Dianne Feinstein

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, this is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment sent to the floor by Senator Kyl, Senator Hutchison, Senator Bingaman, Senator Akaka, Senator Cornyn, Senator Schumer, Senator Feingold, and Senator Clinton. It is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment to urge this Congress to reauthorize the SCAAP Program, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. On every desk there is a chart that shows how much each State received for this program. What does this program do? What this program does is reimburse the State for the cost of the incarceration of an illegal alien. In other words, when someone comes to our country, commits a crime, is convicted of that crime, is in jail or is in State prison, the Federal Government--it is their responsibility for all matters pertaining to immigration--has reimbursed the State. The program reimburses the State for less than 20 percent of the actual cost to the State. The authorization is due to expire. We are asking in the sense of the Senate that it be considered for reauthorization. Before I speak further, my main author, Senator Kyl, wanted to make a few comments and then Senator Cornyn, if I might. I yield briefly to Senator Kyl.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 188 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. May I make a point of parliamentary inquiry?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Excuse me?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, this is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, submitted by myself and Senators Kyl, Hutchison, Cornyn, Schumer, and Clinton, having to do with the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. As we all know, illegal immigration is the responsibility of the Federal Government. Since early 1990, the Federal Government has provided some reimbursement to States. That authorization has run out. We have just passed it out of the Judiciary Committee this morning.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in honor of Women's History Month to recognize the advancements that women have made this year and to reflect on the challenges and opportunities for the years ahead. We have set aside this month to formally pay tribute to the contributions of women in the United States and around the world. I would like to start by paying tribute to the women in Iraq and Afghanistan who are working to build their countries and to make a better life for themselves and their families. These women have been freed from oppressive regimes and as their nations rebuild now must secure their rights for all time. Women throughout the Arab World are making their way into public life. In some countries, they are being elected to office, named to cabinet- level posts and appointed to leading positions in powerful civil society organizations--these are the thought-leaders and the pioneers. But there is another, parallel movement that has also begun: the quiet leadership of ordinary women who are doing extraordinary things. On January 30, scores of Iraqi women poured into polling stations in cities and rural communities. Braving bullets, bombs, and substantial personal threat, they joined their fellow countrymen to vote in the nation's first free election, an act that warrants our deepest respect. When I reflect on their courage, I realize that in the United States we have no point of reference to understand what they must have felt on that Monday in January. Though the women in our Nation have fought and continue to fight for justice and equal opportunity, the trip from our homes to the voting booth has never involved a life or death decision. The fact that 8 million people, 60 percent of whom were women according to some estimates, chose to risk their lives to vote is, quite frankly, astounding to me. These women have grasped at democracy and they now clench it with tightened fists. I think we can learn something from this. I would like to call attention to their sacrifices and to highlight the lessons that their courage can teach women in the United States and around the world. It is easy to take for granted today, but women in America also had to fight for the right to vote. After a decades' long struggle, women finally secured the right to vote in 1920 and since that time women have made incredible advancements. Women have risen to the top of Fortune 500 companies and fill the domes of capitols and the halls of universities--today approximately 56 percent of college students are female, compared to 44 percent in 1973. The wage gap, however, is still alarming. Women who work full- time earned about 79.5 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts in 2003. Women are a true political force and continue to contribute every day all across this country. In the years that I have been in politics, women have changed the face of American politics. Issues that were once relegated to the back burner--education, health care, children, and seniors--are now at the top of America's political agenda. Since I was first elected to the Senate in 1992, we have made remarkable progress for women by: Increasing breast cancer research funding by 800 percent; Tripling funding for domestic abuse shelters; Raising lending to women through the Small Business Administration; Passing the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence against Women Act; Covering mammogram screening for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries; Extending maternity hospitalization to 48 hours; and Requiring health care companies to fund breast reconstruction after mastectomies. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. That is why I am cosponsoring the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment is essential to guarantee that the rights and freedoms granted by our Founding Fathers apply equally to men and women. In addition, women's reproductive rights are under attack in Congress like never before, and I remain deeply committed to protecting a woman's right to choose guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. I also believe that it is extremely important that we reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions. I have spoken on this issue before and it is something that I feel very strongly about. Recently, we have seen considerable setbacks in the battle for reproductive rights and I fear that the advances we have fought so hard for are now threatened. I am part of a generation of women who remember a time when a woman did not have the right to decide when and if she would give birth. I will not stand by and let us return to that time. The decline of our rights under this administration has been slow but steady. Subtle encroachments occur either through the high-profile path of judicial appointments or through the silent passageways of regulations, obscure amendments tacked on to large bills, or grant limitations. The current administration has systematically chipped away at the rights of women, and they have done so shielded from public scrutiny by employing these quiet forms of repression and intimidation. I am here to say: we have noticed, we are paying attention and we will fight. These are issues that affect every woman in the United States. Let us not become complacent. Let us take inspiration from the women in Iraq who risked their lives to exercise their rights as we continue the struggle to defend our own. The time for basking in the glory of past achievements has passed; this is a battle that must be fought by the everyday women warriors. It is time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work. Because of the women who have come before us, we are fortunate to participate in our democratic system of justice. We cannot take that opportunity and responsibility for granted.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation amending the Constitution to permit direct popular elections for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States. I am mindful of the fact that altering the text of one of our country's most sacred documents requires careful thought, study and debate. But for me the status quo raises too many problems and questions. The Electoral College is an archaic system. It may have been suitable during the founding years of the Republic. But it is hardly appropriate for the 21st century modern democracy that we have become. Fundamental fairness dictates that we have a single, nationwide count of popular votes. Hopefully my proposal represents the starting point for how best to structure a system to accomplish that. My approach is simple: the President is elected through a direct popular vote of the American people. Every American's vote counts the same, whether they live in Florida, Maine, California, or Nebraska. All the complexities of the current electoral college system are swept away. With my legislation the winner of the presidency is the individual who tallies the most votes cast in the election. For those who believe the Electoral College is a reasonable basis for electing the President, consider the following: would a foreign country today, creating a new democratic election system from scratch, rely on the U.S. Electoral College as a model? Not likely. Let me begin by offering a few facts and observations about the current system: the Electoral College allows a candidate to lose 39 States in a general election but still win the Presidency; the Electoral College allows a candidate to lose a general election, by 10 million popular votes or more, yet still be elected President; in a recent presidential election a candidate received nearly 20 million popular votes, roughly 19 percent of all votes cast, but that translated into 0 electoral votes; the Electoral College allows an elector to refuse to represent the majority of popular votes cast for a presidential candidate in his State's election--he can arbitrarily switch sides and throw his lot in with an alternative candidate, which has happened nine times since 1820; when a presidential election produces a 269 to 269 tie in electoral votes between candidates, the President is chosen through a ``contingent'' election conducted by the House of Representatives with each state's delegation casting a single vote--which unfairly grants equal status to California, whose population is 35.5 million, and Wyoming, whose population is 500,000; making matters worse, when such a ``contingent election'' occurs, House members are not bound to support the candidate who won the popular vote in the State they collectively represent--they are free to vote as they see fit; the two ``constant'' or ``senatorial'' electors automatically assigned to each State give less populous states a disproportionate advantage in the Electoral College vote count compared to States with more sizable populations; the winner-take-all concept for awarding a State's electoral votes disenfranchises all voters in a State who supported a losing candidate in that State; and finally, the Electoral College undermines national campaigns by causing presidential candidates to focus on a handful of contested States and ignore the concerns of tens of millions of Americans living in other States. The political and substantive utility of this system, full of pitfalls and loopholes, is very hard to discern. Voter apathy is a function of a system signaling to people that their vote does not count, and the Electoral College manages that in spades. Now, I don't take this effort on lightly, because we have amended the Constitution a mere twenty-seven times since the founding of the nation. But as a matter of practical necessity, fairness and common sense, we need to consider the inherent inequities involved with the Electoral College. My hope is that we can treat this in a bipartisan and nonparochial manner that benefits the whole of the country. I appreciate that states and regions are affected differently, California among them, but my motivations derive from improving the American federalist system in a way that eliminates undue consequences. I have not been solicited by any particular interest group, constituency, or voting bloc to amend the Constitution. At bottom, I believe this is a matter of serious import. Good public policy demands that we give this subject sustained attention and I intend to do that through the Senate hearing process. There was a time, of course, when the Electoral College adequately represented the voting needs of the country. In the 1780s there were no formal political parties as such, no experience with conducting national campaigns for office, and no lack of mistrust among States large and small about protecting their interests. The Founding Fathers understood: first, the social, economic and political disconnectedness that existed among the States; second, the federalist system of governance was only beginning to take root; third, the dearth of news and communications networks across the country made national campaigning difficult; and fourth, the likelihood that a local ``favorite son'' or regional candidate would prevail in a national presidential election. This combination of factors justified an indirect election of the President through a College of Electors. Inimical reasons existed for going this route as well. Had the Framers of the Constitution adopted the one man, one vote system, Northern States that permitted blacks to vote in popular national elections could have exercised greater influence in electing the President than southern states. And States that independently extended rights of suffrage to women also could have gained an advantage. The 15th Amendment in 1870 extending voting rights to Black men and many years later women gaining those same rights laid these issues to rest. With the obstacles of racism and sexism now gone as reasons justifying the creation, of the Electoral College, the puzzlement over why we haven't updated the presidential election system only continues. Regardless, as a means to reconcile the interests of State governments and the Federal government, of northern and southern states, of majority and minority interests groups, and to let all these voices be heard come election time, the Electoral College was considered a just compromise. Its basic form was adopted during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Political events occurred soon thereafter, though, prompting passage of the 12th Amendment and the first major changes in the Electoral College system. The presidential election of 1800, between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, ended in a tie of electoral votes, causing the House of Representatives to break the deadlock through a ``contingent election''. A messy political imbroglio ensued. It was only after many rounds of negotiations that Jefferson won the Presidency. Importantly, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1804 to streamline the process of contingent elections. I would observe that passage of the 12th Amendment confirmed that the Electoral College system was, and remains, appropriately subject to change. Legislators in 1804 did not delay in amending the Constitution for reasons of fairness and practicality, and nor should we in 2004 fail to address the imperfect design that thwarts the will of the American public. Even with the 12th Amendment in place, the Electoral College managed to turn logic on its head in presidential elections throughout the 19th century. Minority presidents, so-called for winning the electoral vote but losing the popular vote, were elected three times--John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888. And in 2000 the same problem re-surfaced, the fourth time in our Nation's short history, with Vice President Al Gore edging George Bush by 537,895 popular votes, but losing the electoral college by a mere 5 votes. The Nation can be thankful, frankly, that