Dianne Feinstein

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I am very concerned about it, because, again, we have 40 million smokers in the United States, 5 million of them in California. There is a huge market. There is a huge number of people already addicted, and as the price per pack, plus reduction of smokers, comes into play, the opportunity for a black market increases, and particularly if you begin to ratchet down the addicting chemical which is nicotine. It is a serious question. I am surprised, frankly, that people really don't want to know more about it. I, frankly, am surprised that there is a rush to judgment. It seems to me that because of what we are doing is for 25 years, we better be right. I don't want to see in my State a huge black market in 5 years and know that I voted to help make that market possible.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Absolutely.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Oh, probably around 33 million today.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Nineteen percent of whom smoke.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I believe that is correct. Law enforcement has said there is now a substantial black market in California. With the franchise tax, port authorities advise that the State loses about $20 million to $50 million a year in revenue now from that market.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct. There was a proposition on the ballot that did do that. That generated the market. They have made some major arrests with large numbers of confiscated goods to go on the black market.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I think if it goes from $2 to $4.50 in California, with the number of people addicted and the fact that most are low income, that it creates a black market. One of the concerns I have is that it becomes a real pawn for organized criminal elements that also brings on other serious repercussions. But I don't want the Senator from Utah, or anybody else, to mistake me. I want to see us have a bill. I want to see us have a bill that is going to be able to do the job, rather than have adverse, unintended consequences.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes, I am aware of it. I am also glad that the Senator from Utah is mentioning this, because one of the most discouraging things here has been the rush to judgment, has been the feeling of many people, very well-meaning, very much wanting to see legislation in place, that if you pause to consider these impacts, somehow you are un-American, somehow you are pro-tobacco. And yet, as we know, the devil is in the details with all of these things. It really is the long-term effect of a bill that we need to consider carefully. That is one of the reasons I have been, frankly, opposed to the speed with which this bill is being pushed, and I think it is being pushed so that we don't have this information in front of us, so that we don't understand the repercussions, so that a bill gets passed and everybody can pound their chests and say what a wonderful job we have done and then, boom, in 4 years, there can be a cataclysmic event like a big black-market operation.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I do.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct; yes.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. But the facts in committee.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

