Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I understand that the Senator from New Mexico has some expertise on this subject.

Mr. DORGAN. Senator Levin, might I ask if you concur with the Chairman?

Mr. DORGAN. The Office of the Secretary of Defense clearly did not act prudently in this regard, and I am pleased to report that this week the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee--on which I serve--added 430 million for procurement of this target drone. This move followed an authorization by the House Armed Services Committee of $27 million for BQM-74 procurement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tony Blaylock, a legislative fellow from my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the defense authorization bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have not been a cheerleader for our participation in this conflict. I supported it, but I am nervous about it. But I must say, this is wrong. At 7 o'clock this evening, with no notice, we have an amendment that suggests we shall terminate our participation in the NATO campaign to stop the ethnic cleansing and the massacre in Kosovo. At 7 o'clock tonight, with no notice, we are going to have this debate probably for an hour? I just heard one of the sponsors of this amendment talk about what Mr. Milosevic has achieved. He is right about that, Mr. Milosevic has achieved the following: massacre, we don't know how many; troops burning villages; raping people; killing innocent men, women and children; hauling people like cattle in train cars or herding them in groups to the border; displacing 1 million to 1.5 million people from their homeland. Yes, he has achieved that. What hasn't he achieved? What he has not achieved he is about to achieve if the Senate adopts this amendment. He wants to achieve an end to the airstrikes that cause him great inconvenience and a great threat to his movement in this massacre and in this ethnic cleansing. Does the Senate want to allow him to achieve that goal? I do not think so. Five or 10 years from now we will look in our rear-view mirror and see that on our watch ethnic cleansing and massacre occurred and we said: Gee, that didn't matter; it wasn't our business. We have already decided that is not the position we will take. It is our business. It does matter. Do you want to know what ethnic cleansing is? Do you want to know what are the horrors of this kind of action visited upon those men, women, and children? Go to the museum not many blocks from here and see the train cars where they hauled people in Europe before, see the shoes of the people who died in the gas ovens, and then ask yourself: Does this kind of behavior matter? It does matter, and this country, with our allies, is trying to do something about it. Imperfect? Is this operation in Kosovo with us and our NATO allies imperfect? Yes, it is imperfect, but are we trying? Is this country, with our allies, saying this does matter? Yes. That is exactly what we are doing. Do we really want to say to Mr. Milosevic tonight: You can achieve the rest of your goals through the help of the Senate. You can do all this--rape, burn, massacre, move people out of their homeland, clean out a country, engage in ethnic cleansing--and when this country and others stand up to say we will not allow that on our time and our watch, you can achieve your objective and remove that nuisance called airstrikes and bombing campaigns and the Senate will help you do that? I do not think so. I certainly hope not, not this Senate. My hope is that history will record this effort as a noble effort that said when this kind of behavior exists, we will do what we can with our allies to stop it. I do not know how this ends, but I know it should not end tonight on a Wednesday night vote by the Senate to say to Mr. Milosevic: This country will no longer continue to be a problem for you. The rape, the burning, the massacres, the ethnic cleansing will not stop, but the airstrikes should? I do not think that is a decision this Senate will make. It is not a decision the Senate should make, and I hope in a short time, with an amendment that should not be offered in this kind of circumstance, the Senate will say: No, this effort by this country at this point in time is important. This is not about us alone. It is about this country with NATO, with our allies attempting to stop this man, Slobodan Milosevic, from the kind of behavior we would not accept from anyone in the world. I hope when this vote is cast, we will not achieve the objective Mr. Milosevic wants most, and that is a cessation of the bombing and the airstrikes. That is the price this man is paying for his behavior, and he must pay that price until he stops. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Johnson be added as a cosponsor to S. 1022, the Veterans Emergency Health Care Act of 1999.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last week we debated the Juvenile Justice Act. We had a good number of provisions, especially dealing with guns, gun shows, and gun sales that were very controversial. I did not speak last week on an amendment I offered to the juvenile justice bill that became a part of that and is now a provision that has been passed by the Senate. I want to take a few minutes today to describe the amendment I offered and its importance. Some while ago, I was watching a television program. It was about a serial killer, a man who killed four women and one man in Gainsville, FL. The program described the book this serial killer has written: ``The Making of a Serial Killer: The Real Story of the Gainsville Murders in the Killer's Own Words.'' I thought: That cannot be the case. If you murder four or five people and are sent to prison, you lose your right to vote and you lose certain rights. Do you have a right to write a book and profit from it? This television program described the dilemma. There was a murderer in New York who was described as the ``Son of Sam'' murderer many years ago. He was sent to prison and wrote a book in order to profit from his murder. In other words, a violent murderer goes to prison and spends his time writing a book to sell to the public to make money. Is that a right prisoners have in this country after committing a violent crime? Is there a constitutional right to profit from a violent crime in America? I do not think so. The State of New York passed a statute, the ``Son of Sam'' statute, and the Federal Government passed a statute saying that the proceeds from a book written by a violent offender who is sent to prison cannot be retained by the violent criminal. That was appealed and went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Guess what. The U.S. Supreme Court said: No, you may not prohibit the expressive writings of a violent criminal, because that is a violation of the first amendment. I am truncating the Supreme Court decision, but essentially the Supreme Court invalidated the ``Son of Sam'' laws. The Federal law has never been enforced, to my knowledge, and the State laws have been invalidated. So we had a circumstance where, on the program I watched, this serial killer was interviewed. The woman with whom he apparently is romantically involved, who is one of the sponsors of this book, was interviewed. It raised the question in my mind: Shouldn't we correct this issue and these statutes so the next time this goes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will not overturn the law? I wrote a piece of legislation, after consultation with some constitutional lawyers, that I think does solve this issue and will say to any prospective author, some disgusting human being who murders four young girls and a man in Gainsville, FL, who now says, I want to write a book to describe the detail, the horrible detail of these murders: You can write until you are dead, but you will never ever profit, you will never profit by writing the accounts of your murders and then sell a book and keep the money. Not just you, but your agent, those to whom you assign the profits--you will not be able to reap the rewards of telling the gruesome, dirty tales of your sordid criminal lives. The juvenile justice bill which passed last Thursday has an amendment in it that closes the loophole and rewrites the Federal law. It says that any individual convicted of any Federal or State felony or violent misdemeanor, if that convicted defendant tries to sell his