Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I want to comment that anybody with brains, when they saw that Iraqi team and knew of the Iraqi team--of course, they could not say much about it until now--knew the Iraqi team had gone over to Niger, why else would they have spent the time? Niger had hardly any exportable products other than food, except for yellowcake uranium. Why would they waste their time going to Niger? I remember at the time thinking: This smells, this argument that the President has misused 16 words and that the CIA should be held totally responsible because those 16 words were wrong. And now we find they were not necessarily wrong. In fact, they were right. That smacks of this whole matter of partisanship with regard to the current Presidential race. We have our two colleagues on the other side who are now running for President and Vice President who voted for our actions in Iraq. At least one of them spoke out on how serious the actions of the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein were, voted for it, and now they are trying to weasel out because they voted against funding it, saying they wanted to get it done right. Well, that is a nice argument, except that we have well over 100,000 of our young men and women over there, and others as well, who are put at risk if we do not fund the effort once it has started. Secondly, I heard lots of comments from the other side as to weapons of mass destruction. They knew Saddam Hussein had them in the early 1990s. The U.N. knew they had them. Almost every Democrat of substance spoke out that he had them, were concerned about the fact that he had weapons of mass destruction, that he was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, including the distinguished candidate for President in the Democratic Party. And to get cheap political advantage, they have tried to undermine the President of the United States because, so far, we have not been able to discover except small evidences of actual weapons of mass destruction. What has not been said, for the most part, is any basement in Baghdad, any swimming pool in Baghdad--a city the size of Los Angeles-- could store all of the biological weapons necessary to kill a whole city such as Baghdad or Los Angeles and could store all of the chemical weapons that could cause havoc all over the world. The fact we have not found them yet does not mean they are not there. It does appear the nuclear program Saddam Hussein had authorized in the early 1990s--and had been well on its way to accomplishing the development of a nuclear device--was not as forward advanced as many of us thought. But there is no question they had the scientists in place. There is no question they had the knowledge in place. There is no question they had the documents in place. There is no question he wanted to do that, no question that he would have done it if he could. I think as time goes on, more and more information will come out that will indicate that the President of the United States has taken the right course, with the help of this whole body. It seems strange to me that so many are trying to weasel out of the position they took earlier in backing the President of the United States and in backing our country and in backing our soldiers, and are trying to make political advantage out of some of the difficulties we have over there. Now that political advantage has been tremendously diminished-- tremendously diminished--as of the time that jurisdiction was turned over to the Iraqis. They are now running their country, with us as backup to help them, to help bring about the freedoms all of us in America take for granted every day. I doubt they will ever have the total freedoms we take for granted every day, but they have a lot more freedom now than they ever even contemplated or thought possible under the Saddam Hussein regime. That is because of our country. That is because of our young men and women who have sacrificed. I particularly resent it when, for cheap political advantage, some of our colleagues get up and moan and groan about what is going on over there. Every time they do it, it undermines the very nature of what our young men and women are sacrificing to accomplish. Fortunately, it is the few who do that. But nobody on this floor on either side should be undermining our young men and women over in Iraq, who are heroically serving, some dying--over 900, as we stand here today. Cheap political advantage--that is the era we are in, I take it. Both sides from time to time have used efforts to accomplish cheap political advantage, but I have never heard it worse than what I have seen this year against this President. I have never seen a more vicious group of people than the outside commentators who hate President Bush. In all honesty, we can sit back and let these terrorists run around this world and do whatever they want to do and act like it won't affect us or we can take action to try to solve the problem. It is a long-term problem; it is not a short-term one. It is going to take a lot of courage and good leadership, and it is going to take people who don't just quit and hope they will go away. They are not going to go away. These people are committed ideologues. They are theocratic ideologues. And in many respects throughout the history of the world, that is where most of the really dangerous difficulties come. It is through vicious, radical, theocratic ideologues. Frankly, that is what we are facing. Anybody who thinks this is going to be just an easy slam dunk to resolve has not looked at any of the intelligence, has not thought it through, and really has not spent enough time worrying about it on the Senate floor or otherwise. I have not always agreed with our President. I probably have been wrong when I haven't. The fact is, I sure agree with him in supporting our troops and supporting freedom in the world. Think about it. If Saddam Hussein had been allowed to go on unchecked, not only would millions of Iraqis be kept in terrible conditions, upwards of a million killed viciously by that regime, but ultimately he would have developed nuclear weapons, as he was trying to do in the early 1990s and came close to doing by everybody's measure who knew anything about it. Had that occurred and we didn't do anything about it, guess who would have had to. And if they had to, as they did in the early 1980s in taking out the nuclear reactor, we would have world war III without question. So there is a lot involved here. This is not some simple itty-bitty problem, nor is it something conjured up by the President of the United States, nor is it something that really intelligent, honest, bipartisan people should ignore. We need to work together in the best interests of this country and of the world to make sure that these madmen do not control the world and continue to control our destinies and that these madmen don't get so powerful that they can do just about anything they want to in the world. You can see how they try to intimidate just by threats and even action. Well, great countries cannot give in to threats, nor can we give in to offensive action that needs to be dealt with. This country has led the world in standing for freedom. I have to say that I loved the comment of Colin Powell when somebody in a foreign land snidely accused the United States of attempted hegemony or trying to be imperial. He basically said: Our young men and women have given their lives all over this world for freedom, and the only ground that we have ever asked in return is that in which we bury our dead. That is true to this day. I think if the rest of the world looks at it honestly, they will have to say America really does stand for that principle: freedom and decency and honor and justice, not just in this land but for other lands as well. Mr. President, as I understand it, we are on the Saad nomination.

Mr. HATCH. As we begin the debate on this nomination, I want to put it in the larger context of the judicial nomination process. On May 9, 2001, President Bush nominated 11 outstanding individuals to serve on the Federal bench. I would note that this was months earlier than previous new Presidents, giving the Senate plenty of time to begin considering his nominees. In the 3-plus years--over 1,100 days--since those nominations, the Senate has confirmed only 8 of the first 11 nominees. By comparison, the previous 3 Presidents saw their first 11 appeals court nominees all confirmed in an average of just 81 days following their nomination. We are now 1,100 days past. Not so for President Bush. While three of his first nominees were confirmed within 6 months, many others waited for 2 years or more before they were confirmed. But even this long wait was better than the fate of the three remaining nominees who have been subjected to filibusters. One of those, Miguel Estrada, waited for more than 2\1/2\ years and became the target of the first filibuster against a judicial nominee in American history. This Hispanic man deserved better treatment, but he was mistreated for crass partisan purposes. Though a bipartisan majority of Senators supported Miguel Estrada, he had to withdraw after an unprecedented seven cloture votes, meaning seven attempts to try and get to a vote where he could have a vote up or down. Those seven cloture votes, any one of which would have ended the filibuster and allowed that vote up or down, he went through seven of them, the most in the history of this country for any judicial nominee. By the way, the only nominees who have ever had to go through cloture votes in a real filibuster or in real filibusters have been President Bush's nominees. We have had cloture votes before, but there never was any question that the nominees were going to get a vote in the end. Several weeks prior to those first nominations, shortly after President Bush's inauguration, the Democratic leader stated that the Senate minority would use ``whatever means necessary'' to block judicial nominees they did not like. We have seen the fulfillment of that statement as a variety of techniques have been employed to delay or obstruct the confirmation of nominees, including bottling up nominees in committee, injecting ideology into the confirmation process, seeking all unpublished opinions, requesting nominees to produce Government-owned confidential memoranda, repeated rounds of written questions, and multiple filibusters. It is a sad commentary on the deterioration of the judicial confirmation process that we are now approaching double-digit filibusters in the U.S. Senate of 10 judges or more. Let me reiterate a few points which I made yesterday concerning the process of confirming judges. Despite this range and frequency of obstructionist tactics which we have seen, some of them entirely new in American history, the Senate has confirmed 198 judges during the past 3 years. I will note that this is behind the pace of President Clinton in his first term. And the minority has made even these confirmations as difficult as possible. Yet some of my colleagues think that the constitutional duty to advise and consent has a time clock attached to it and that the time has run out for the Senate to do its duty. I reject this analysis, either that the previous agreement to allow the vote on the 25 judges was the sum total of our work in the Senate or the notion that judicial nominations cannot be confirmed after some mythical deadline is announced. There are plenty of examples of confirmation of judges in Presidential election years during the fall, some of which occurred during or after the election was held. Stephen Breyer is a perfect illustration. He now sits on the Supreme Court of the United States. Stephen Breyer was confirmed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. That is just one example. I was the one who helped make that possible because Reagan had been elected. The Republicans had won the Senate for the first time in decades. There was no real reason to allow what many thought was a liberal Democrat to be appointed to any court at that point or to be confirmed to any court at that point. But Stephen Breyer was an exceptional