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

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, very shortly, Senator Kennedy, the ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will be presenting an amendment which I will strongly support. It is very similar to the amendment which was offered in committee, proposed both by the Senator from Massachusetts and myself representing California. I voted for it then, and I will vote for it now. I did in committee also vote for the Abraham bill, because Senator Abraham is correct, there is a problem. The high-tech industry is consistently turning to foreign nationals to fill low-level computer- related jobs. In my State of California, this is a very big deal. High tech currently provides about 814,000 jobs in California. That is 18\1/2\ percent of the total California employment. So it is a substantial industry. When this industry says to their Senator, ``We can't hire high school or college graduates to fill our needs,'' I obviously have to be very concerned. I have become very saddened by our high-tech CEOs who repeatedly tell me they cannot find qualified workers. As a matter of fact, during the hearings in the Judiciary Subcommittee, we even heard one CEO say that they advertised a brand new, I think it was a Ford Mustang for any individual who would take one of these computer-related jobs. Senator Abraham is correct, the industry will reach the cap of 65,000 by May of this year. As Senator Abraham stated, this presents a very serious problem. Let's talk for a moment about this 65,000 cap and the way it is now. The 1996 Labor Department report shows that only 41 percent of the H- 1Bs presently are computer-related professions. Another 26 percent are physical therapists and health professionals. It is not only computer- related people who are presently coming into this country on a H-1B visa, 26 percent of them are physical therapists, which is kind of canny to me to think we can't find American health therapists for these jobs? The IG's report also shows that some H-1B employers have contracted their employees out to other companies functioning as job shops, companies that hire predominantly or exclusively H-1B's and contract them out. Current law does not prohibit this practice of running these job shops, despite the concern that these job shops are paying the H-1B's less than the prevailing wage and have a negative impact on the American worker's ability to keep his or her job. The 1996 Labor Department report also indicates that 48 percent of employment-based, permanent immigration is admitted through the H-1B program, and this is a major point I want to make. The H-1B program is not necessarily just a temporary worker program. Fifty percent of these workers achieve permanent status and remain in this country essentially forever. This is a big problem. From the CRS report on this issue, dated May 13, 1998, I read the following: In practical terms, the H-1B visa links the foreign student to legal permanent residence. Anecdotal accounts-- And I think Senator Abraham mentioned correctly that we really don't know; the recordkeeping in this program is very bad-- Anecdotal accounts tell of foreign students who are hired by U.S. firms as they are completing their programs. The employers obtain H-1B visas for the recent graduates, and if the employees meet expectations, the employers may also petition for the nonimmigrants to become legal permanent residents, through one of the employment-based immigration categories. Some policymakers consider this a natural and positive chain of events, arguing that it would be foolish to educate these talented young people, only to make them leave to work for foreign competitors. Others consider this a pathway program. This is really my point and my concern about the Abraham legislation. The Abraham legislation essentially is a 5-year program, and over 5 years, it would permit 555,000 new foreign nationals to come into this country, 50 percent of whom would remain. This is the 555,000 that is specially targeted for high tech by the Abraham legislation. However, the Abraham legislation also provides an additional 10,000 workers per year for non-high-tech jobs. That is a total of 50,000 over 5 years. So when you add that together over 5 years, this is an additional 605,000 foreign workers coming into this country, taking jobs which many of us believe should be filled by American young people, American high school and college graduates. This is over a 77-percent increase in numbers, Mr. President. The amendment that Senator Kennedy will offer is essentially a 3-year program which is a total of only 270,000 workers coming in targeted for high tech over the 3 years. The program would sunset after 3 years, and we would have an opportunity to take a good look at that program at the end of that period of time, hopefully have better records by then and hopefully be better aware of what the needs are after that period of time. I mentioned that there are about 815,000 high-tech workers in this country in California alone. So this is really a huge new immigration program over 5 years. Nobody should think to the contrary. It will let in over 600,000 foreign nationals, one-half of whom, by our own past statistics, will remain in this country as legal aliens able to work in this country. In other words, they will have green cards, and they will continue to go from temporary worker to permanent worker, thereby taking up a job which an American young person could occupy. Now, this troubles me. It really troubles me. And the reason it troubles me is because these workers are not necessarily superstars. The superstars come in. These are lower level computer programmers. They really are $50,000-a-year job occupants. As a matter of fact, there is a chart that essentially shows the salaries. Seventy-five percent of the workers who have been coming in under this program are at salaries from $25,000 to $50,000. So these are not, in the main, the jobs of $100,000 or more. These are exactly the jobs that graduates of the new age, graduates into the global economy from our schools all over the United States should be taking to develop a sinecure in an industry that is only going to bloom in the future. So I am troubled by the Abraham bill's numbers. Again, they are 605,000 over 5 years. And 550,000 would go for high-tech workers as opposed to the amendment that Senator Kennedy will shortly make, which would be a 3-year program, 270,000 jobs. Mr. President, I yield the floor at the present time. Mr. ABRAHAM addressed the Chair.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent that Sandra Shipshock, a State Department fellow with Senator Kennedy's staff, be given floor privileges for consideration of this bill.

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

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mrs. Feinstein pertaining to the submission of S. Con. Res. 97 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator. Privilege of the Floor