book, movie rights, or other expressive work or any property associated with the crime--a bloody glove, murder weapon, photos and so on--whose value has been enhanced by that crime, then the U.S. attorney will make a motion to forfeit all proceeds that would have been received by the defendant or the defendant's transferee--spouse, partner, friends, and so on. Is this important? I think it is. I think we ought to have a Federal statute, and if the Supreme Court said the ``Son of Sam'' statute is not valid, we ought to have a Federal statute that says to anybody in this country: If you commit a violent crime and you go to prison, do not expect to sit in prison and write and profit by publishing a book about your crime. I offered that in the Senate last Thursday, and I was joined by my colleague, Senator Evan Bayh. It has now passed the Senate, and my hope is my colleagues in the House will see fit to keep this in the Juvenile Justice Act, and it will go to the President and be signed into law. (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 105 are located in today's Record under ``Submissions of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Josh Alkin, a member of my staff, be given the privilege of the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am today submitting a resolution that will express the sense of the Senate that Slobodan Milosevic should be tried as a war criminal. My colleague, Senator Specter, and others, have also talked about this at some length on the floor of the Senate in recent months. It is important, given where we are with the airstrikes in Kosovo, to think through this question about Slobodan Milosevic and why we are involved in an air campaign in that part of the world. These are gruesome pictures, and I will only put one of these photos on the easel. But all of these people have names and have lives and have the human suffering that is visited upon them by Slobodan Milosevic. One million to 1.5 million people have been evicted from their homes and communities. Homes have been burned, and innocent civilians have been raped and beaten. Thousands have been massacred, and thousands more have been packed into train cars, reminiscent of the Jews who were hauled to the ovens by the Nazis in the 1940s. This country and our allies decided we do not want history to record us as saying it doesn't matter. There is a moral imperative for us, where we can, when we can to take steps to stop ethnic cleansing, to stop the genocide, to stop someone like Slobodan Milosevic. So we commenced the airstrikes. The very purpose of those airstrikes is underlined by the understanding that Mr. Milosevic is committing horrible war crimes against these ethnic Albanians. They have been driven from their homeland and subjected to rape, torture, and genocide at the hands of the troops commanded by Mr. Milosevic. The question for these children and these innocent victims is: Shall we, as a country, push to have Mr. Milosevic tried in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia? The Tribunal exists for a very specific purpose. Should this country not be pressing very aggressively to have this leader, Mr. Milosevic, indicted and convicted of war crimes? We made a mistake, in my judgment, with respect to Iraq. Saddam Hussein was never tried for war crimes. He committed many. He is one of the few leaders in the world who has murdered people in his own homeland with weapons of mass destruction, but we did not press for his conviction in an international tribunal. So now, instead of being a convicted war criminal, Saddam Hussein is still in power. I understand that perhaps we would not have been able to arrest him, but at least in absentia evidence could be presented to say that this is a war criminal. This monster, Slobodan Milosevic, and the despicable acts committed in his name by his troops, ought to persuade our country to support his indictment and conviction in the International Tribunal, which exists for that purpose. Why would we not do that? I am told that, at some point there has to be a settlement to end this war, and those who are involved in the settlement do not want to be negotiating with a convicted war criminal. That doesn't make any sense to me. The very reason for launching the airstrikes was that this person and the troops under his leadership was committing unspeakable horrors against the ethnic Albanians, which, in my judgment, brands him a war criminal. In fact, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who has a long and distinguished career, said in 1992 that Mr. Milosevic was a war criminal. And it is now 1999. Thousands have lost their lives; a million to a million and a half people have been driven from their homes; and the human misery visited on innocent men, women, and children by this leader, Slobodan Milosevic, ought to persuade this country immediately to press for his indictment and conviction-- immediately--not tomorrow, not next week, now. This country has an obligation to do that with our NATO allies. I am submitting another resolution today, and the resolution is very simple. It says: It is the sense of the Senate that the President should publicly declare as a matter of United States policy that the United States considers Slobodan Milosevic to be a war criminal. And we urge the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal to seek immediately an indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and to prosecute him to the fullest extent of international law. We have a responsibility to do this. The failure to do this, and a resulting negotiated settlement at some point down the line that would leave Slobodan Milosevic in power, would be, in my judgment, a tragic mistake. In or out of power, this leader ought to be branded a war criminal. Whether we apprehend him or not, he ought to be indicted and tried, in absentia, if necessary, with all of the evidence, including the graphic pictorial evidence and all of the statements that have been made by the folks who are pouring into these refugee camps. I am not going to describe those statements, but last Wednesday the State Department released a tape verifying many of those statements. It brings tears to your eyes instantly to understand the unspeakable horrors that have been visited upon these people.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator from Nebraska will yield.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make a point about something which I think is critically important to the Senate and to this country and its future. It is something we are spending no time on and pay no attention to. It is the issue of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In the past two State of the Union Addresses, the President has asked Congress to report out and approve the nuclear test ban treaty. Going back to a time when President Eisenhower talked about this issue, I think most Americans understand the value of and the interest in a test ban treaty. Since 1945, six nations have conducted 2,046 nuclear test explosions. That is an average of one test every 9 days. There are a few countries that have the capability of producing a nuclear weapon and testing a nuclear weapon. There are many countries that want that capability. Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, stopping the spread of missile technology, the means by which nuclear warheads can be delivered, is critically important. It seems to me one of the underpinnings of those efforts must be the passage of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The United States has been under a moratorium of nuclear tests. We have not been testing since that moratorium began in 1992. We do not test nuclear weapons. We have been a leader. In this area, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not only important public policy for our country and the world, it is important in the context of our leadership in these areas. The difficulties we now have in the Balkans and the ruptures that have occurred with our relationship with the Russians, it seems to me, ought to emphasize to us how important it is to turn back to these issues of arms control. We know that the Iranians are testing medium-range missiles. We know that the North Koreans are testing medium-range missiles. We know that India and Pakistan exploded nuclear weapons under each other's nose, and they do not like each other. Ought that be of some concern to us? Of course it should. Yet, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty--the CTBT it is called--the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is here in a committee without movement. There were no hearings on the treaty in the last session of the 105th Congress. We are now 5 months into the 106th Congress. I very much want our country to do the right thing: Ratify that treaty before September of 1999, when the committee will be formed of the countries that are signatories to that treaty and who have ratified that treaty, about how it will be brought into force and how it will be verified. I know some say: Well, if you have a treaty on banning nuclear weapons tests, only those who are willing to ban them will ban them, and you can't deal with the rogues or the outlaws. Look, if that is the attitude, no arms control of any type is worth pursuing. But, of course, that is absurd. Arms control has brought real rewards and real reductions in nuclear weapons. I have in my desk here in the Senate a piece of a backfire bomber. I am not at my desk to get it, but it is a piece of a wing of a backfire bomber. Normally you would get a piece of a potential adversary's bomber wing by shooting down a bomber. We did not do that. We cut the wing off the bomber as part of an arms control agreement in which they reduced the number of bombers, they reduced the number of missiles, and they reduced the number of warheads. Arms control reductions have worked. So too will the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I intend to work with a number of my colleagues to see if we are able, in the coming weeks, to speak with some aggressiveness on this issue here on the floor of the Senate and, on behalf of the American people, to make the case that we ought to have the opportunity to vote on the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We ought to do it soon. I have seen the agenda that has been offered by the Majority Leader as to what he hopes to bring to the floor to the Senate before Memorial Day, before the Fourth of July. This is not on it. It must be. It should be. I hope it will be, because this is a critically important issue to our country and to the world. Efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons are critical to our future. Many countries want them. Only a few countries have access to them. We must, at every step of the way, try to forge arms control agreements that work. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is one step in that direction. Other steps include forging additional alliances with Russia who, as all of us know, is in some significant economic difficulty. We worry a lot about a range of issues with respect to their command and control of nuclear weapons. But the first step, I think, is for the Senate to be given the opportunity to vote on and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. I hope that is sooner rather than later. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have cleared this request. I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until the hour of 1:30, and that at 1 I be recognized for 20 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as I begin, I pay tribute to the Senator from Alaska, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Stevens, and the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, and other of my colleagues. I see the Senator from Mississippi on the floor, Mr. Cochran, and so many others who in that conference spent hour after hour, day after day hammering out a conference agreement. Especially the chairman and the ranking member. I recall one evening sitting there at 1 in the morning, and they were still there exhibiting the kind of patience that is quite extraordinary in order to resolve all of these many issues. Much of the discussion was about the victims of Hurricane Mitch, the responsibility to respond to our neighbors in this hemisphere who have been hit with such a terrible disaster, the military needs with respect to the airstrikes in Kosovo, and the prosecution of that conflict, the needs for spring planting loans in farm country, and a range of other issues. I support many of those areas, but I am not going to support the conference report because I believe, as I indicated in the conference committee, that if there are resources above that which was requested for the Defense Department for the prosecution of this conflict in Kosovo, if there were $2 billion or $3 billion or $5 billion or $6 billion more available, then I believe we should have a better debate on the priorities of the use of those funds. I, for one, believe we have an urgent, urgent need in rural America to provide a better safety net to give family farmers a chance to make it through this price depression. I believe that is the priority. We had a vote in the conference on the Senate side, and we lost 14-14 on a proposal that would have added nearly $5.5 billion for some price supports to build a bridge across those price valleys during these troubled times in rural America. We lost 14-14. I wish we had won. Nearly $5.5 billion to $6 billion was added to this package for defense spending that was not requested. It is not that the money is not available, it is that a different priority was attached to the spending of this money. I will tell you why I feel so strongly about this. I come from rural America. I come from a small town. We raised some cattle and horses. Last Thursday, my brother called a florist in a little town called Mott, ND. Mott, ND, is 14 miles from my hometown of Regent. Regent has 300 people and Mott is a bigger town and always was, even when I was growing up. Mott is about 800 people. My brother called the florist on the Main Street of Mott. There is one little florist shop. He said: My brother and I want to order flowers to be delivered to the cemetery at Regent for our mother and father for their graves on Memorial Day. We do that each year, and we also do so on Mother's Day and Father's Day. My brother said he told the woman who runs and owns the floral shop: By the way, I forgot to call you this year on Mother's Day. I was going to have you deliver some flowers for Mother's Day. Incidentally, this floral shop always apologizes when we call because she says: We have to charge you a $2 delivery fee. It is 28 miles. My brother said: I forgot to call you this year to deliver flowers for our mother's grave on Mother's Day, but I would like you to deliver them on Memorial Day. The woman who owns the flower shop said: That's all right, we delivered some on Mother's Day because we know you call every year and we thought you just forgot. Later on, we were going to send you a bill, and if you paid it, that was all right, and if you did not, that's all right, too. That probably does not happen across America, but it happens in my part of the country, in rural America, where family farmers and Main Street merchants work together in a lifestyle that is really quite wonderful. People do things, people help each other, but there is no amount of help in farm country these days that can reach out and say to family farmers who are struggling to make a living: We will help you with the price of your grain. We know you are trucking that grain to the elevator these days and are told there is no value; we will help you. That is not what is happening. In fact, they are going to the elevators today to find out the grain market has collapsed and they are getting Depression-era prices, at the same time the current farm program, freedom to farm, is pulling the rug out from under these farmers with respect to the safety net. We need to help. If we want family farmers in our future, we need to help. If we want to preserve this kind of lifestyle, yes, of family farms and Main Street of our small towns, we need to do something to help. I want to read a few things from Ted Koppel's program ``Nightline'' on Tuesday, May 18. They did a program on the farm crisis. They pointed out--while all of the good news comes to the Washington Post and the New York Times, just open them up and read all the wonderful news, our economy is growing, unemployment is down, inflation is down, virtually everything else is up, a lot of good news--but the farm belt does not experience that good news. Family farmers are in desperate trouble and small towns are shrinking. The rural economy is in desperate trouble. Ted Koppel on his