Dianne Feinstein

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I understand that we are running out the clock on a motion to bring to the floor the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. So I think my comments are pertinent to that bill and to the situation in which we find ourselves. Mr. President, about 14 months ago, those of us in this Chamber passed a juvenile justice bill. Prior to its passage, many of us on this side of the aisle came together to say if we want to really achieve some limited improvements in targeted gun measures, what should they be? We decided on a few, and the Republican side had a few. So some targeted measures were added to that bill. One of them was that guns should not be sold without trigger locks. That was made from our side of the aisle. One from the Republican side of the aisle was that children should not be permitted to buy assault weapons--a no-brainer. That was accepted by this body. A third vote was to close the gun show loophole which enabled the two youngsters from Columbine, 16 years old, to go to a gun show and buy two assault weapons with no questions asked. The final one was one I offered on the floor, which was to plug a hole in the assault weapons legislation. Under the assault weapons legislation, it is illegal to manufacture, possess, sell, or to transfer a large-capacity ammunition feeding device in this country. So, in other words, nobody can manufacture one domestically in this country now. The loophole is that they can come in, if manufactured in foreign countries, and be sold. So since the passage of the original assault weapons legislation, about 18 million large-capacity ammunition feeding devices have come into the country. But just in the last 14 months, since the passage of the juvenile justice bill, 6.3 million of these clips have come into this country, many of them 250 rounds, but most 30 rounds. What is the use of these clips? You can't hunt with them. You can't carry a clip with more than 10 bullets in virtually any State if you are going to hunt. You don't use them for self-protection. The street price of them has dropped. You can buy them, no questions asked, over the Internet for $7, $8, $9. The only reason for them is to turn a weapon into a major killing machine. They are used by drive-by shooters, by the gangs, and by the grievance killer who has a grievance and wants to walk into his place of business and kill a large number of people. Well, this body passed that, and the other body actually passed it by unanimous consent. So those are measures that have held up a whole huge juvenile justice bill for that period of time. So in 14 months, we have gone nowhere in achieving safety regulations, prudent targeted gun regulations to protect people. A million women--now 240 new organizations--in the Million Mom March, went to the streets of their cities and to the Capitol on Mother's Day to say they wanted prudent gun regulations. But what has happened since then is we have actually back slipped. The backsliding is taking place right in this very bill which time is running on. An amendment was put in the bill that says this: None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to implement a preference for the acquisition of a firearm or ammunition based on whether the manufacturer or vendor of the firearm or ammunition is a party of an agreement with a department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States regarding codes of conduct, operating practices, or product design specifically related to the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms or ammunition under chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code. This amendment is essentially meant to prohibit the U.S. Government from giving any preference to any responsible gun manufacturer. I believe this measure is simply the worst possible public policy. I would rather not have a Treasury-Postal appropriations bill that has this kind of disincentive to good conduct in a manufacturer of weapons in this country. When this bill comes to the floor, the first amendment from our side will be the amendment to strip this verbiage from the bill. I am pleased to say I am joined in cosponsoring this by the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg. First, it is important to point out that no such preferences have been given. The thrust of this provision is based on a hypothetical. But it is based to be a deterrent. It is based to send a message. The message is to every manufacturer of weapons that there can be no reward in government if you manufacture safe guns. If you put trigger locks, if you have good, safe marketing practices, if you manufacture guns and see they are sold and distributed in a way to keep them out of the hands of children, people who are mentally deficient, or criminals-- that is the thrust of this amendment--to reduce the gun industry to its lowest possible common denominator all across the United States of America, that is the worst possible public policy. Members on both sides of this aisle should stand together and refute it. At least one company, Smith & Wesson, has agreed to adopt certain reasonable, responsible marketing practices. While this agreement was made under the threat of litigation, it is important to note that no dealer has to comply, and no measures have been forced on Smith & Wesson. Smith & Wesson has decided to take a responsible path to produce responsible policy, and for that this body would slap them on the hand. As a result of their effort, Smith & Wesson has allegedly been targeted by others in the gun industry that are unhappy with the agreement who say you can't march ahead of us; you can't do something right; we all want to be able to do something wrong. There has been talk of boycotts and anticompetitive behavior. In fact, I recently joined a number of my colleagues in writing to the Federal Trade Commission, asking them to look into these allegations. Given the determination of the National Rifle Association and its allies to stop any and all reasonable control of the flow of guns to criminals and children, I believe it would be dreadful to prevent the administration from encouraging agreements such as this one. Let me be clear. No one is saying that law enforcement should buy inferior weapons simply because the manufacturer has agreed to act responsibly. The fact is, Smith & Wesson produces very good weapons. I have certainly never been one to argue that we should leave law enforcement without adequate weaponry. But where technology and safety of guns are similar, it makes eminent sense to give preference to the manufacturer that has agreed to certain commonsense standards. I wish to take a few moments and go over a few of the details in the Smith & Wesson settlement document. This is what it looks like. First, under the agreement, all handguns and pistols will be shipped from Smith & Wesson with child-safety devices. Again, the juvenile justice bill would have made this provision unnecessary. But, again, that bill has gone nowhere. What would that do? In Memphis, TN, not too long ago, a 5-year-old took a weapon off of his grandfather's dresser. It was loaded. He took it to kindergarten to kill the kindergarten teacher because that youngster had been given a ``time out'' the day before. The gun was discovered because a bullet dropped out of his backpack--a 5-year-old child toting in his backpack a loaded pistol with no safety lock to kill the teacher because he had been given a ``time out'' the day before. With the safety lock, the gun would have been inoperable to that child. Another child in Michigan, a 6-year-old, has an argument with a child, brings a gun to school, and actually kills another 6-year-old. These may not be everyday events. But they would be prevented from happening if guns were made with smart technology and, prior to that, with safety locks. Also in the agreement, every handgun would be designed with a second hidden serial number. Why that? Because it prevents criminals from easily eradicating a serial number to impede tracing. How can we not support that? New Smith & Wesson models will be no longer able to accept any large- capacity magazine. What is important about that? That immediately limits the kill power of that weapon. The weapon can still be used for defense. But the drums of 250 or 75 rounds with clips of 30 rounds, which are there for one reason--to kill large numbers of people--would not be accepted into that gun. Within 2 years, every Smith & Wesson model would have a built-in, on- board locking system by which the firearm could only be operated with the key, or combination, or other mechanism unique to that gun. Two percent of Smith & Wesson's firearms revenue would be devoted to developing smart gun technology for all future gun models. What a good thing to have happen. Next, within a year of the agreement, each firearm would be designed so it could not be readily operated by a child under the age of six. This might include increasing the trigger-pull resistance, designing the gun so a small hand could not operate it, or perhaps requiring a sequence of actions to fire the gun that could not be easily accomplished by a 5-year-old. Who believes the Federal Government should not encourage manufacturers to make weapons so five- and six- year-olds cannot fire them? The agreement includes safety in manufacturing tests, such as minimum barrel length and firing tests to ensure that misfires, explosions, and cracks such as those found in Saturday night specials do not occur. A drop test is also included. I remember very well a major robbery in San Francisco where a police officer with a semiautomatic handgun went into the robbery, pulled out his weapon, and the clip dropped out. He was shot and killed. And I remember another incident where the gun was dropped and fired accidentally. Another provision: each pistol would have a clearly visible chamber load indicator, so that the user can see whether there is a round in the chamber. No new pistol design would be able to accept large-capacity ammunition clips. The packaging of new guns will include a safety warning regarding the list of unsafe storage and use. What a good thing, a gun manufacturer that will put a warning with the gun that says to the prospective gun owner: Understand this is a lethal weapon. Here is how to keep it safely. Put it in a cabinet which is secure and locked. Keep the ammunition separate from the gun. And we are going to prevent anyone who provides this from gaining any kind of preference? We give preference with merit pay. There are all kinds of preferences in Federal law. Yet we are to deny this to anybody who does the right thing and manufactures safe guns, smart guns, better guns. Under the agreement, any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson firearms would comply with a series of commonsense measures. Let me state what they are. Any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson firearms first agrees not to sell at any gun show unless all the sellers in the gun show provide background checks. What a responsible thing to do. Again, this provision would be unnecessary if Congress had simply passed the juvenile justice bill and sent it to the President for his signature because all sellers at all gun shows would already be performing background checks. That bill is stalled in conference, and this provision of the agreement is a small step in the right direction. Again, under the agreement, any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson firearms must carry insurance against liability for damage to property or injury to persons resulting in firearm sales. The same thing would apply if you had a swimming pool. You would have some liability insurance if a neighbor fell into the pool and drowned. This isn't asking too much. Any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson firearms must maintain an up-to-date and accurate set of records and must keep track of all inventory at all times. Any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson firearms must agree to keep all firearms within the dealership safe from loss or theft, including locking display cases and keeping guns safely locked during off hours. Ammunition must be stored separate from firearms. Any dealer wishing to sell Smith & Wesson must stop selling large- capacity ammunition feeding devices and assault weapons. This gun company has set itself in the vanguard of reform in the gun industry, and the Treasury-Postal bill coming before the Senate penalizes them for doing so. What kind of public policy is that? It simply says we are going to try, by law, to lower safety, regulation, careful record keeping, and all the things that are positive to the lowest possible denominator. We are not going to commend anybody who does the right thing. We are going to see they are not given preference. We are going to provide a disincentive to gun companies that want to do the right thing. More than any other piece of legislation I have seen, this shows the disingenuousness of those who say they are for some targeted gun regulations. This speaks to what this is all about, that there should remain one, and one industry only, without regulation, without any kinds of standards, and that is the gun industry. I think there is no better time to join this debate than in the upcoming Treasury-Postal bill. The amendment to strip this language from Treasury-Postal will be the first item of business of this side. Mr. President, I will make this agreement available to anyone from either side of this aisle who wants to inspect it. Mr. President, Senator Kennedy is a cosponsor of the amendment. I thank him, as well. I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for about 10 minutes.