man. He not only had been chief of staff to Senator Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee, and not only was he a Harvard law professor and a brilliant legal theorist, he was a very honest, decent, honorable man. I helped carry that fight. It wasn't much of a fight in the end because the Republicans agreed, and we confirmed Stephen Breyer late in the year after the election took place. I helped facilitate that confirmation which took place after the November 1980 presidential election. That nomination was made by President Carter, who had just been defeated by President Reagan, and yet we acted on it. I note that Senator Thurmond was the ranking member at that time. Yet his name continues to be invoked as the authority of a binding precedent. I reject the notion of this purported rule and would hope that the service of the longest serving and oldest Member to have served in this body would not be used in the manner I have heard repeated in the committee and on the Senate floor. Besides, Senator Thurmond was chairman of the committee, and at one time he did say: We have had enough confirmations, and this is what we are going to do. We are going to stop this year. But even then he didn't. Under the Senate Democrats' theory, the Senate has apparently confirmed enough judges. The remaining vacancies, half of which are classified as judicial emergencies because of the backlog, just don't seem to matter to them. According to their analysis, because of some acceptable vacancy rate or because of the mythical time clock, the remaining 25 judges pending before the Senate should be dismissed out of hand. This is not logical, nor is it the proper approach to take under the Constitution. I will also respond to some of the arguments made that Senate Democrats have only rejected six or seven nominees. The fact is, the Senate has not rejected the nominees which have been filibustered. If they have the votes to defeat the nominee, then let those votes be cast and let the results stand. But a minority of Senators are denying the Senate from either confirming or defeating some of these nominees. That is what we are seeking today--an up or down vote. Mr. President, unfortunately, one of the battlegrounds of this judicial obstructionism has been the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite President Bush's attempt to fill four critical vacancies on that court, and two district vacancies in Michigan, these nominations remained stalled in the Senate. There are many factors contributing to the stalemate we have found ourselves in with regard to confirmations on the Sixth Circuit, some of which go back to the Clinton administration. I will discuss that in detail at a later point, but for now, everyone knows that I have been working to reach an accommodation that would help move this process forward. I have great respect for Senators Levin and Stabenow. I have worked for many years with Senator Levin and have reached agreements with him on many difficult issues. For example, Senator Levin and I worked with Senators Biden and Moynihan to dramatically revise the regulations pertaining to heroin addiction treatment. That effort is paying off. I remain hopeful that we can do so here. On this issue, I have continued to work with Senators Levin and Stabenow. I have carefully listened to their concerns. And while the Michigan Senators' negative blue slips were accorded substantial weight--that is why this has taken so long--I delayed scheduling a hearing on any of the Michigan nominees because of the Michigan Senators' views. Their negative blue slips are not dispositive under the committee's Kennedy-Biden-Hatch blue slip policy. It was started by Senator Kennedy, confirmed by Senator Biden, and I have gone along with my two liberal colleagues on the committee. I don't think there is any doubt that I have attempted to reach an accommodation that would fill these seats. Unfortunately, my efforts have not been successful. I remain hopeful that we can come to a resolution, and I will keep trying to do so. But I must emphasize, in my view, integral to any accommodation is the confirmation of Judge Saad, Judge Griffin, and Judge McKeague--at least votes up or down. Since they have a majority of people in the Senate who would vote for them, I believe they would be confirmed in the end. These are exceptional individuals. Judge Saad and Judge Griffin both serve on the Michigan Court of Appeals. Judge McKeague is a district Judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. It has been nearly 1 year since the Judiciary Committee first considered the nomination of Henry W. Saad, who has been nominated for a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This is an historic appointment. Upon his confirmation, Judge Saad will become the first Arab-American to sit on the Sixth Circuit, which covers the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan. It is long past time for the Senate to consider Judge Saad's nomination. He was first nominated to fill a Federal judgeship in 1992, when the first President Bush nominated him for a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The fact that he did not get a hearing may have worked to his benefit, since he was appointed in 1994 by Governor Engler to a seat on the Michigan Court of Appeals. He was elected to retain his seat in 1996 and again in 2002, receiving broad bipartisan support in each election. On November 8, 2001, President Bush nominated Judge Saad for a seat on the Sixth Circuit, the position for which we are considering him today. When no action was taken on his nomination during the 107th Congress, President Bush renominated him to the Sixth Circuit on January 7, 2003. All told, Judge Saad has been nominated for a seat on the Federal bench three separate times. It is high time the Senate completed action on his nomination. Judge Saad's credentials for this position are impeccable. He graduated with distinction from Wayne State University in 1971 and magna cum laude from Wayne State University Law School in 1974. He then spent 20 years in the private practice of law with one of Michigan's leading firms, Dickinson, Wright, specializing in product liability, commercial litigation, employment law, labor law, school law and libel law. In addition, he has served as an adjunct professor at both the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and at Wayne State University Law School. Judge Saad is active in legal and community affairs. Some of the organizations he has been involved with include educational television, where he serves as a trustee, the American Heart Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and other nonprofit organizations that serve the elderly and impaired. As a leader in the Arab-American community, Judge Saad has worked with a variety of organizations in promoting understanding and good relations throughout all ethnic, racial, and religious communities. He is an outstanding role model. Judge Saad enjoys broad bipartisan support throughout his State, as evidenced by endorsements in his last election by the Michigan State AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers of Michigan. He has received dozens of letters of support from leading political figures, fellow judges, law professors, private attorneys, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and a variety of other groups. Let me quote from just a few of the letters received in support of Judge Saad's nomination. Maura D. Corrigan, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, wrote: ``Henry Saad has distinguished himself as a fair-minded and independent jurist who respects the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the constitutional role of the judiciary in our tripartite form of government. . . . Judge Saad is a public servant of exceptional intelligence and integrity. He has the respect of the bench and the bar.'' Other judges have written that he is ``a hard-working and honorable individual'' and that he is ``an outstanding appellate jurist with a strong work ethic.'' Roman Gribbs, a lifelong Democrat and retired judge, wrote, ``Henry Saad is a man of personal and professional integrity, is fair-minded, very conscientious and is above all, an outstanding jurist.'' Judge Saad has clearly earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues on the Michigan State court bench. His nomination deserves consideration by this Senate. I hope that our consideration of Judge Saad's nomination is not overshadowed by collateral arguments about the propriety of his nomination, the committee blue slip process, an attack on his personal character and qualifications, or other diversionary arguments. The question before the Senate is the qualifications of Judge Saad to sit on the Federal bench. We have heard from the other side about the President just steamrolling these nominations, without consulting with the home state Senators.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, S. Con. Res. 130 expresses the sense of Congress that the Supreme Court should expedite consideration of the applicability of Blakely v. United States to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. As one of the original cosponsors of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created the United States Sentencing Commission, and a proponent of reducing sentencing disparity across the nation, I have a strong interest in preserving the integrity of the Federal guidelines against constitutional attack. Congress enacted the Sentencing Reform Act to reduce unwarranted disparity in Federal sentencing, including racial, geographical, and other unfair sentencing disparities by establishing standardized sentencing rules while leaving judges enough discretion to impose just sentences in appropriate cases. As many here may already know, criminal defendants are routinely sentenced by judges who decide sentencing facts based upon a preponderance of the evidence standard. This has all changed in recent weeks. On June 24, 2004, in Blakely v. Washington, the Supreme Court held that any fact that increases the maximum penalty under a State statutory sentencing guidelines scheme must be presented to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt even though the defendant's sentence falls below the statutory maximum sentence. Although the Supreme Court explicitly stated in a footnote that ``The Federal Guidelines are not before us, and we express no opinion on them,'' it also characterized the government's amicus brief as questioning whether differences between the State and Federal sentencing schemes are constitutionally significant. The ambiguity apparent in Blakely and the strong suggestions by the dissent that it will apply to the Federal sentencing guidelines, has understandably created angst throughout the Federal justice system. In just 2\1/2\ weeks after the Supreme Court's decision, we already had a split among the Federal circuit courts of appeal. In addition, at least two dozen lower Federal courts--and probably many more--have ruled the Federal Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional. Some judges disregard the Federal sentencing guidelines in their entirety. Other judges apply mitigating sentencing factors but disregard any relevant aggravating factors. Still other judges are convening juries to decide some of these sentencing facts. In fact, as I learned when the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on this very issue just last week, in my home State of Utah, the district judges adopted four different approaches to sentencing defendants after Blakely. Let me briefly describe a couple of examples of the havoc caused by this Blakely decision. I'm sure we all recall Dwight Watson, the man who sat in a tractor last year outside the U.S. Capitol for 47 hours and threatened to blow up the area with organophosphate bombs. The day before the Blakely opinion, Mr. Watson was sentenced to a 6-year prison sentence. Less than a week after the Supreme Court's opinion, he was resentenced to 16 months, which was essentially time served. He is now a free man. A defendant in West Virginia had an offense level that was off the sentencing charts. Although he would have been subject to a life sentence under the guidelines, the statutory maximum penalty was 20 years. He was given a 20-year sentence three days before Blakely was decided. A week later, his sentence was drastically reduced to 12 months. The judge did not rely on any relevant conduct or any sentencing enhancements in calculating the defendant's sentence. In other words, he only applied a portion of the sentencing guidelines-- those that he thought remained valid after Blakely. The concurrent resolution I introduce today urges the Supreme Court to act expeditiously to resolve whether the Federal sentencing guidelines can be constitutionally applied in light of Blakely v. Washington. While I wish we could have done more, unfortunately, we were unable to do so in such a short period of time. As we go forward, I believe we should adopt legislation that would render the Federal sentencing guidelines constitutional regardless of whether Blakely applies. Unfortunately, while I have worked diligently with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses, we simply just ran out of time. While I hope that the Supreme Court will find application of the Federal sentencing guidelines constitutional under the 6th Amendment, I will continue to work with my colleagues over the next several months in preparation of a contingency plan to ensure that regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, that we will be able to preserve a system that promotes uniformity and reduces sentencing disparity across this country.