program had farmers and others talking. I will share some of that with my colleagues: Here's what many farmers see happening, the prices they can sell their crops for falling and predicted to stay low. . . . wheat prices are down 42 percent. Now, ask yourself, how would you feel or your family feel if you had a 42-percent cut in your income? Would you feel that the economy is doing real well? Corn prices are down 38 percent. Oats and barley down 32 percent. In constant dollars, these are prices that we received in the family farm in the Great Depression. At the start of the program, Ted Koppel interviewed a fellow. He talks about a guy who works with farm families, tries to help them. Willard Brunell said: I think the scariest one was back a few years when I got a phone call from a farm wife [who] said my husband just left with a gun and he's driving away. He said he's going to his tractor. [He said] I was there with him 20 minutes and it was quite a ways away. I got him out of his tractor. He sat in my little car and we spent two hours in that car trying to talk him down and he told me exactly how he was doing, going to do it. He had the gun with him. . . . They get more than 50 calls a month in this fellow's church talking about that kind of desperation. In Minnesota and North Dakota, where Ted Koppel's program was taped, is some of the richest farmland in the entire world. Last year, one in every three farmers grew a crop that cost more to produce than they could sell it for. For many, it was the fourth, fifth year that happened. Lowell Nelson was interviewed on this program. He is one of those farmers. He was born, raised and had his own sons on this land, a fertile 400 acres he bought from his brothers 35 years ago after his dad died. But this spring [is the first spring] he's not planting anything. He cannot. He is ruined. He said: Well, I had been putting it off [this decision] for quite [a long] time and I had gotten a lot of urging, you know, from my wife to make a decision and I had just been putting it off. It's a decision I didn't want to make. His wife said: One night he was out in the field and all of a sudden called me on the [shortwave] radio and wanted me to come over just to ride with him [on the tractor] and I knew something was wrong and it was shortly thereafter that he decided he'd better get some medical help. The interviewer asked Mr. Nelson: How badly did you scare yourself? He said: Real bad. The interviewer asked: What do you mean? He said: Thinking that it may be better off not being here. The reason I mention the ``Nightline'' program, they interviewed these folks. These are real people in desperate trouble--just in desperate trouble. We have a country whose economy is growing and thriving and rising--full of good news. The stock market hits record highs. Everybody says this is a terrific economy. Then you drive out down a country road, and talk to a family who has struggled for 20, 30, 50 years, and you see what is happening. A big guy stood up at a meeting I had one day. He had a big beard, a tall fellow, a strong fellow. He said: You know, my granddad farmed my farm. My dad farmed it for 40 years. And I have farmed it for 23 years. Then his eyes teared up and his chin began to quiver, and he could not continue anymore. When he finally got the words out, he said: And I can't keep going anymore. I'm broke, so I have to sell the farm. That may not matter to some, but it matters to me. A woman wrote me a couple of weeks ago and said: We had our auction sale on our farm, and my 17-year-old son would not get out of bed to come downstairs. He refused to come down and help at the auction sale because he was so heartbroken. He knew he would never be able to do what his dad did. He knew he would never be able to farm that farm. She could not get him out of bed he was so heartbroken. I tell you all of that because we pass a supplemental bill and we say: All right, on defense, the Defense Department needs $6.1 billion to prosecute this war in Kosovo. We must restore munitions and planes and do other things. And I am for all of that. I support all of that. I support our men and women in uniform and support this mission. But then we also say there is another $5 or $6 billion we want to add to that. And I say, if there is $5 or $6 billion around that can be used in this discretionary way, then I want the priority to say: We want to continue to invest in America's family farmers. You think this country is going to be a better, stronger place when we don't have family farmers left? When corporations farm America from California to Maine, you think food prices are not going to go up? And it is more than just farming. These folks contribute in every way to their community. They contribute to a way of life that we are losing in this country. Yet, somehow, when we talk about all of these fancy economic theories, nobody talks about the family as an economic unit-- nobody. The economic unit in this country is the large corporation. They are all getting married, as you know. There is all this corporate romance going on all over America. Every day you wake up and see a new couple of corporations have decided to get hitched and get bigger. What about the economic unit that really matters in the center of this country in America's farm belt that grows America's food? That makes America's communities strong? That helps build America's churches? That puts life on main streets on Saturday night? What about those economic units? What about family farmers? Last year, we passed an emergency bill. About half of that money is not yet in the hands of family farmers. It will be there in a matter of weeks, I guess, through the USDA, through this formula. But it is $1.5 billion short of what was promised. We should have at least added that to this piece of legislation. We should have at least added some additional support to say to family farmers, when prices collapse at Depression-level prices, we are going to reach out a helping hand, extend a helping hand to you to say you matter to this country. We had an opportunity to do that and did not. A 14-to-14 vote, and how I regret losing that vote--but in this business, in this system, you win some and you lose some. My hope is that those who felt it not appropriate, those who felt it was not the time to respond to this need now will, a week from now or a month from now, decide that it is time to respond. This is not Democrat and Republican. We have had bad farm programs under all kinds of administrations--Democratic administrations, Republican administrations. I want the farmers to get the price from the marketplace as well. That would be my fervent hope. But when the marketplace collapses, we must help. Let me make a final point. I think it is fascinating that at a time when somehow the economic unit of the family, with respect to agriculture, does not seem to matter, that which the family farm produces in this country is used by everybody else to make record profits--the railroads make record profits hauling it; the cereal manufacturers make record profits putting air in it and puffing it up and putting it on the grocery store shelves and calling it puffed wheat--the farmers go broke. The manufacturers get rich. Or they sell a steer for a pittance or sell a hog for $20, an entire hog. You can buy a hog for $20 at the bottom of the hog market, and then go to the store and buy a ham that cost you $30 or $40. Buy a small ham at twice the price you bought the entire hog for. Something is fundamentally wrong, and farmers know it. So everybody who touches these products make record profits and are getting bigger and richer; and the folks who start the tractor and plow the ground and plant the seed, and then hope all summer it does not hail, the insects don't come, that it rains enough and doesn't rain too much, and that they, by the grace of God, might get a crop, wonder whether they will be able to sell it in the fall and make any kind of profit. So I cannot vote for this conference report. But having said that, I deeply admire the work of the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from West Virginia and others who participated in it. The priorities, in my judgment, needed to include the priorities I have just discussed with respect to helping family farmers, and they do not, regrettably. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Regular order, Mr. President.