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, in May I stood on this floor and castigated the pharmaceutical industry for going behind the scenes and killing an amendment that Senator Feingold and I had introduced, and which was part of the African trade bill. They killed this amendment in conference. This amendment essentially would have allowed countries in the midst of a national HIV/AIDS emergency to use the cheapest possible drugs to fight that national health emergency by allowing the country to distribute the drugs through ``parallel importing'' and ``compulsory licensing.'' Fortunately, the President put forward an Executive order to carry out the intent of our amendment. Since that time, some substantial things have happened. Because I was so critical of the industry I feel it is only fitting that I always come to the floor and acknowledge those that have responded to the crisis. When Senator Feingold and I began this fight last fall, 6 months after the World Health Organization declared HIV/AIDS the most deadly infectious disease in the world, very few people were aware at the time of the scope of the devastation as a result of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, things have changed. Virtually not a day goes by without the media running a story about the HIV/AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. I will not recapitulate today all of the horrifying numbers behind this AIDS crisis. It suffices to say that more than 22 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, including over 30 percent of the adult population in many of the countries in the region. AIDS kills more than 2 million people a year in sub-Saharan Africa. The media, the public, and governments from around the world are now increasingly aware of the catastrophe that is unfolding on this continent. Of course, the pharmaceutical community is also aware. Today, I will discuss some of the positive steps the pharmaceutical industry is now taking to address this issue. I am very pleased and very grateful to see that the industry now recognizes its moral obligation and appears to be stepping up to the plate and taking the initiative to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa and other flashpoints throughout the developing world. On July 7, Boehringer Ingelheim announced that Nevirapine will be offered free of charge for a period of 5 years for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in developing countries. They actually said that any country that asks for the drug will obtain it for free. That is a huge step forward. Reducing mother-to-child transmission can literally save millions of lives and reduce the rate of increase of HIV/AIDS in the developing world. In South Africa alone, according to a study published in the Lancet on June 17, as many as 110,000 cases of HIV in infants could be prevented over the next 5 years if all pregnant women in South Africa take a short course of antiretroviral medication such as Nevirapine during labor. Today, I believe there are literally millions of orphans in Africa, orphans whose mothers, fathers, and families have died of AIDS, orphans who are living without food, without water. It is a devastating situation. The initiative by Boehringer Ingelheim is part of the collaborative effort between the United Nations, the World Bank, and five pharmaceutical companies. I salute them today. Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, Merck, and Hoffman-La Roche are now trying, together, to expand access to HIV/AIDS treatment in the developing world. They deserve to be saluted by this body. If efforts by the international community to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of the developing world are to be successful, they must be part of a coordinated effort, and that effort has to include education, prevention, and adequate health care infrastructure. They must also include access to affordable medication. This is where participation by the pharmaceutical industry is so essential. I am pleased to see that at long last pharmaceutical companies have recognized they have a profound social responsibility and moral obligation to meet the HIV/AIDS crisis, and that the lifesaving drugs they can provide are essential. We all know that AIDS drugs are extraordinarily costly. Therefore, access to low cost or generic drugs becomes critical. It is important, however, to sound a note of caution and place the initiatives of these pharmaceutical companies in perspective. According to Doctors' Without Borders, for example, past experience with the proposed Pfizer fluconazole donation shows that these programs sometimes come with conditions for national health ministries that make them unsustainable over the long term. Many of these conditions are worthy. For example, it is worthy that the drug companies actually try to prevent the distribution of these drugs on the black market, and I understand the requirement that these drugs only be dispensed by a physician. If a country doesn't have an adequate physician corps, it makes the dispensation of these drugs extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Because of these experiences, I believe it is critical that the United Nations and the national governments concerned work with the pharmaceutical companies to make sure that any future efforts, including Boehringer Ingelheim's offer on Nevirapine, do not include hidden conditions which may serve to undermine these important initiatives. Nevirapine, given in tablet form, as I understand it, does not have a lot of side effects and can be given in a way that encourages pregnant women throughout the continent to use it, and thereby in 90 percent of the cases prevent the transmission of the HIV virus to the unborn child. In addition, I believe alongside initiatives by the pharmaceutical industry, access to low cost and/or generic drugs embodied in the President's May 11 Executive Order is still very important. The few developing countries that have significant access to medicines for people with HIV/AIDS gained access by aggressively pursuing generic strategies. In Brazil, 80,000 people have been treated with generic drugs that have brought the cost of triple drug therapy down to approximately $1,000 a year. While in Uganda, where the Government was working with brand name drugs through a U.N. AIDS initiative, fewer than 1,000 people have been treated, due to cost constraints. Bringing the HIV/AIDS pandemic under control in sub-Saharan Africa and preventing HIV/AIDS from becoming a pandemic in other regions of the developing world is one of the great moral tests of our time. If governments, nonprofits, and the pharmaceutical industry work together, I believe we can control what will otherwise be the greatest preventable humanitarian catastrophe in history. Government and nonprofits are now beginning to take this crisis seriously. So are the pharmaceutical companies that produce drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. The offer by Boehringer Ingelheim to provide free Nevirapine to developing countries for 5 years to prevent mother-to- child transmission of HIV, and the creation of a coalition of five major manufacturers of HIV/AIDS drugs to work with the United Nations to deliver drugs to victims of this crisis, are major steps in the effort to control the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I just want to say I am very grateful. I believe this Senate should also salute this action. I would like to encourage other pharmaceutical companies to follow the example these five companies are setting. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wanted to thank the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia for those very inspirational remarks. He always amazes me, not only with his knowledge of history, but his knowledge of verse, his knowledge of literature, and, of course, his knowledge for the rules of the Senate. I want to personally thank him for those very stirring words.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to submit for the Record letters from two young children in support of the Breast Cancer Research Stamp. These children, Brendon Fisher, age 6 and a half, and Paige Fisher, age 8 and a half, are the nephew and niece of Betsy Mullen, Chairperson of the Women's Information Network--Against Breast Cancer. These letters eloquently state why it is so important to continue this program. The letters follow. July 16, 2000. Dear Congress, I think it's very important to keep the stamp because if we don't every girl is going to worry about it or maybe get breast cancer. But if we keep it we will get money to cure to stop it. My Aunt Betsey risked her life on it and I'm proud of her. If you think about it no one likes it because you can die from it. I think, and a lot of other people agree with me, that it would be best to keep the stamp and then things will go perfect. Hope my letter makes a difference because not just me is counting on this. By Paige Fisher, 8\1/2\ years old. Dear Congress, girls and boys can get breast cancer and I don't want girls and boys and the president and his wife, cat and dog to get sick. Keep the stamp going. From Brendon Fisher.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, yesterday this body lost one of its finest Members. I greet this day with a very heavy heart. Paul Coverdell was not only a good Senator, he was a good and decent man. I found him to be a very nice man. I worked with him closely as an original cosponsor of his Education Savings and School Excellence Act. I found him very dedicated and very easy to work with. I found him to be above political correctness; he strived to do what he believed would work and would help people. We shared a common interest. We worked together on many antinarcotics efforts. We debated together on certification. I was his Democratic cosponsor of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. We talked together about what was happening. We tried to plan together. I found him to have a deep and abiding knowledge about Mexico, Central America, and Latin America. He had a kind of energy, enthusiasm, and dedication well known on both sides of the aisle here in the Senate. He was never one to seek the spotlight, but all of us here know how hard he worked. He wasn't the proverbial ``show horse''--he was a workhorse. He was a man who served the people of Georgia and this Nation with great distinction. He worked all of his adult life in public service. Simply put, Paul Coverdell made this body a better place and a more collegial place. All one really had to do was spend time alone with him in an office and listen to him and his thoughts as he sought to frame and advance an issue. Senator Harkin was in the elevator as I came up this morning. He said: ``It's so hard because on Friday he was alive and well in the Senate and today he simply is not here.'' There is a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes--Chapter 5, verse 12--I will leave with the Senate: ``The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.'' Paul Coverdell, you have labored hard. Your sleep will be sweet.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Today I want to express my support for the NEA which plays an important role in preserving our culture and is funded in this bill. The bill before us provides $105 million for the NEA, an increase of $7.3 million over FY 2000. This is of vital importance to the survival of the arts in both California and in the United States. National interest in the arts continues to increase. The number of artists in America has more than doubled since 1970. Today, the arts industry supports nearly 1.3 million jobs nationally; 391,200 indirectly, and 908,800 directly. Despite this growth, the United States still spends nearly 50 times less on the arts than in any other countries: While the U.S. spends $6.00 per person on the arts, the United Kingdom spends $26.00; France spends $57.00; Finland spends up to $91.00. In 1999, NEA funded projects in every county in the state of California, awarding 210 grants totaling $5.6 million. To date, in FY 2000, the NEA has provided 225 grants in California, totaling $7.3 million. Here are three examples of how the National Endowment for the Arts helps preserve our national cultural heritage. This year, the NEA awarded a grant to the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture to support the Living Traditions Initiative. Living Traditions teaches a wide array of skills in music, dance, language arts, history, folklore, crafts and visual arts though classes, publications, recordings and the broadcast media. In 1999, the NEA funded a collaborative project of the Brooklyn, New York, Historical Society to increase public access to visual materials documenting Prospect Park, the location of the 1776 Battle of Long Island, the first major conflict between the Continental and British Armies in North America, following the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The project will increase a historic image database, produce a guide for the database and make it Internet accessible. In 1999, the NEA funded Documentary Arts, Inc. of Dallas, Texas, to support a series of films that explore the complexity of American life through the spoken word and community-based sounds of folk artists across the country. Preserving national and community culture is one way to encourage patriotism and a sense of community that can help combat the apathy that keeps people from actively involving themselves in the daily life of their community. The NEA can be a force to engage the imagination. The NEA funds arts education for children, such as these: The Magic Theater in San Francisco, promotes the Young California Writers Project, an educational program designed to support young playwrights. Class Act is a music education program in Orange County, California, elementary and middle schools supported by NEA. Stagebridge in Oakland, California, provides a literacy program for both children and adults. The National Book Foundation does literary outreach to link leading authors with underserved communities throughout the country. For example, American Voices brings established writers to American Indian reservations nationwide and conducts a summer writing camp for inner- city teens and adults. The MoveSpeakSpin program in Santa Cruz, California uses dance education activities as a tool in teaching curriculum subjects in math and science, subjects which often are difficult for children to learn. Given the demands on our school budgets in California, many school districts in California were forced to cut funding for music and art programs from their schools' curriculums. NEA funding in the schools helps assure that our children will still have access to arts education. Additionally, students who participate in the arts do notably better on standardized testing. Research from the 1995-1997 College Entrance Examination Board shows that students who studied the arts scored an average of 83 points higher than non-art students on the SAT. Arts can also provide a constructive outlet for young people. A three-year research study of YouthARTS, funded by the NEA and the U.S. Department of Justice in 1999, demonstrated that arts programs help decrease youth delinquency. Several NEA-funded projects have demonstrated this: NEA awarded a grant to the Richmond Art Center in California to support expansion of the ``Art Reach'' program for