement of Managers was simply meant to explain that the conference committee omitted the Specter amendment because that amendment did not adequately reflect existing second circuit caselaw on the pleading standard. I can only hope that when the issue reaches the federal courts of appeals, these courts will undertake a more thorough review of the legislative history and correct these decisions. While I trust that the courts will ultimately honor Congress' clear intent, should the Supreme Court eventually find that recklessness no longer suffices to meet the scienter standard, it is my intent to introduce legislation that would explicitly restore recklessness as the pleading and liability standard for federal securities fraud lawsuits. I imagine that I would not be alone in this endeavor, and I ask my good friend from New York whether he would join me in introducing such legislation?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, S. 1260, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998, is intended to create a uniform national standard for securities fraud class actions involving nationally-traded securities. In advocating enactment of uniform national standards for such actions, I firmly believe that the national standards must be fair ones that adequately protect investors. I hope that Senator D'Amato, one of the architects of the Banking Committee's substitute, would engage in a colloquy with me on this point.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the tragedy that continues to unfold in the Province of Kosovo. I cannot stress to my colleagues enough how serious I believe the Kosovo situation has become. What we are witnessing in Kosovo now is potentially the most dangerous conflict in the Balkans since 1991. For more than seven months, President Milosevic and his Serb police forces have been engaged in an offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo that can only be characterized as ``ethnic cleansing''. The Congress must put aside election year politics and speak with one voice in support of the United States utilizing all necessary means to put an end to these atrocities that threaten a wider war in the Balkans. For that reason, I hope that the Republican leadership will allow a vote in the Senate to signal our strong support for the use of air power against Serbian targets in the coming days. Clearly no one on the other side of the aisle can assert that the new escalation of fighting in Kosovo has not been very destabilizing to the region. The evidence clearly indicates that it has--over a quarter of a million of Kosovans have been displaced, many of whom have fled beyond the borders of Kosovo and Serbia to Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Similarly the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has sought refuge and material support from Albanian populations in other countries--such actions could draw others into an ever widening civil conflict. But it is not only the conflict's disastrous potential that cries out for action. The status quo in Kosovo is a human catastrophe. According to some estimates, already more than 1,000 people have been killed since the end of February, when Serbian paramilitary police began their crackdown on villages in Kosovo believed to be strongholds of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Many more have been driven from their homes. Fearful women and children are hiding from the Serb police and other Serb armed forces in the hills around Kosovo without adequate food, water, or shelter. Nightly temperatures are already falling near freezing at night and it is clear that with the advent of winter their fate is doomed. Mr. President, we cannot let this humanitarian and human rights catastrophe continue. The deep concern about the current crisis is a shared one--it is bipartisan. Many of the members of this body have recently had an opportunity to hear from a former colleague and Majority Leader Senator Bob Dole who at the behest of President Clinton traveled to Kosovo and Belgrade to make a first hand assessment of the situation. He was accompanied on that visit by Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, John Shattuck. Senator Dole and Assistant Secretary Shattuck returned to Washington with a shared assessment of what has been transpiring in Kosovo in recent weeks. They have both spoken of atrocities being perpetrated against the civilian population--ninety percent of whom are ethnic Albanians. Senator Dole again confirmed what many of us in this body have been saying over the last seven months, namely that ``Milosevic is again on the warpath. . . . and, there should be no doubt that Serbia is engaged in major, systematic attacks on the people and territory of Kosovo.'' The United States has been assertive in condemning Serbian aggression. The Clinton administration has spoken out repeatedly against Serb human rights abuses in Kosovo, and has stated that it will not let Serbs follow through with their ethnic cleansing. The Congress too has felt it extremely important to go on record to denounce Yugoslav President Milosevic and the Serbian military and security forces under his direction. We in the Senate also called upon the international community to act forcefully if Serbian armed aggression continued. Sadly Serbian aggression has continued. Innocent Kosovans have lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. There is a time for words and a time for force. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has been trying as I speak to convince Milosevic to alter course. The latest information indicates that these efforts are unlikely to produce positive results. To my mind, that means that the time for words is over. Our entreaties to Milosevic to do the right thing have fallen on deaf ears. Milosevic and his Serbian forces have been mocking the international community by declaring one thing and doing another. The time has come for the international community to confront the obvious contradictions between the words and deeds of Milosevic and the Serbian security forces under his command--saying on the one hand that a unilateral cease fire has been established and continuing on the other hand with his attacks on ethnic Albanian villages. The Serbian September 26, cease-fire declaration was pure theater. Frankly so was last weekend's ``withdrawal'' of Serbian forces. At the very moment that Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic publicly declared that the seven-month offensive against the militant separatists was over, fighting continued in southern Kosovo. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past and give Milosevic another chance to mislead the international community. Russian objections to the use of force by NATO should carry no weight at this juncture. NATO has given Milosevic its final ultimatum--to comply immediately with all UN and NATO demands to end the crackdown in Kosovo, withdraw government forces and open meaningful political negotiations with the ethnic Albanians. NATO's military options both to stop fighting and to enforce a possible peace settlement have been planned in detail over the past months. NATO's military staff is prepared to act. All that is needed is the political will upon the part of NATO governments to give the green light. We can no longer afford to show any more patience for the indecision of our Allies. In my view the internationally community has already waited too long to put an end to the human suffering that is being inflicted on innocent men, women and children. After seven years of watching Milosevic play cat and mouse games with United States and European leaders, I believe that the only language this individual will respond to is the sound of missiles hitting and crushing strategic targets in his proverbial backyard. Mr. President, yesterday NATO Foreign Ministers met in Brussels. In reporting on the outcome of that meeting, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reported that NATO was united and ready to authorize bombing in Serbia. Earlier this week, President Clinton assured members of the Senate that any air strikes conducted by NATO against Serbia would not be ``pinprick" strikes but would ``send a very clear signal'' that we mean business. We in the United States need to lead by example. We cannot wait any longer--for humanitarian reasons, for human rights reasons, and for geo-political reasons. If the international community fails to respond to Milosevic's continued assaults on Kosovo with force if necessary, then shortly there will be few if any ethnic Albanians left to protect in Kosovo and stability in the greater Balkans will be at risk. Mr. President, I know that many of my colleagues share my views. I believe the American people as well.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if I may, very briefly, I will not take the time now, but before we adjourn, I would like to make some additional comments on this. My State and 21 other States are adversely affected. But I can only hope that there will not be more people asked to leave or pull out of these markets and cause the kind of disruption that these people feel. I will reserve time later to discuss it. But I thank the majority leader for his consideration and regret deeply that we cannot bring this bill up.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I just want to inquire. I see the majority leader. Before we go to the reading of the bill, I had mentioned to the majority leader earlier that I was going to propound a unanimous consent request on behalf of myself and Senator Reid of Nevada. Very briefly--I will just take 30 seconds--this unanimous consent request will be the discharge of the Finance Committee and then to proceed immediately to a piece of legislation I introduced that would propose a moratorium on HMOs terminating any of their patients between now and over the next 4 or 5 months while we are out of session. I realize that there will be objection probably filed to this, or expressed on this. We have seen 400,000 people in the last number of months who have lost their HMOs--12,000 in my State over the last 3 weeks. When we are out of session, I am concerned that more of these people are going to be dropped. So for those reasons, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee, on behalf of myself and Senator Reid, be discharged from consideration of S. 2562 and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Will the leader yield?

Mr. DODD. Mr. Leader, I don't want to disrupt your birthday, but I have a unanimous-consent request I want to make at an appropriate time, which I suspect the majority will object to. I want to be able to do it before we move on to the next order of business. I don't know the plan here.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to express my disappointment that a provision in the fiscal year 1999 Treasury, Postal Appropriations Bill relating to contraceptive coverage under the Federal Employee Health Benefits program was dropped in conference. This provision, authored by Senators Harry Reid and Olympia Snowe, would have required the Federal Employee Health Benefits plans that cover prescription drugs to treat contraceptives in the same fashion as all other covered drugs. This amendment passed the Senate unanimously. A similar provision, offered by Representative Nita Lowey, was approved by the House by a vote of 224-198. However, even after the strong, bipartisan show of support by both bodies, this provision was still dropped in conference. I was a cosponsor of the bipartisan legislation on which this provision was based. Along with a bipartisan group of 25 of my colleagues, I wrote the conferees on this bill asking them to retain this provision in the conference report. I'd like to think we've come a long way since the early 1960s when birth control was illegal in many states. So it was astonishing to me to learn that in this day and age, many families find their contraceptive choices to be limited by their insurers--because insurers are not required to cover prescriptive contraceptives. In Connecticut, for example, 62% of insurers don't cover birth control pills and 85% don't cover devices such as IUDs and diaphragms. At the same time, almost all of these policies cover sterilization. And of the 68,000 pregnancies each year in our state, more than 14,000 are unplanned. Under far too many health plans, women are offered the unconscionable ``choice'' of getting help in paying for an unplanned pregnancy, an abortion, or sterilization--but not for birth control. Is this the best choice we can offer to families trying to act responsibly, wanting to bring children into the world when they can be supported and cared for? Many of us agree that contraception, and improved access to contraception, is a simple, cost-effective way to lower the staggering rate of unintended pregnancies in the United States. I am very disappointed that this provision has been dropped from the fiscal year 1999 Treasury, Postal Appropriations Bill and the federal government lost an opportunity to be a leader on this critical issue.