Mr. DORGAN. I want to observe that the unanimous consent proposal offered by the Senator from Wyoming had not been cleared on our side. We were constrained to object. I also observe, if we are going to establish an order for legislation to be brought to the floor following disposition of the supplemental, for example, we may want to bring to the floor the proposed amendment that died in conference committee by a 14-14 vote dealing with the agricultural fund. Our point was that there are other priorities as well. But the unanimous consent request had not been served on our side. That is why we were constrained to object.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last year, I introduced a bill to correct problems with the Federal Son of Sam Law, as those problems were perceived by the United States Supreme Court. Today, I am reintroducing this legislation, which deals with a continuing problem. The New York statute analyzed by the Supreme Court, as well as the Federal statute which I seek to amend, forfeited the proceeds from any expressive work of a criminal, and dedicated those proceeds to the victims of the perpetrators crime. Because of constitutional deficiencies cited by the Court, the Federal statute has never been applied, and without changes, it is highly unlikely that it ever will be. Without this bill, criminals can become wealthy from the fruits of their crimes, while victims and their families are exploited. The bill I now introduce attempts to correct constitutional deficiencies cited by the Supreme Court in striking down New York's Son of Sam law. In its decision striking down New York's law, the Court found the statute to be both over inclusive and under inclusive: Over inclusive because the statute included all expressive works, no matter how tangentially related to the crime; under inclusive because the statute included only expressive works, not other forms of property. To correct the deficiencies perceived by the Court, this bill changes significantly the concepts of the Federal statute. Because the Court criticized the statute for singling out speech, this bill is all encompassing: It includes various types of property related to the crime from which a criminal might profit. Because the Court criticized the statute for being over inclusive, including the process from all works, no matter how remotely connected to the crime, this bill limits the property to be forfeited to the enhanced value of property attributable to the offense. Because the Court found fault with the statute for not requiring a conviction, this bill requires a conviction. The bill also attempts to take advantage of the long legal history of forfeiture. Pirate ships and their contents were once forfeited to the government. More recent case law addresses the concept of forfeiting any property used in the commission of drug related crimes, or proceeds from those crimes. I hope that courts interpreting this statute will look to this legal history and find it binding or persuasive. The bill utilizes the Commerce Clause authority of Congress to forfeit property associated with State crimes. This means that if funds are transferred through banking channels, if UPS or FedEx are used, if the airwaves are utilized, or if the telephone is used to transfer the property, to transfer funds, or to make a profit, the property can be forfeited. In State cases, this bill allows the State Attorney General to proceed first. We do not seek to preempt State law, only to see that there is a law in place which will ensure that criminals do not profit at the expense of their victims and the families of victims. One last improvement which this bill makes over the former statutes: The old statue include only crimes which resulted in physical harm to another, this bill includes other crimes. Examples of crimes probably not included under the old statute, but included here are terrorizing, kidnaping, bank robbery, and embezzlement. Mr. President, our Federal statute, enacted to ensure that criminals not profit at the expense of their victims and victim's families, is not used today because it is perceived to be unconstitutional. I believe victims of crime deserve quick action on this bill, drafted to ensure that they are not the source of profits to those who committed crimes against them. I ask for your support. amendment no. 352

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am glad to be a cosponsor of the mentoring amendment offered by my colleague from Nebraska, Mr. Kerrey, and I commend him for his work on this issue. I also want to thank the managers of this bill for accepting our amendment. When it comes to juvenile delinquency, I subscribe to the notion that ``an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'' I think it makes a great deal of sense to spend a dollar now to try and prevent young people from becoming criminals in order to save the thousands of dollars it would cost later to incarcerate and rehabilitate them. I believe one of the most effective forms of prevention is mentoring. I have seen firsthand that mentoring can make an important difference in a child's life through my participation in a wonderful program started by Senator Jeffords called Everybody Wins. Every week, I have the privilege of spending an hour or so with a boy named Jamal. It has been a pleasure to watch him learn and grow into a fine, confident, young man. I would encourage any of my colleagues who want to make a real difference to become a mentor. At-risk young people with mentors are 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs and half as likely to skip school than at-risk youth without mentors. Nearly three-quarters of young people with mentors indicate that their mentors have helped to raise their goals and expectations. Unfortunately, there are too many at-risk youth who do not have an adult willing or able to give them the regular, individual attention they need. The amendment offered by Senator Kerrey and I would help to ensure that exemplary youth or family mentoring programs in each of our states are funded by the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Challenge Grant program established in this bill. I believe this would be a good investment in our young people, and I again thank my colleagues for their support of this amendment.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to just add a note of sympathy and condolence, but also, on this day, a note of admiration for Admiral Nance's public service. As I said one day on the floor when we were talking about the late Scott Bates, there are many people who serve this country, and work in this Senate especially, who do so in ways that are not obvious to people on the outside, but in ways that are critically important to the workings of the Senate and the construction of good public policy in America. I did not know Admiral Nance well. I knew him to see him. I, on several occasions, approached him with some questions about policy issues that I knew the committee was working on, that I knew he was involved in with Senator Helms. On each occasion, he answered my queries with patience and with a great deal of understanding. I walked away thinking to myself, this is a person who really knows these issues, both from experience and just a general knowledge from a wide range of interests and issues. It reminded me again, then, with him, as it has with so many others, of the wonderful service given the Senate by so many people on our staffs. But he was different. He was by all accounts, of all those who had many more dealings with him than I had, a person who brought to this Senate a very substantial background and a very special kind of knowledge about these issues in foreign affairs. So I want to add my voice today to the expressions of gratitude for his public service. Yes, condolence over his passing and sympathy to his family and loved ones, but especially, at the same time, to say thank you to Admiral Nance for lending himself in service to his country in such a noble way and especially thank you to him for being of service to his country here in the Senate with Senator Helms for so many years. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning I opened the Washington Post newspaper to the Metro Section and saw on page 1 of the Metro Section, a headline that says, ``Killer Sent To Wrong Prison After 2nd Murder.'' I want to describe this killer and I want to describe what has happened in the District of Columbia, because I have spoken about this case, I suppose, five or six times on the floor of the Senate over the last 4 or 5 years. First, let me tell you about the man they are talking about, the killer. His name is Leo Gonzales Wright. On June 10, 1974, he committed a rape and committed a burglary. On June 18, 1976, armed robbery; shot a store owner during an armed robbery. February 1, 1976, robbery and murder of a cab driver, Joseph Woodbury. Apprehended, incarcerated, pled guilty to second degree murder and armed robbery. Released on parole some 17 years later. Arrested for cocaine in the District of Columbia. Indictment in a drug case, arraigned on the drug charge, failed to report for drug testing. Failed to report for drug testing. Carjacking and armed robbery of Kristina Keyes. Failed to report for drug testing. Carjacking and murder of Bettina Pruckmayr. Who is Bettina Pruckmayr? She was a young, 26-year-old human rights lawyer. You can't see this picture much. She had just graduated from Georgetown, a young woman who one evening was getting into her car and this Leo Gonzales Wright abducts here, forces her to drive to an ATM machine, and gets her ATM code. She cooperates in every way: gives him the PIN number for the ATM machine, says, ``I only have $20 in my account,'' and then she tries to run away. He follows her and, according to the paper, got angry and decided to kill her, this 26-year-old lawyer. He said he was so enraged he stabbed her 38 times, plunging the knife into her body with such force that her sternum was crushed and many of the wounds, inflicted with a 5.5 inch butcher knife, were more than 6 inches deep. This young lady, this wonderful young attorney, was killed by someone who should not have been able to kill anybody. He was on the streets, released early. He had already murdered, was put in prison, but released early and then picked up again for an offense and not put back in jail. Then he murdered this young woman. So the judge sentenced him, and the judge said, when he sentenced him 3 years ago: It is my intent, sir, that you will never be released into society again. You, sir, will die in jail. This court will do everything in its power to ensure that you will never walk the streets of this country or anyplace again. That is what the Federal judge said to Leo Gonzales Wright, a double murderer, a man with a criminal record as long as my arm, someone who should not have been on the streets to murder Bettina Pruckmayr. This morning the story in the paper says that, while Judge Sullivan ordered this man to be sent to Federal prison 3 years ago, he is not in a Federal prison. He has been out here at Lorton in the District of Columbia for the last 3 years. In fact, at one point he was given part of a day to go home to attend his mother's wake. The story talks about the judge's anger. The judge has a right to be angry. All of us have a need to be angry. This is gross, utter incompetence. I don't know anybody in the criminal justice system in the District of Columbia. I don't know anybody there. But there is such gross incompetence there it just staggers the imagination. I have spoken probably five times on the floor of the Senate about this murder, only because it is so reflective of what is wrong in our criminal justice system. We know this guy is a murderer. We knew it before and society put him in jail, and the parole folks let him out early so he could murder again. Who is accountable for that? Is somebody going to lose his or her job? The last time a Federal judge sent him to Federal prison he didn't go. Who is accountable for that? Or he gets to go to his mother's wake, this fellow who has murdered twice. Who is accountable for that? Who is going to tell the Pruckmayr family: We are sorry. This is just the way bureaucracy works. It ought not be the way the system works anywhere. I want to say to the Mayor of this city and the folks who run the criminal justice system in this city, I am not someone who bashes the city of the District of Columbia. I have never done that. Some do, but I do not. But I say today I am on the Appropriations Committee and you are going to pay a price. You are going to pay a price for this gross, staggering, incompetence, unless someone is held accountable for this kind of nonsense. People have the right to expect the streets are safe. People have the right to expect that murderers are not walking up and down the streets in this country. And in the District of Columbia, at least, they knew this fellow was a murderer--he had murdered before, committed armed robbery before, committed rape before--only for them to say somehow: We decided to put him back on the streets. Then a Federal judge says: I want him in Federal prison forever. The District of Columbia cannot even get that right. We need to understand why. I do not mean this as a threat. I just mean it as a promise. They are going to pay a price unless they demonstrate to the American people and to this Congress they are holding people accountable for this kind of gross negligence and gross incompetence. I never met Bettina Pruckmayr. I have spoken in the Senate about a young 11-year-old boy, I suppose, about a half dozen times as well. They found that young boy dead. They found grass and dirt between his fingers. He was also killed by a guy who previously had been convicted of murder. That young boy was stabbed many times and left for dead in a pond, except he was not dead. He tried to crawl his way out. He died at the top of the embankment with dirt and grass between his fingers. He should never have been murdered. He was murdered by someone we knew was a murderer, because he murdered before. But the system said it was OK that he be let out of jail. The exact same thing is true with this young woman, Bettina Pruckmayr. She ought not have died. Her death is on someone's conscience. I do not know who it is. Who makes these decisions? Who makes the decisions that these killers be turned loose on our streets? I have come to the floor today only to ask the question: Who makes the decision to say to a Federal judge you may want this person in a Federal prison out of society for life, but we have decided differently. We will stick him back in Lorton and when his mother dies, he can go to the wake. Who makes that decision? Who is going to be held accountable for this, because this is the same kind of staggering incompetence that led to this person's release in the first place, that led to this person not being apprehended when he failed a drug test while on parole. It is the same staggering incompetence. I am saying as one Member of the Senate that when we take a look at our obligations and I as an appropriator take a look at our obligations to the District of Columbia, I will insist that the mayor and others in this system demonstrate to us that they have held people accountable for this kind of behavior. Too many innocent people die. I have had a piece of legislation in the Senate--I have never been able to get it passed and I will never quit trying--that says if a unit of government, a city, a State, decides they want to let killers out early, time off for good behavior; we want to manage you in prison, so we will give you an inducement: If you behave in prison we will give you time off. If you commit violent crimes and murder, we will let you out early if you are good behind bars so you can walk the streets early and commit another crime. What I have said is those units of government that decide to let people convicted of violent crimes out early, if those people commit a violent crime during a period when they would have still been serving their sentence in prison, should be held responsible to the victims and the victims' families. Yes, that means lawsuits, recompense. There ought to be responsibility. Let's find those who are letting these folks out of prison and say to them: You be responsible. If you want to let them out early, then you bear the consequences. Am I upset by reading this story this morning? Yes, I am. Again, I did not know this young woman, but I have spoken about her often, and many others have, I believe, watched this case with bewilderment, wondering who on Earth could be in charge of a system that is so fundamentally incompetent, a system that, in my judgment, ultimately allowed this person to be free on the streets to kill this young woman, a system that now can't even comply with a simple order by a Federal judge that this person ought to be in Federal prison forever, never again to be released on the streets in this country. People of this country deserve better and expect better. Those of us in the Congress who have some capability of applying some pressure to the people of the District of Columbia to remedy these problems have an obligation, it seems to me, to use that leverage to force that to happen. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have great respect for the Senator from Vermont. I would not suggest he go back on an agreement he made with anybody. But I do want to make this point clearly. On January 31, 1994, I introduced legislation in the Senate calling for the V-chip. It was the first legislation introduced in the Senate on the V-chip. Within a year or so, with myself, my colleague and others, including Senator Conrad especially, and Senator Lieberman, the V-chip passed the Senate and became law. There is nothing, no agreement at all for most Members of the Senate about some V-chip versus any other restriction on legislative action. The letter that was read earlier, that might have been from some people who were not necessarily involved in the V-chip issue. I am the one who introduced it. There might have been some people who made some commitments to somebody else that they would not do something. That is their business. If there are 6 or 8 or 10 of them, that is their business. But that is not the business of the other 90 Senators. They have made no such agreement. This proposal complements the V-chip. This proposal works with the V- chip. This proposal is not at odds with the V-chip, and there is no such agreement I am aware of with almost all Members of the Senate that we should not take this baby step forward on this sensible proposition. One more point: This is not content-based Government involvement. We already have a description that says if you are a television broadcaster you cannot, at 7:30 in the evening, broadcast the seven dirty words. You cannot do that. Why? Because we have decided certain things are inappropriate and the Supreme Court has upheld our capability of doing that through the Federal Communications Commission. It is also inappropriate, and we used to think as a country that it was, to broadcast excessively violent programs in the middle hours of the evening when children are watching. The Senator from South Carolina and I simply want to go back to that commonsense standard. Suggesting somehow that we have no capability or no interest in determining what some broadcaster somewhere throws into America's living rooms is just outside the debate about what is real. What is real is we have a real responsibility. That is what is being addressed by the amendment offered here by the Senator from South Carolina. Again, it is a baby step. I do not want anybody to be confused that somehow this is at odds with the V-chip. I introduced the V-chip. This is not at odds with the V-chip. It complements the V-chip, and this Congress and this Senate ought to agree to this amendment and we ought to do it this morning. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. I wonder. Could I have a dialogue about that following the statement? I don't intend to interrupt the statement. The Senator from Vermont mentioned five. There are 100 Senators. It would be good to have a dialog about that following the Senator's statement.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to join my colleague, Senator Hollings of South Carolina, as a cosponsor of this amendment. I have worked with Senator Hollings since 1992 on this subject in the Commerce Committee. We have had hearing after hearing. This is a very big issue. We are proposing a baby step on a very big issue. It is likely that this baby step that we propose to take will be turned down by the Senate. We will see. Maybe I will be surprised today. I hope I will. But if the past is prologue, we will likely see the Senate decide it is not time or the amendment is not right or any one of 1,000 excuses. If ever there was an example of when all is said and done, more is said than done, if ever there was an example of that, it is on this subject. We have thousands of studies. We have had hundreds of hours of debate, many proposals. Almost nothing happens. Will Rogers said something once instructive, it seems to me. He said: When there is no place left to spit, you either have to swallow your tobacco juice or change with the times. On this subject, I say to my colleagues, it is time to swallow your tobacco juice. There is no place left to spit on this issue. Let me give you some statistics. As a parent, I am pretty acutely aware, but I have a 12-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. We have a couple television sets, and they have switches on the sets. We try very hard to make sure they are not watching inappropriate television programming, but I tell you, it is hard. There is a lot coming through those sets at all hours of the day and night. Senator Hollings and I say, let us at least describe a block of time or have the Federal Communications Commission describe a period of time during which children are expected to be watching television, during family hour, and describe that that period will not contain excessive amounts of violence on television. Surely we can entertain adults without hurting our children. That is all this amendment says. Is it old-fashioned? Yes, it goes back to a time when we actually had a sort of understanding. During certain periods of the evening, during family time, during times when you would expect children to watch television, you won't have excessive acts of violence on television programming. Is that so extreme? Is that censorship? No, of course not. Let me read you some information. Before I do, let me mention, I said last night that by the time a young person graduates from high school, they have watched 12,500 hours of television. Excuse me, let me change that. They have sat in a classroom, 12,500 hours in a school classroom, and they have watched 20,000 hours of television. They are, regrettably, in many cases much more a product of what they have seen than what they have read. Let me read some statistics about what they are seeing on these television programs. By the end of elementary school, the American Medical Association reports from their studies, the average American child has watched 8,000 murders on television and 100,000 acts of aggressive violence. That is by the end of elementary school. By age 18, these numbers, of course, have jumped, 112,000 acts of violence, and by age 18, the average young American has watched 40,000 murders on television. Now, one can make the point that it doesn't matter, it is irrelevant, and this doesn't affect anybody. I am not saying that just because when somebody sees an act on violence on television, they rush out the door and commit an act of violence on somebody else. But I am saying that the media have a profound influence on our lives. People spend $200 billion a year advertising precisely because they feel it makes a difference--it makes a difference in terms of what people wear, what songs they sing, how they act, what kind of chewing gum they buy. It works--except when it comes to violence, we are told it is irrelevant and it doesn't matter. I would like to call my colleagues' attention to one little community in Canada. I have never been there; I never heard of it before, in fact. But a fascinating study was done in this town. It is a town called Notel, Canada. In 1973, this small community acquired television for the first time. It wasn't because this little Canadian town never wanted television; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that they had signal reception problems that could not be solved and so they didn't get television until much, much later. They didn't have any hostility to television; they just didn't get it. You had this little ``island,'' this little town with no television. Somebody decided to do a study. They did a study concurrent with this community never having had television now receiving television for the first time. They did a double blind study and selected two other towns and then this community. Then they measured young people's behavior. I want to describe to you what they learned because it is exactly what you would expect: Television affects behavior. Violent television affects behavior. In the double blind research design, first and second grade students were observed prospectively over a period of 2 years for rates of objectively measured noxious physical aggression, such as hitting, shoving, biting, et cetera. The rates of aggression did not change in the two communities who had had television all along. Their rate of aggression was the same. But that community that just received television in 1973, which had been dark all those years because they could not get reception, they get television now, it is a new thing, and guess what happens? The rates of physical aggression among their children increased by 160 percent. The other two communities didn't change. The community that just began to receive television had a substantial increase in the rate of aggression among their children. What does that say? It says what we all know: Television affects behavior. At one of our hearings, we had testimony that said--do you remember the old ``Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' program? There was Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and--perhaps the Senator from South Carolina can name the fourth. It's Raphael, I think. So you have four turtles, and they have sticks and they are beating up each other. It is interesting. We had testimony before the Commerce Committee that ``Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' had to be produced two ways. One, with all of the full flavor of the hitting and the sticks and all of the things they were doing. And, second, they had to clean it up and tone it down because in some foreign markets they would not allow it to be imported into their television sets with that level of violence because they didn't want the kids to see that. So you make it at one level of aggression and violence for the U.S. market and then clean it up a bit so some of the foreign children aren't exposed to that. I thought that was interesting because it describes, it seems to me, an attitude here. The attitude has been: Let's keep pushing the limits. I think, as I said yesterday, television has some wonderful things on it. I laud those people who produce it. Some things I see are so wonderful and beautiful. I watch some of these channels. I have mentioned Discovery, the History Channel, and so many other things. Yes, the broadcast channels produce things I believe are wonderful as well. But I also have the right, believing that and saying that, to say there is also a lot of trash. The first amendment gives people a right to produce trash as well. But is the first amendment an impediment for us to say to broadcasters that there are certain times in our living rooms, when our children are