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to rebut my colleagues' statements regarding our nominee William Myers. Some of these statements we have heard today are inaccurate and I would like to set the record straight. Despite some accusations to the contrary, Myers has a proven record of defending Native American tribal interests in this country. For example, he defended the constitutionality of a provision of the California Constitution giving Indian tribes the exclusive right to conduct casino gaming in that State. He also fought to uphold the Secretary of the Interior's decision to put a parcel of land located in Placer County, CA into trust for the United Auburn Indian Community. In addition, Myers supported legislation that vindicated the property rights of the Pueblo of Sandia, a federally recognized Indian tribe in central New Mexico, by creating the T'uf Shur Bien Preservation Trust Area within New Mexico's Cibola National Forest. He also helped negotiate an agreement removing two dams from the Penobscot River in an effort to clear the way for the Penobscot Indian Nation to exercise its tribal fishing rights. Conservation groups and the Penobscot Indian Nation supported these efforts, and the agreement is now being implemented by the DOI's Boston field office. And finally, with respect to tribal interests, Myers worked to implement an Indian Education Initiative that provided increased budget support to the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, including over $200 million annually for school construction. This initiative emphasizes the teaching of tribal languages and cultures in addition to improving reading, math, and science education. Some have also alleged that Myers demonstrated his hostility to environmental safeguards when he submitted a brief, on behalf of the North Dakota Farm Bureau, the American Farm Bureau and a similar group of clients, which challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' authority to regulate solid waste disposal into isolated wetlands. However, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with his argument--pretty good evidence that the argument was both mainstream and stood on solid legal ground. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Myers' clients that as a matter of statutory interpretation, the Clean Water Act did not authorize the Army Corps of Engineers to regulate the habitat of migratory birds in isolated, intrastate waters. Myers' brief never contended that Congress lacks the ability to regulate wetlands under other statutes or provisions of the Constitution, e.g., under its spending clause powers. It simply argued that the Clean Water Act, as it existed in 1999, did not properly delegate such regulatory authority to the Army Corps of Engineers. In his responses to Senator Feinstein's written questions, Mr. Myers affirmed that Congressional intent in passing the Clean Water Act was to ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation's waters,'' and that ``the health of our Nation's waters is often inextricably connected to the health of adjacent wetlands.'' As Myers stated at his hearing, the Clean Water Act is clearly constitutional, and there's no question that he understands its importance. And there's also no question that advocacy of a position accepted by a Supreme Court majority should be viewed as a positive point for a nominee, not a negative due to someone's personal disagreement with the decision in question. I would also like to set the record straight regarding our nominee and an amicus brief he submitted on behalf of the National Cattlemen's Association to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1995 Sweet Home v Babbitt case. Despite what my colleagues allege, this brief did not argue that the Endangered Species Act itself was unconstitutional. The brief simply relied on the then-recent precedent of Dolan v City of Tigard, in which the Supreme Court stated: We see no reason why the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment, should be relegated to the status of a poor relation in these comparable circumstances. The problem that Mr. Myers' clients had with the Endangered Species Act was that Babbitt Interior Department regulations defined the term ``harm'' in the statute in a way that essentially precluded any private landowner's use of property on which an endangered species might find habitat, and, importantly, that the Government had no intention of compensating affected landowners. In fact, the Endangered Species Act contains provisions that enable the Secretary of the Interior to pay landowners to protect endangered species on their properties, while also preserving viable economic uses of the land. It's no surprise that the Babbitt Interior Department had no intention of enforcing those provisions of the law, but you can hardly blame ranchers and farmers adversely affected by Endangered Species Act regulations for hiring lawyers to ask the Supreme Court to remind the Interior Department of its obligations. These provisions of the statute are, of course, in addition to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. Now, I understand that the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Myers' clients' position in this case, but it seems to me that arguments well grounded in the plain language of the Constitution and the statute at issue, that acknowledged the basic validity of the statute, cannot credibly be tarred as ``extreme.'' By contrast, here is a situation that I think most people would agree is extreme. Last month, the Associated Press published an article entitled ``So Endangered It Didn't Exist,'' in, among other newspapers, the Daily Southtown of Illinois. The article reports that the LeSatz family of Chugwater, WY: wants to be able to teach their clients the finer points of riding and roping without having to trailer their animals 25 miles to the nearest public indoor arena whenever the weather turns miserable. But the LeSatzes aren't able to build their own riding arena. The only decent site on their property in southeastern Wyoming lies within 300 feet of Chugwater Creek, and building there is far too expensive because of Endangered Species Act restrictions intended to protect the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. The article then breaks it to the reader that the mouse doesn't exist: After six years of regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments and landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million . . . new research suggests the Preble's mouse in fact never existed. It instead seems to be genetically identical to one of its cousins, the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, which is considered common enough not to need protection. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of deciding whether or not these two species of mice are identical; if they are, then neither needs protection from the Endangered Species Act. And the consequences would positively affect many Western communities, in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and perhaps several other Western States. As a spokesman for the Colorado Contractors Association put it: If we've shown that the mouse doesn't exist, what happens to all that has been set aside? Because that's been a huge economic burden. Indeed it has. As the article reports, ``nearly 31,000 acres along streams in Colorado and Wyoming have been designated critical mouse habitat.'' The mouse ``also has blocked the construction of reservoirs amid a five year drought in the Rocky Mountains.'' Naturally, environmental groups have begun their usual attacks in hopes of preserving the potentially bogus classification of this mouse as endangered. But the quote from one of those groups' spokesmen in the AP article is instructive. Does it attack the science? Does it say, well, let's get to the bottom of this? No. It personally attacks the biologist who raised this issue with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as having ``a clear anti-Endangered Species Act agenda,'' and mocks him for ``testifying in Washington, D.C. in front of committees headed by members of Congress who would like nothing better than having the Endangered Species Act thrown away.'' I guess that, by this individual's logic, any time someone who doesn't share his policy agenda is chairing a Congressional committee, testimony before that committee is illegitimate. An interesting standard--I wonder if Bill Myers' liberal environmentalist opponents would like it applied to their detriment. Now, the biologist referenced in this AP article may or may not prove to be right about this mouse; it's the Fish and Wildlife Service's job to figure that out. But here's the point: anyone who suggests that sound science ought to inform Endangered Species Act classifications-- as Bill Myers did when he was representing folks like the LeSatzes, trying to make a living off the land, in this case, their own land--is attacked by the liberal activists as trying to throw the entire law into the garbage can. Sound familiar? It should. It sounds exactly like the kinds of personal attacks we're hearing on Bill Myers today, and it sounds like the attacks on any member of Congress who has the gall to suggest that the Endangered Species Act must be reformed. While now is not the time to debate the ESA, now should also not be the time to personally attack a qualified judicial nominee for having represented Westerners who have suffered because of its draconian applications. Let me also remind my colleagues of Mr. Myers' acknowledgement at his hearing, that: the Supreme Court, in interpreting the Takings Clause and the Fifth Amendment, has never interpreted it as an absolute. . . . [P]roperty rights are subject to reasonable regulation by government entities. We all know this is the case--not only with the Takings Clause, by the way--and Mr. Myers has never suggested otherwise, despite the misrepresentations of his opponents. I might note that I find it very unfortunate that the various Indian tribes that oppose Bill Myers have bought into the same false accusations about the Glamis Gold Mine issue. The truth is Bill Myers was not involved in the permitting process for the proposed Glamis gold mine in southern California. He simply issued a Solicitor Opinion regarding the proper scope of the Interior Department's authority under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which allowed Glamis Gold, the owner of several mining claims in the area, to proceed with a pre-existing mining proposal. My