we have only had disputed elections in just these four instances. A shift of a few thousand votes from one candidate to another in past presidential elections could have ordained similar disarray. Some noteworthy examples include: despite losing the popular vote by the sizable margin of 1.7 million votes, Gerald Ford in 1976 needed only 5,559 more votes in Ohio and 3,687 in Hawaii to reach the magical number of 270 electoral votes and he would have been returned to the White House. And had California, Illinois and Ohio posited 29,000 more votes in Thomas Dewey's column, he lost the over popular vote by a wide margin, 2.1 million, in 1948, the face of history may have been changed forever with Harry Truman never returning to the White House. And most recently, a shift of a mere 68,000 votes in Ohio from President George Bush's column to John Kerry would have allowed the Democrat to win the electoral vote count, 271 to 267, and the Presidency, even though Bush enjoyed a sizable 3.5 million margin in popular votes cast. According to some estimates, we have had no fewer than 22 near misses, all of which could have ended up as contentious as the 2000 contest. We are tempting fate by ignoring this problem: sooner or later a dramatic incongruity will occur between an electoral vote winner contrasted against a different popular vote winner whose margin of victory runs into the millions. Electoral College anomalies don't end with disparities between the electoral and popular vote winners. The phenomenon of the ``Faithless Elector'' reflects a further structural defect in the Electoral College System. History shows that electors have not been faithful to the presidential and vice presidential tickets winning the most votes in their respective states. They may initially pledge to the winning candidate, but enjoy individual discretion to change their vote when electoral votes are formally counted. Contemporary examples are as follows: in 1968, Dr. Lloyd Bailey, a North Carolina elector initially pledged to Republican Richard Nixon, switched his vote to George Wallace of the American Independent Party; in 1972, Roger MacBride, a Virginia elector for Richard Nixon switched his vote to John Hospers of the Libertarian Party; in 1976, Mike Padden, a Washington elector for Gerald Ford voted for Ronald Reagan; in 1988, Margarat Leach, a West Virginia elector for Michael Dukakis, voted instead for Lloyd Bentsen, an unusual decision to exchange the positions of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates; and in 2000, Barbara Lett-Simmons, a District of Columbia elector for Democrat Albert Gore Jr., cast a blank ballot. These arbitrary decisions did not affect the outcome in each of those presidential election years. But they all flouted the electoral will of the people. The fact that such capricious switching is permitted, irrespective of the outcomes of the popular vote results in the states in question, is cause for great concern. What might happen if electors break their pledges to a particular candidate en masse? Is that possible and legally enforceable? The answer appears to be yes. In this vein, it does not require a stretch of the imagination to envision three or more candidates splitting the electoral tally of votes such that none received the requisite majority of 270 to win the White House. In that situation, what prevents one of the candidates directing his electors to another candidate, before the formal meeting of the Electors to count and certify the electoral votes occurs in the month following the November election, to allow him to gain the necessary majority of 270 in exchange for policy concessions or worse, a massive cash payment? Would that kind of corrupt transaction be allowed? What element of the current Electoral College system prevents such an unfortunate outcome? This may not be likely, given our strong two party system, but it is possible. Yet we tolerate the risk of it happening, year after year, because we assume it will never occur. Someday we may regret our indecision to fix what we know is wrong with the Electoral College system. Twenty-five years ago in the 96th Congress, a majority of the Senate voted 51 to 48 to support abolishing the Electoral College and replace it with direct popular elections. That legislation, S.J. Res. 26, fell short of the necessary two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment, but I am encouraged that more than half the body supported the concept. A few years before that, the House voted overwhelmingly in the 91st Congress, by a vote of 338 to 70, for the direct popular election of the President. Alas, the effort fell short in the Senate. I am prepared to press the case for this idea, on a bipartisan basis, through extensive committee deliberations and onto the Senate floor. The time has come for the Senate to reconsider the essential building blocks of our democracy. Some might claim that offering a constitutional amendment is a political gambit to overcome my own State's weak position in the Electoral College voting system. It is a fact that smaller States, such as South Dakota, Wyoming, and others, maintain disproportionate influence in the process compared to California. I would respond to that as follows: my approach does equate the vote of a Californian, Rhode Islander and South Dakotan as being equal. But it also means that millions of votes cast for Republican candidates in future presidential races in my home state will have meaning and value. Their votes will count for something. In the 2000 race, George Bush received over 4.5 million votes in California. That should have counted for something--but it did not. All 54 of California's electoral votes went to Vice President Al Gore. Given the domination of Democratic presidential candidates in California in the modern era, it is clear that my party would not benefit from a direct popular election in California. But for me, this is about principle over politics. It is the right thing to do, even if it gives renewed life to Republican presidential candidates in my home State. As it stands now, California is not a place where Republican and Democratic presidential candidates genuinely compete for votes. They come to California to fill their campaign coffers but take a pass with real voters. That needs to change--for California, yes, but also for New York, Texas, for Utah and for so many other States in the country. I have tried to understand the counterarguments to a nationwide popular vote. They reflect a desire to empower both regional and rural interests, and deny major population centers from having excessive power. I appreciate the notion that we don't want clusters of cities and particular regions where the greatest numbers of Americans reside, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, to dominate the electoral landscape. At the same time, a presidential candidate's priorities, record and vision for the country will determine how far he goes in the nominating and general election process. Stitching together a cross section of American voters, who represent different economic and social backgrounds, professions, parts of the country, religious faiths, and so much more holds the key to attaining a winning plurality or majority of votes in presidential races. I would contend that it is up to the candidates to appeal to the broadest group of Americans but to level the playing field in doing so. In that process each American's vote, regardless of where that person lives in the country, should be counted equally. Right now, that is just not the case. Our system is not undemocratic, but it is imperfect, and we have the power to do something about it. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Electoral College Abolition Resolution be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, as we all know, this budget cuts a score of critical domestic programs: food for women and infants; community development block grants for cities, which cities use for vital purposes; and health and education programs for children. That is just a few. It cuts Medicaid by $15 billion over 5 years. It zeros out reimbursements to States and counties of the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens. It is an unfunded mandate in that regard. Yet this budget contains $41.3 million for nuclear weapons initiatives including $8.5 million for a nuclear program that scientists say is impossible to achieve. The seriousness of the issue and the clear intent of this administration to renew funding this year for this nuclear initiative that was zeroed out by the Congress last year compel me to come to the floor today. President Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget calls for $8.5 million, including $4 million for the Department of Energy and $4.5 million for the Department of Defense, for the research and development of a nuclear bunker buster, a 100-kiloton weapon called the robust earth nuclear penetrator. The purpose of the research is to determine whether a missile casing on a 100-kiloton warhead can survive a thrust into the earth and take out a hardened and deeply buried military target without spewing millions of cubic feet of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. Scientists know that the laws of physics will not allow that to happen. It includes $25 million to lower the Nevada test site time-to-test readiness from the current 24 to 36 months to 18 months. This sends a clear signal of an urgent move to begin underground nuclear testing as soon as possible. This is despite the fact that our country has had a moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992. We have had it for more than 13 years. It also contains $7.8 million for a so-called modern pit facility. This is a facility to build 450 new pits. These are the nuclear triggers for nuclear weapons, the shells in which the fissile material is contained and detonated. This is 450 new pits a year, some of which would be designed for new nuclear weapons. Currently the United States has approximately 15,000 warheads. Under the Moscow Treaty, the United States is to decrease its strategic nuclear force to 1,700 to 2,200 by 2012. To maintain a 2,200-warhead force at replacement level--and this is important--we would only need to build 50 pits a year, not 450 which is called for in this budget. So why build a new facility unless there are plans underway to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons? Perhaps because the explosion and use of nuclear weapons took place at the end of World War II, we forget what it is like. I hope people will look at this and see what it is like. This is Hiroshima. This is at the end of World War II. This is a 15-kiloton nuclear weapon, not a 100-kiloton nuclear weapon. This is incomprehensible to me. This is what the Enola Gay dropped on Hiroshima. It cleared bare 4 square miles. It killed immediately 90,000 people. It caused hundreds of thousands of people to die of radiation sickness. Again, why fund this program? Congress made a strong statement last year. We took out the appropriations for these new nuclear weapons. This defunding was made possible by the leadership of Representative David Hobson, the chairman of the House Appropriations Energy Committee, who was successful, with our support, in eliminating $27.5 million in funding for this 100- kiloton nuclear bunker buster and $9 million for the advanced weapons concepts initiative. This is a fallacious concept of creating low yield tactical nuclear weapons, under 5 kilotons, to use on a battlefield no less. Who would ever want to send their sons and daughters to any war where the battlefield had nuclear weapons? It also eliminated funding to lower the time-to-test readiness at the Nevada test site to 18 months and limited funding for the Modern Pit Facility to $7 million. Congress spoke last year. We said: We will not approve appropriations for this program. And yet once again those appropriations have crept into this budget. I will take a few minutes to make that evident to Members of the Senate. Last year was a consequential victory for those of us who believe very deeply--and I might say passionately--that the United States will not be safer because of this program and that the United States sends the wrong signal to the rest of the world by reopening the nuclear door and beginning the testing and development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. This year, our message is clear: Don't reopen this nuclear door. Those of us who are appropriators will once again try to remove this funding from the budget. I am so disappointed to learn that the administration has requested funding again this year for a 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster, to lower the time-to-test readiness at the Nevada test site to 18 months, and to fund a modern plutonium pit facility that could produce 450 new plutonium pits a year when only 50 are needed. There should be no doubt that this is the Secretary of Defense's program. He is determined to get it funded. It is that Secretary who requested the Secretary of Energy to place $4 million in the energy budget and $4.5 million in the defense budget. This is very clever. In this way Secretary Rumsfeld hopes to get it done in the defense budget, if he can't through energy appropriations. I ask that the Senate know that the development of a 100-kiloton robust nuclear earth penetrator is simply not possible without spewing millions of tons of radioactive material and killing large numbers of people. Secondly, the development of new nuclear weapons will only undermine our antiproliferation efforts and will make our Nation less safe, not more safe. And thirdly, as a nation, we are sending the wrong message, a message that will only encourage nuclear proliferation by others. In fact, it already has. The bottom line: There is simply no such thing as a clean or usable 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster that could destroy a hardened and deeply buried military target without spewing radiation. Consider this: A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon, detonated 25 to 50 feet underground, would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air. Given the insurmountable physics problems associated with burrowing a warhead deep into the earth, you would need a weapon with more than 100 kilotons of yield to destroy an underground target at a depth of 1,000 feet. Yet the maximum feasible depth a bunker buster can penetrate is about 35 feet. At that depth, a 100-kiloton bunker buster would scatter 100 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. There is no known missile casing that can survive a 1,000-foot thrust into the earth to avoid overwhelming and catastrophic consequences. That is not me saying this, that is science saying this. Let me give you the words of the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, if you don't trust me. At the March 2, 2005, House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher asked Ambassador Linton Brooks the following question: I just want to know, is there any way a [robust nuclear earth penetrator] of any size that we would drop will not produce a huge amount of radioactive debris? The answer, according to the Ambassador: No, there is not. When Congresswoman Tauscher asked him how deep he thought a bunker buster could go, using modern scientific concepts--in other words, here we get to the missile casing--he said: . . . a couple of tens of meters maybe. I mean certainly--I really must apologize for my lack of precision, if we in the administration have suggested that it was possible to have a bomb that penetrated far enough to trap all fallout. I don't believe that--I don't believe the laws of physics will ever let that be true. So here we have the administration saying what we who have opposed this program from the start have said. The laws of physics will never allow