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise to support H.R. 2431--the International Religious Persecution Act of 1998--as amended by the substitute offered by Senator Nickles and others. I believe that the changes that this amendment makes to the underlying bill vastly improve the effectiveness of this legislation in promoting religious freedom around the world and in better responding to actions that would deny people such freedom, regardless of where they reside. Mr. President, we in the United States are very fortunate. Our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of religious freedom as a bedrock issue. That they did so is not surprising. It was borne out of their personal experiences having been forced to flee their countries because of religious intolerance and outright persecution. For that reason, religious freedom was given a prominent place by the drafters of the Constitution--in the Bill of Rights as the first amendment to the Constitution. We as Americans are not the only ones who cherish and hold dear our religious freedom. This important and unalienable right is also a part of the universal collection of rights that people around the globe hold sacred. It is recognized in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Despite the seeming universality of the right to religious freedom, people throughout the planet are every day being denied the right to practice their religion--Christian and Jew, Moslem and Buddhist, Hindu and Baha'i. At its most extreme, unthinkable acts have been perpetrated against an entire people in the process of denying them the right to practice their faith, I am speaking of the annihilation of more than 6 million Jews by Adolf Hitler while the world looked on. Even today, religious intolerance remains rooted in too many societies throughout the planet--in Iran, in Sudan, in Burma, in the People's Republic of China, in Russia--and this is by no means an exhaustive list. H.R. 2431, as amended, seeks to establish a policy and procedures for the United States government to follow in defending religious freedom internationally. It provides for the imposition of targeted sanctions against governments which practice religious persecution. However, it also gives the President and the Secretary of State some measure of flexibility in carrying out the policy. I am also pleased to note that it excludes the denial of food and medicine as a sanctions option under this legislation. I have never believed that to deny innocent men, women and children access to the very basic necessities of life places the United States as a government on a particularly high moral ground at the very time we are trying to elicit a higher standard of moral behavior by other governments. The bill also includes waiver authority that will enable the President to react with flexibility to changing events in furtherance of U.S. national interests. Finally, the bill includes a sunset provision that would lift any sanctions imposed pursuant to this act after two years, unless specifically reauthorized by the Congress. I believe that President Clinton is committed to promoting international religious freedom. In no way should the passage of this legislation be interpreted as a criticism of the administration's efforts to champion the cause of international religious freedom. Rather, my support for this legislation should be viewed as an effort to complement the Administration's efforts. Passage of the pending legislation will signal to the world that the Congress stands fully behind all efforts to promote religious freedom along with other fundamental human rights as a core component in the United States foreign policy agenda. I commend Senator Nickles and my colleague from Connecticut Senator Lieberman for all their work on this legislation. Thanks to their efforts to perfect and refine its provisions, this legislation will be far more effective in furthering U.S. efforts to promote respect for religious freedom throughout the world. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with them and many others in this Chamber in voting for final passage of this bill at the appropriate time.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am delighted to stand here and thank the chairman and the ranking member, the Senator from Massachusetts, as we are about to adopt the Coats Human Services Reauthorization Act, which includes Head Start, LIHEAP and the community services block grants. People are going to wonder. This is the second day in a row that I find myself on the floor extolling the tremendous contribution of my colleague from Indiana. We were involved in a piece of legislation yesterday. But I think all of us, as I said yesterday, are going to miss our friend, who is going to be here only a few more days and will move on to another chapter in his life. But it is highly appropriate, given his tremendous work over his career in the Senate on behalf of children and families that this piece of legislation is going to be named in honor of his service to our country. I am very pleased to join in that effort, and to commend him for his spectacular work over the years of service in the Senate. Senator Coats and I have worked intensively with Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, other members of our committee, and the House committee to complete this important