colleagues should understand that the Babbitt Interior Department approved the same Glamis proposal--supported by two draft environmental impact statements in 1996 and 1997, and two separate Native American tribal cultural resource studies in 1991 and 1995--up until the last week of the Clinton Administration in January 2001. At his hearing, Mr. Myers stated that: my role in that matter was looking at a fairly narrow [legal] point and determining whether the Department had the congressional authority that it needed to make certain interpretations [of the FLPMA]. And his legal conclusion was that the Interior Department did not have the authority to do what former Secretary Babbitt's Solicitor said it did, regardless of the policy merits. In response to Senator Leahy's written questions, Mr. Myers explained that prior to his tenure as Solicitor. Interior had suspended the 2000 regulations affecting hard rock mining. Those regulations were based in part on one of my predecessor's opinions. Multiple lawsuits regarding the suspended regulations were also pending when I arrived. I therefore felt an obligation to review the opinion that was common to these controversies to determine if the Department's defense to the lawsuits was viable. In fact, Myers reached the legal conclusion that the regulations based on that opinion could not be credibly defended in Federal court. Additionally, as his written responses to several other Senators' questions make clear, he reached that conclusion before he met with any mining industry representatives, and with the full awareness of the legal positions taken by the affected Indian tribes. Mr. Myers emphasized that: representatives of the mining company were disappointed by their meeting with me because I would not engage them in a discussion of their ideas or views on the [hardrock mining] matter. Finally, last spring, a Department of the Interior Inspector General report, concluded: the conduct of the DOI officials involved in this [Glamis] matter was appropriate, that their decisions are supported by objective documentation and that no undue influence or conflict of interest affected the decision-making process related to the Imperial Project. While a Federal district court judge here in D.C. disagreed with Myers' Opinion regarding mining operations on Federal lands, the judge upheld the Interior Department's regulations that were based on Myers' Opinion. As Bill noted in his responses to Senator Feinstein's written questions, his opinion was consistent with the Carter administration's interpretation of the relevant portions of the FLPMA, and the D.C. judge agreed with Bill's Opinion's ultimate conclusion that the Bush administration's mining regulations would protect public lands from unnecessary and undue degradation. Just once I would like to come here to vote on a nominee that some Democrats have maligned and misrepresented in order to make him or her ``controversial,'' and hear more than one Democrat say, well, we've actually reviewed the hearing transcript and the nominee's answers to written questions, and he or she really is a balanced, reasonable person who doesn't deserve the slander we've hurled at him or her. Maybe just once those Democrats prosecuting these filibusters will stray from the talking points and press releases of the inside-the- Beltway smear groups. But I fear that day will be a long time in coming. Until then, and today in Bill Myers' case, all I can do is calmly point out facts and in particular, statements that the nominee has made to us that conclusively rebut the fevered allegations against him. Mr. Myers' opponents have continually argued that since Bill Myers had publicly advocated his former clients' causes, which clash with their own policy preferences, he is presumptively disqualified from service on the Federal bench. But here is what he said in response to Senator Schumer's question regarding the Federal Government's role in environmental policy: A centralized government, i.e., Congress, has an important role to play in environmental protection. And the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act--there are probably 70 environmental statutes that give evidence to that truth. He further explained that much of his advocacy for ranchers against the Government was in response to the impact of environmental regulations on the generally good environmental stewardship of public lands by ranchers. But, Mr. Myers explained in his responses to Senators' written questions that he has in fact represented ``clients who actively opposed use of federal land for oil and gas exploration and ranching,'' in one case because ``proposed oil and gas exploration conflicted with my client's use and enjoyment of . . . the land's aesthetic and ecosystem values.'' He also clarified that his lobbying on behalf of coal companies was limited to a piece of legislation supported by Bruce Babbitt's Interior Department. In written questions, Mr. Myers was asked: In private practice, have you ever represented an environmental organization or Indian tribe in litigation against the grazing or mining industry, or lobbied for environmental or Native American organizations on an issue or piece of legislation that was opposed by the mining or grazing industries? And here's how he responded: I have not represented environmental organizations in private practice. However, I have represented Native American tribal interests in pursuit of environmental matters unrelated to grazing or mining. In particular, I have represented tribal interests in securing water rights and damages for lost fishing rights. I have not lobbied for environmental or Native American organizations. While in private practice, I volunteered to chair a review commissioned by the State of Idaho regarding management of federal lands in Idaho. Environmental interests participated in that effort. Specific environmental groups were invited to join the group as full members but they declined to do so. Mr. Myers also clarified that as Solicitor, he: supported litigation and non-litigation activities restricting commercial use of public land for gold mining, ranching, off-shore oil and gas development, trespass in National Parks, expansion of national monuments, and protection of Indian sacred sites. The question is, Do Mr. Myers' opponents care about his statements and the facts of the particular matters they hold against him, or had they made up their minds, well before he ever had an opportunity to respond to their concerns, and regardless of what he's actually said in sworn testimony? I think I know the answer, and it is a profoundly unsettling one. I would also like to respond briefly to a falsehood recently circulated by a reliably liberal environmental group about Mr. Myers' October 2002 Solicitor Opinion, which addressed the Bureau of Land Management's authority to permanently retire grazing permits on Federal lands. The Opinion concluded that BLM does have the authority to retire permits at the request of a permittee, but only after compliance with statutory requirements and a BLM determination that the public lands associated with the permit should be used for purposes other than grazing. And BLM's decision to retire grazing permits is subject to reconsideration, modification or reversal. Some found this Opinion controversial; some saw it as a shot across the bow against environmental activist groups that try to buy up grazing permits and then seek to retire them permanently, in order to shut ranchers off from those permitted areas. But at least in the case of a dispute over a portion of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a spokesman for the environmental group that sought to buy and retire grazing permits had this reaction to your Opinion: What [Myers'] memo sets up is an acknowledgement of what we've already known . . . Once an area is closed to grazing, someone could still come along later and say ``we want to graze here'' and the BLM could re-open the area to grazing. . . . What people consider new about the memo is that plan amendments are not permanent. But that was not new to us. I guess the extreme environmentalists opposition campaign didn't bother to read that quote, or Myers' Opinion. In fact, the portion of the 1999 Tenth Circuit opinion in Public Lands Council v Babbitt that the U.S. Supreme Court did not review found that there is a presumption of grazing use within grazing districts, and that BLM could not unilaterally reverse this presumption. That finding supports the Opinion. Let me also note that Myers' Opinion superseded a prior memorandum issued by former Secretary Babbitt's Solicitor on January 19, 2001, during the final hours of the Clinton Administration. That memorandum failed to consider a critical factor in any analysis of grazing permits under the Federal Taylor Grazing Act, namely, that the Secretary of the Interior has deemed lands within existing grazing districts ``chiefly valuable for grazing and the raising of forage crops.'' Now, the environmental group that's propagating the misrepresentations about this Solicitor Opinion also speculates that, if Myers' ``authority also extended to the national forests,'' then groups that try to buy up land to preclude all subsequent economic uses of it wouldn't be able to duplicate the ``success story'' of wolf and grizzly bear reintroduction in Wyoming and Montana. It is hard to know where to start dismantling this absurd statement. First, as the record will now show, the relevant Solicitor Opinion does not, in any way, stop willing buyers of land from buying land from a willing seller--but the Federal Taylor Act must be respected in the process. Second, as a Federal appellate judge, Bill Myers, at his most powerful, would be on a panel of three judges. Given the overwhelming number of liberals on the Ninth Circuit, the odds are that he would be routinely outvoted. The third and perhaps most telling, only a liberal environmental group believes that grizzly bear and wolf reintroduction in the West has been a ``success.'' The verdict of the many farmers and ranchers, inside and outside of the Ninth Circuit, who have lost their livestock and livelihoods to these federally subsidized and protected predators is quite different. And it is Bill Myers' understanding of both sides of these types of issues that makes it absolutely essential that he be confirmed as a Ninth Circuit judge. I would like to point out that at the Judiciary Committee markup on April 1, 2004, Bill Myers was unfairly characterized by one of my colleagues as ``a man who has contempt for the views, the well-believed and cherished views of others,'' based on a couple of quotes, lifted out of context, from several advocacy articles he wrote on behalf of his clients: ranchers and farmers. I thought I might read you a few quotes, not lifted out of context, from some of the many activist groups who have fomented much of the baseless opposition to Myers' nomination. Judge for yourselves whether this rhetoric fits the Senator's definition of contempt for the views of others, but I think it's crystal clear that what Myers' opponents would like to do is demonize him as a way to silence the opposition to their own favorite purveyors of contempt. Here are a few choice quotes from a document posted by a coalition of several liberal environmental groups, all of which have vilified Bill Myers as an ``extremist,'' in April 2002: One of the most nefarious strategies used by the Bush Administration and its industry allies to undermine environmental protections is to set policy by failing to defend against industry lawsuits or by reaching ``sweetheart'' settlements with industry. Among the top contributors to the 2000 Bush Presidential Campaign were the very industries oil--and gas, logging, ranching and large-scale real estate development--that stand to benefit most from the weakening of federal wildlife policy. The court cases discussed above [regarding the Endangered Species Act] were virtually all filed by developers, ranchers and loggers, so it is clear that these industries have already benefited from their generosity to the campaign and their otherwise close