the development of a ``clean'' 100-kiloton robust nuclear earth penetrator. Again, simply stated, there is no casing that will withstand a 1,000- foot thrust into the earth--the depth at which a spewing of radioactivity might be contained. Such an admission begs the question: Why are we even spending a dime on this research? Or as Secretary Rumsfeld said to me in a Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing with a shrug, ``Oh, this is just a study.'' Do I believe that answer? Absolutely not. This has never been about a study. It has been about the intent of the administration to develop new nuclear weapons, and I have followed this for a long time now. This year, this budget funds $8.5 million. In fiscal year 2007, it increases to $17.5 million, including $14 million for the Department of Energy and $3.5 million for the Pentagon. While the administration is silent this year on how much it plans to spend on the program in future years, last year they let it all out. Last year's budget request called for spending $485 million on a 100- kiloton nuclear bunker buster over 5 years, which scientists say is impossible to devise. The laws of physics won't allow it, unless you are going to prepare one that is going to spew tons of radioactivity. Let me, for a moment, mention the policies underlying this initiative. These policies began in 2002 with the document called the Nuclear Posture Review. That document places nuclear weapons as part of the strategic triad for the first time in our history, therefore, blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons--a very bad policy decision. Then take National Security Directive 17, which came out later that year, which indicated for the first time in America's history that we would engage in a first use of nuclear weapons--a historic statement. We have never had a no-first-use policy, but we have never said that we would countenance a first use of nuclear weapons. And in National Security Directive 17 we do just that. We say we would engage in a first use of nuclear weapons--again, that is a historic statement--to respond to a chemical or biological attack against certain nations. The Nuclear Posture Review named seven nations against whom we would countenance a nuclear attack. One of those nations legally is a nuclear nation. This is ridiculous and foolish policy, and it jeopardizes the future of all Americans. But what it does also is it encourages other nations to develop their own nuclear weapons, thereby putting American lives and our national security at risk. That is why the North Koreans are moving ahead. They see what we are going to do. They see that we have said we would enter into a first use of nuclear weapons. North Korea is one of the seven nations named. That is what is happening in Iran now. Iran is one of the seven nations named. Other countries are now looking at advanced weapons concepts, based on the fact that we have moved in this direction. The next nuclear nonproliferation review conference is in May, and it will allow parties to the treaty to measure progress in implementing their obligation and to discuss additional steps to meet the treaty's objectives. In public statements--this is the hypocrisy--the administration recognizes the importance of the NPT. Last week, President Bush stated that the NPT ``represents a key legal barrier to nuclear weapons proliferation and makes a critical contribution to international security,'' and that ``the United States is firmly committed to its obligations under the treaty.'' If we are indeed serious about strengthening our nonproliferation efforts and increasing international nuclear security, we should lead in reducing nuclear arsenals; we should lead in preventing nuclear proliferation; and we should know that a production of a 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster is sheer hypocrisy on our part. Make no mistake, the rest of the world is watching us and paying close attention to what we do. I believe the United States can take several actions to make better use of our resources and demonstrate our commitment to keeping the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people. We have to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at this May 2005 review conference. This includes supporting tougher inspections to monitor compliance, more effective controls on sensitive technologies, accelerated programs to safeguard and eliminate nuclear weapon usable materials, and agreement that no state may withdraw from the treaty and escape responsibility for prior violations of the treaty. We should expand and accelerate Nunn-Lugar threat reduction programs. I hear Senator after Senator saying they support the Nunn-Lugar program. We should provide the necessary resources to improve security and take the rest of the Soviet era nuclear chemical and biological weapons arsenal and infrastructure out of circulation. Third, we should strengthen the ability of the DOE's global threat reduction initiative to secure and remove nuclear weapons usable material from vulnerable sites around the world. Last year, Senator Domenici and I sponsored an amendment to the 2005 National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized the Secretary of Energy to lead an accelerated, comprehensive worldwide effort to secure, remove, and eliminate the threat by these materials. Finally, we should improve--this has to do with the bunker buster-- our intelligence capabilities in relation to underground targets and expand conventional options to put them at risk. Every underground target has entry and exit, has air vents, presents a way to take them out with conventional weapons. That is what we should be doing instead of exploring, doing research and development of a 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster, which science says cannot be done without the spewing of millions of tons radiation. History repeats itself. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of Senator Cantwell's amendment to strike the reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution to allow for the opening of the Arctic Refuge. I am strongly opposed to opening the Alaskan wilderness to drilling for oil. Stated simply we cannot drill our way out of this problem. While I agree that we are too dependent on foreign oil, and need to reduce that dependence, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is simply not the answer. Reducing oil consumption is the answer and raising our corporate average fuel economy--or CAFE--standards is the superior route to energy security. The bottom line is that, according to estimates from the United States Geological Survey, the Arctic Refuge would likely yield less than 10 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil--less than a million barrels of oil per day at peak production, or less than 4 percent of the country's projected daily needs and the oil would not flow for at least 10 years. In contrast, simply raising average fuel economy standards for sport utility vehicles could save us more than a million barrels per day by 2020. The savings would come sooner than oil from ANWR, and unlike oil from ANWR, the savings would not run out. Raising the standards for all vehicles would reduce even further the amount of oil used in the United States. The United States contains only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves and only 4 percent of the world population. And yet Americans consume 25 percent of the oil produced worldwide. Almost two-thirds of that oil goes to fuel the Nation's transportation sector. Given our current level of consumption in relation to our domestic reserves, it is clear that modest increases in domestic production--as from ANWR--will not solve our energy problems. Reducing consumption is the key to increasing America's energy security. Drilling in ANWR would not save consumers money because drilling would not decrease the quantity consumed and would not affect the world price of oil. So, unlike increasing CAFE standards, drilling in ANWR would not significantly increase our energy security, would not fight climate change, and would not save consumers money. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge system. It is the only conservation unit in the U.S. encompassing a complete range of arctic ecosystems and serves as critical habitat for caribou, muskox, snow geese, polar bears and other species. The coastal plain, which proponents of drilling paint as small and relatively insignificant, is the ecological heart of the refuge and the center of wildlife activity. Developing the coastal plain would threaten the refuge's abundant wildlife. The approximately 130,000 caribou of the porcupine herd rely on the coastal plain as a calving area. One hundred thirty-five species of migratory birds use the coastal plain during the summer. The coastal plain provides critical habitat for many of the refuge's species. Drilling would also threaten the traditional livelihoods of the Gwich'in people dependent upon the porcupine caribou for subsistence. Proponents of drilling would have us risk all of this damage for a small amount of oil that would not even begin to flow for 10 years and would barely reduce our dependence on foreign oil. In short, the refuge's coastal plain is too precious, and contains too little oil, for us to allow drilling to take place. Increasing fuel efficiency is the better solution. Future generations will thank us for our foresight in protecting the coastal plain and its wildlife. They will thank us for finding other avenues to increased energy security. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Cantwell's amendment.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, in supporting a real pay-as-you-go system in the fiscal year 2006 budget. This amendment is about restoring fiscal common sense to the budget. It would require 60 votes for tax cuts and mandatory spending increases that increase the deficit. The current budget proposes a flawed paygo rule that expires in 2008, even though this is supposed to be a 5-year budget. It also includes exemptions and holes that effectively amount to a ``pay-if-you'd-like'' approach, not a bonafide paygo system. What we're proposing are sensible and responsible guidelines that will reduce the record red ink that we've accumulated in the past 5 years. The Federal budget outlines not only revenue and spending, but more critically how the Federal Government ranks its programmatic priorities. This budget resolution reveals only a glimpse of the long- term fiscal outlook without telling Americans the hard truth about how tax cuts and spending run amok in Washington. For example, the budget ignores large expenses such as the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond September 2006, and long-term relief from the alternative minimum tax, which could affect 41 million taxpayers in 2013, if Congress does not act. These are imminent expenses that we would be remiss to omit from the budget. Yet the President excludes the costs from his budget blueprint. And I haven't even mentioned the upwards of $5 trillion in transitional costs over the next 20 years for the President's Social Security plan. With regard specifically to paygo in the Budget Committee markup, one of my colleagues noted that a paygo rule that applies only to spending is akin to trying to keep a boat afloat by plugging one hole when, in fact, there are two holes in the boat. And this is precisely the case. That is precisely the fiction that this Budget Resolution promotes. If made permanent, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 will cost the Federal Government $11 trillion over the next 75 years. That's more than three times the shortfall of Social Security over that period. But the President's budget doesn't apply paygo rules to these tax cuts. Studies show that 25 percent of these tax cuts went to the wealthiest Americans, those with the top 1 percent annual income. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 74 percent of our budget deficits since 2001 have been caused by decreased revenues. Only 26 percent is due to increased spending. We ought to be honest with ourselves about this fact. In my view, a paygo system that ignores revenues is not a paygo system at all. If the Senate is sincere about restoring fiscal discipline, then we ought to establish rules that say, ``If your legislation is going to cost money, you've got to pay for it, or get 60 votes.'' I believe that this amendment poses a crucial question to this body: Do we recognize that decreased revenues increase the deficit? I, for one, will not turn a blind eye to the real budget picture. If we are to balance the budget--as we did during the Clinton administration--we should not do so solely through draconian cuts in critical programs. This budget cuts back on programs for working Americans and local governments that cannot run budget deficits as the Federal Government can. I do not believe that fiscal responsibility necessarily requires us to shift the financial burden to our towns, cities and States as this budget does through cuts to Medicaid and the Community Development Block Grants, to name just two. As a former mayor, I know the value of these programs in California and throughout the United States. Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should not take precedence over the needs of law enforcement, our children, the elderly, and veterans. If my colleagues agree, then I ask that they join me in supporting this amendment. It is time to get our fiscal house in order, and to do so, we ought to reinstate a true paygo rule.