reauthorization. The strong bipartisan support for this bill is a clear statement of how we all view the crucial programs included in this bill. And it is also a testament to the leadership of Senator Coats on this legislation. While we have not necessarily agreed on every issue, I have always admired Senator Coats dedication to working to help working families, and in particular, to helping children. His presence on the Labor Committee will surely be missed, and I am pleased that the full committee chose to name this important bill after Senator Coats, as a show of respect and admiration for his service in the Senate. This bill is fundamentally about expanding opportunity in America for all of our citizens. Under the umbrella of the Human Services Act, low income communities, their families and children receive more than $5 billion of assistance each year. These dollars support the basic building blocks of stronger communities--care and education for young children in Head Start, food, job and economic development through the Community Services Block grant, and home heating assistance through LIHEAP. Head Start is the nation's leading child development program, because it focuses on the needs of the whole child. Inherently, we know that a child cannot be successful if he or she has unidentified health needs, if his or her parents are not involved in their education, and if he or she is not well-nourished or well-rested. Head Start is the embodiment of those concerns and works each day to meet children's critical needs. This year, Head Start will serve over 830,000 children and their families this year, and nearly 6,000 in my home state of Connecticut. The bill before us today further strengthens the Head Start program: We continue the expansion of the Early Head Start program, increasing the set aside for this program to 10 percent in FY 2002. Anyone who has picked up a magazine or newspaper within the last year knows how vital the first three years of child's life are to their development. This program, which we established in 1994, extends comprehensive, high- quality services to these young children and their parents, to make sure the most is made of this window of opportunity. We have added new provisions to encourage collaboration within states and local communities as well as within individual Head Start programs to expand the services they offer to families to full-day and full-year services, where appropriate, and to leverage other child care dollars to improve quality and better meet family needs. We emphasize the importance of school readiness and literacy preparation in Head Start. While I think this has always been a critical part of Head Start, this bill ensures that gains will continue to be made in this area. Mr. President, this bill puts Head Start on strong footing as we approach the 21st Century. It is a framework within which Head Start can continue to grow to meet the needs of more children and their families. What is unfortunate is that we cannot guarantee more funding for Head Start--I think it is shameful that there are waiting lists for Head Start and that only 40 percent of eligible children are served by this program. And Early Head Start, which is admittedly a new program, serves just a tiny fraction of the infants and toddlers in need of these services. The President has set a laudable goal to reach 1 million children by 2002. But I say we need to do more. We need a plan to serve 2 million children--all those eligible and in need of services--as soon as possible. Some argue that meeting the goal of fully funding Head Start will be too costly. Yes, it will cost a great deal to get there. But my question is how much more will it cost not to get there? Studies show us that children in quality early childhood development programs, such as Head Start, start school more ready to learn than their non-Head Start counterparts. They are more likely to keep up with their classmates, avoid placement in special education, and graduate from high school. They are also less likely to become teenage mothers and fathers, go on welfare, or become involved in violence or the criminal justice system. How much does it cost when we don't see these benefits? I know this is an issue for another place and another venue. But I am hopeful as we strengthen Head Start we can also strengthen our resolve to expand this successful program to reach more children and their families. Mr. President, the bill before us also makes important changes to the Community Services Block Grant program. CSBG makes funds available to states and local communities to assist low-income individuals and help alleviate the causes of poverty. One thousand local service providers-- mainly Community Action Agencies--use these federal funds to address the root causes of poverty within their communities. CSBG dollars are particularly powerful because local communities have substantial flexibility in determining where these dollars are best spent to meet their local circumstances. I have had the pleasure of visiting Community Action Agencies in Connecticut many times. They are exciting, vibrant places at the very center of their communities--filled with adults taking literacy and job training courses, children at Head Start centers, seniors with housing or other concerns, and youths participating in programs or volunteering their time. To see clearly how critical the CSBG program is to the nation's low income families, one only needs to look at the statistics. The CSBG program in 1995 served more than 11.5 million people, or one in three Americans living in poverty. Three-quarters of CSBG clients have incomes that fall below the federal poverty guideline. This bill recognizes the fundamental strength of this program and makes modest changes to encourage broader participation by neighborhood groups. In addition, it improves the accountability of local programs. This bill also reauthorizes the vitally important Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. Nearly 4.2 million low-income households received LIHEAP assistance during FY1996, more than 70,000 households in Connecticut. One quarter of those assisted by