at-risk youths in West Contra Costa County. Creative Links: Positive Alternatives for Youth funds residency projects across the nation in which young people work with artists after school and during the summer. Programs are supported through arts organizations, community centers, low-income housing projects, tribal communities and juvenile facilities. By encouraging at-risk teens to express themselves through art instead of antisocial behavior, the NEA can help deter delinquency. For much of American history, art has been considered to be a ``luxury'' of the elite. Through traveling programs and other outreach programs, the NEA has made art accessible for Americans in all corners of the nation and to all economic strata. Here are some examples in California: The Rural Journeys Project, run partially by Independent Eye, Ltd. in Sebastopol provides residencies that offer performances from the repertoire and workshops to rural communities nationally. A grant to the Humboldt Arts Council in Humboldt supports a consortium of multi disciplinary arts workshops and activities to rural, low-income populations. A Fresno Arts Council program compiles and assesses data on the state's artistic resources, including identification of traditional artists, and the creation of a database and report on artistic resources and needs. NEA has opened up the artistic world to the visually and audibly impaired. Deaf West Theater Company in North Hollywood supports a multi- disciplinary production of ``Oliver,'' the musical, and production workshops in schools that serve deaf and disadvantaged youth. ARTREACH, Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, creates a Cultural Access Guide for the Disabled for the Greater Philadelphia region. The guide describes architecture and art for the physically disabled, blind, deaf, and hard of hearing populations to cultural venues. Many private organizations which fund art base their grants on the profitability of an artist or on their organizations' goals. The NEA gives special attention to underrepresented groups. Here are two examples: The NEA-funded Women's Philharmonic supports women conductors and music directors in leading national orchestras. The San Francisco group, American Indian Contemporary Arts, with NEA funding, mounts thematic exhibitions of contemporary Native American artists' work. Art is a ``language'' which crosses lines of race, ethnicity, culture, age, education, geography, and disability. Many of the projects which the NEA funds promote an understanding of our nation's diverse heritage: The Hmong Cultural Arts, Crafts, Teaching & Museum project in California provides instruction in Hmong Pa Dao embroidery and instruction in the ancient musical instruments of Kheng and Xee Xo. The Lake Tahoe Arts Project produces the Ballet Folclorico do Brasil The American Musical Theater of San Jose produces ``Musicals in the Neighborhood,'' multi-lingual musical performances that focuses on universal themes. Supporting arts representing different cultures is especially important to my state, the state with the most diverse population in the nation. Currently, California has 12 percent of the total population in the United States, 33 percent of the Hispanic population, 37 percent of the Asian/Pacific Islanders population, 7 percent of the African-American population, and 13 percent of the American Indian population. California is the true melting pot. By funding arts which express many cultures, the NEA helps to foster cultural understanding among these many groups. The NEA provides Americans with valuable cultural programs, with an impact far beyond art. Through its work, the NEA has made great contributions to preserving American culture, educating American citizens, and assuring equal access to the arts and arts funding. To continue reaping these benefits, we must continue to support the NEA.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank my colleague from California for her question. I assure her that I will work in conference to retain the Senator's amendment on pesticide use at the U.S. Capitol.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wisconsin for his clarification. The point he makes is essential to me. If I had not had the understanding with regard to the carryover basis that he has just indicated, I would not have supported the amendment.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am as upset by the gasoline price spikes as anyone else. I believe they are still very high in California, though prices have come down in my State from the highs they reached in March. Having said that, I feel obliged to oppose this amendment despite understanding the sentiment behind it. The problem with the amendment is that there is no way to guarantee that a reduction in the federal gasoline tax will be passed on to consumers. At least that's what the chief executive officers of the three major California refiners told me. Collectively, they produce 70 percent of California's gasoline. Earlier in the year, I called them. None could guarantee that a decrease in the gasoline tax would cause the same drop at the pump. They cited the fundamental problem with supply, and also pointed out that they have no control over other entities in the supply chain. Price is a function of supply and demand, not taxes and right now, world oil markets are extremely tight, so prices are high. The way to relieve the pressure on the market is to boost supply and reduce demand. With regard to supply, 14 nations sell oil to the U.S. under a cartel known as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. Like any monopoly, OPEC controls the price of oil by limiting supply. Decreased production in non-OPEC countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and Norway has also contributed to the squeeze. Since OPEC is not bound by U.S. law, there are only a few things the U.S. can do to encourage the cartel to increase supply. The preferred alternative is diplomacy. It takes several weeks for production increases to be felt at the pump in lower prices, and California has unique problems affecting its supply. No other State requires the kind of reformulated gasoline that California does. So the gasoline has to be refined in California, and California refiners have had problems--including two fires--operating their plants at full capacity. They are at full capacity now. As I said a moment ago, this amendment does not solve the problem of high gasoline prices. Under California law, if the federal gasoline tax drops by 9 cents per gallon or more, then the State tax automatically rises to off-set the federal decrease. The law is designed to protect the Highway Trust Fund. I have spoken with members of the California Legislature about this. They do not seem inclined to change the law. What are our options? The fact is, we have limited control over supply. Too much of the world's oil is produced elsewhere. The one thing we can control is demand. The best way to reduce demand is to require that sports utility vehicles, SUVs, and light duty trucks get the same fuel efficiency that passenger vehicles do. If SUVs and light duty trucks had the same fuel efficiency standards as passenger cars, the U.S. would use one million fewer barrels of oil each day. This is roughly equal to the U.S. shortfall before OPEC increased production. The Department of Transportation is responsible for setting fuel efficiency requirements under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, CAFE, program. About two-thirds of all petroleum used goes to transportation, so boosting fuel efficiency is an important way to wean ourselves off OPEC oil and reduce the price motorists pay for gasoline. Consider, too, the significant environmental and health benefits of higher fuel efficiency. But CAFE standards have not increased since the mid-1980s. And the situation is made worse by a loophole in the CAFE regulations. SUVs and light duty trucks--which are as much passenger vehicles as station wagons and sedans--are only required to average 20.7 miles per gallon per fleet versus 27.5 miles per gallon for automobiles. Since half of all new vehicles sold in this country are fuel-thirsty SUVs and light duty trucks, this stranglehold on energy efficiency has produced an American fleet with the worst fuel efficiency since 1980. We are going backwards! According to the non-partisan American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the U.S. saves 3 million barrels of oil a day because of CAFE standards. Close the SUV loophole, as I said a moment ago, and save another million barrels each day. Overall, SUV and light duty truck owners spend an extra $25 billion a year at the pump because of the ``SUV loophole.'' Making SUVs and light duty trucks get better gas mileage would save their owners some $640 at the pump each year when the price of gasoline averages $2 per gallon. The bottom line is that eliminating some or all of the federal gasoline tax will not lower prices at the pump. The best way to do that is to reduce our demand. The best way to reduce demand is to increase the gas mileage requirements for SUVs and light duty trucks.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the repeal of the estate tax. I support the repeal of the estate tax because, on a very basic and fundamental level, I believe that the estate tax is unfair. In some respects, for example, the estate tax amounts to double taxation, taxing, at times at a confiscatory rate in excess of 50 percent, assets which were already taxed when the income was earned. Regardless of how much or how little, if you have earned money, and paid taxes on it, you ought to be able to pass it on to your children without it being taxed yet again. I also believe that it is critical to our continued economic growth and prosperity that small business owners and family farmers be given every incentive to work and grow their business, and to be able to pass those businesses on to their children to run and grow. If a family works for years to establish and grow a business, an heir should not find that they are forced to sell the business simply to pay taxes on it, or that they must assume a crushing debt burden--which may well make the continued survival of the business untenable--simply to pay the taxes. That is not fair, not right, and not what the American dream is all about. In addition, because of soaring real estate prices, the estate tax is unfair to many middle class residents of my state who never thought, planned, or expected to find themselves subject to the estate tax. And the simple fact of the matter is that they should not be subject to the estate tax. As I am sure many of my colleagues are aware, in recent years housing prices in California have gone through the roof. Modest two and three bedroom houses in many parts of California now sell for close to three- quarters of a million dollars. These are not mansions, but simple and straightforward middle class houses--two or three bedrooms, perhaps a small back yard--in modest neighborhoods. But because of the soaring value of their homes, many middle class families with modest incomes now find that they would be faced with having to pay estate taxes simply because of the value of their family home. With few other assets other than their primary residences, a parent who wanted to pass on the family home to his or her children would find that their children would be forced to sell the family house simply to pay the estate taxes on the house itself. That is not fair and that is not right. Mr. President, I can think of few things that this Congress can do in addressing tax reform this year that are more important than repealing the estate tax. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in support of estate tax repeal.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to add my support to the amendment of the distinguished Senator from New Mexico. I think this amendment is both needed and timely. It would provide emergency funding to address what has become a very dangerous fuel buildup on millions of acres of national forests. In April of this year, the General Accounting Office released a report entitled ``Protecting People and Sustaining Resources in Fire Adapted Ecosystems, a Cohesive Strategy.'' The underpinning of this report is this comment: The most expensive and serious problem relating to the health of national forests in the interior west is the over- accumulation of vegetation. The report goes on to say that throughout much of the interior west, dense vegetation and dead material is continuing to accumulate. Each year in the absence of treatment, more forests become high risk, choked with dense accumulations of small trees and dead wood. These accumulations of fuel and more damaging fires are more dangerous and more costly to control, especially during drought years. As the GAO report points out, many experts attach a sense of urgency to the management of these ecosystems. Because of the high proportion of the total area classified as high risk--in this report it is what is called class 3--combined with the fact that without treatment more vegetation will grow into these high-risk conditions, it is apparent that time is running out for a strategy to successfully avert high cost/high loss consequences. That is the backdrop for this amendment. The amendment would provide emergency funding to move ahead on this program. Because dead and dying and small-diameter trees and thick underbrush have accumulated in our national forests, the possibility of serious and highly destructive forest fires have dramatically increased. Without any action on our part, it is going to continue to increase in the future. Senator Domenici, several of our colleagues, and I share the belief that we have a true emergency on our hands. The Forest Service has identified 24 million acres of land in the continental United States as being at the absolute highest level of catastrophic fire risk. Almost fully one-third of this--7.8 million acres--lies in California. That is more than any other State. Last year in my State--and we counted it forest fire by forest fire-- over 700,000 acres of forest burned down. Several people lost their lives and dozens of structures were burned. Seventy-thousand of these acres were prime California spotted owl habitat in the Lassen and Plumas Forests. Last year, $365 million was spent nationally by the Federal Government putting out fires and rehabilitating the land. Of this, $144 million, or approximately one-half of the U.S. total, was spent in one State; that is, California. I think the money would be much better