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. The amendment that the Senator from Massachusetts will propose will not have a 3-year limit on it at this time. That was our bill we had in committee. Rather, it will require that employers look for American workers first before they hire foreign workers and that they have not laid off American workers 6 months prior or 3 months after they put in an application. So I am happy to be able to make that clarification. And I believe Senator Kennedy will be here momentarily. I yield the floor. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a resolution expressing concern over the continuing deterioration of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, and calling on the administration to increase its efforts to provide humanitarian assistance and to protect the human rights of Afghan women. I am joined in this resolution by Senators Brownback, Dodd, and Landrieu. Mr. President, every day the women of Afghanistan are excluded from the international community's prevailing vision of human rights, and continue to lack basic legal rights, access to education, and access to economic opportunity. Indeed, perhaps nowhere in the world today is there a clearer test of our commitment to the cause of women's rights than Afghanistan. In March of this year I convened a meeting with leading Non- Governmental organizations, the Administration, and Afghan women themselves to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and what options are available to the international community to make the lives of Afghanistan's women better. Among those participating were representatives of the Department of State, the International Commission of the Red Cross, Save the Children, the Women's Commission on Refugee Women and Children, Women in Refugee Development, and the Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan, among others. We discussed the legacy of close to twenty years of war and bloodshed which has torn apart Afghanistan: More than 1 million people have died, and much of the capital of Kabul lies in ruins. There are more than 50,000 war widows in Kabul alone, many dependent on international humanitarian assistance for their very survival. The ICRC, for example, distributes food to some 15,000 widows in Kabul. According to Theresa Loar, the State Department's Senior Coordinator for Women's Issues, in the 1980s a growing number of Afghan women worked outside the home. There were female lawyers, judges, doctors, and teachers. This trend was reversed in 1992 and now, under the Taliban, ``women and girls became, and remain today, virtually invisible.'' Education is a major concern, where edicts prevent girls from attending school and receiving an education. A small, low-profile, ``home school'' movement has started, with an estimated 6,500 girls and boys attending classes in Kabul. These home schools, however, are no substitute for access to a real education. On September 6, 1997 the Taliban government issued a statement demanding that admission of female patients to hospitals cease immediately, and that all female medical staff stop working. After negotiations with the ICRC the Taliban government reconsidered, but women still face great difficulties in getting access to medical care. Many Non-Governmental Organizations are doing work which I can describe as nothing short of heroic to provide medical and humanitarian assistance under the most adverse of circumstances. But they are faced with numerous constraints, from difficulties in collecting data and verifying beneficiary cards, to laws and practices which prevent the distribution of assistance or services directly to the women in need. The U.S. State Department's 1997 human rights report states: ``Women were beaten for violating increasingly restrictive Taliban dress codes, which require women to be covered from head to toe. Women were strictly prohibited from working outside the home, and women and girls were denied the right to an education. Women were forbidden from appearing outside the home unless accompanied by a male family member. Beatings and death resulted from a failure to observe these restrictions.'' The women of Afghanistan, who have seen their families destroyed by war, are now having their economic life and their fundamental human rights stripped away, and an already war-torn and war-weary Afghanistan has been pushed to the brink of disaster. Fully half of Afghanistan's population cannot work for a living or be educated. Fully half the population of Afghanistan are being systematically denied their basic human rights. We must act to stop these injustices and to bring peace to Afghanistan. Ambassador Richardson's recent initiative, which led to the unprecedented peace talks between representatives of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in Islamabad last month and an agreement to set up a 40-member Ulema commission to find a solution for the civil conflict, represents perhaps the best opportunity for a comprehensive peace in Afghanistan in over a generation. The ultimate outcome of these discussions are still in doubt, however, and, movement at the peace talks has been accompanied by reports of new fighting in the fields, with both sides reportedly acquiring new weapons. I believe we must give our full support to these peace talks. But I also believe that we must be prepared for continued violence in Afghanistan, and for the situation faced by Afghanistan's women to get worse before it gets better. As we await the outcome of these peace talks--and there is no quick or apparent solution in sight--we must continue to work to alleviate the plight of Afghanistan's women. The resolution I submit today calls on the administration to create an Afghan Women's Initiative, along the lines of the successful Bosnian and Rwandan Women's Initiatives which the administration has created in the past two years. Those initiatives have assisted the victims of those wars by promoting the reintegration of women into the economy with an emphasis on capacity-building, training programs, legal assistance, and support for microenterprise projects, as well as refugee reintegration and protection. I believe that the successes of those two programs can serve as a model for a similar initiative for the women of Afghanistan, as well as the numerous Afghan women in refugee camps in Pakistan. The women of Afghanistan could greatly benefit from such a women's initiative, and I look forward to working with the administration to design and implement such a program. Second, this resolution calls for the international community to investigate charges of rape and abuse as instruments of the now almost decade-long civil war which has torn Afghanistan apart, and, if credible evidence exists, to convene a war crimes tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators. Credible charges have been made about the systematic use of rape by several of the factions and parties involved in this struggle, and I believe that these charges must be investigated and, if true, must lead to indictments and trials. Finally, I believe that the United States must be clear in stating that we will not recognize any government in Afghanistan unless it is broad-based, respective of all Afghans, and respects international norms of behavior in human rights, including the rights of women and girls. As we continue to work for peace in Afghanistan, this resolution calls for an unequivocal statement of administration policy on this point. The United States, with our history of commitment to women's rights and equality, must redouble its efforts to place respect for women's rights at the top of the international community's agenda in Afghanistan, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. This resolution, essentially, asks the President and the Secretary of State to work with the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees to guarantee the safety of and provide development assistance for Afghan women in Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, and to increase support for various refugee programs, to explore options for resettlement, and to establish in Afghanistan a women's initiative which is based on the successful model of the Bosnian women's initiative and the Rwandan women's initiative that are targeted toward Afghani women's groups.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

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

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, regretfully I rise to oppose this amendment which, in the current heated environment surrounding the Indian nuclear tests, seeks to repeal the Pressler amendment. I believe that to put a repeal of the Pressler amendment on this bill and to allow the United States to resume military aid to Pakistan would be counterproductive and would contribute to a further destabilization of an already unstable South Asian security environment. What would India do in response? I urge the Members of this body, when considering whether to vote for an imminent repeal of the Pressler amendment, to think that we are doing this before our people have even had a chance to ascertain what the particulars of this situation are. We are doing it before we have any assessment of what might be the response to this action. I think that is precipitous, and I think it is unfortunate. Most immediately, what would be the effect? A repeal of Pressler would release 28 F-16s which Pakistan purchased in 1989, but due to the inability of the President to certify in 1990 that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear device----