LIHEAP funds are elderly. Another 25 percent are individuals with disabilities. I cannot overvalue the importance of this assistance--it is nearly as necessary as food and water to a low-income senior citizen or family with children seeking help to stay warm in the winter--or as we saw a few months ago in the Southwest--to stay cool during the summer. This bill makes no fundamental changes to the LIHEAP program. I am very pleased we increase the authorization of the program to $2 billion, which recognizes the great need for this help. We also put into place a system to more accurately and quickly designate natural disasters. Early disaster designation will allow for the more efficient distribution of the critically important emergency LIHEAP funds, aiding States devastated by a natural disaster. This bill contains one new, important program--the Individual Development Accounts, based on a bill offered by Senator Coats and Senator Harkin. Individual Development Accounts, or IDA's, are dedicated savings accounts for very low income families, similar in structure to IRA's, that can be used to pay for post-secondary education, buy a first home, or capitalize a business. This program is a welcome addition to the Human Services Act family. The Assets for Independence title will provide low-income individuals and families with new opportunities to move their families out of poverty through savings. This is a strong bill and it is a good bill. I hope my colleagues will support this conference report, and again I want to thank Senator Coats for his committed leadership on this effort. For all of those reasons, Mr. President, I commend the chairman of the committee and again the ranking member. Suzanne Day of my office and Jim Fenton did a tremendous job; Stephanie Monroe from Senator Coats' office, Stephanie Robinson from Senator Kennedy's office and Kimberly Barnes O'Connor of Senator Jeffords' office did a tremendous job in pulling this together. We thank all of them for their efforts. Again, I thank the Senator from Vermont for his graciousness.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I know the Chairman knows that the veterans in VISN 1 live in a region that stretches from Connecticut to Maine. The budget for our region's medical care has dropped from $854 million in fiscal year 1996 to $809 million in fiscal year 1998. I have been informed by the Department of Veterans Affairs that the New England region will endure yet another budget cut in fiscal year 1999. I hope that the Appropriations Committee will take note of the impact these reductions are having on facilities across New England.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. To say to my colleague from Texas, and others, I didn't have the benefit of hearing my friend's comments from Maryland, but I fervently hope--it has taken almost 20 years for us to come to the point where we are with financial services modernization. And my colleague from Texas has been on that committee for a long time, the distinguished Senator from Maryland even longer and knows the agony we have gone through, Mr. President, over the years of coming close and failing, for a variety of reasons, to be able to put through a modernization bill that would enjoy the kind of support this bill does. And here we have the world looking to us. You have news today of the yen now having, compared to the dollar in exchange rates, in the last 48 hours, dropped to a lower rate than it has in 50 years--50 years. We have a problem in Brazil of significant magnitude. It is no secret here that the world looks to us for a sense of confidence. And here we are within hours of leaving this session of Congress with a strong bipartisan bill, led by the Senator from Maryland, the Senator from New York, Senator D'Amato, the chairman of the committee, with a 16-2 vote coming out of that committee, and 88-11 on a cloture motion. My colleague from Texas feels strongly about the CRA provisions, and I respect that. But I would strongly argue that there is going to be ample time for us, whether today or tomorrow, if we can get it done, but if not certainly the next Congress to deal with the CRA provisions. There may not be another opportunity that comes along to deal with this issue, I say to my friend from Texas. As he knows, we have spent so many years trying to put together--here we are on the threshold of doing something truly significant in this Congress, and as strongly as people feel about CRA, we should never allow that issue here to deprive us the opportunity to send a message not only here at home, but abroad that this country, that this Congress can modernize its financial institutions to such a degree that we send that message of confidence at this critical hour, a message of confidence. The Democrats and Republicans have been able to come together on an issue that has divided us over the years. So I fervently hope that we will not allow that one issue to outweigh the enormous benefits that this bill offers people at home and abroad when the world financial crisis is literally on our doorstep. So I hope that either something gets worked out or that those who are for it would be willing to put aside their feelings on the CRA issue until another day when there will literally be dozens of vehicles when that issue can be addressed. Mr. President, I tell you today, there will not be the dozens of vehicles available to us to do what we on the Banking Committee were able to present to all of our colleagues here for the first time in more than two decades, some would argue more than three decades. So the opportunity is here. I just hope we do not miss this. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I know the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma wants to be heard, but I would just like to pick up on this last point, if I could, if my colleague from Texas would yield--

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I don't want to object, but I have been asked about clearing this. Maybe a couple of us have questions about this. If the majority leader will withhold for about 15 minutes so we might be able to clear it up, we would appreciate it.