spent preventing fire rather than cleaning up after that fire. The entire Sierra Nevada mountain range national forests continue to be classified as the highest fire risk. This includes the newly designated Sequoia Monument, over 361,000 acres. It includes the Plumas and Lassen Forests in and around Quincy, where forest fires in the past have destroyed homes and businesses and spotted owl habitat. It includes areas such as the Lake Tahoe Basin, where one-third of the forests are either dead or dying. And the probability of major fire conflagration remains and grows each year. Such a fire would permanently destroy the water quality of the lake. Through the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. population was predominantly spread out and agrarian. Forest fires burned naturally at fairly predictable intervals, and they burned hot enough to restrict encroaching vegetation and prevent fuel from loading up on the ground but not hot enough to kill old growths. Forests in the United States survived in this fashion for literally thousands of years. By the middle of the 20th century, however, an increasing population began to occupy new urban wild land zones on what had once been forests. Suddenly, forest fires had to be put out or suppressed in order to protect the surrounding communities. It seemed intuitive to simply continue fighting fires as they arose and leave the forests untouched. So nothing was done to groom the forests, to remove dead and dying trees, to reduce undergrowth, to prevent subsequent conflagrations. What is called ``fuel load'' has grown to astronomic proportions in many of our national forests. Dead and dying trees, which were no longer consumed by fire, lingered while brush began to build up at ground level. Newer, different species of trees, no longer stifled by natural fire, began to crowd out some of the older growth trees. Forests became crowded and severely fire prone. Anyone who wants to look at that should get a copy of this report. On page 23 of the report it points out how our forests have changed in species composition and forest structure. The first picture taken is the forest in 1909. We see old growth trees; we see them spaced; we see very little vegetation on the ground. That is because there had been these hot, fierce fires in the past. Next is a 1948 photo of that same part of the forest. We see changes. We see changes in the species composition, the structure, as fire had been excluded for many years. In a picture in 1990, the area is totally dense and we cannot see through it. At that time--and most of our forests are like this now--we had an overabundance of vegetation. This stresses the site and predisposes the area to infestation from pests, disease outbreaks, and, of course, catastrophic fire. That is where we are today. It is evident to me that the Forest Service's decade-old policy of fire suppression has failed. It is time to look anew at how we can better manage our forests. In California, for example, fire-intolerant Douglas and white fir have grown underneath old growth ponderosa pine. What is the result? The newer firs, which are not resistant to fire, create potential fuel ladders that permit a fire to reach the top, or what is called the crown, of old growths for the first time. Old growth pine which previously was impervious to fire, since rarely did a fire ever reach all the way up to its crown--with this new fuel ladder, fire threats to old growth pine have become very real. Drought periods have further stressed the forests, predisposing them to infestations of pests, disease, and of course severe wildfire. The bark beetle has gone through the Tahoe forests like a forest fire. One can see miles of forests standing dead after an infestation. The dead trees remain, year after year after year. California forests provide homes for dozens of endangered and threatened species, including the marbled murrelet and the spotted owl. It is an understatement to say that today the risk of fire is the most serious threat to these species. I really believe that to be true. It may be the most immediate short-term environmental threat our western forests face. That is why this amendment and this funding is so important. It is imperative that the Forest Service use all available tools to clean up the forests and reduce fire risks. The one-size-fits-all approach of the Forest Service, I believe, must be changed. Each forest is different. Topography is different, geography is different, climate is different, soils are different, vegetation is different, the kind and type of trees are different, in different places throughout the United States. What is proper stewardship for a California forest may not be proper stewardship in Pennsylvania or Alaska or Montana. We have to look at the area and look at the fire risk differently. A flexibility of management must be employed to fix the problem. Dead and dying trees should be removed. Overgrowth should be thinned. Mechanical treatment and controlled burns must each be used separately and carefully in conjunction with each other. If we don't do this, incidents of serious fire will only continue to increase. As I said, it is only a matter of time before a cataclysmic fire strikes Lake Tahoe, with potential loss of life, habitat, and property. Already, run-off and problems associated with erosion have threatened Lake Tahoe's world-renowned crystal blue waters. The last time I was there, scientists told me that if we don't reverse the trend of eutrophication of the water, which removes its clear crystal blue look, in 10 years it will be too late and we might as well not bother. A serious fire could make this happen even sooner. This amendment helps provide funding to remove dead and dying trees from Lake Tahoe National Forest where almost one-third of that forest today is dead or dying. Last year, Senators Reid, Boxer, Bryan, and Congressman Doolittle, Congressman Gibbons, and I introduced the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act to authorize the necessary funding to deal with this problem. It is very timely that this bill will be marked up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday and has already been marked up at the subcommittee level in the House. The Domenici-Feinstein amendment could be used in that forest. It could almost be used in the Quincy area. In 1998, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Quincy Library Group Project. This legislation authorized a 5-year demonstration project based on the forest management plan assembled by the Quincy Library Group, a coalition of local environmentalists, public officials, timber industry representatives, and just plain concerned citizens who came together in the Quincy Library so they could not yell at each other, to resolve longstanding conflicts over timber management of national forests in the area. The project, which is only a pilot, is to see if there is not a better way to manage our forests by combining strategic fuel breaks with selected mechanical thinning and controlled burn. I have had some disagreements with the Forest Service in the past over Quincy, but I believe the project is back on track and I am determined to see, if I can, that funding is appropriated to complete the project to the letter of the law. I want to quickly speak about one other thing. One of the possibly most cataclysmic fires could occur in the newly designated Sequoia National Monument. This is about 366,000 acres. Once the monument was declared, two timber mills closed down. I have been working with the community in that area to be able to put forward a removal of hazardous fuels. These trees are the largest trees in the world. Around these large trees have built up this dense underbrush, this fuel load that I have spoken about. If this is not removed, this underbrush creates the kind of fuel ladder that can effectively destroy the Sequoias. The State of California additionally has prepared an adaptive management plan and had been working in the Sequoia area. What they showed was, as you clear certain limited areas around the giant Sequoias, that the giant Sequoias actually grew bigger and grew fatter and were much healthier for it. It is my hope that over the next few years we can reduce the fuel loading on 24 million acres that the Forest Service has identified as being at this level 3. Level 3 is the most significant fire threat. Then focus on the other 18 million acres at jeopardy. Let me just recount. One-third of all of the national forests at catastrophic fire level in the United States are in the State of California. It is the entire Sierra Nevada range, it is the Sequoia, it is part of the Plumas and Lassen National Forests, and of course the Tahoe National Forest. There is, indeed, a lot to be done if we are not only to protect our endangered species but also protect the property and the people who live in these areas as well. I think Senator Domenici's legislation is timely. It is well thought out. I think making this an emergency and moving in the class 3 areas and being able to remove this underbrush is a major step forward in prudent forestry management all throughout the West. I thank the Senator. It was a delight to work with him. I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing legislation designed to eliminate injuries and deaths that result from crib accidents. While there are strict guidelines on the manufacture and sale of new cribs, there are still 25 to 30 million unsafe cribs sold throughout the U.S. in ``secondary markets,'' such as thrift stores and resale furniture stores. These cribs should be taken off the market, and either made safe, or destroyed. There are a number of reasons why unsafe cribs should be taken off the market: Each year, at least 45 children die from injuries sustained in cribs. That is almost one child a week. The number of deaths from crib incidents exceeds deaths from all other nursery products combined. Over 9,000 children are hospitalized each year as a result of injuries sustained in cribs. To illustrate the need for this legislation, I want to share with you the story of Danny Lineweaver. At the age of 23 months, Danny was injured during an attempt to climb out of his crib. Danny caught his shirt on a decorative knob on the cornerpost of his crib and hanged himself. Though his mother was able to perform CPR the moment she found him, Danny lived in a semi-comatose state for nine years and died in 1993. This injury and subsequent death could have been prevented. Since Danny's accident, we have passed laws mandating safety standards for the manufacture of new cribs. But this is not enough. There are nearly four million infants born in this country each year, but only one million new cribs sold. As many as half of all infants are placed in secondhand, hand-me-down, or heirloom cribs--cribs that are sold in thrift stores or resale furniture stores. These cribs may be unsafe, and may in fact threaten the life of the infants placed in them. This legislation requires thrift stores and retail furniture stores to remove decorative knobs on the cornerposts of cribs before selling those cribs. Additionally, the bill prohibits hotels and motels from providing unsafe cribs to guests, or risk being fined up to $1,000. The Infant Crib Safety Act makes the sale of used, unsafe cribs illegal. I hope my colleagues will join me in putting a stop to preventable injuries and deaths resulting from unsafe cribs.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Ms. Rebecca Ryan, who recently retired after more than twenty years of teaching in the South San Francisco Unified School District. Ms. Ryan is a shining example of what a dedicated teacher can do. Becky Ryan began her teaching career in 1972 in the South San Francisco Unified School District. After 28 years, she is ending a career that has been filled with many accomplishments. With over twenty years of experience teaching English as a Second Language Classes, Becky recognized that many immigrant parents, because of their inability to speak English, were reluctant to become involved in their children's education. This lack of parental involvement was detrimental to the children, and led her to found the Spruce Literacy Project at Spruce Elementary School in South San Francisco. This unique program teaches immigrant parents, mostly mothers, how to read, write, and speak English. With a better understanding of the English language, parents are able to more fully participate not only in their children's education, but also in their local communities. The profound effect the Spruce Literacy Project has had was most evident last year, when the mothers she taught banded together to oppose funding cuts to the program. Becky has been praised for her can do spirit and her encouragement of students. She has truly made a lasting impact on her students. She has spent her career helping to open doors to those who would have otherwise found them closed. A good teacher affects many lives, and the greatest compliment I can give to Rebecca Ryan is that she helped so many students become productive and successful citizens. Mr. President, I ask that an article from the Friday, June 9 edition of the San Mateo County Times on Ms. Ryan's retirement be reprinted in the Congressional Record following my statement. [From the San Mate County Times, June 9, 2000] Breaking Barriers and Forging Bonds (By Laura Linden) South San Francisco--Many teachers upon retirement can look back and know that they had a positive influence on their students. But perhaps few have helped students make such profound life transformations as Rebecca Ryan, founder of the Spruce Literacy Project at Spruce Elementary School. Through the program, Ryan has taught dozens of immigrant parents, mostly Spanish-speaking mothers, how to speak, read and write English. The idea is the parents will get involved with their kids' educations once the language barrier is knocked down. But according to several mothers who attended a retirement breakfast for Ryan on Wednesday, her work has radiated outward, affecting every corner of their lives. Ryan, a petite Anglo with energy to burn and a deft command of Spanish, has pumped the women up with praise and encouragement, propelling them into American society with a fearless attitude. ``I'm not afraid of anything now,'' said 30-year-old Carmen Reyes, whose child attends Spruce Elementary. Reyes' outlook is a psychological world away from the way she felt when she arrived in this country in 1986 with zero English skills and a lot of fear about a society she didn't understand. ``I was scared for