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation amending the Constitution to permit direct popular elections for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States. I am mindful of the fact that altering the text of one of our country's most sacred documents requires careful thought, study and debate. But for me the status quo raises too many problems and questions. The Electoral College is an archaic system. It may have been suitable during the founding years of the Republic. But it is hardly appropriate for the 21st century modern democracy that we have become. Fundamental fairness dictates that we have a single, nationwide count of popular votes. Hopefully my proposal represents the starting point for how best to structure a system to accomplish that. My approach is simple: the President is elected through a direct popular vote of the American people. Every American's vote counts the same, whether they live in Florida, Maine, California, or Nebraska. All the complexities of the current electoral college system are swept away. With my legislation the winner of the presidency is the individual who tallies the most votes cast in the election. For those who believe the Electoral College is a reasonable basis for electing the President, consider the following: would a foreign country today, creating a new democratic election system from scratch, rely on the U.S. Electoral College as a model? Not likely. Let me begin by offering a few facts and observations about the current system: the Electoral College allows a candidate to lose 39 States in a general election but still win the Presidency; the Electoral College allows a candidate to lose a general election, by 10 million popular votes or more, yet still be elected President; in a recent presidential election a candidate received nearly 20 million popular votes, roughly 19 percent of all votes cast, but that translated into 0 electoral votes; the Electoral College allows an elector to refuse to represent the majority of popular votes cast for a presidential candidate in his State's election--he can arbitrarily switch sides and throw his lot in with an alternative candidate, which has happened nine times since 1820; when a presidential election produces a 269 to 269 tie in electoral votes between candidates, the President is chosen through a ``contingent'' election conducted by the House of Representatives with each state's delegation casting a single vote--which unfairly grants equal status to California, whose population is 35.5 million, and Wyoming, whose population is 500,000; making matters worse, when such a ``contingent election'' occurs, House members are not bound to support the candidate who won the popular vote in the State they collectively represent--they are free to vote as they see fit; the two ``constant'' or ``senatorial'' electors automatically assigned to each State give less populous states a disproportionate advantage in the Electoral College vote count compared to States with more sizable populations; the winner-take-all concept for awarding a State's electoral votes disenfranchises all voters in a State who supported a losing candidate in that State; and finally, the Electoral College undermines national campaigns by causing presidential candidates to focus on a handful of contested States and ignore the concerns of tens of millions of Americans living in other States. The political and substantive utility of this system, full of pitfalls and loopholes, is very hard to discern. Voter apathy is a function of a system signaling to people that their vote does not count, and the Electoral College manages that in spades. Now, I don't take this effort on lightly, because we have amended the Constitution a mere twenty-seven times since the founding of the nation. But as a matter of practical necessity, fairness and common sense, we need to consider the inherent inequities involved with the Electoral College. My hope is that we can treat this in a bipartisan and nonparochial manner that benefits the whole of the country. I appreciate that states and regions are affected differently, California among them, but my motivations derive from improving the American federalist system in a way that eliminates undue consequences. I have not been solicited by any particular interest group, constituency, or voting bloc to amend the Constitution. At bottom, I believe this is a matter of serious import. Good public policy demands that we give this subject sustained attention and I intend to do that through the Senate hearing process. There was a time, of course, when the Electoral College adequately represented the voting needs of the country. In the 1780s there were no formal political parties as such, no experience with conducting national campaigns for office, and no lack of mistrust among States large and small about protecting their interests. The Founding Fathers understood: first, the social, economic and political disconnectedness that existed among the States; second, the federalist system of governance was only beginning to take root; third, the dearth of news and communications networks across the country made national campaigning difficult; and fourth, the likelihood that a local ``favorite son'' or regional candidate would prevail in a national presidential election. This combination of factors justified an indirect election of the President through a College of Electors. Inimical reasons existed for going this route as well. Had the Framers of the Constitution adopted the one man, one vote system, Northern States that permitted blacks to vote in popular national elections could have exercised greater influence in electing the President than southern states. And States that independently extended rights of suffrage to women also could have gained an advantage. The 15th Amendment in 1870 extending voting rights to Black men and many years later women gaining those same rights laid these issues to rest. With the obstacles of racism and sexism now gone as reasons justifying the creation, of the Electoral College, the puzzlement over why we haven't updated the presidential election system only continues. Regardless, as a means to reconcile the interests of State governments and the Federal government, of northern and southern states, of majority and minority interests groups, and to let all these voices be heard come election time, the Electoral College was considered a just compromise. Its basic form was adopted during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Political events occurred soon thereafter, though, prompting passage of the 12th Amendment and the first major changes in the Electoral College system. The presidential election of 1800, between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, ended in a tie of electoral votes, causing the House of Representatives to break the deadlock through a ``contingent election''. A messy political imbroglio ensued. It was only after many rounds of negotiations that Jefferson won the Presidency. Importantly, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1804 to streamline the process of contingent elections. I would observe that passage of the 12th Amendment confirmed that the Electoral College system was, and remains, appropriately subject to change. Legislators in 1804 did not delay in amending the Constitution for reasons of fairness and practicality, and nor should we in 2004 fail to address the imperfect design that thwarts the will of the American public. Even with the 12th Amendment in place, the Electoral College managed to turn logic on its head in presidential elections throughout the 19th century. Minority presidents, so-called for winning the electoral vote but losing the popular vote, were elected three times--John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888. And in 2000 the same problem re-surfaced, the fourth time in our Nation's short history, with Vice President Al Gore edging George Bush by 537,895 popular votes, but losing the electoral college by a mere 5 votes. The Nation can be thankful, frankly, that we have only had disputed elections in just these four instances. A shift of a few thousand votes from one candidate to another in past presidential elections could have ordained similar disarray. Some noteworthy examples include: despite losing the popular vote by the sizable margin of 1.7 million votes, Gerald Ford in 1976 needed only 5,559 more votes in Ohio and 3,687 in Hawaii to reach the magical number of 270 electoral votes and he would have been returned to the White House. And had California, Illinois and Ohio posited 29,000 more votes in Thomas Dewey's column, he lost the over popular vote by a wide margin, 2.1 million, in 1948, the face of history may have been changed forever with Harry Truman never returning to the White House. And most recently, a shift of a mere 68,000 votes in Ohio from President George Bush's column to John Kerry would have allowed the Democrat to win the electoral vote count, 271 to 267, and the Presidency, even though Bush enjoyed a sizable 3.5 million margin in popular votes cast. According to some estimates, we have had no fewer than 22 near misses, all of which could have ended up as contentious as the 2000 contest. We are tempting fate by ignoring this problem: sooner or later a dramatic incongruity will occur between an electoral vote winner contrasted against a different popular vote winner whose margin of victory runs into the millions. Electoral College anomalies don't end with disparities between the electoral and popular vote winners. The phenomenon of the ``Faithless Elector'' reflects a further structural defect in the Electoral College System. History shows that electors have not been faithful to the presidential and vice presidential tickets winning the most votes in their respective states. They may initially pledge to the winning candidate, but enjoy individual discretion to change their vote when electoral votes are formally counted. Contemporary examples are as follows: in 1968, Dr. Lloyd Bailey, a North Carolina elector initially pledged to Republican Richard Nixon, switched his vote to George Wallace of the American Independent Party; in 1972, Roger MacBride, a Virginia elector for Richard Nixon switched his vote to John Hospers of the Libertarian Party; in 1976, Mike Padden, a Washington elector for Gerald Ford voted for Ronald Reagan; in 1988, Margarat Leach, a West Virginia elector for Michael Dukakis, voted instead for Lloyd Bentsen, an unusual decision to exchange the positions of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates; and in 2000, Barbara Lett-Simmons, a District of Columbia elector for Democrat Albert Gore Jr., cast a blank ballot. These arbitrary decisions did not affect the outcome in each of those presidential election years. But they all flouted the electoral will of the people. The fact that such capricious switching is permitted, irrespective of the outcomes of the popular vote results in the states in question, is cause for great concern. What might happen if electors break their pledges to a particular candidate en masse? Is that possible and legally enforceable? The answer appears to be yes. In this vein, it does not require a stretch of the imagination to envision three or more candidates splitting the electoral tally of votes such that none received the requisite majority of 270 to win the White House. In that situation, what prevents one of the candidates directing his electors to another candidate, before the formal meeting of the Electors to count and certify the electoral votes occurs in the month following the November election, to allow him to gain the necessary majority of 270 in exchange for policy concessions or worse, a massive cash payment? Would that kind of corrupt transaction be allowed? What element of the current Electoral College system prevents such an unfortunate outcome? This may not be likely, given our strong two party system, but it is possible. Yet we tolerate the risk of it happening, year after year, because we assume it will never occur. Someday we may regret our indecision to fix what we know is wrong with the Electoral College system. Twenty-five years ago in the 96th Congress, a majority of the Senate voted 51 to 48 to support abolishing the Electoral College and replace it with direct popular elections. That legislation, S.J. Res. 26, fell short of the necessary two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment, but I am encouraged that more than half the body supported the concept. A few years before that, the House voted overwhelmingly in the 91st Congress, by a vote of 338 to 70, for the direct popular election of the President. Alas, the effort fell short in the Senate. I am prepared to press the case for this idea, on a bipartisan basis, through extensive committee deliberations and onto the Senate floor. The time has come for the Senate to reconsider the essential building blocks of our democracy. Some might claim that offering a constitutional amendment is a political gambit to overcome my own State's weak position in the Electoral College voting system. It is a fact that smaller States, such as South Dakota, Wyoming, and others, maintain disproportionate influence in the process compared to California. I would respond to that as follows: my approach does equate the vote of a Californian, Rhode Islander and South Dakotan as being equal. But it also means that millions of votes cast for Republican candidates in future presidential races in my home state will have meaning and value. Their votes will count for something. In the 2000 race, George Bush received over 4.5 million votes in California. That should have counted for something--but it did not. All 54 of California's electoral votes went to Vice President Al Gore. Given the domination of Democratic presidential candidates in California in the modern era, it is clear that my party would not benefit from a direct popular election in California. But for me, this is about principle over politics. It is the right thing to do, even if it gives renewed life to Republican presidential candidates in my home State. As it stands now, California is not a place where Republican and Democratic presidential candidates genuinely compete for votes. They come to California to fill their campaign coffers but take a pass with real voters. That needs to change--for California, yes, but also for New York, Texas, for Utah and for so many other States in the country. I have tried to understand the counterarguments to a nationwide popular vote. They reflect a desire to empower both regional and rural interests, and deny major population centers from having excessive power. I appreciate the notion that we don't want clusters of cities and particular regions where the greatest numbers of Americans reside, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, to dominate the electoral landscape. At the same time, a presidential candidate's priorities, record and vision for the country will determine how far he goes in the nominating and general election process. Stitching together a cross section of American voters, who represent different economic and social backgrounds, professions, parts of the country, religious faiths, and so much more holds the key to attaining a winning plurality or majority of votes in presidential races. I would contend that it is up to the candidates to appeal to the broadest group of Americans but to level the playing field in doing so. In that process each American's vote, regardless of where that person lives in the country, should be counted equally. Right now, that is just not the case. Our system is not undemocratic, but it is imperfect, and we have the power to do something about it. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Electoral College Abolition Resolution be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to offer, along with Senators Warner of Virginia and DeWine of Ohio, the Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2005. We are joined by Senators Schumer, Mikulski, Durbin, Clinton, Boxer, Levin, Dodd and Reed, who are original cosponsors of this critical legislation. This is the same basic legislation that passed by the Senate last year as an amendment to a bill designed to provide blanket immunity for gun manufacturers. However, once that amendment passed, the underlying bill was defeated, in part by its own sponsors, after the National Rifle Association applied intense pressure to Members of this body. Thus we saw the ideological and extreme view of the National Rifle Association, when they sacrificed their most desired legislative priority--gun immunity legislation--because the Senate had approved the assault weapons ban and two other amendments that would save people's lives: closing the gun show loophole, and requiring trigger locks. Although President Bush had said he supported the assault weapons ban, he refused to personally engage to help this legislation get signed into law, and the ban expired on September 13, 2004. As a result, these weapons are now once again proliferating through our neighborhoods and communities throughout the United States. That is why, today, I am introducing the Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2005. This legislation mirrors the legislation I authored in the Senate and then-Congressman Schumer authored in the House in 1994. As was done then, the legislation I am introducing would: ban the manufacturing of 19 specific types of military-style assault weapons, as well as a number of other guns based on a simple test to determine whether the guns were hunting guns or weapons of war; prohibit the manufacture of large capacity ammunition magazines--clips, drums and strips of more than ten rounds--because it is those large capacity ammunition feeding devices that can make a semiautomatic assault weapons so very deadly; and continue to exempt 670 hunting guns entirely, and it is also important to note that the ban would continue to ``grandfather'' in every gun that was made before 1994. So no innocent gun owner would lose a weapon. There will again be no confiscation component to the bill. This legislation is not perfect. There are comparisons that were made