going to be expected to be watching television, that we ought to be able to expect a menu of television programming that is free from excessive violence? Is that an unreasonable proposition? I don't think so. The evidence, as described by the Senator from South Carolina, is so clear. After a couple of decades of research, the National Institutes of Mental Health concluded: The great majority of studies link television violence and real life aggression. The American Psychological Association's review of research was conclusive. They said: The accumulated research clearly demonstrates a correlation between viewing violence and aggressive behavior. You can throw these studies away and say it doesn't matter, that it is psychobabble. But, of course, we all know it is not. Every parent here understands that this is real. I mentioned last evening that if someone came to the door of my colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, or the Senator from South Carolina, and you had children in your living room playing and you had a television set that was turned off and somebody knocked on the door and said: We have some entertainment for your kids; I have a rental truck here and we have props and some set designs and I have some actors; I would like to bring them into your living room and put on a little play for your children. So you invite them into your living room and they put on a play. They pull knives and stab each other, they pull pistols and shoot each other, and they beat each other bloody--all in the context of this dramatic play, this mayhem and violence. And your children are watching with eyes the size of dinner plates. Would you, as a parent, sit there and say that it doesn't matter, that is fine, thanks for bringing this play into my living room? I don't think so. I think you would probably call the police and say: I have a case of child abuse in my living room. Shame on you for bringing that into my living room. Well, it is brought into our living rooms every day, in every way, with the touch of a button. Some say, well, the solution to that is to turn the TV set off. Absolutely true. There isn't a substitute for parental responsibility. But as a parent, I can tell you it is increasingly difficult to supervise the viewing habits of children. I introduced the first legislation in the Senate on the V-chip. I introduced it twice, in 1993 and in 1994. It is now law. The V-chip will be on television sets, but it will be a while before almost all television sets have them. Hopefully, that will be one tool to help parents, but it will not be the solution, just a tool. It seems to me that we ought to decide now, to the extent that we can help parents better supervise children's viewing habits, that we can tell broadcasters, and tell the FCC that we want broadcasters to know, there is a period of time when they are broadcasting shows into our living rooms that we want the violence to be reduced in that programming so as not to hurt our children. That is not unreasonable. That is the most reasonable, sensible thing in the world. We did it before in this country; we ought to do it now. We have done it for obscenity, and we ought to do it for violence. The Supreme Court has ruled that there is a period of time when certain kinds of obscenities and language ought not to be allowed to be broadcast because children will be watching or listening. And the Supreme Court has upheld that. The Supreme Court will uphold this. Again, I say, this is a baby step forward. Now, let me quote, if I might, the Attorney General of the United States, who testified at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing. She said: I am not at this hearing as a scientist. I am here as Attorney General who has been concerned about the future of this country's children and as a concerned American who is fed up with excuses and hedging in the face of an epidemic of violence. When it comes to these studies about television violence, I think we are allowed to add our common sense into the mix. She continues: Any parent can tell you how their children mimic what they see everywhere, including what they watch on television. Studies show children literally acting out and imitating what they watch. The networks themselves understand this point very well. They have run public service announcements to promote socially constructive behavior. They announce that this year's programs featured a reduced amount of violence, and they boosted episodes encouraging constructive behavior in each instance. Then they endorse the notion that television can influence how people act. She says, further quoting her: As slogans go, I fear that ``Let the parents turn off the television'' may be a bit naive as a response to television violence, especially when you consider the challenge that parents face in trying to convince children to study hard, behave and stay out of trouble. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens compared this argument to saying that the remedy for an assault is to run away after the first blow. Indeed, many parents don't want to have to turn the television set off. They want to expose their children to the good things television can offer, like education and family-oriented programs. I have watched television for a long time and have seen much good and much that concerns me. I have seen in most recent years an increasing desire to create sensationalized violence and intrigue in entertainment, most notably the shows about the police and the rescue missions. When I turn it on these days, there is one network that is particularly egregious. They have all kinds of shows where they get their television cameras and put them in the cop's car. I guess what they are doing is probably contracting with the police someplace, and then they are off and showing traffic arrests and drug arrests. The other night, I saw a case where a fellow was in the front seat of the police car with a camera for a television show. And they engaged in a high-speed chase of a drunk driver. The result, of course, was that at the end of the chase there was a dead, innocent driver coming the other direction hit by the drunk. My mother was killed by a drunk driver. My mother was killed in a high-speed police chase. I have spent years in the Congress proposing legislation dealing with drunk driving with high-speed pursuits and other things. I have also prepared legislation recently dealing with this question of whether our police departments should contract with television stations, having people with television cameras riding in the police car, of which the conclusion, incidentally, to a high-speed chase must be, it seems to me, to go ``get their man'' because that is going to make a good conclusion to the television program. The answer to me, though, is absolutely not. If they want to put a television camera in a police car for the entertainment of people on some television network, then I think we ought to subject them to a very substantial liability when somebody gets hurt as a result of it. I am, frankly, a little tired of turning on television and seeing television news cameras moving down the highways and above the highway recording high-speed chases, because they think it is excitement that people want to see. I am flat sick of seeing programs in which television network programs are riding with members of the police force because they can maybe record some violence for people who want to see. That is not entertainment, in my judgment. That is just more trash on television. I know some people like to watch it. But I happen to think people die as a result of it. Innocent people die as a result of it, and I think it ought to stop. But this issue of violence on television is something that Senator Hollings from South Carolina has been at it for a long time. We just had a man come to the Chamber a bit ago, Senator Paul Simon from Illinois. He is not a member of this body anymore. He retired. But he also joined us years ago. In fact, he was one of the earliest ones who talked about this issue. This issue has been around since the 1960s, and has been discussed among families for all of this decade. With respect to the efforts of the Senator from South Carolina, and, as I indicated, the proposal that he and I offer today to simply allow the FCC the authority to describe a period of time in the evening that would be described as family viewing hours is a baby step forward. Those who come to this Chamber and say that they can't take this baby step, you can make excuses forever. You can make excuses for the next 10 years, as far as I am concerned. You defy all common sense if you say you can't take this baby step. The only reason you can't take this step is because there are a bunch of other big interests out there pressing on you saying we want to make money continuing to do what we are doing. What they are doing is hurting this country's kids. As I said when I started, surely we ought to be able to entertain adults in this country without hurting our children. And this is one sensible step that we can take. We did it before some years ago. We ought to do it again. It does no violence to the first amendment. It seems to me that it offers common sense to American families. Mr. President I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Vermont yield for a question?