everything, everybody,'' she recalled. Other mothers echoed this sentiment. Before taking the literacy class, rites of parenthood like teacher-parent conferences or PTA meetings were unfathomable, they said. The thought of meeting with a teacher, principal or doctor gripped them with fear. They were worried and frustrated when they could not read a letter sent home from school. Often they were too shy, or even ashamed, to try to find out what it was about. So assured are these women now that when the district threatened to cut the Spruce Literacy Project last year, the mothers vociferously rallied to save it. They are also in the midst of a fund-raising drive to replace Spruce Elementary's dilapidated and unsafe kindergarten playground. The women still grapple with English, but they've learned that stumbling through the language is the only way to get better. ``I can go to the doctor and to the dentist and the bank. I don't need much help,'' said 27-year-old Cristina Rodriguez, who immigrated from Mexico when she was 15 but only recently learned to write. Her newfound skills helped her move up from dishwasher to server at Denny's, she said. Ryan started teaching English-as-a-second-language classes in the South San Francisco Unified District in 1972 and still wears a ring that students gave to her that year. A few of those students were at the breakfast on Wednesday. ``It's so great to see how well they've done,'' Ryan said. ``One woman's son has graduated from Stanford, another one's child became a doctor.'' When asked why she is retiring, Ryan just said ``it's time.'' She said she will keep in touch with her former students through sewing and reading groups. Teaching ESL for 20 years, Ryan saw that parents were avoiding contact with their kids' schools. She decided that the cultural and language barriers hurt the school as much as the families and founded Spruce Literacy Project in 1992 with a grant from the Peninsula Community Foundation. The program will continue with a new teacher next year, Ryan said. On the Spruce Elementary campus, the program is a convenience for the mothers who take their children to class and then head to their own class down the hall. Gladis Pacheco, 39, said two years of the literacy classes helped her land a good job for Catholic Charities in San Francisco. She came to this country from El Salvador 18 years ago and for most of those years she avoided speaking English. ``In my country I was a secretary but here I was a maid,'' she said. Now she can help her three young children with their homework. Her daughter, Martha, sent a letter to Ryan thanking her for teaching her mom English. ``It was so cute, I didn't even know that she did that,'' Pacheco said. Perhaps the best part is knowing the children are proud of you, Rodriguez said. ``My daughter was sad before when I couldn't speak English but now she's happy,'' she said. Perhaps the best example of Ryan's 28 years in the district is the Flores family. Alejandro Flores, 20, and Florisela Flores, 23, took ESL classes from Ryan when they were in elementary school. Now students at San Francisco State University, the siblings say they gained a sense of well-being from Ryan that continues to this day. ``I was a silent kid, very lonely. But (Ryan) was so nice to me. I liked computers and she rewarded me with computer time,'' said Alejandro, who along with his studies runs a Web design company with a friend. Florisela said she wouldn't be studying three majors with the intention of getting a master's degree in computer science if Ryan hadn't shown her the power of persistence 15 years ago.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce this bill today to designate the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto mountain range in southern California as a National Monument. This bill was introduced by Congresswoman Mary Bono earlier in the year. An almost identical version of this bill was passed out of the House Resources Committee earlier in the week. The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains contain nationally significant biological, cultural, recreational, geological, educational, and scientific values. This includes magnificent vistas, unique wildlife and mountains which rise from the desert floor to an elevation of almost eleven thousand feet. These mountains provide a picturesque backdrop for Coachella Valley communities and support a wide array of recreational opportunities. The bill designates this environmentally sensitive area as a monument and instructs the Department of Interior and the Forest Service to craft a management plan. The bill protects the rights of individual land owners, Native American tribes, and all lands outside the monument boundary. It protects the environment and preserves property rights. The bill has bipartisan support and supported by most of the local community. This bill is quite timely. Three hundred and fifty-five thousand acres of the Sequoia National Forest were designated a national monument by President Clinton on April 15. Over the sixty-day period preceding the designation, many members of the affected community expressed significant opposition to the monument designation. I came to believe that when possible, Congress is in the best position to decide monument and other land use designations and can best ensure that stakeholders affected by such a designation have ample opportunity to provide input, influence the process and understand the designation. I believe this bill is the proper way to protect this majestic national resource.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce this bill today to designate the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto mountain range in southern California as a National Monument. This bill was introduced by Congresswoman Mary Bono earlier in the year. An almost identical version of this bill was passed out of the House Resources Committee earlier in the week. The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains contain nationally significant biological, cultural, recreational, geological, educational, and scientific values. This includes magnificent vistas, unique wildlife and mountains which rise from the desert floor to an elevation of almost eleven thousand feet. These mountains provide a picturesque backdrop for Coachella Valley communities and support a wide array of recreational opportunities. The bill designates this environmentally sensitive area as a monument and instructs the Department of Interior and the Forest Service to craft a management plan. The bill protects the rights of individual land owners, Native American tribes, and all lands outside the monument boundary. It protects the environment and preserves property rights. The bill has bipartisan support and supported by most of the local community. This bill is quite timely. Three hundred and fifty-five thousand acres of the Sequoia National Forest were designated a national monument by President Clinton on April 15. Over the sixty-day period preceding the designation, many members of the affected community expressed significant opposition to the monument designation. I came to believe that when possible, Congress is in the best position to decide monument and other land use designations and can best ensure that stakeholders affected by such a designation have ample opportunity to provide input, influence the process and understand the designation. I believe this bill is the proper way to protect this majestic national resource.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the bill the Senate is considering today addresses some of the nation's most pressing problems and is very important to my state, the largest state in the nation, with a population of 34 million people. California's schools face huge challenges--low test scores, crowded classrooms, teacher shortages, booming enrollments, decrepit buildings. California has 5.8 million students, more students than 36 states have in total population and one of the highest projected enrollments in the US. California has 40 percent of the nation's immigrants; we have 50 languages in some schools. Many of California's students have low test scores and are taught by uncredentialed teachers. At the college level, the University of California has the most diverse student body in the US. Federal programs provide nearly 55 percent of all student financial aid funding that UC students received. Our colleges and universities are facing ``Tidal Wave II,'' the demographic bulge created by children of the baby boomers who will inundate California's colleges and universities between 2000 and 2010 because the number of high school graduates will jump by 30 percent. Our needs are huge. I am pleased that the bill before us increases education by $4.6 billion over last year. The federal share of elementary-secondary education funding has declined from 14 percent in 1980 to 6 percent in 1999. Devoting more resources to education is critical in my state. On May 17, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the California Department of Education charging that many of our students do not have the bare essentials for getting an education, basics like textbooks, school supplies, libraries, computers, and credentialed teachers. In some classes, there are not enough seats or desks, the air conditioning and heating systems are broken and the roofs leak. I do not know what the outcome of this suit will be, but it is certainly a sad commentary on the state of our schools. Clearly, we need to do more and this bill makes a start. The bill increases the Title I program, the program for disadvantaged students, by $278 million. I am grateful that the committee included two of my requests relating to what is called the ``hold harmless'' provision. In 1994, Congress put in the law a requirement that the Department of Education annually update the number of poor children so that the allocation of funds would truly reflect the most recent count of poor children. This is a very important provision to growing states like mine. However, despite my opposition, the hold harmless provision has been included in the last three annual appropriations bills and this bill today, effectively overriding the census update requirement and locking in historic funding amounts for states despite the change in the number of poor children. Secretary Riley said--I whole-heartedly agree--that ``a basic principle in targeting should be to drive funds to where the poor children are, not to where they were a decade ago.'' Because of the hold harmless, my state has lost over $120 million since 1998 and I am disappointed that my efforts to totally eliminate it were not successful. Nevertheless, I appreciate the inclusion of two provisions: (1) a provision that says that the Department of Education cannot apply the Title I ``hold harmless'' to other programs that use the Title I formula in whole or in part; and (2) a provision clarifying that the ``hold harmless'' will not apply to any ``new'' funds, funds exceeding the FY 2000 level. These are steps forward. Head Start is one of the most important federal programs because it has the potential to reach children early in their formative years when their cognitive skills are just developing. Many studies have confirmed the significance of bringing positive influences to early brain development. But we know that poor children disproportionately start school behind their peers. They are less likely to be able to count or to recite the alphabet. Providing low-income children with access to programs that encourage cognitive learning and prepare them to enter school ready to learn is important. Head Start has the potential to reach every low-income child, to help every eligible child learn in the pre-school years. The addition of $1 billion in this bill for Head Start could enroll 1 million more children by 2002, a 19 percent increase over last year. This is good first step. Nationwide, only 42 percent of eligible children participate in the Head Start program. I would like to see 100 percent of all eligible children enrolled. I think we can do it. California has 764,462 poor children age 5 and under in poverty, but we are only serving 13 percent of eligible children. We must do better. The Rand Corporation has found that for every dollar invested in early childhood learning programs, taxpayers save between $4 and $7 later by reducing the need for alcohol and drug treatment programs, special education programs, mental health services, and the likelihood of incarceration. The proposed $1 billion increase is a good step to ensuring that every child gets a head start. I firmly believe, however, that we must do more with the proposed $1 billion increase than merely enroll more children in the program. We must continue to improve the Head Start program such that children leave the program able to count to ten, to recognize sizes and colors, and can begin to recite the alphabet, to name a few indicators of cognitive learning. We must also continue to raise the standards and pay of Head Start teachers. We also need to recruit qualified Head Start teachers who have demonstrated knowledge and teaching skills in reading, writing, early childhood development, and other areas of the preschool curriculum. Having qualified teachers is a critical way to jump-start cognitive learning and ensure that our youngsters start elementary school ready to learn. I am disappointed that the bill ``flat funds'' (provides no increases) for helping newly immigrant children. Appropriations were $150 million in 1998, $150 million in 1999, and $150 million in 2000 and in this bill. California receives $180.00 for each eligible immigrant child which hardly begins to address the needs these children bring to the classroom. These are the most at-risk of all children. They speak another language; their schooling has been interrupted and they have huge adjustment challenges. We can do better. It is disappointing that the bill does not specifically include the President's initiatives on school construction and class size reduction. These are long overdue. The bill does include in the Title VI block grant $2.7 billion that local districts can use to reduce class sizes and/or to build schools. This will help my state. California will need 300,000 new teachers by 2010. Eleven percent or 30,000 of our 285,000 teachers are on emergency credentials. For school construction, modernization and deferred maintenance, California needs $16.5 billion by 2004. Two million California children go to school today in 86,000 portable classrooms. California started reducing class sizes in