to get it passed last time around, and since its previous enactment there have been many concerns raised about the need to tighten or alter the definition in order to make the prohibition more effective. I am open to working with my colleagues to ensure we enact the best legislation possible, but we need a first step--at a minimum Congress needs to reinstate the original assault weapons ban. Unfortunately, we are already seeing the impact of the lapse of this law and we should not let another year pass without reinstating its protections. We know the ban worked. Supply went down. Prices went up. The use of these weapons of war in gun crimes had fallen consistently since the ban passed. According to Department of Justice data, the proportion of these assault weapons used in crime fell more than 65 percent since the ban took effect. And these statistics are backed up by report from the Brady Campaign. The analysis in the Brady study was performed by Gerald Nunziato, who for eight years served as the Special Agent in Charge of ATF's National Tracing Center--a man who know first hand what these numbers means. The study found two key things: First: ``Assault weapons banned by name in the Federal Assault Weapons Act have declined significantly as a percentage of guns ATF has traced to crime, and in absolute number of traces, since the Act was passed. Had this decline not occurred, thousands more of these banned assault weapons would likely have been traced to crime over the last 10 years.'' In other words, the assault weapons legislation signed into law ten years ago successfully dried up the use of banned assault weapons in crime. Second, arguments have arisen that despite this evidence, the ban has not really worked because gun manufacturers would simply produce copycat guns that have the same killing power as assault weapons, and use these guns in crime across the country. I agree that gun manufacturers have tried everything they could to circumvent the ban and this concern is something that may need to be addressed. But let's look at what the Brady study said about this issue. Second: ``The gun industry's efforts to evade the Federal Assault Weapons Act through the sale of `copycat' guns has not substantially undercut the positive effect of the statute in reducing the incidence of assault weapons among crime guns.'' In other words, even though determined gun manufacturers tried to evade the ban, they were not successful and copycat guns did not replace banned guns in equal numbers, at least when traced to crimes. In many cases, and when dealing with many issues, I continue to find that what is most compelling is not just the statistics, but rather the real people affected by the policies we debate. It's those men, women and children that are the reason most of us come to work everyday. I'm here today to talk about this issues because of the devastating effect these guns can have on families in our neighborhoods, office buildings, street corners or schoolhouses across the country. I have said before that this issue really came home to me on July 1, 1993, just over 11 years ago, when Gian Luigi Ferri walked into 101 California Street in San Francisco carrying two high-capacity TEC-DC9 assault pistols capable of holding 30- or 50-bullet magazines. Within minutes, Ferri had murdered eight people and six others were wounded. His victims were not soldiers or even enforcement officers. These people doing everyday jobs in an everyday place. A place forever tainted by the bloodshed caused by one man and his assault weapons. And 101 California was just one of many shootings by grievance killers, discontented employees or even schoolchildren--shooting that shows us that nobody is safe when these guns are in the hands of the wrong people. Yet five months ago, the federal ban on assault weapons expired, and once again new guns like the TEC-DC9 are allowed on our streets. The ban expired despite overwhelming public support to renew it--71 percent of all Americans support renewing the assault weapons ban, as do 64 percent of people in homes with a gun. And it expired despite overwhelming support from law enforcement and civic organizations--nearly every major law enforcement and civic organization has supported a renewal, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the Chiefs of Police, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, and the list goes on and on. Sadly, the ban expired despite the stated public support of President George W. Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft and despite the support of a majority of United States Senators--52 of us voted to renew this ban just this past March. Despite all of this support, this past September the American people were lift unprotected and made less safe. And make no mistake--when the ban expired the guns began to flow. And when the guns began to flow the safety of our communities was put in jeopardy. One advertisement that ran in gun magazines is from ArmaLite, a company that makes post-ban rifles. ArmaLite offered a coupon for a free flash suppressor for anyone who bought one of their guns before the ban expired so that, once the ban expired, the gun could be modified to its pre-ban configuration. The ad even states that, ``It is not legal to install this on a post ban rifle until the assault weapons ban sunsets.'' This is the kind of thing we can continue to expect--companies once again producing deadly assault weapons, high capacity clips, and dangerous accessories we worked so hard to stop almost ten years ago. The original assault weapons ban was passed before September 11, 2001, with focus on the use of these military weapons by street criminals and gangs. But in the intervening years we have come to appreciate the significance of the threat posed by foreign terrorists. We know that al Qa'ida and other shadowy terrorist groups may plan to attack us here, at home, using these very weapons. A training manual found in Afghanistan made clear that al Oa'ida has seen the threat posed by these weapons. In fact, some of these guns are the very ones being used against our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Simply put--these weapons are not just a law enforcement problem. They are a homeland security and counterterrorism problem. We need to take action to ensure that AK-47s and other such assault weapons cannot simply be purchased by a terrorist operative in preparation for an attack in the United States. I am deeply disappointed that despite support of the American people, support of the Congress, and stated support of the President, the assault weapons ban was allowed to expire this past fall. It is past time to stand up to the NRA and instead listen to law enforcement all across the nation who know that this ban makes sense and saves lives. It is past time to listen to the studies that show that crime with assault weapons of all kinds has decreased by as much as 65 percent since the ban took effect almost ten years ago. The bottom line is that across this nation everybody knows this ban should be law. Law enforcement, mayors, cities, counties, three former Presidents, and even George W. Bush himself have said the ban should be renewed. This time I hope, for the safety of all Americans, President Bush, Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert will help re-enact this important legislation.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, to introduce legislation that will repeal two provisions of current law that reduce earned Social Security benefits for teachers and other government pensioners--the Government Pension Offset provision and the Windfall Elimination Provision. Under current law, public employees, whose salaries are often lower than those in the private sector, find that they are penalized and held to a different standard when it comes to retirement benefits. The unfair reduction in their benefits makes it more difficult to recruit teachers, police officers, and fire fighters; and it does so at a time when we should to be doing everything we can to recruit the best and brightest to these careers. The current Government Pension Offset provision reduces Social Security spousal benefits by an amount equal to two-thirds of the spouse's public employment civil service pension. This can have the effect of taking away, entirely, a spouse's benefits from Social Security. And, as one might guess, this provision disproportionately affects women. The Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits for retirees who paid into Social Security and also receive a government pension, such as from a teacher retirement fund. Private sector retirees receive monthly Social Security checks equal to 90 percent of their first $627 in average monthly career earnings, plus 32 percent of monthly earnings up to $3,152 and 15 percent of earnings above $3,152. Government pensioners, however, are only allowed to receive 40 percent of the first $627 in career monthly earnings, a penalty of over $300 per month. To my mind it is simply unfair. My legislation will allow government pensioners the chance to earn the same 90 percent to which non- government pension recipients are entitled. I do not understand why we would want to discourage people from pursuing careers in public service by essentially saying that if you do enter public service; your family will suffer by not being able to receive the full retirement benefits they would otherwise be entitled to. Record enrollments in public schools and the projected retirements of thousands of veteran teachers are driving an urgent need for teacher recruitment. Critical efforts to reduce class sizes also necessitate hiring additional teachers. It is estimated that schools will need to hire between 2.2 million and 2.7 million new teachers nationwide by 2009. California currently has more than 300,000 teachers, but will need to hire an additional 300,000 teachers by 2010 to keep up with California's rate of student enrollment, which is three times the national average. All in all, California has to hire tens of thousands of new teachers every year. To combat the growing teacher shortage crisis, forty-five States and the District of Columbia now offer ``alternate routes'' for certification to teach in the Nation's public schools. It is a sad irony that policymakers are encouraging experienced people to change careers and enter the teaching profession at the same time that we clearly tell them that we will reduce your Social Security benefits for making such a change--benefits they worked so hard to earn. Nearly one million government retirees nationwide are affected by the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination provisions, but their impact is greatest in the 12 States that chose to keep their own public employee retirement systems, including California. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Pension Offset reduces benefits for some 200,000 individuals by more than $3,600 a year. And, as I mentioned earlier, the Windfall Elimination Provision causes already low-paid public employees outside the Social Security system, like teachers, firefighters and police officers, to lose up to sixty percent of the Social Security benefits to which they are entitled. Sadly, the loss of Social Security benefits may make these individuals eligible for more costly assistance, such as food stamps. I am also very aware that we are facing extraordinary deficits and that fixing the problem that we are talking about here today will be expensive. I am open to considering all options that move us toward our goal of allowing individuals to keep the Social Security benefits they are entitled to. The important thing for us to do is to take action that moves us in the right direction. The reforms that led to the Government Pension Offset provision and the Windfall Elimination Provision are almost 20 years old. At the time they were enacted, I'm sure they seemed like a good idea. Now that we are witnessing the practical effects of those reforms, I hope that Congress will pass legislation to address the unfair reduction of benefits that make it even more difficult to recruit and retain public employees.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I also rise today to recognize National Safe Place Week, which begins on March 13, 2005. I am proud to join Senator Craig as an original cosponsor of S. Res. 71, which designates the week of March 13-19, 2005 as National Safe Place Week. This resolution recognizes the participating businesses, community organizations, youth service agencies and volunteers that are part of the YMCA National Safe Place program and work for the safety and well-being of at-risk youth. Youth today face an ever-growing amount of pressure in their daily lives at school, at home, and in the community. For some youth, problems include abuse or neglect at home, drug or alcohol addictions of family members and friends, trouble at school or dangerous situations on a date. Young people who face these situations should not feel left alone, but should have a place in their community to which to turn. Over the past 22 years, the National Safe Place program has connected over 79,000 youth in crisis to immediate help at Safe Place locations and has provided over 78,000 youth with counseling by phone. Present in 41 States and serving 714 communities, the National Safe Place program brings together the private and public sector to reach out and help at- risk youth who are lost, scared, threatened or in unsafe situations. In my home State of California, there are nine designated Safe Place programs with over 1,667 Safe Place sites located in 65 communities. National Safe Place sites include fast food restaurants, convenience stores, fire stations, libraries and other public buildings and are marked by large, yellow Safe Place signs displayed prominently in front windows. Any youth can walk into a Safe Place site and receive immediate help from a trained volunteer, and further help from a Safe Place staff person who can provide counseling, residential assistance or professional referrals, as needed. The National Safe Place Week recognizes the time, resources and energy of thousands of businesses, community organizations and volunteers who make this effective, growing network of support for youth possible. In addition, it seeks to increase awareness of the crises that youth face today. I am encouraged by the National Safe Place Program's positive impact on communities throughout the Nation, and I hope that more communities will choose to participate in this innovative program. I believe that the National Safe Place program brings us closer to making our country safe for youth, and for that I offer my full support.