ties with the Bush Administration. The oil and gas industry similarly has enjoyed favored treatment, even when its activities would despoil some of the most important remaining habitats of imperiled species. Unfortunately, in the current Administration, science is often shortchanged when it gets in the way of favored corporate interests. Secretary Norton's Interior Department has repeatedly suppressed, distorted or scuttled the science, even when it comes from biologists within the Department. Let's see if I've got this straight. The entire Bush administration is nefarious, corrupt, and bribed by corporate interests. Secretary Norton distorts science to benefit the administration's corporate contributors. But it's Bill Myers who is contemptible and ``extreme'' because he dared suggest that frivolous environmental lawsuits are increasing? I think everyone ought to be honest about what's going on here. Groups like this, which I'm sure many Democrats would defend as ``mainstream,'' and whose bidding Senators will be doing by refusing to vote on Bill Myers, are the ones spewing contempt. I would like to respond to some of the rhetoric about Bill Myers' record as Solicitor at the Department of the Interior, a position to which this Senate confirmed him without opposition in 2001. I understand that Mr. Myers's opponents believe that association with the Bush/Norton Interior Department is a disqualifier for service on the Federal bench I wonder if they will mind when such a standard is applied to the detriment of officials from the Clinton/Babbitt Interior Department, or any future Democratic administration, who might be nominated to the Federal bench. Regardless, let me point out just one example of where the Bush Interior Department clearly got a policy issue right, an issue on which Bill Myers himself has been extensively criticized. The issue was decided just last month in the case of Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance [124 S. Ct. 2373 (2004)]: The Bush Interior Department's position in this case, for which Bill Myers laid the legal foundation, was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court. The Court rejected environmental activists' challenges to a land use plan that was duly issued under authority of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The Court endorsed the Interior Department's ``multiple use management'' concept, describing it as ``a deceptively simple term that describes the enormously complicated task of striking a balance among the many competing uses to which land can be put. . . .'' The Court also held that while a ruling in favor of the environmental activists: might please them in the present case, it would ultimately operate to the detriment of sound environmental management. Its predictable consequence would be much vaguer plans from BLM in the future--making coordination with other agencies more difficult, and depriving the public of important information concerning the agency's long range intentions. The fact that Bill Myers defended such policies cannot, in a rational confirmation process, disqualify him from service on the Federal bench. In fact, the endorsement of multiple use management policies by a unanimous Supreme Court in this case is compelling evidence against the absurd allegations that Bill Myers is somehow ``out of the mainstream'' with respect to public lands and environmental law. I would also like to address a point raised earlier about some statements that Bill Myers made in articles that he wrote on behalf of his clients--cattlemen, ranchers and farmers who opposed Federal Government mismanagement of public lands. In a July 1, 2004 article entitled ``Ronald Reagan, Sagebrush Rebel, Rest in Peace,'' William Pendley of the Mountain States Legal Foundation wrote: ``I am, former Governor Ronald Reagan proclaimed in 1980, `a Sagebrush Rebel.' '' Now, at his hearing, Bill Myers was attacked merely for having used this same term, in an advocacy piece he wrote for his farming and ranching clients. In fact, he was mocked at this hearing, and after it, for merely channeling the concerns of his clients, who, like Ronald Reagan, considered themselves ``Sagebrush Rebels.'' Mr. Pendley's article goes on: When Ronald Reagan was sworn in, he became the first president since the birth of the modern environmental movement a decade before to have seen, first hand, the impact of excessive federal environmental regulation on the ability of state governments to perform their constitutional functions; of local governments to sustain healthy economies; and of private citizens to use their own property. . . . Reagan thought federal agencies in the West should be ``good neighbors.'' Therefore, Reagan returned control of western water rights to the states, where they had been from the time gold was panned in California until Jimmy Carter took office. Reagan sought to ensure that Western states received the lands that they had been guaranteed when they entered the Union. Reagan responded to the desire of western governors that the people of their states be made a part of the environmental equation by being included in federal land use planning. I would also like to note that Reagan criticized ``excessive'' regulation, not any regulation at all--neither Bill Myers nor anyone else thinks there is no role for the Federal Government in environmental regulation. And Bill Myers emphasized this at his hearing, in response to very hostile questioning by Democratic Senators: A centralized government--i.e. Congress--has an important role to play in environmental protection. And the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act--there are probably 70 environmental statutes that give evidence to that truth. But the Reagan approach, which is also the Bush Interior Department's approach, which Bill Myers did his best to defend, is inimical to the environmental activist groups that oppose Mr. Myers' nomination. Any attempt to give the people who actually make their living on and around Western lands a stake in how those lands are regulated is violently opposed by these groups. And then these groups label their enemies ``enemies of the environment,'' or ``friends of polluters.'' It is unfortunate that such labels are uncritically accepted by some Senators, and because these liberal groups have similarly labeled Bill Myers, he won't get the up or down vote he deserves.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I express my support for the United States- Morocco Free Trade Agreement. Under the leadership of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, the U.S. has once again negotiated a sound free trade agreement with a country that is energetic in their support of U.S. interests around the world. I thank all of those involved in negotiating this agreement, especially the dedicated staff at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office and my colleagues on the Finance Committee, Chairman Grassley and ranking minority member Baucus. Although bilateral trade agreements with relatively small countries are very time consuming and difficult, when taken in aggregate, they add up to a substantial amount of U.S. annual exports. In all, these smaller free-trade agreements end up saving U.S. businesses millions of dollars a year in tariffs and duties and, therefore, are worth all the effort exerted in getting them negotiated and enacted. The United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement will open up the Moroccan market to fair trade and will allow U.S. companies to compete effectively. In fact, with the signing of this agreement, more than 95 percent of bilateral trade in consumer and industrial products will become duty free immediately. Industries such as information technology, machinery, chemicals, and construction equipment will gain immediate duty-free access to Morocco. Agricultural markets in Morocco will continue to open up to U.S. imports at a rapid pace. Service industries that are so crucial to the economy of the State of Utah will have rapidly increasing access to Morocco, thereby, allowing banks, consulting companies, insurance companies, and telecommunications companies the ability to compete on a level playing field. Of particular note in this agreement is the inclusion of antibribery and transparency provisions. These provisions will help Morocco in cracking down on illegal activity which hurts U.S. exporters and leads to higher costs for consumers. Utah companies have exported nearly $1 million worth of goods and services to Morocco over the last 5 years. Although this amount seems relatively modest, I take comfort in the fact that those small businesses engaged in this trade will be saving money under this agreement and be better positioned to increase the amount they export. One million dollars in trade with Morocco may not seem like much when measured against overall Utah exports, but to those individuals whose jobs depend on trade with Morocco, $1 million is a very big deal and I am proud to be able to help them. Much of the products exported by Utah companies are manufactured products and manufacturing jobs can be difficult to hold on to these days. Therefore, I am pleased to help lower barriers around the world and make it easier for Utah manufacturers and their employees to compete. Utah workers, and American workers collectively, deserve to be treated fairly in the world-wide marketplace and this agreement accomplishes that goal. Fairness and transparency only help U.S. companies compete and that is why I support the swift approval of this implementing legislation. The Situation in Darfur and Sudan

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 20, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in closed session to receive a classified briefing from Major General Keith W. Dayton, USA, Former Commander of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) regarding the activities of the ISG in Iraq.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct an oversight hearing on the Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report of the Federal Reserve. Concurrent with the hearing, the Committee intends to vote on the nominations of Mr. Stuart Levey, of Maryland, to be Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement; Mr. Juan Carlos Zarate, of California, to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes; and Ms. Carin M. Barth, of Texas, to be the Chief Financial Officer, Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 20 at 10 a.m. to receive testimony on S. 2590, a bill to provide a conservation royalty from outer continental shelf revenues to establish the Coastal Impact Assistance Program, to provide assistance to States under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, to ensure adequate funding for conserving and restoring wildlife, to assist local governments in improving local park and recreation systems, and for other purposes.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on July 20, 2004, at 10 a.m., to consider favorably reporting S. 2677, the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act; H.R. 982, a bill to clarify the tax treatment of bonds and other obligations issued by the Government of American Samoa, and, the nominations of Joey Russell George, to be Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, U.S. Department of Treasury; Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr., to be Inspector General, Social Security Administration; Paul B. Jones, to be Member, IRS Oversight Board; and, Charles L. Kolbe, to be Member, IRS Oversight Board.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on The Road Map: Detours and Disengagements.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 10 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 2605, the Snake River (Nez Perce) Water Rights Act of 2004.