grades K-3 in the 1996- 1997 school year. We had then and we still have some of the largest class sizes in the country. And every parent knows that the smaller the class the more individualized attention students receive and the more effective the teacher can be. I am pleased to see the increase of $817 million for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Quality, affordable child care helps keep low-income working parents employed and off welfare. The increase in child care funds will help increase the number of available child care ``slots'' and improve the quality of this care. Health care is another important concern of Californians that is addressed in this bill in several ways. The California health care system is on the brink of collapse. In my state, 38 hospitals have closed since 1996 and 15 percent more may close by 2005. Over half my state's hospitals are losing money. Seismic safety requirements add more cost strains. We have an uninsured rate of 24 percent (7.3 million people), far above the national rate of 18 percent. Despite a thriving economy, the number of Californians without health insurance grows by 50,000 per month. California has the second highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the US. While the AIDS death rate has declined, it is still too high; 40,000 new infections develop each year. In California, 100,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. California ranks 37th overall among states having children immunized by the age of 18 to 24 months. For NIH, with a 15 percent increase or $2.7 billion, this bill will keep us on the path toward doubling NIH over five years. Even though Congress has given NIH generous increases in the last two years, NIH in 2000 can only fund 31 percent of grant proposals. Investing in biomedical research has given us longer lives, healthier lives, and cures and new treatments and insights into diseases ranging from asthma to Alzheimers. This is an area of governmental activity that Americans overwhelmingly support. Fifty-five percent of Californians said they would pay more in taxes for more medical research. This bill increases cancer funding by almost $500 million, raising the National Cancer Institute to $3.8 billion. Dr. Richard Klausner, Director of NCI, indicated during the Subcommittee's hearing on funding for NIH that in order to fund all the meritorious grant applicants NCI would need a 20 percent increase in funding. I am hopeful that the increase in this bill will bring us closer to a cure and will give us the tools to better treat the 1.2 million Americans that will face cancer this year. While the National Cancer Institute is making great strides in understanding cancer and how to treat cancer, cancer is still the second leading cause of death for all Americans, meaning that one of every four people dies of cancer. Fifty percent of Americans have had someone close them die from cancer. There are 1.2 million new cases each year. Over 552,000 Americans will die from cancer this year. Because of the aging of our population, the incidence of cancer will continue to grow and reach staggering proportions by 2010, with a 29 percent increase in incidence and a 25 percent increase in deaths, at a cost of over $200 billion per year. The cancer burden will balloon especially in the next 10 to 25 years as the country's demographics change. Why invest more in cancer research? The Cancer March Research Task Force said we could reduce cancer deaths from 25 to 40 percent over the next 20 year period, saving 150,000 to 225,000 lives each year. Other areas that could be enhanced are bringing new cancer drugs from the laboratory to clinical trials; continuing to identify genes involved in cancer; improving our understanding of the interaction between genes and environmental exposures; finding new ways to detect cancers earlier when they are small, not invasive and more easily treated. We must also improve participation in cancer clinical trials. Medicare beneficiaries account for more than 50 percent of all cancer diagnoses and 60 percent of all cancer deaths, but only three to four percent participate in clinical trials. Hopefully, with the increases in this bill, NIH can improve recruitment into clinical trials to advance science toward more cures. I am disappointed that the bill moves FY 1998 funds for the Children's Health Insurance Program to 2003. Unfortunately, 37 states, including mine, have not been able to enroll children as quickly as they had hope and have not used all the funds we provided. Without this bill, California's unspent CHIP funds would be redistributed to other states. Under this bill, states will have until October 1 to spend their 1998 CHIP funds and funds allotted to my state to insure children will not go to other states, as they would without this bill. We must do more to ensure that all children are fully-immunized by the age of 2. While the bill has $524 million for CDC's program, a 14 percent increase over last year, it falls $75 million short of providing the resources necessary to conduct adequate community outreach in under-served areas, parental and provider education about new vaccines, and the development and operation of state-based immunization registries, and $10 million short of providing adequate funding for the purchase of vaccines. Do we really want our children to get polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella, and whooping cough--diseases for which we have effective vaccines, diseases which we have practically eradicated by widespread immunization? My State ranks 37th overall among States having children fully immunized by the age of 18 to 24 months. According to an Annie E. Casey Foundation report, 28 percent of California's two-year old children are not immunized. Every parent knows that vaccines are fundamental to a child's good health. However, some families do not have access to vaccines through health insurance. Congress must make certain there is adequate funding for immunization programs so that all children are immunized against disease. The bill increases funds for the Ryan White CARE Act by $55 million, for a total of $1.6 billion. This is important to thousands of Americans with HIV/AIDS. Since 1990, the CARE Act has helped establish a comprehensive, community-based continuum of care for uninsured and under-insured people living with HIV and AIDS. People who would not otherwise have access to care are able to receive medical care, drugs, and support services. The CARE Act is particularly important to communities of color. AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American men and the second leading cause of death among African American women between the ages of 25 and 44. By comparison, AIDS is the fifth leading cause of death among all Americans in this age group. A disproportionate number of African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos are also living with AIDS. Whereas African Americans represent only 13 percent of the total U.S. population, they represent 36 percent of reported AIDS cases. Likewise, Latinos represent 9 percent of the population but 17 percent all of AIDS cases. We must do more to target prevention efforts and funding for CARE Act services to the communities most heavily impacted; minority and under-served communities. Two of California's largest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, are among the top four metropolitan cites with the highest number of AIDS cases in the United States. Through the CARE Act, Los Angeles has provided services to over 43,160 clients since 1996. San Francisco has provided services to 47,440 since 1996. I am disappointed that the Committee's recommendation provides for $70 million less for Ryan White AIDS programs than requested by the administration. We should fully fund the CARE Act. The CARE Act is more important now than ever. The epidemic is not over. In fact, it is reaching into lower-income communities, affecting more women and minorities than previously. HIV/AIDS remains a health emergency in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 40,000 new cases are reported annually. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 650,000 and 900,000 Americans are currently infected with HIV while the number of AIDS cases has nearly doubled over the past five years. Community health center programs are the ``medical home'' to millions of uninsured and low-income individuals. Current resources only allow health centers to serve 10 percent of the Nation's 44 million uninsured. This is troubling given that the number of our Nation's uninsured continues to grow at a rate of 100,000 per month. At this rate, by 2008 we can expect our nation's uninsured to reach 58 million. As the number of uninsured continues to grow, community health centers will become even more important as more people will rely on these centers to access health care. Community health centers are the backbone of our Nation's safety-net. I am committed to doubling funding for these centers over the next five years. This requires an increase of at least 15 percent in each of the next five years, including an increase of $150 million in 2001. Although the $100 million increase in the bill is a good step, it is not enough. We need to add $50 million to the program to meet this goal. Community health centers are vital to California's 7.3 million uninsured. Over 80 of California's clinics are located in under served areas and provide primary and preventive services to 10 percent of the uninsured people in the state. With a much needed increase in funding, these clinics could provide care to more of my State's uninsured. The care provided by health centers reduces hospitalizations and emergency room use, reduce annual Medicaid costs, and help prevent more expensive chronic disease and disability. Increasing appropriations to health centers makes good sense. I am disappointed in the cuts in the bill to train health professionals. Almost one in five Californians lives in a health professions shortage area. We are facing a nursing shortage and will need 43,000 more nurses by 2010, which is a conservative estimate based on a projected 23 percent increase in the state's population. I hope these cuts will be restored. The bill reported by the Committee funds the Social Services Block Grant at $600 million or 75 percent less than the authorized level of $1.7 billion. This drastic reduction in funding for SSBG will result in cuts to vital human services for our most vulnerable citizens. I hope we can restore these funds. If the program were fully funded, California would receive $203.8 million in SSBG funds. If funding is cut to $600 million nationwide, California will receive $71.9 million. This is a reduction of $131.9 million. California uses this money to fund its developmental disabilities program, which provides services and support to people with developmental disabilities and their families. The State also uses the funds to provide support for in-home care givers to the elderly, blind, and disabled. SSBG is a major source of funding for child protective services and for child care in every state. This is a good bill, addressing many of the nation's critical human needs. The bill can be improved in several areas. I hope the leadership and the bill's managers will work hard to restore the cuts I have cited and to send to the President a bill that addresses the nation's many critical health, education and human services needs.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Wyoming. This amendment would prevent the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from issuing ergonomic standards to protect workers from back injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and other work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) MSDs caused by ergonomic hazards are the most widespread safety and health problem in the workplace today. Every year 1.8 million workers suffer as a result of work-related MSDs bone or muscle disorders and one-third of those workers lose work time as result of these disorders. These injuries are a burden on workers, and they are a burden on the economy. These injuries result in $20 billion per year in workers' compensation claims. OSHAs proposed ergonomic regulations would cut in half the cost of workers' compensation claims. Ergonomic programs have slashed costs for businesses throughout California. In 1997, Sun Microsystems average MSD disability claim dropped to $3,500, from $55,000, in 1993. The Vale Health Care Center, in San Pablo, California, reduced the number of back injuries from ten per year to one per year. The Fresno Bee, three years after establishing an ergonomics program, reduced workers' compensation costs by over 95 percent, and associated lost workdays and surgeries were eliminated. Xandex, in Pentaluma, California; Silicon Graphics, in Mountain View, California; Rohm and Haas, in Hayward, Califoria; Blue Cross of California; Varin Associates, a California electronics manufacturing business, the city of San Jose, Pacific Bell, FMC Defense Systems Corporation, AT&T Global Information Systems, in San Diego, and Intel, in Santa Clara, California, have all implemented successful ergonomics programs. Ergonomic standards have been studied ad nauseam. There are more than 2,000 published studies on MSDs, and the scientific evidence strongly supports the conclusion that ergonomics programs can and do reduce MSDs. In 1991, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole believed there was sufficient scientific evidence that ergonomic injuries were a major problem in the workplace, and she committed the Labor Department to address the issue. In 1991, Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin committed the Department of Labor to develop and issue a standard using normal rule-making procedures. In 1998, at the request of the Representatives Livingston and Bonilla, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) received a $490,000 grant to conduct a literature review of MSDs. Later in 1998, NAS released its findings. It concluded that ``research clearly demonstrates that specific interventions can reduce the reported rates of musculoskeletal disorders for workers who perform high-risk tasks.'' In other words, workplace ergonomic factors cause MSDs, but specific interventions can reduce the number of cases. Congress then appropriated another $890,000 for another NAS literature review on workplace-related MSDs. This study will be completed early next year. If the results are the same as the previous study, and I assume they will be, we should not prevent the Department of Labor from issuing ergonomic standards. Ergonomic programs have proven to be effective in reducing motion injuries and other MSDs, and suggest that OSHA must be permitted to go forward with sensible regulations to ensure a safe workplace. The problem is real, but it is a problem we can fix, and we can save businesses billions of dollars in workers' compensation claims by doing so. I strongly urge my colleagues to help improve workplace safety by joining me in opposing this amendment.