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, to introduce legislation that will repeal two provisions of current law that reduce earned Social Security benefits for teachers and other government pensioners--the Government Pension Offset provision and the Windfall Elimination Provision. Under current law, public employees, whose salaries are often lower than those in the private sector, find that they are penalized and held to a different standard when it comes to retirement benefits. The unfair reduction in their benefits makes it more difficult to recruit teachers, police officers, and fire fighters; and it does so at a time when we should to be doing everything we can to recruit the best and brightest to these careers. The current Government Pension Offset provision reduces Social Security spousal benefits by an amount equal to two-thirds of the spouse's public employment civil service pension. This can have the effect of taking away, entirely, a spouse's benefits from Social Security. And, as one might guess, this provision disproportionately affects women. The Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits for retirees who paid into Social Security and also receive a government pension, such as from a teacher retirement fund. Private sector retirees receive monthly Social Security checks equal to 90 percent of their first $627 in average monthly career earnings, plus 32 percent of monthly earnings up to $3,152 and 15 percent of earnings above $3,152. Government pensioners, however, are only allowed to receive 40 percent of the first $627 in career monthly earnings, a penalty of over $300 per month. To my mind it is simply unfair. My legislation will allow government pensioners the chance to earn the same 90 percent to which non- government pension recipients are entitled. I do not understand why we would want to discourage people from pursuing careers in public service by essentially saying that if you do enter public service; your family will suffer by not being able to receive the full retirement benefits they would otherwise be entitled to. Record enrollments in public schools and the projected retirements of thousands of veteran teachers are driving an urgent need for teacher recruitment. Critical efforts to reduce class sizes also necessitate hiring additional teachers. It is estimated that schools will need to hire between 2.2 million and 2.7 million new teachers nationwide by 2009. California currently has more than 300,000 teachers, but will need to hire an additional 300,000 teachers by 2010 to keep up with California's rate of student enrollment, which is three times the national average. All in all, California has to hire tens of thousands of new teachers every year. To combat the growing teacher shortage crisis, forty-five States and the District of Columbia now offer ``alternate routes'' for certification to teach in the Nation's public schools. It is a sad irony that policymakers are encouraging experienced people to change careers and enter the teaching profession at the same time that we clearly tell them that we will reduce your Social Security benefits for making such a change--benefits they worked so hard to earn. Nearly one million government retirees nationwide are affected by the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination provisions, but their impact is greatest in the 12 States that chose to keep their own public employee retirement systems, including California. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Pension Offset reduces benefits for some 200,000 individuals by more than $3,600 a year. And, as I mentioned earlier, the Windfall Elimination Provision causes already low-paid public employees outside the Social Security system, like teachers, firefighters and police officers, to lose up to sixty percent of the Social Security benefits to which they are entitled. Sadly, the loss of Social Security benefits may make these individuals eligible for more costly assistance, such as food stamps. I am also very aware that we are facing extraordinary deficits and that fixing the problem that we are talking about here today will be expensive. I am open to considering all options that move us toward our goal of allowing individuals to keep the Social Security benefits they are entitled to. The important thing for us to do is to take action that moves us in the right direction. The reforms that led to the Government Pension Offset provision and the Windfall Elimination Provision are almost 20 years old. At the time they were enacted, I'm sure they seemed like a good idea. Now that we are witnessing the practical effects of those reforms, I hope that Congress will pass legislation to address the unfair reduction of benefits that make it even more difficult to recruit and retain public employees.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to offer, along with Senators Warner of Virginia and DeWine of Ohio, the Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2005. We are joined by Senators Schumer, Mikulski, Durbin, Clinton, Boxer, Levin, Dodd and Reed, who are original cosponsors of this critical legislation. This is the same basic legislation that passed by the Senate last year as an amendment to a bill designed to provide blanket immunity for gun manufacturers. However, once that amendment passed, the underlying bill was defeated, in part by its own sponsors, after the National Rifle Association applied intense pressure to Members of this body. Thus we saw the ideological and extreme view of the National Rifle Association, when they sacrificed their most desired legislative priority--gun immunity legislation--because the Senate had approved the assault weapons ban and two other amendments that would save people's lives: closing the gun show loophole, and requiring trigger locks. Although President Bush had said he supported the assault weapons ban, he refused to personally engage to help this legislation get signed into law, and the ban expired on September 13, 2004. As a result, these weapons are now once again proliferating through our neighborhoods and communities throughout the United States. That is why, today, I am introducing the Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2005. This legislation mirrors the legislation I authored in the Senate and then-Congressman Schumer authored in the House in 1994. As was done then, the legislation I am introducing would: ban the manufacturing of 19 specific types of military-style assault weapons, as well as a number of other guns based on a simple test to determine whether the guns were hunting guns or weapons of war; prohibit the manufacture of large capacity ammunition magazines--clips, drums and strips of more than ten rounds--because it is those large capacity ammunition feeding devices that can make a semiautomatic assault weapons so very deadly; and continue to exempt 670 hunting guns entirely, and it is also important to note that the ban would continue to ``grandfather'' in every gun that was made before 1994. So no innocent gun owner would lose a weapon. There will again be no confiscation component to the bill. This legislation is not perfect. There are comparisons that were made to get it passed last time around, and since its previous enactment there have been many concerns raised about the need to tighten or alter the definition in order to make the prohibition more effective. I am open to working with my colleagues to ensure we enact the best legislation possible, but we need a first step--at a minimum Congress needs to reinstate the original assault weapons ban. Unfortunately, we are already seeing the impact of the lapse of this law and we should not let another year pass without reinstating its protections. We know the ban worked. Supply went down. Prices went up. The use of these weapons of war in gun crimes had fallen consistently since the ban passed. According to Department of Justice data, the proportion of these assault weapons used in crime fell more than 65 percent since the ban took effect. And these statistics are backed up by report from the Brady Campaign. The analysis in the Brady study was performed by Gerald Nunziato, who for eight years served as the Special Agent in Charge of ATF's National Tracing Center--a man who know first hand what these numbers means. The study found two key things: First: ``Assault weapons banned by name in the Federal Assault Weapons Act have declined significantly as a percentage of guns ATF has traced to crime, and in absolute number of traces, since the Act was passed. Had this decline not occurred, thousands more of these banned assault weapons would likely have been traced to crime over the last 10 years.'' In other words, the assault weapons legislation signed into law ten years ago successfully dried up the use of banned assault weapons in crime. Second, arguments have arisen that despite this evidence, the ban has not really worked because gun manufacturers would simply produce copycat guns that have the same killing power as assault weapons, and use these guns in crime across the country. I agree that gun manufacturers have tried everything they could to circumvent the ban and this concern is something that may need to be addressed. But let's look at what the Brady study said about this issue. Second: ``The gun industry's efforts to evade the Federal Assault Weapons Act through the sale of `copycat' guns has not substantially undercut the positive effect of the statute in reducing the incidence of assault weapons among crime guns.'' In other words, even though determined gun manufacturers tried to evade the ban, they were not successful and copycat guns did not replace banned guns in equal numbers, at least when traced to crimes. In many cases, and when dealing with many issues, I continue to find that what is most compelling is not just the statistics, but rather the real people affected by the policies we debate. It's those men, women and children that are the reason most of us come to work everyday. I'm here today to talk about this issues because of the devastating effect these guns can have on families in our neighborhoods, office buildings, street corners or schoolhouses across the country. I have said before that this issue really came home to me on July 1, 1993, just over 11 years ago, when Gian Luigi Ferri walked into 101 California Street in San Francisco carrying two high-capacity TEC-DC9 assault pistols capable of holding 30- or 50-bullet magazines. Within minutes, Ferri had murdered eight people and six others were wounded. His victims were not soldiers or even enforcement officers. These people doing everyday jobs in an everyday place. A place forever tainted by the bloodshed caused by one man and his assault weapons. And 101 California was just one of many shootings by grievance killers, discontented employees or even schoolchildren--shooting that shows us that nobody is safe when these guns are in the hands of the wrong people. Yet five months ago, the federal ban on assault weapons expired, and once again new guns like the TEC-DC9 are allowed on our streets. The ban expired despite overwhelming public support to renew it--71 percent of all Americans support renewing the assault weapons ban, as do 64 percent of people in homes with a gun. And it expired despite overwhelming support from law enforcement and civic organizations--nearly every major law enforcement and civic organization has supported a renewal, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the Chiefs of Police, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, and the list goes on and on. Sadly, the ban expired despite the stated public support of President George W. Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft and despite the support of a majority of United States Senators--52 of us voted to renew this ban just this past March. Despite all of this support, this past September the American people were lift unprotected and made less safe. And make no mistake--when the ban expired the guns began to flow. And when the guns began to flow the safety of our communities was put in jeopardy. One advertisement that ran in gun magazines is from ArmaLite, a company that makes post-ban rifles. ArmaLite offered a coupon for a free flash suppressor for anyone who bought one of their guns before the ban expired so that, once the ban expired, the gun could be modified to its pre-ban configuration. The ad even states that, ``It is not legal to install this on a post ban rifle until the assault weapons ban sunsets.'' This is the kind of thing we can continue to expect--companies once again producing deadly assault weapons, high capacity clips, and dangerous accessories we worked so hard to stop almost ten years ago. The original assault weapons ban was passed before September 11, 2001, with focus on the use of these military weapons by street criminals and gangs. But in the intervening years we have come to appreciate the significance of the threat posed by foreign terrorists. We know that al Qa'ida and other shadowy terrorist groups may plan to attack us here, at home, using these very weapons. A training manual found in Afghanistan made clear that al Oa'ida has seen the threat posed by these weapons. In fact, some of these guns are the very ones being used against our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Simply put--these weapons are not just a law enforcement problem. They are a homeland security and counterterrorism problem. We need to take action to ensure that AK-47s and other such assault weapons cannot simply be purchased by a terrorist operative in preparation for an attack in the United States. I am deeply disappointed that despite support of the American people, support of the Congress, and stated support of the President, the assault weapons ban was allowed to expire this past fall. It is past time to stand up to the NRA and instead listen to law enforcement all across the nation who know that this ban makes sense and saves lives. It is past time to listen to the studies that show that crime with assault weapons of all kinds has decreased by as much as 65 percent since the ban took effect almost ten years ago. The bottom line is that across this nation everybody knows this ban should be law. Law enforcement, mayors, cities, counties, three former Presidents, and even George W. Bush himself have said the ban should be renewed. This time I hope, for the safety of all Americans, President Bush, Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert will help re-enact this important legislation.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the reauthorization of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2005. This bill is critically important to ensure that students are entering the workforce with the academic, vocational, and technical skills they will need to be successful in today's job market. According to 2003 U.S. Census data, only 27 percent of Americans have a college degree. Therefore, vocational education programs are necessary to provide occupational training to the majority of high school students who do not go on to earn a bachelor's degree. Without adequate vocational and technical training programs, these individuals have few career options. Unfortunately, high schools currently offer fewer vocational education classes than in the past, due to funding shortages. There are many ways in which Perkins funds are used, and I would like to share a few examples of how these dollars are utilized in my State of California which typically receives approximately 11 percent of Federal funding for vocational education through Perkins. The Fresno Unified School District uses about $1 million in Perkins money to fund vocational education classes in areas such as introductory business, computers, and multimedia for students in grades 7-10. Perkins funding also helps to pay for 10 resource center facilitators who assist students in researching colleges and registering for entrance exams. The Los Angeles Unified School District receives Perkins funds to build career and technical education, CTE, programs. With these funds, the district has created 15 ``industry clusters,'' each of which contains a specific career pathway. These industry clusters range from agriculture to the arts to engineering to medical technology. I understand the importance of Federal support for vocational and technical education, and I will continue to do all I can to ensure that all students have access to the educational opportunities that will allow them to become productive and successful adults.