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to continue its markup on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 9:30 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. The agenda is attached. Agenda I. Nominations: Claude A. Allen to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit; David W. McKeague to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit; Richard A. Griffin to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit; Virginia Maria Hernandez Covington to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida; Michael H. Schneider, Sr., of Texas to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas; David E. Nahmias, of Georgia to be United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia; Robert Clark Corrente to be United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island; Ricardo H. Hinojosa to be Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission; Michael O'Neill to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission; and Ruben Castillo to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. II. Legislation: S. 1635, L-1 Visa (Intracompany Transferee) Reform Act of 2003--Chambliss; S.J. Res. 4, Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizing Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States Act of 2003-- Hatch, Feinstein, Craig, Sessions, DeWine, Grassley, Graham, Cornyn, Chambliss, Specter, Kyl; S. 700, Advancing Justice through DNA Technology Act of 2003--Hatch, Biden, Specter, Leahy, DeWine, Feinstein, Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin, Kohl, Edwards; S. 2396, Federal Courts Improvement Act of 2004--Hatch, Leahy, Chambliss, Durbin, Schumer; S. Res. 401, A resolution designating the week of November 7 through November 13, 2004, as ``National Veterans Awareness Week'' to emphasize the need to develop educational programs regarding the contributions of veterans to the country of 2004--Biden, Chambliss, Cornyn, Durbin, Feingold, Feinstein, Graham, Grassley, Kennedy, Sessions, Specter; and S. Con. Res. 109, A concurrent resolution commending the United States Institute of Peace on the occasion of its 20th anniversary and recognizing the Institute for its contribution to international conflict resolution of 2004--Inouye, Harkin, Warner.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., for a markup on the pending legislation. The meeting will be held in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building. Agenda 1. S. 1153, the ``Veterans Prescription Drugs Assistance Act of 2004;'' 2. S. 2483, the ``Veterans Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment Act of 2004;'' 3. S. 2484, the ``Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel Enhancement Act of 2003,'' as amended; 4. S. 2485, the ``Department of Veterans Affairs Real Property and Facilities Management Improvement Act of 2004,'' as amended; 5. S. 2486, the ``Veterans Benefits Improvements Act of 2004,'' as amended.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 20, 2004 at 10:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 20, 2004 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 at 9 a.m. for a hearing entitled, ``Building the 21st Century Federal Workforce: Assessing Progress in Human Capital Management.''

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services be authorized to meet for a hearing on Performance and Outcome Measurement in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Programs during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 20, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I yield such time as he needs to the distinguished Senator from Idaho, and I will defer my remarks until after he finishes because he has a hearing scheduled in just a number of minutes, so we will turn to him first.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Idaho has made some very important points. That is, this is now eight judges who the Democrats have indicated they would filibuster in the Senate, including this very excellent candidate for the Federal bench, William G. Myers III. We have never had filibusters of judicial nominees in the history of this country, not one time before. No one in the past has been willing to violate the rules in such a fashion until this President was elected. It began with Miguel Estrada who, of course, removed his name from consideration. After having sat there for better than 2 years, he decided he better get back to his law practice. It includes another seven, including Mr. Myers, who the Democrats have indicated they will filibuster--in other words, try to talk to death this nomination. Since they have been able to keep control of almost everybody in their caucus, needing only 41 votes against cloture--in other words, against ending the debate so a vote can be taken--they have subverted the rules and have caused what is going to be called a crisis unless we can find a way around it. It is a crisis now because excellent nominees have been badly mistreated in the Senate by not even getting a vote up or down. Once a nominee is brought to the floor, that nominee deserves, under the advice and consent clause of the Constitution, article II, section 2, a vote up or down. If my colleagues on the other side do not like people, they can do everything they can within the committee to try and block the nomination there. But once that nominee is brought to the Senate, that nominee, under the advice and consent clause, deserves a vote up or down. Mr. Myers is no exception. He deserves a vote up or down. He is an excellent nominee, one who would have that vote up or down if the Senate were acting responsibly. I rise today in strong support for the confirmation of William G. Myers III who has been nominated to fulfill the Idaho vacancy on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Let me emphasize, when current Circuit Judge Trott takes senior status at the end of this year, and if the Senate refuses to even vote on Mr. Myers' nomination, there would be no Idaho representative on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Federal Law 28 United States Code section 44(c) requires each State within a circuit must have at least one active judge serving on that circuit. We have heard a lot of discussion over the past few months about how circuit court seats should not be switched from one State to another out of respect for home-State senators. I hope the Senators who have raised those valid concerns afford Senators Craig and Crapo and the rest of us in the West the same respect they believe they themselves and their States deserve. Again, this is not about Idaho having two or three or even one or two seats on the Ninth Circuit. It is about whether the Senate will refuse to even vote on filling Idaho's only active seat on the Ninth Circuit. As I will discuss further, it is also about whether a qualified nominee can be blocked by a minority of Senators because he at one time or another represented ranchers, farmers, and miners in their efforts to make balanced use of public and private uses of public lands in the Western United States of America. These are among the greatest pioneers and greatest leaders of the intermountain West, these farmers, ranchers, and miners. These are good people. These are people who, like everyone else in our society, deserve representation. Many of them came to William G. Myers III for such representation. He represents them well, as he should, as an advocate. The fact that some on the other side of aisle do not agree with his advocacy is no reason to stop him from being the sole active Idaho judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bill Myers was nominated by President Bush in May of 2003, over a year ago, and his nomination was carefully examined, debated, and favorably reported out of the Judiciary Committee in early April. Democrats who opposed him in committee voted against him. That is their right. But they should not now delay all Senators the right to vote on this confirmation. Bill Myers deserves and is overdue for an up-or-down vote in the Senate. I remind my colleagues that the Ninth Circuit is the most notoriously liberal Federal circuit in the United States. It is and has been for at least a decade quintessentially out of the mainstream of American jurisprudence. The infamous case in which this court held our Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the word ``God'' is but one of many examples of its all too frequent perversions of Federal jurisprudence. Fortunately, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Ninth Circuit in that case, one of 16 times in the 2003-2004 term alone the Court unanimously reversed or summarily vacated the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This past Supreme Court term, the Ninth Circuit was reversed or vacated 81 percent of the time. Even my liberal friend from New York, Senator Schumer, once noted the Ninth Circuit is ``way out of the mainstream on the left.'' As Senator Feinstein noted in the 1996-1997 term, the Ninth Circuit was reversed 20 of 21 cases. While some circuits had similar reversal rates, no other circuit came close to the number of cases considered and reversed. The same has been true since then. The Ninth Circuit has been reversed 86.5 percent of the time since 1998. That is a disgrace to the Federal bench. In 58 cases the Court didn't even need to hear argument, they simply vacated the Ninth Circuit summarily. In the 2003-2004 term, Ninth Circuit appeals accounted for about one-third of the Supreme Court's docket, suggesting that the Court feels the need to focus disproportionately intense scrutiny on decisions from that circuit. As I noted, about two-thirds of the Ninth Circuit reversals this past term, 64 percent, to be exact, were unanimous. This is a court that is desperately in need of good, nonactivist judges who will be faithful to the Constitution. There is no doubt in my mind or in the mind of anybody who knows him that Bill Myers would be such a judge. One would think the Senate would welcome the confirmation of an expert on public lands and natural resources law to a court that has enormous influence over how disputes over the uses of these resources are resolved. Western Senators know all too well that the Ninth Circuit is the 900-pound gorilla of public lands, natural resources, and environmental law. Its decisions have significant and often adverse impacts well beyond the borders of its jurisdiction. Yet today, and tomorrow, I suppose, we will hear it is Bill Myers who is out of the mainstream and not fit to join the ranks of the Ninth Circuit judges who routinely ignore law and precedent to rule based on their own personal policy preferences, both on natural resources issues and in many other areas of the law, including, but not limited to, the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance and the death penalty. The prejudices against Bill Myers reflect today's poisoned confirmation process: Nominees who somehow offend any well-funded liberal interest group are subject to distortions and baseless personal attacks, which the media echo chamber dutifully resound as proof positive of unfitness for the Federal bench. And with Bill Myers and his record, the distortions continue, baseless as ever. His record as the Interior Department's Solicitor, where he was doing his duty to represent the policy positions of the United States of America, has been attacked because the liberal environmentalists do not like those policies. He has been vilified for daring to represent farmers, ranchers, and miners while in private practice, as if ranchers, farmers, miners, and those who make economic uses of Western lands are less entitled to representation than the elite, liberal environmental groups that attempt to dictate Western land policy from Eastern cities, while they derisively refer to most of our Nation as a flyover country. So what is at stake is this: Is a judicial nominee disqualified from service on the Federal bench solely because he or she has advocated, successfully and competently, for people or policies that liberal groups of various stripes dislike? If the answer from my Democratic colleagues is yes, then I do not want to hear one more word--not one-- from any of them about how it is Republicans who are politicizing the judiciary. There is no more blatant way for Senators to politicize and degrade the confirmation process than to reflexively disqualify