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment sponsored by Senator Chafee from Rhode Island. This amendment expresses the sense that the United States should support bilateral and multilateral debt relief for the world's poorest countries with unsustainable debts, and provide the funding for bilateral and multilateral debt relief the Clinton administration has requested. Last year, United States and other industrialized countries agreed to provide $27 billion in debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries that adopt sound economic policies and use the savings for health, education, and poverty reduction efforts, and the Clinton administration pledged to pay four percent of the total. The $435 million the administration requested for Fiscal Year 2001 is a down- payment on our $920 million pledge. The countries that will benefit are classified by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), which means they have unsustainable debts and are extremely poor. In these countries: One in ten children dies before his or her first birthday; One in three children is malnourished; More than half of all citizens live on less than $1 per day; and HIV infection rates are as high as 20 percent. More than two out of three of these countries spend more on debt service than health care. Every dollar in debt payments these countries make to the United States and other creditors is one fewer dollar to spend on education, health care, and other basic needs. Many of these countries, including Zambia, Uganda, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Mozambique, and Tanzania, to name but a few, are in the midst of a HIV/AIDS pandemic. Every dollar in debt payments these countries make is one fewer dollar to spend on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs. This debt relief proposal will not solve every problem in these countries, but it will help. Bolivia, our democratic ally, began receiving debt relief in 1997. In 1999, Bolivia saved $77 million in debt service as a result of debt relief provided by multilateral institutions. Most of the savings went to increased spending on health care and education. Uganda has also received multilateral debt relief. Uganda saved $45 million in debt service payments in 1999, and it increased spending on poverty reduction programs, primary education, and primary health care by $55 million. Since 1997, the primary school enrollment rate has increased by 50 percent. Uganda is not the only country in desperate need of debt relief in Africa. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund list 33 countries in Africa as HIPCs, meaning they are extremely poor and have unsustainable debts. As Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, wrote in The Washington Post, on May 23, 2000, in regard to malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis, Debt cancellation for Africa has come down to a matter of life and death. African leaders know very well that for their own countries to muster the internal resources to fight these dread diseases, they will have to be permitted by the creditor nations to shift the funds now spent on debt servicing into public health. We must provide debt relief to accountable governments, not to dictatorial regimes that waste funds on the military and violate human rights. This amendment urges the Senate to fund multilateral debt relief efforts carried out by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for countries that use the funds transparently, allow participation by civil society, do not grossly violate human rights, and do not spend excessively on the military. Debt relief will allow Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, which use up to 60 percent of their budgets for debt service on loans made by the United States and other industrialized countries to dictators during the Cold War, to use these precious resources to meet basic needs. The debt burden condemns these countries to poverty. Relieving the burden from these debts will give these countries a chance to develop. Relieving debts that can never be repaid is the humane thing to do. The Clinton administration has requested $435 million for this initiative to help the world's poorest people. The United States has committed to this multinational debt relief plan, and we should live up to our commitment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support funding for debt relief for the world's poorest people. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my strong support for the long-in-coming supplemental appropriations request for Colombia included as part of this Foreign Operations bill. I believe that there are few requests more important to the security and well- being of this nation in the coming years than this one. I believe that it is critical that we move quickly to pass the Foreign Operations bill and this emergency supplemental request for Colombia. Some have argued that the Colombia proposal is simply too expensive. But I believe that this proposal represents the proper balance regarding what should--in fact must--be one of this nation's highest priorities: to stop the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States. As we debate this proposal today, Colombia faces an unprecedented crisis. Almost 40 percent of the country--an area itself the size of the entire nation of Switzerland--is under the control of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, FARC. The FARC is an alliance of some 20,000 drug traffickers and terrorists who threaten the stability not only of Colombia, but of the entire Andean region. And, as we all know, there are right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia who also have ties to the drug trade. Over 80 percent of the world's supply of cocaine is grown, produced or transported through Colombia, and large swaths of Colombia, now lawless or under FARC or paramilitary control, have become prime coca and opium producing zones. These FARC rebels earn as much as two or even three million dollars per day from drug cultivators and traffickers who rely on their protection or--perhaps even more likely--who fear their retribution. The FARC is currently holding hostage as many as 1,500 to 2,500 people, including at least 250 military prisoners and 250 police officers. And, as the ability of the government of Colombia to govern large areas of their own country continues to disintegrate, the FARC narco- terrorists and paramilitaries continue to expand their base of operations and attack surrounding areas. All this, and Colombia is facing its worst economic recession in more than 70 years: Real GDP fell by over 3 percent last year. Clearly, something needs to be done. And clearly, Colombia will need help. The situation in Colombia is not simply a problem in a far away land. The events taking place in Colombia have direct and severe repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world. Colombia is the source country for 80 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States each year, and up to 70 percent of the heroin. And the situation is getting worse, not better. Coca cultivation in Colombia has doubled in the past decade alone, and shows no sign of slowing. In addition to undermining the democratic institutions in Colombia, the violence that has become endemic has forced over 500,000 people to flee Colombia; 65,000 have sought refuge in the United States. According to the administration, illegal drugs account for over 50,000 deaths each year in the United States, and cost over $100 billion a year in health care costs, accidents, and lost productivity. So the problem of narcotics production in Colombia is not just a problem in Colombia: To the flow of drugs from Colombia has very real, and very damaging effects, on our country. Earlier this year, I joined many of my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee as we met with Colombia's President, Andres Pastrana. President Pastrana outlined a clear and comprehensive plan to address the drug trade, and to start solving the deeper problems within his country. It is an ambitious plan, but one which I believe can be implemented, and can promote the peace process, strengthen democracy, and help revive Colombia's economy. The Plan Colombia encompasses far more than the request we have before us. A combination of internal and external sources will be providing Colombia with most of the $7.5 billion over three years that President Pastrana has deemed necessary. The United States need provide but a piece of the overall plan. Working with President Pastrana, President Clinton has asked Congress to fund $1.6 billion of that total. The two-year package will assist Colombia in combating the drug trade; help the country promote peace and prosperity; and deepen its democracy. This is a large package, but it is in our interest to provide it. Without a major new effort, supported by the United States, the Colombian military and police simply lack the resources and ability to defeat the FARC and narco-trafficking forces. Plan Colombia is focused on efforts to boost Colombia's interdiction and eradication capabilities, particularly in the south, including: Funds for special counter-narcotics battalions to push into coca- growing regions of Southern Colombia; Funds to purchase helicopters, desperately needed to provide the Colombian National Police access to the remote and undeveloped regions of the country where the narco-traffickers thrive; Funds to upgrade Colombia's interdiction capabilities, with aircraft and airfield upgrades, radar, and improved intelligence gathering; Funds for equipment to be used in increased eradication efforts; Funds to provide economic alternatives to coca growers; and, Funds for new programs to promote human rights, help the judicial system and to crack down on money laundering. As many of my colleague are aware, there is some concern about the human rights questions raised by this assistance package. This supplemental request, after all, provides military assistance to an army and a police force which, in the past, has had a less than Steller record on human rights issues. But it is my belief that the Leahy amendment, augmented by specific language that has been added to this legislation in committee, goes a long way towards meeting these concerns. To begin with, any U.S. assistance to Colombian military and police forces will be provided in strict accordance with section 563 of the FY2000 Foreign Operations Act--the Leahy amendment. In addition, this legislation contains new and specific provisions intended to guarantee the protection of human rights. Colombian military officers accused of human rights violations are to be tried in a civilian court, for example, not in the military courts which have, in the past, been far too lenient in how they treat these cases. There are also requirements that any Colombian military units trained by the United States as part of this antinarcotics effort be screened for human rights abuses. In addition, the committee has also included language at my request relating to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the regions which, I believe, has greatly contributed to the culture of violence and lawlessness in Colombia. I believe that any effective strategy to stabilize the region and reduce the influence of the criminals, drug traffickers, narco- terrorists, and paramilitaries must include the implementation of stringent controls on existing stockpiles and the destruction of surplus and seized stocks of small arms and light weapons. The small arms and light weapons language calls for the creation of a serial number registry by the Department of State and by Colombia to track all small arms and light weapons provided to Colombia under this supplemental request, as well as the creation of a small arms and light weapons destruction initiative for the region. If any of the small arms and light weapons the United States supplies to Colombia as part of this assistance package are used in violation of human rights, this registry will allow us to track, to the unit, who was using these weapons and bring the responsible party to justice. On the question of human rights then, I believe that although we must remain watchful, the package crafted by the Appropriations Committee does a good job in meeting the concerns that have been raised. Let me take a minute here, however, to express my concern about one specific part of the committee recommendations that I hope is addressed in conference: The lack of Blackhawk helicopters. The President asked for $388 million to fund 30 additional Blackhawk helicopters. These helicopters fly faster, farther, higher and hold more people than the Huey II helicopters provided for by the committee. In fact, I believe that the Blackhawk is critical to the terrain and mission in Colombia for several reasons: The Blackhawk can carry three times as many men as the Huey II; at high altitudes the advantage of the Blackhawk is even more pronounced; and the Blackhawk's maximum speed is 50 percent faster than the Huey II. I believe that the drug war is a serious one, and that we should be devoting the best possible resources to this ongoing struggle. I am not a helicopter expert, but the experts in the administration and elsewhere are telling us that the Blackhawk is the right equipment for the job. I do not think we should be second-guessing that decision with so much at stake. Let me also talk for a moment today about one other aspect of this assistance package for Colombia that has come under some discussions: The issue of demand reduction versus supply reduction. Let me say that I strongly believe that even as we provide the resources necessary to implement Plan Colombia that we must also attack the demand side of the drug problem in this country with a multi- pronged, concerted effort. I support funding for domestic prevention and demand reduction programs, and I believe we must continue to provide domestic law enforcement with the tools they need to combat the drug trade within our borders. But much of the demand-side, domestic effort can be accomplished by state and local governments. What state and local governments cannot do is to keep drugs from entering this country in the first place. That task can only be accomplished by the federal government, which has control over our borders and over foreign policy. In fact, of the $18 billion in the Federal Government's counterdrug funding, 32 percent goes to domestic demand reduction, 49 percent to domestic law enforcement; 10 percent to interdiction along our borders; and only 3.2 percent to international counterdrug efforts. Less than 4 percent for the one area that is clearly and unambiguously the one area in this fight that is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. Even with passage of this package of assistance to Colombia this figure will still be well under 10 percent. So I say to my colleagues who believe more effort needs to be directed to domestic programs to address demand that they are right. More effort in this area is needed. Our states should do more. Our cities should do more. But clearly more effort supporting our friends and allies in international efforts to curtail production, refinement, and transportation are needed too. And that is the one area where only the Federal government can act. Only with assistance from the United States will the Government of Colombia be able to eradicate and intercept the tons of illegal narcotics that leave that country each year bound for our shores. The ongoing narco-crisis in Colombia and the overall crisis of drugs in America represent an important threat to our nation's security and stability. The war against drugs is real, and should be treated with the same seriousness of purpose and resources as any other war. The funding provided for the Colombia supplemental request in the Foreign Operations bill, although expensive, is clearly within our national interest. We face a crisis in this nation, and that crisis demands action. I urge my colleagues to support the Colombia package in the Foreign Operations bill, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 324, introduced earlier today by Senator Boxer and myself.