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Today I rise to commemorate the 46th Anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising of 1959. It is my sincere hope that both the Chinese government and the Tibetan leaders might use this opportunity to reflect on the importance of pursuing a viable, long-term solution that provides the Tibetan people the right to enjoy religious, cultural, and social autonomy as part of the People's Republic of China. This anniversary marks a sad, but important day in the history of the Tibetan people. In 1951, two years after the People's Liberation Army first entered Tibet, Chinese government representatives and Tibetan leaders signed what has been called the 17 Point Agreement. This agreement, among other things, included the promise of Tibetan religious, cultural, and social autonomy, and preserved the institution of the Dalai Lama. Sadly, the Chinese government failed to uphold these promises and attempted to force ``revolutionary socialist reforms'' upon the Tibet people and leadership. This ultimately culminated in the 1959 Lhasa Uprising which saw tens of thousands of Tibetans killed and forced the Dalai Lama and many others to flee to India. Today human rights abuses continue against Tibetans wishing to practice their religion or promote their unique cultural and historical identity. Hundreds have been imprisoned in Tibet, and tens of thousands more have had to flee their homeland. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama remains steadfast in his desire to find a long-lasting and viable solution that will provide freedom and autonomy for the Tibetan people without pursuing independence. In a speech today to mark this 46th anniversary, he stated: We remain fully committed to the Middle Way Approach of not seeking independence for Tibet and are willing to remain within the People's Republic of China. He also praised the economic progress and development that has taken place in Tibet over the past 40 years, including the new railroad link that will begin operation this year. I have personally worked for well over two decades to try and bring both the Chinese government and Tibetan leadership together in a spirit of cooperation and dialogue to overcome the differences that have impeded progress on a solution for Tibet. And after many conversations with the Dalai Lama, I am fully convinced that he is sincere in his promise not to pursue a separate path for Tibet. To that end, several times over the years I have carried messages from the Dalai Lama to Beijing and communicated regularly with Jiang Zemin and other Chinese officials on the importance of establishing dialogue on the Tibet issue. I have also been pleased to see that discussions between the Dalai Lama's envoys and Chinese officials have resumed and that a third round of meetings took place last September in Beijing. It is my hope that both sides will build upon these meetings and that President Hu, with his knowledge and understanding of the Tibetan people, will come to appreciate the international goodwill that would be fostered by his willingness to meet with the Dalai Lama and pursue a reasonable solution to the Tibet issue. Despite the slow pace of progress over the years, I remain confident that if the Chinese leadership will only sit down with the Dalai Lama and listen openly to his views, that a sustainable solution providing for the preservation of the distinctive identity, religious and cultural heritage for the Tibetan people can be found.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the brave men and women who serve around the world in America's Armed Forces, and to recognize what the California State Assembly has designated as Blue Star Families Week. Blue Star Families Week is an opportunity to show that the United States and California stand behind members of the Armed Forces and their families as they serve with valor at home and abroad. The Blue Star Flag is an official banner authorized by the Department of Defense and is given to families with loved ones serving in the Armed Forces to place in their windows as a visible sign of their family's sacrifice. Blue Star flags date back to World War I and serve as a symbol of community support and solidarity in times of war and hostility. I am proud of the men and women of our Armed Forces that are bravely serving all over the world to protect our freedom, our democracy and our way of life. During my recent trip to Iraq I had the honor of witnessing the strong character of our troops. We owe an immeasurable debt to the families of these men and women who are willing to sacrifice their futures for our country. The Blue Star program is another way we can show how much we value their heroism and bravery. I am pleased to take time this week to salute the brave heroes in the Armed Forces, and their loved ones, for their tremendous sacrifice and dedication.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New York. We are both members of the Judiciary Committee. We had an opportunity to discuss and debate this amendment in the Judiciary Committee. Senator Schumer's amendment is a critical amendment. Essentially, when this body in 1994 passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, we said that individuals should be able to go into clinics without being obstructed. The law was very clear. The law also has led to successful criminal and civil judgments against groups that use intimidation and outright violence to prevent people from obtaining or providing reproductive health services. This law would be seriously damaged if we do not close this loophole that has allowed some antiabortion extremists to use bankruptcy to shield their assets. The Senator from New York mentioned the founder of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, who said in 1998 after filing for bankruptcy: I have filed a chapter 7 petition to discharge my debts to those who would use my money to promote the killing of the unborn. In my home State of California there was a similar incident involving a man by the name of John Stoos and several other people in 1989 who were sued by the operators of a Sacramento abortion clinic for allegedly blocking the clinic's entrance and harassing patients. A judge ordered Stoos and others to pay nearly $100,000 in attorney's fees incurred by the clinic. As a result, Stoos filed for personal bankruptcy, listing that debt among many he could not pay. These actions are clear evidence of abuse of the bankruptcy system. This bankruptcy bill should stop them. I hope the Schumer amendment would be accepted by this Senate. Let me use this time to speak a bit more generally about this bill. I voted for this bill when it left committee. I have decided to vote against this bill in the Senate. I want to say why. In committee, we were asked to withhold all amendments to the floor. We knew the bill was not a perfect bill. We have seen it improved over the years. We knew it was better than the House bill. And with all complicated, difficult bills, the tradition of the Senate has always been the floor debate and discussion. In a majority of times as a product of floor debate and discussion, problems in the bill can be remedied. We knew there were problems in the bill. For example, I have an amendment which I have withdrawn which says that the credit card companies should, in fact, notify a minimum payer how long it would take that payer of a credit card, if he only paid the minimum amount of interest, to pay off the debt. Senator Akaka had a similar amendment. It was summarily defeated. I had an amendment; I had two Republican cosponsors. I learned it would also be summarily defeated. Thanks to Senator Shelby and Senator Sarbanes, the Banking Committee has taken an interest in this and in the future and will take a look at it. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is this bill is all for the credit card companies. I know there is credit card fraud. I know that has to be met. I felt the bill was important to pass. However, I also felt the bill should be balanced and that we should see that the consumer is also protected in this process, protected with notice of what a minimum payment means, and also, frankly, protected against high interest rates. Senator Dayton moved an amendment which would limit interest rates on credit cards to 30 percent. The amendment was summarily defeated. The fact is with penalties, with other charges, with high interest rates-- and many companies have interest rates, believe it or not, well in excess of 30 percent--a minimum payer cannot ever pay the full debt because the interest on the debt, if combined with certain penalties and/or fixed payments, becomes such that it overwhelms the principal. Many people do not know that. The fact is 40 percent of credit card holders pay off their debt every month; 40 percent make only the minimum payment; and 20 percent are kind of 50/50 in that category. For those 60 percent who are generally people who are not as informed, not as able to pay back their bill, who may have one, two, three, four, five, six different credit cards, because this is a credit economy, credit card companies have been able, with very little interest to the payer of the debt, to solicit huge fees, penalties, and interest rates. This is plain wrong. If we are unable to correct it, which I had hoped would be corrected by these amendments that have been presented, I cannot vote for this bill as long as these gross injustices remain. Let's for a moment look at the 30-percent interest rate. It is very high. Inflation is about 2 percent. The interest rate on 3-month Treasury bills is 2.75 percent. The national average lending rate on a 30-year mortgage is 5.59 percent. Yet an amendment to limit interest rates on credit cards to 30 percent went down dramatically. I mention there are companies that are charging high annual interest rates. Some charge 384 percent, 535 percent. Amazingly, one Delaware- based company has charged 1,095 percent, according to the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, other major newspapers have pointed out where fees, rates, and charges have buried debtors. They have pointed out a multitude of cases. A special education teacher from my home State worked a second job to keep up with $2,000 in monthly payments. She collectively went to five banks to try to pay $25,000 in credit card debt. Even though she did not use her cards to buy anything else, her debt doubled to $49,574 by the time she filed for bankruptcy last June. Effectively, interest payments are half of the debt. She will never be able to pay that off. To push people like this from chapter 7 into chapter 13, when what is the problem is interest rates and penalty fees that truly do victimize an unsuspecting individual--how could this Senate do that, if someone is going to charge a 100-percent interest rate? One of my own staff members found that simply getting a credit card cash advance resulted in an immediate 3 percent fee which was simply added to the interest rate. The result is even the most careful credit card users find themselves often swamped, particularly those who can only afford to make a minimum payment, and the fees, charges, and interests pile up, making it virtually impossible to ever pay off the debt. This amendment would have been a meaningful addition to the bill. It certainly would have added fairness. It certainly would have sent a signal to credit card companies that the sky is not the limit. Yet it was defeated. Senator Schumer's asset protection trust, of which I was a cosponsor, was another indication of where wealthy people could shelter assets and not have to pay back in chapter 13. These are some of the inequities. In recent years a number of financial and bankruptcy planners have taken advantage of the law of a few States to create what is called an ``asset protection trust.'' These trusts are basically mechanisms for rich people to keep money despite declaring bankruptcy. They are unfair, and violate the basic principle of this underlying legislation--that bankruptcy should be used judiciously to deal with the economic reality that sometimes people cannot pay their debts, but to prevent abuse of the system. This loophole is an example of where the law, if not changed, permits, or even encourages, such abuse. The amendment was simple. It set an upper limit on the amount of money that could be shielded in these asset protection trusts, capping the amount at $125,000. The bottom line: Without this amendment, wealthy people will be able to preserve significant sums of money in an asset protection trust, effectively retaining their assets while wiping away their debts. The proposed cap amount, $125,000, is not a small sum. It is more than enough to ensure that the debtor is not left destitute. I believe it is a reasonable amount--it is deliberately based on the now-accepted $125,000 limit for the homestead exemption, which will also remain available to a debtor. I would also like to say a few words about my concerns about what appears to be a new policy in the Senate. It appears that the Republican leadership has decided that rather than honoring the 200 plus year tradition of the Senate as a deliberative body, the Senate should be run like the House of Representatives. There appears to be a new process being implemented in which the Senate should no longer seriously consider amendments on the floor to improve bills. We are now in the middle of the second major piece of legislation where the majority has decided that amendments by the minority will be rejected wholesale regardless of the merits. It appears that even when serious problems in the underlying legislation are raised and even when the Republican leadership agrees that the problem exists, amendments offered by the minority will be rejected. In fact, when the Judiciary Committee was marking up the bill, Senators were asked not to offer amendments and instead offer them on the floor. Statements were made by the Acting-Chairman like, ``I know we are going to go through this on the floor and I don't see any reason to keep us here all day and all night''; and, ``[You will] have every opportunity to present these amendments on the floor.'' Yet, upon reaching the floor, Senators have found that their amendments are not being considered on the merits. It is the Senate's job to carefully debate, carefully consider, and pass the very best laws we can. But now the Senate is being asked to simply pass legislation as drafted, regardless of its content. This lack consideration and care does a disservice to the Senate and to the Senators who work hard to reach compromises and find common ground. But more importantly, it does a disservice to the American people. We are here to develop the best policy we can, not to simply play political games and jam through legislation for the sake of expediency. As I began, I want to be clear. I support bankruptcy reform legislation, and I support many of the provisions in the underlying bill. However, throughout this process many important issues have been raised that identify serious problems that must be addressed. The Senate has been and should remain a deliberative body that seeks to draft the best legislation we can. Unfortunately, that is not what we are doing. And unfortunately, based on these concerns, I regret that I am no longer able to support the bankruptcy legislation. I do not believe the bill before us is balanced. There remain many serious problems that must be addressed before I am ready to support the legislation. I have decided because of the summary disposition of amendments by the other side, this Democrat Member is going to vote ``no'' in the Senate. Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, gender equality is critical to peace and prosperity around the world. As we become more interconnected, it is crucial that the rights of women are recognized by all countries as fundamental human rights because countries which value women's rights are more stable, freer, and more prosperous. Therefore, it is befitting that I rise today to commemorate, March 8, 2005, International Women's Day. The genesis of International Women's Day comes from a number of provocative moments in history. On March 8, 1857, women working in the textile and clothing industry in New York City staged a protest demanding better working conditions and higher wages. More than 50 years later on March 8, 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City in support of voting rights, shorter work hours, and an end to child labor. It is because of these strong and courageous women that we recognize today as International Women's Day. They lit the torch for gender equality and passed it down through the generations to us. We have a duty and a responsibility to continue their noble work and I am ready to do so by ensuring that the voices of women from around the world are heard loud and clear. Mohandas K. Gandhi once said, ``There is no occasion for women to consider themselves subordinate to men.'' Yet, even today, there are places around the world where this is not the case. If the United States aims to be a great champion of the rights of women and girls for the rest of the world, we must do more to promote respect for women as well as increase their participation in every aspect of a country's civic, political, and economic life. Today, I would like to highlight several issues related to women that require decisive leadership: the role of women in Iraq and Afghanistan, international family planning programs, and the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. We all know that Iraq can only complete a peaceful transition to a country based on the rule of law, human rights, and democracy with the full participation of women. One year ago today, the United States sought to assist Iraq on this path when the Department of State established the Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative along with the U.S. Iraqi Women's Network. Through these grants, the U.S. reached out to Iraqi women and informed them of the importance of their vote and role in the new Iraq. On January 30, 2005, the world watched as 58 percent of Iraqi voters turned out for an election in which 25 percent of the candidates running were women. In the months following the elections, special training will focus on constitution drafting, legal reform, and the legislative process, so that women may ensure their rights are enshrined in the new constitution. While I am encouraged by recent positive events, we must remain vigilant and encourage our Iraqi friends to put the active and meaningful participation of women in the new Iraq at the top of their agenda. Last year, Women for Women International commissioned a survey of Iraqi women and found that despite ethnic educational, religious, and economic differences, an overwhelming majority of women in Iraq support a strong role for themselves in the new Iraq. Of the women surveyed, 94 percent want to secure legal rights for women, 84 percent want the right to vote on the final Constitution, and 95 percent think there should be no restrictions on education. It is the duty of the United States to assist Iraqi women in realizing these goals and I encourage my colleagues to continue to support funding for women's initiatives in Iraq. One of the great success stories of our campaign against terrorism is the liberation of the women and girls of Afghanistan from the brutal oppression of the Taliban regime. Under the Taliban, women in public were forced to cloak themselves in shroud-like burkas while being accompanied by a male relative or else risk being beaten mercilessly. Most Afghan women were restricted by the Taliban from working, receiving an education, from visiting doctors, and from receiving humanitarian aid. The women of Afghanistan have the opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their families. More and more women in Afghanistan are getting an education, earning a living, receiving medical attention, and participating in public life. In fact, I was pleased to hear that Hamid Karzai made history last week when he appointed Habiba Sarabi as Afghanistan's first female provincial governor. During the Taliban regime, Ms. Sarabi fled from Kabul to Pakistan. Following the removal of the Taliban from power in 2001, she was selected for Mr. Karzai's cabinet and instantly became a hero not just for women and girls, but for all Afghans. Her story is truly a testament to the remarkable turnaround taking place in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, obstacles still remain that prevent women and girls from reaching their full potential. A recent U.N. report from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Economic and Social Council's Commission on the Status of Women states: while the status of women and girls has improved, overall progress has been uneven. The volatile security situation and traditional social and cultural norms continue to limit women's and girls' role in public life and deny them the full enjoyment of their rights. The massive needs in terms of reconstruction of infrastructure and strengthening of human capacity, including in the fields of education and health care, will require the sustained attention and support of national actors and the international community for many years to come. Our victory in Afghanistan will be lost if women and girls are not afforded basic human rights and equal opportunity. The United States must not forget our commitment to provide a better future for Afghan women of all ages, and I urge my colleagues to stay the course and support additional assistance for education, health care, and democracy training for women and girls in the years ahead. Once again, as we commemorate International Women's Day, I regret to point out that the Senate has still not acted on the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The Convention, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, has been ratified by 179 countries to date, including every other democracy in the world. By ratifying the Convention, states commit themselves to take appropriate steps to eliminate discrimination against women in political and public life, law, education, employment, health care, commercial transactions, and domestic relations. I am shocked and disappointed that the United States has failed to ratify this Convention. Every year we fail to ratify this important Convention, we compromise our ability to lead the world as the torchbearer for women's rights. Not only would signing the Convention reaffirm our Nation's leadership role on these issues, it would bring us closer with our friends and allies who have already ratified the pact. I urge the Senate to act on the Convention this year. The United Nations Population Fund UNFPA is the single largest global source for maternal health and family planning programs, working in over 140 countries. Nevertheless, since 2002, the Bush administration has withheld over $90 million in vital U.S. contributions to UNFPA because of its perceived ties with China's family planning program and policies. The administration has taken these actions despite a report from a State Department fact finding team that the UNFPA in no way supported or was involved in coercive abortions or involuntary sterilization. As a result of administration actions, millions of poor women and families have been deprived of desperately needed care. The work of UNFPA benefits women in need around the world. In the wake of the horrific tsunami that struck South Asia, UNFPA has been working to ensure that women and girls in this area are receiving the care they need. UNFPA's priorities are reproductive health, including safe childbirth, prevention of violence against women and girls, and psychosocial counseling for those affected by the 26 December tsunami. In early January, UNFPA asked for $28 million to support its tsunami- related work in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Maldives as part of the United Nations interagency Flash Appeal. A month later, over 70 per cent of the requested funding had been received or pledged from various donors, including Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, China, Norway, and New Zealand. The United States is absent from this list. No women should be prevented from receiving the assistance she deserves to plan and care for healthy families. We need to ensure that women have access to the educational and medical resources they need to control their reproductive destinies and their health so they will be able to better their own lives and the lives of their families. Women are the backbone of our global society. They are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, and our grandmothers. They nurture us and teach us the lessons of life and how to be a better person. As such, I am proud to commemorate March 8, 2005, as International Women's Day. There are many great issues facing women and the United States. However, I am confident and optimistic we can address problems such as family planning, the burgeoning roles of women in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminating all forms of discrimination against women. As a United States Senator, I truly believe it is our duty as the leader of the free world to address and seek workable solutions to every problem that women face around the world. We can--and we must.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill with Senator Allen that would allow hybrids to access High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes. California and other States, such as Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia, do not want to risk losing their Federal highway dollars by acting without a waiver from the Department of Transportation to implement laws permitting hybrid vehicles to use HOV lanes. Virginia has decided to take that risk because the benefit of having more fuel efficient cars on the roads is greater. This bill would allow the Department of Transportation to grant such a waiver to States. The purpose of this bill is to encourage Americans to buy and drive hybrids, which provide an innovative solution to help reduce our thirst for gasoline. Allowing hybrids into HOV lanes is a low-cost and quick incentive to promote the use of hybrids. Hybrid vehicles are more fuel efficient than cars powered by internal combustion engines and they emit fewer greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. Burning less gas can also help us to gain independence from foreign sources of energy. The cost of hybrid technology will decrease by bringing more hybrids into the market. And, people can make smarter, more fuel efficient, less polluting choices while getting to and from work faster. Several States, including my State of California, have acted on their own to permit hybrid vehicles to use HOV lanes. Current Federal law, however, only grants States the flexibility to allow electric or natural gas powered vehicles to drive in the HOV lanes with a single passenger. Right now, there are approximately 20,000 high-mileage hybrid car owners in California waiting to take advantage of a State law that went into effect on January 1, 2005. This State law, sponsored by assemblywoman Fran Pavley, allows hybrid vehicles that get 45 miles- per-gallon or better to use diamond or HOV lanes until 2008. As California has 40 percent of the Nation's carpool lanes, high- mileage hybrid owners stand to gain a significant benefit for driving these cars. Some critics have expressed concerns that HOV lanes will get overloaeded, but each State can stop the program if congestion becomes a problem. Hybrids only account for a fraction of the cars sold today--43,435 hybrids out of a total of 16.7 million vehicles were sold in 2003! If States want to act to encourage their citizens to drive more fuel efficient, less polluting vehicles, we need to give them the tools to do so. It is my hope that Congress will pass this bill quickly so that hybrid drivers in California, Georgia, Colorado and elsewhere can take advantage of the HOV lanes. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill with Senator Allen that would allow hybrids to access High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes. California and other States, such as Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia, do not want to risk losing their Federal highway dollars by acting without a waiver from the Department of Transportation to implement laws permitting hybrid vehicles to use HOV lanes. Virginia has decided to take that risk because the benefit of having more fuel efficient cars on the roads is greater. This bill would allow the Department of Transportation to grant such a waiver to States. The purpose of this bill is to encourage Americans to buy and drive hybrids, which provide an innovative solution to help reduce our thirst for gasoline. Allowing hybrids into HOV lanes is a low-cost and quick incentive to promote the use of hybrids. Hybrid vehicles are more fuel efficient than cars powered by internal combustion engines and they emit fewer greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. Burning less gas can also help us to gain independence from foreign sources of energy. The cost of hybrid technology will decrease by bringing more hybrids into the market. And, people can make smarter, more fuel efficient, less polluting choices while getting to and from work faster. Several States, including my State of California, have acted on their own to permit hybrid vehicles to use HOV lanes. Current Federal law, however, only grants States the flexibility to allow electric or natural gas powered vehicles to drive in the HOV lanes with a single passenger. Right now, there are approximately 20,000 high-mileage hybrid car owners in California waiting to take advantage of a State law that went into effect on January 1, 2005. This State law, sponsored by assemblywoman Fran Pavley, allows hybrid vehicles that get 45 miles- per-gallon or better to use diamond or HOV lanes until 2008. As California has 40 percent of the Nation's carpool lanes, high- mileage hybrid owners stand to gain a significant benefit for driving these cars. Some critics have expressed concerns that HOV lanes will get overloaeded, but each State can stop the program if congestion becomes a problem. Hybrids only account for a fraction of the cars sold today--43,435 hybrids out of a total of 16.7 million vehicles were sold in 2003! If States want to act to encourage their citizens to drive more fuel efficient, less polluting vehicles, we need to give them the tools to do so. It is my hope that Congress will pass this bill quickly so that hybrid drivers in California, Georgia, Colorado and elsewhere can take advantage of the HOV lanes. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I appreciate the willingness of the chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee to work with Senators Kyl, Brownback, and me on this important issue. And I understand that the Banking Committee has an interest in regulating credit cards. I would like to state here, for the record, the key points of the agreement that we have arrived at: Senators Shelby and Sarbanes have agreed to hold a hearing within 6 months on the substance of the amendment to the Bankruptcy Bill that Senator Kyl, Brownback, and I offered, on increasing notice to credit card holders who pay only their minimum monthly payments. I understand that this hearing will address a set of issues relating to credit cards and consumer rights. However, I also understand that Senators Shelby and Sarbanes will ensure that the substance of agreement, will be directly considered, and will be an area of focus, during that hearing, and that I will be afforded the opportunity to testify. I understand that Senators Shelby and Sarbanes will work with me, with Senator Kyl, and with members of the Banking Committee to ensure that this issue and my bill are carefully considered. My bill would give those consumers who make only the minimum required payments for 6 months detailed notice about the interest and length of time that it will take them to pay their own individual debt and interest. Because the chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee agree to take these actions, I will agree to withdraw my amendment. Do Senators Shelby and Sarbanes agree?