nominees who have represented people and groups or advanced policies they do not like. Ask yourselves, is this vote on Bill Myers really about Bill Myers? If it is, you know and I know there is no reason on the merits to deny him an up-or-down vote. Or will this vote be a reflection of liberal disdain for policies favored by farmers, ranchers, miners, the Bush Interior Department, or anyone else who advocates balanced uses of Western lands? If the latter is true, let me emphasize again for those who still do not get it, the Constitution did not and does not establish Federal courts as the policymaking branch of the Government. Federal judges should not make policy, though too often, especially on the Ninth Circuit, they do. Policy debates ought to have no place in our consideration of a nominee's qualifications to serve as a Federal judge--unless we think he or she does not understand the proper role of Federal judges under our constitutional system. Absent absurd and unfair distortions of his record, there is zero evidence that Bill Myers does not understand that proper role. I would also like to remind my colleagues of some facts about Bill Myers that the liberal interest groups and the media have willfully ignored or deliberately misrepresented. He has an exemplary record that includes service as a successful, committed advocate and public servant. As Solicitor for the Department of Interior, a position to which he was confirmed in 2001 without opposition, Mr. Myers supervised over 300 attorneys and 100 support staff in 19 different offices throughout the United States, and managed a $47 million annual budget. He has served as counsel here in the Senate to our former colleague Senator Al Simpson, and, as well, in the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy. His confirmation is supported by Democrats, including former Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan and former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus, who also served President Carter as Secretary of the Interior, plus the Democratic attorneys general in both Colorado and Oklahoma, and Republicans alike. Five Western Governors, including the Governors of Hawaii, Montana, and Nevada, have written to the committee expressing their support and emphasizing ``the need for quality judges who will provide a balanced perspective to the Ninth Circuit's extraordinary caseload.'' I also want to respond to a blatant misrepresentation about Mr. Myers' record that was made by one of my colleagues who suggested, falsely, that Bill Myers ``thinks the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act have harmed the environment.'' Well, as anyone who has bothered to read Mr. Myers' hearing testimony and written questions or even conducted a cursory review of his record would know, he thinks no such thing. In fact, I do not think he has ever said anything about the Clean Air Act at all. Now in his responses to Senator Feinstein's written questions, Mr. Myers affirmed that congressional intent in passing the Clean Water Act was to ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of our Nation's waters,'' and that ``the health of our Nation's waters is often inextricably connected to the health of adjacent wetlands.'' This is an extreme conservative position? Only in the sense that Bill Myers failed to endorse the full policy platform of Greenpeace. Similarly, regarding the Endangered Species Act, we all know there have been cases in which Government authorities have abused their power under this law to confiscate private property without compensation. Let me give you one example, the 2001 Ninth Circuit decision in the Arizona Cattle Growers case. Here, a unanimous appellate panel, composed of two judges appointed by President Clinton and one judge appointed by President Reagan, wrote the following: [T]he Fish and Wildlife Service acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner by issuing Incidental Take Statements imposing terms and conditions on land use permits, where there either was no evidence that the endangered species existed on the land or no evidence that a take would occur if the permit were issued. We also find that it was arbitrary and capricious for the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue terms and conditions so vague as to preclude compliance therewith. So Bill Myers has been an advocate for farmers and ranchers who have challenged such abuses of this law, because their families' lives and fortunes depend on their ability to responsibly use land they own or lease. For such efforts, he is unfit for Federal judicial service? Give me a break. Here is what Bill Myers has actually said about the Endangered Species Act. Contrast what he has said with what his opponents believe he thinks. He has said Federal agencies should not use it as a zoning tool on public lands. Now, is that unreasonable? He argued in a brief on behalf of the American Farm Bureau and others that the Babbitt Interior Department regulations that defined the term ``harm'' in the Endangered Species Act in a way that essentially precluded any private landowners' use of property on which an endangered species might find habitat should be invalidated. That sounds like a reasonable position to me. And I think it would be to anybody under similar circumstances. Why, it might even be a reasonable position for some of my more liberal legal colleagues on the other side, if they bother to think about it. Importantly, the Government had no intention of compensating affected landowners if these regulations rendered their land valueless, despite the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, and despite provisions in the Endangered Species Act itself that authorize the Government to compensate landowners in such situations. So, again, are the positions taken by the American Farm Bureau and other farmers and ranchers extreme and unreasonable, disqualifying their lawyer from Federal judicial service? I think the obvious answer is no--unless every nominee to the Ninth Circuit must share the policy positions of the elitist and more radical environmental groups. Let me make one related point. I will refer to a news report dated March 17, 2004, headlined: ``Grad Student Charged in SUV Arson.'' According to the article, a student with connections to the radical environmentalist group Earth Liberation Front firebombed and vandalized 125 vehicles at Los Angeles area car dealerships and private homes in August 2002. The words ``ELF'' and ``Fat Lazy Americans'' were spray- painted onto some of the vehicles. ELF also took responsibility for a 2002 fire in San Diego that destroyed an apartment building and caused $50 million worth of damage. Just 2 weeks ago ELF is suspected of carrying out an attack in my home State of Utah at Brigham Young University. When ELF extremists are arrested, they are represented by attorneys. Without in any way suggesting that anything Bill Myers has ever done or advocated approaches such actual extremism, are these attorneys presumptively disqualified from service on the Federal bench because of the criminal actions of their clients? Can we assume that they sympathize with the criminals' actions? In light of some Senate Democrats' apparently closed minds against a growing number of President Bush's nominees, perhaps we all need to think more carefully about how we answer such questions. Some Senators apparently believe that nominees who do not think like they do, and will not advocate their pet causes while on the bench, deserve nothing more than to be filibustered--denied an up-or-down vote because they--a minority--know that a Senate majority stands ready to confirm these nominees. Unlike those who are supporting such filibusters for purely ideological reasons, I do not believe that a nominee must share all of my favorite interest groups' policy views in order to deserve an up-or -down vote. And let me read what Bill Myers had to say on this at his hearing. I would stand on my personal record that I cited a moment ago that I have spent my free time in serving national parks, such as picking cigarette butts out of fire pits. I have a great love for the national parks. That is where we recreate and that is where we go for sustenance, for spiritual refreshment, and that is a personally-held view. The larger view, though, and the one that is really important for this Committee is whether I would carry into a judicial position, if I were so lucky as to be confirmed, an ideology that would result in a bias against or for any litigant. And I think it should be noted that every nominee, I suspect, that comes before you has both proponents and opponents, and some of those people may hope that once that person becomes a judge that they can either count on them to do the right thing or cower in fear that they will do the wrong thing. I hope that both of those groups, the proponents and the opponents, are disappointed; that when a person takes on those robes, takes the oath of office, swears to uphold the Constitution, that that means that they will follow the law and the facts, wherever the law and the facts take them, without regard to personal opinion, public opinion, friends, or foes. Ask yourselves, is this an ideological nominee? Out of the mainstream? As I said before, only in the eyes of the well-funded environmental extremist groups who cannot stand the idea of a Ninth Circuit judge who might not buy into all of their propaganda. Finally, Bill Myers would fill an Idaho seat recently vacated by an Idaho judge. While no Federal judge should represent anyone or anything but Federal law, to the extent the Ninth Circuit currently represents anything other than embarrassment and summary reversals, it represents President Clinton, who appointed 14 of its active 26 judges four during election year 2000 alone. And let me note, for the benefit of those who now say it is too late in an election year to confirm judges, that Clinton nominee and current Ninth Circuit Judge Rawlinson was confirmed to his position on July 21, 2000, in the last year of the Clinton administration. Bill Myers was a successful advocate for people and causes that deserve representation just as much as any environmental activist group, or any liberal's pet causes. As the Interior Department's solicitor, Mr. Myers defended balanced policy solutions to difficult questions of how our public lands and natural resources in the west should be managed. His confirmation will help balance a very out-of- balance Ninth Circuit, as well as ensuring that Idaho maintains its only seat on that court. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to confirm this good man to the Ninth Circuit. We have heard from the other side about the mythical ``Thurmond rule'' and all kinds of other suggestions that judges should not be confirmed from here on, this late in a Presidential election year. I remember way back when, cases where we confirmed judges, Democratic nominees, Carter nominees, even after President Reagan had won the election. In fact, one of them is sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I remember when my colleagues came to me back in the year 1980 and asked if I would be willing to support then-Harvard law professor Stephen Breyer for the First Circuit Court of Appeals. I have to say there were some Republicans who didn't want that to happen. But he had been a wonderful chief of staff for Senator Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee. He was honest, decent, honorable, kind, worked well with both sides. He had all of the qualifications. There was no question about intelligence and ability. I led the fight to make sure he was confirmed. That was later in that year. There have been other cases as well. It is wrong to set any arbitrary limits on when during the year the Senate can confirm judges. If a person is not qualified, that is one thing. But everybody we have brought to the floor has not only been qualified, they have been among the best nominees of my 28 years in the Senate. Mr. Myers is one of them. He is knowledgeable. He has held high-level positions in our Government. He has served with distinction. He has served well. He is one of the brightest people. He would represent Idaho in the only active seat Idaho would have. He certainly understands all of the problems in the intermountain West, an area where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals could use his knowledge. He is one of the top public lands and natural resource lawyers in the country. He is a person of inestimable ability, great charm, decency, honorable ways, and capacity. He is a person who would have great temperament on the court. In other words, he is a person we ought to confirm. We should not get into these Mickey Mouse filibusters that fly in the face of the advise and consent clause itself, and which basically have cost the dignity of the Senate to a large degree. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Monday, July 19, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to consider the nominations of Neil McPhie to be Chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Barbara J. Sapin to be Member, Merit Systems Protection Board.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging by authorized to meet Monday, July 19, 2004 from 2 p.m.-5 p.m. in Dirksen 628 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Spencer Kiggins, James Mainord, and Anand Singh be granted floor privileges during the debate on the nomination of Mr. Myers.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I address the DeWine-Kennedy amendment to H.R. 4520, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. Let me say at the outset that I will vote for this proposal tonight, because I am fully supportive of measures to end tobacco use in the United States. I can think of few public health dangers worse than tobacco, and this is especially true for young people. Certainly, in my home state of Utah, I hear time and time again from concerned parents and health advocates who point out the devastating health consequences of tobacco use. So, I think it is critical that we go to conference on this issue. However, my support for the amendment is not without some serious reservations, and I hope they can be addressed and corrected in conference. My first concern is that the committee of jurisdiction, the HELP Committee, should have had the opportunity to consider fully the text of S. 2461, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which is included in the DeWine-Kennedy amendment, before it is brought to the floor for this vote. Having been the chairman of that committee for several years, I know full well the complexities of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Three hours of debate are not enough time to consider legislation that makes such dramatic changes to current law. I have only had a short time to review this legislative language but I believe there are several troubling components. For example, the tobacco company marketing provisions alone in this amendment raise serious 1st Amendment issues, as do the provisions granting authority to state and local governments to impose specific bans or restrictions on the time, place and manner of tobacco advertising. I would have preferred we have a more lengthy debate on about the implications of these provisions before we vote. I also think we need to give serious study to the drafting of the language providing the FDA with the authority to regulate tobacco products. This area of the law is extremely complex. In addition, I must point out that the FDA already has been charged with numerous responsibilities and has been criticized time and time again for its inability to meet statutory requirements due to funding constraints. In fact, just yesterday, I held a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the safety of imported drugs where FDA officials told members of my Committee how difficult it would be for them to ensure the safety of imported drugs because the agency is already strapped for resources. How can we expect the FDA to take on new responsibilities without supplying the agency sufficient funding for performing its current duties? In closing, let me address the tobacco buyout provisions. Mr. President, I am all for measures to reduce our Nation's dependence on tobacco, and measures to encourage less tobacco production are an important part of that equation. I am encouraged that the amendment we are considering tonight does not use taxpayer funds to accomplish the buyout. That is an important point. I also recognize that the program will help get the Government out of the farming business while making temporary assistance available to farmers as they adjust to the free market. That being said, questions worthy of serious consideration have been raised about where this assistance will go, and I think we need to study that more.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to support the United States- Australia Free Trade Agreement. I do so because it is good for the cause of free and fair trade, it is good for the United States, and it is good for Utah. I wish to commend my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee, particularly Chairman Grassley and ranking minority member Baucus. They have assiduously worked with the administration to complete the legislation implementing years of negotiations. Working with our colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee, we have prepared legislation that, I believe, will pass overwhelmingly in both Houses. That it does so reflects on the strengths of this agreement, and on the hard work of members in both committees. To date, the process for putting this agreement in place has been fair. Members have been given ample opportunity to voice any concerns they may have about the substance of this agreement both on the Senate floor and in briefings with the U.S. Trade Representative's office. No one can legitimately say this has been a partisan process. No one can legitimately say they have not had a chance to review and comment on this historic agreement. However, this agreement would not have been completed had Congress failed to provide the President with fast-track trade promotion authority. These agreements are complex, and the interests are vast, and, as we know, Congress can slow the process by endlessly nitpicking details for political advantage. Without trade promotion authority granted by a majority of this body to the President in 2002, the President would have failed to advance his agenda of creating American jobs by leveraging the strength of our economy into free and fair trade regimes created by us. Toward that last point, I wish to commend the small team at the United States Trade Representative's Office, led by the extremely able Robert Zoellick, for their work through these years in advancing the President's free trade agenda. The Australia Free Trade Agreement before the Senate will boost our economy while advancing bilateral relations with our strongest partner in Asia as a result of the dedication of Bob Zoellick and the people at USTR. Australia stood with us in our foreign policy challenges throughout the 20th century. In the beginning of this century, which was marked so soon after by the attacks of September 11, and our response with the global war on terror and the war to destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein, Australia has continued to stand with us. We have a history of friendship, based on shared civic values of democracy, individual freedom and free markets. We have no closer ally in Asia. Of course this is not a sufficient reason to grant a free trade agreement, or FTA. The necessary and sufficient agreements in granting FTAs have to do with opening markets in a way that will fairly allow U.S. products to compete. I am pleased to observe that in this area, the Australia FTA does a superb job. In fact, the Australia FTA eliminates 99 percent of Australia's manufacturing tariffs immediately, giving U.S. firms an average 5 percent price advantage over international competitors in the Australian market. As well, the FTA grants tariff-free access to Australia's agricultural market for U.S. exporters, grants enhanced preferential access to U.S. services exporters to Australia, and removes foreign investment screening for several types of U.S. investment. For my home State, this FTA gives Utah businesses a distinct advantage over their international rivals when trading with Australia. Australia's market is the 12th largest market for Utah goods, with total exports valued at over $67 million in 2003. The implementation of the Australia FTA will provide a large boost to Utah's auto parts, processed foods, sports equipment and medical equipment companies. These important and large industries within the State of Utah will now be able to export 99 percent of their goods to without facing manufacturing tariffs, this gives them, on average, a 5 percent price advantage over international competitors in the Australian market. There are nine Australian-owned companies currently operating in Utah which insource several hundred jobs for Utahns. In all, there are over 320 jobs in Utah that are directly supported by trade with Australia, and hundreds more that are indirectly supported by Australian trade. No agreement is perfect, whether it is with a developing economy, or a modern and developed economy, like Australia's. This FTA will provide an immediate opening to Australia's large market for agricultural products from our States. Currently, our prolific U.S. agricultural producers export more than $400 million in products to Australia. In terms of granting access for Australian beef, the agreement allows for us to increase the beef import quota over an 18-year period. Quota increases to be granted in the first 3 years are conditional upon U.S. beef exports reaching 2003 levels, so that Australian beef exporters will not be able to exploit recent drops in U.S. beef exports caused by the mad cow scare. While quotas within tariffs will be removed, above- quota tariffs will also be phased out over time. The Congressional Research Service reports that ``initial quota increases represent an estimated $50 million in additional imports--less than \1/4\ of 1 percent of the value of annual U.S. beef output, and 1.6 percent of the value of U.S. beef imports.'' In addition, the agreement provides safeguards that will protect U.S. beef producers from surges in imports from Australia. These safeguards are permanent and apply to the transition periods, as well as after the transition periods. This agreement is going to be good for the American economy. In addition to manufacturing and agricultural products, it provides an immediate opening in Australian markets for financial services, electronic commerce and U.S. investment. In the latter category, we should appreciate the implications of allowing U.S. investment to now use Australia as a base for greater expansion into the rapidly growing Asian markets. The benefits of this FTA to the U.S. economy equate to about $500 million per year. This translates into more U.S. jobs. And, for me, this is the bottom line. Economic policymakers both in Congress and in President Bush's administration recognize that the most fundamental goal of economic policy is to support the economy and create American jobs. American workers, farmers and cattlemen are the most industrious and productive in the world. That is why, as the U.S. has expanded trade regimes based on the principles of fairness and transparency that define our economy, the U.S. has always been a net winner. The rest of the world wants to buy our goods because they are the best quality at the most affordable prices. The rest of the world wants to sell in our markets, because to do so, they must create products that compete in the most open and efficient market in the world. Successful U.S. free trade agreements protect our principles, advance our values, and provide opportunity for all those who compete fairly. And fair competition is something the citizens of Utah support. For these reasons and more I support the swift approval of this implementing legislation.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. How much time remains on both sides?