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to say I believe the time has come to adopt the Kennedy legislation. In effect, the study has been done. We know that since the early 1990s, there have been 60,000 hate crimes in this country. We know that young men such as Matthew Shepard, just because they are gay, can be beaten until they are killed. We know that a U.S. postal worker can be shot and killed simply because he happens to be a Filipino American. We see people targeted for specific crimes. I authored the original hate crimes legislation in 1993. It had two loopholes: It excluded sex and sexual orientation. This legislation corrects it, and it only applies in pursuance of a Federal right. This legislation extends that. I urge its adoption. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, as the Senate debates the FY 2001 Department of Defense authorization bill, I want to add my support for the amendment offered by Senators Murray and Snowe to repeal the provision of current law that prohibits the use of DOD facilities for abortion services. This prohibition is particularly harsh for women who serve their country overseas. Current law has two bans: (1) a ban on the use of any DOD funds to perform abortions, except if the life of the mother is endangered; and (2) a ban on using DOD facilities to perform an abortion except if the life of the mother were endangered or in the case of rape or incest. The Murray-Snowe amendment would repeal the second ban, on using a DOD facility to perform an abortion except where the life of the mother would be endangered or in the case of rape or incest. This amendment does not force DOD to pay for abortions. It simply repeals the current ban on using DOD medical facilities. This ban works a particular hardship on military women stationed overseas because if they cannot use DOD facilities, they are forced to find private facilities, which may be unfamiliar, substandard, or far away. I support this amendment for several reasons. First, under several Supreme Court decisions, a woman clearly has a right to choose. A woman does not give up that right because she serves in the U.S. military or is married to someone serving in the military. Barring the use of U.S. military facilities creates a particular difficult barrier to exercising that constitutionally protected right when serving in another country. Second, this prohibition in current law can endanger a woman's health, if she has to travel a long distance or wait to find an appropriate facility or physician. Women may not have ready access to private facilities in other countries. A woman stationed in that country or the wife of a service member might need to fly to the U.S. or to another country--at her own expense--to obtain an abortion because some countries have very restrictive laws on abortion. Most service members cannot easily bear the expense of jetting off across the globe for medical treatment. If women do not have access to military facilities or to private facilities in the country where they are stationed, they could endanger their own health because of delay and the time it takes to get to a facility in another country or by being forced to get treatment by someone other than a licensed physician. We know from personal experience in this country that when abortion is illegal, some women--especially desperate young women--resort to unsafe and life-threatening methods. If it were your wife, or your daughter, would you want her in the hands of an untrained, unknown person on the back streets of Seoul, South Korea? Or would you prefer that she be treated by a trained physician in a U.S. military facility? Under the current prohibition, women could put themselves at great risk by the hurdles required, by the possibility of using an untrained, unlicensed person and sometimes by a lack of knowledge of the seriousness of their condition. People who serve our country agree to put their lives at risk to defend their country. They do not agree to put their health at risk with unknown medical facilities that may not meet U.S. standards. With this ban, we are asking these women to risk their lives doublefold. Current law does not force any military physician to perform an abortion against his or her will. All branches have a ``conscience clause'' that permits medical personnel to choose not to perform the procedure. What we are talking about today is providing equal access to U.S. military medical facilities, wherever they are located, for a legal procedure paid for with one's own money. The Department of Defense supports this amendment. A May 7 letter from Dr. Sue Bailey, the Assistant Secretary of Defense says the following: The Department believes it is unfair for female service members, particularly those members assigned to overseas locations, to be denied their Constitutional right to the full range of reproductive health care, to include abortions. The availability of quality reproductive health care ought to be available to all female members of the military. Abortion is legal for American women. To deny American military women access to medical treatment they can trust is wrong. I urge my colleagues to vote the Murray-Snowe amendment.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, no one should be victimized because of his or her skin color, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. In furtherance of this belief, I sponsored in 1993 the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, which required the U.S. Sentencing Commission to provide sentencing enhancements of no less than three offense levels for crimes determined beyond a reasonable doubt to be hate crimes. The Act increased the penalties for hate crimes directed at individuals not only because of their perceived race, color, religion, and national origin, but also on account of their gender, disability or sexual orientation. Today, I am proud to be the cosponsor of the Kennedy hate crimes amendment, which would build on this effort by expanding the Justice Department's authority to prosecute defendants for violent crimes based on the victim's race, color, religion or national origin. This important amendment would also allow the Federal government to provide assistance in state investigations of crimes against another based on the victim's gender, disability, or sexual orientation. Sadly, hate crimes occur more often than we might think. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there have been nearly 60,000 hate crime incidents reported since 1991. In 1998 alone, the last year for which we have statistics, nearly 8,000 hate crime incidents were reported in the United States. That is almost one such crime per hour. In the same year, more than 2,100 Californians fell victim to a hate crime. That's a shocking number when one considers the motivation behind a hate crime. These are truly among the ugliest of crimes, in which the perpetrator thinks the victim is less of a human being because of his or her gender, skin color, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Even more disturbing is that nearly two-thirds of these crimes are committed by our nation's youth and young adults. The need to send a strong message of mutual tolerance and respect to our youngsters has become all too clear in recent years. One of the most high profile hate crime cases in California involved two young Northern California men, Benjamin Matthew Williams, age 31, and his younger brother James Tyler Williams, age 29. The two brothers became poster boys for our Nation's summer of hate last year. Both men were charged with the double slaying of a prominent gay couple who lived about 180 miles north of Sacramento. The men are also prime suspects in the wave of arson that hit three Sacramento-area synagogues two weeks before the killings, causing more than $1 million in damage. When investigators searched the Williams brothers' home, they found a treasure trove of white-supremacist, anti- gay, anti-Semitic literature. They also found a ``hit list'' of 32 prominent Jewish and civic leaders in the Sacramento area, apparently compiled after the synagogue fires. Hate crimes not only affect the victim who is targeted, but also shakes the foundation of an entire community that identifies with the victim. I grow increasingly concerned when I hear reports about the proliferation of hate in our nation, because California, the state I represent, has one of the most diverse communities in the world. Our state has greatly benefitted from the contributions of persons from countries as nearby as Mexico and El Salvador, and as far away as India and Ethiopia. It is only through our willingness to live among each other and to respect our individual differences and gifts, that we can continue to build from the strength of our diversity. That is why Senator Kennedy's amendment is so important. Not only would it broaden the protection offered by Federal law to people not covered by hate crime legislation, but it will provide vital Federal assistance and training grants to states investigating these crimes. Specifically, this legislation would compensate for two limitations in the current law: First, even in the most blatant cases of racial, ethnic, or religious violence, no Federal jurisdiction exists unless the victim was targeted while exercising one of a limited number of federally protected activities. Second, current law provides no coverage for violent hate crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation, gender or disability. Unfortunately, there are those who would stop short of supporting this legislation because it extends protections to those targeted on account of their sexual orientation. This is especially disturbing given the fact that crimes against gays, lesbians and bisexuals ranked third in reported hate crimes in 1998, registering 1,260 or 15.6 percent of all reported incidents. Even in light of the growing number and severity of these horrific events, Congress has not seen fit to enact important Federal hate crime measures to ensure that justice is served. I wonder, how many cases go unsolved because of the Federal government's inability to participate in the investigation and prosecution of a hate crime? How many people have chosen not to report a serious hate crime out of fear of retribution because there is no state or federal protection? How many more people, and families, and communities, need to be victimized by these most horrendous acts before our colleagues realize that now is time to act? Since those who commit hate crimes seek out a category of people, rather than a particular individual, anyone of us at anytime can become a victim of a hate crime. I believe the Kennedy hate crimes amendment would send the right message: that those who commit violent acts because the victim is of a certain gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, or disability will be prosecuted because everyone--I repeat--everyone has a right to be free from violence and fear when they are going to school, work, travel, or doing something as simple as going to a movie. While I rise in strong support for the Kennedy amendment, I must also express my opposition to the amendment offered by my friend from Utah, Mr. Hatch. While well-intentioned, the Hatch amendment would not extend protection to people targeted because of their sexual orientation, gender or disability in states that have not enacted hate crime laws or have limited their laws to crimes motivated by race, national origin or religion. Moreover, the Hatch amendment would permit the Federal government to address hate crimes only in those very limited circumstances in which the offender crosses a state line to commit an act of hate violence. This amendment would, therefore, fail to address the majority of cases we confront today in which a hate crime results in death or serious bodily harm. As elected leaders, it is incumbent upon us to set an example--not just by expressing outrage about these crimes--but by strengthening legislation and bolstering the ability of law enforcement--whether state or Federal--to combat hate crimes. How many more people will become victims of hate before we act? I believe the time has come to affirm our support for the diversity that makes our nation so great. The time has come to enact a sensible hate crime measure to address this problem of violent bigotry and hate. The time has come to enact the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2000.