Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield my remaining time to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, much of Massachusetts' economy is now based on technology and innovation. The high-tech industry tripled in Massachusetts over the past decade and drove our region's economy. The Massachusetts telecommunications sector employs over 110,000 workers in the State. We need to support their continued growth. We need to make broadband a priority since the technology can add $300 billion a year to the U.S. economy and generate more than 1.2 million jobs. That is why this legislation is so important. The issue on final passage of the McCain compromise amendment is whether the Nation continues to have a moratorium preventing taxation on access to the Internet. I have always supported the moratorium in the past, and I will do so again today. I opposed cloture earlier today because I thought there was room for improvement, and I wanted the Senate to take the time to get it right. I am pleased with the improvements that have been made during the course of today's debate. Congress should not jeopardize the continued advance of information technology by allowing the tax moratorium to disappear, subjecting the Internet to ``multiple and discriminatory taxes.'' We clearly need to reinstate the moratorium. Now is the time to pass this legislation. Amendment No. 3048

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend the Foreign Relations Committee for its action today in reporting a resolution urging action by the United States and the international community to respond to the ongoing ethnic violence in Sudan. The Senate should act on this resolution as soon as possible. It has been 10 years since the Rwanda genocide. A decade ago, 8,000 Rwandans were being killed every day, yet the international community was silent. We did not stop the deaths of 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutu, in spite of our commitment that genocide must never again darken the annals of human history. Sadly, we may now be repeating the same mistake in Sudan. In 1998, President Clinton made a special visit to Kigali, Rwanda's capital, ``partly,'' he said, ``in recognition of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred'' in Rwanda. His visit and strong words remind us that we must not hesitate to act, when the horror is clear and when so many lives may be lost. Over the past few weeks, reports of severe ethnic violence have come from Darfur, a region of western Sudan. We have heard accounts of thousands or even tens of thousands of people murdered, of widespread rape, and of people's homes burned to the ground. The Sudanese Government has refused to allow full access to western Sudan. International monitors and humanitarian workers have been prevented from reaching the area. We need immediate access to gather more information on what is happening and to provide urgent humanitarian relief to the one million people the United Nations reports have been displaced internally in Sudan or across the border to Chad. Many of us hoped that the humanitarian ceasefire and agreement earlier this month between the Sudanese government and rebel forces in western Sudan would end the many months of violence against entire communities. It has not. The bombing of villages by the Sudanese Air Force continues, and so does the mayhem by the paramilitary forces unleashed by the Government of Sudan. The burning of homes and crops of desperately poor villagers has left in its ashes a humanitarian disaster. Without immediate relief, experts predict deaths in the hundreds of thousands. The cruelty of the Government of Sudan and its paramilitary allies against other ethnic groups raises the very real specter of genocide. The United States and the international community need to act now, to stop this brutality, to save lives. President Bush should make a strong public statement alerting the world to the violence in Darfur. He should call the international community to action, and increase pressure on the Sudanese Government. Doing so would send a strong signal that the international community will not accept these continuing atrocities. Sudan has been seeking better relations with the United States. It must be told that our nation will have no relations with a genocidal government. The United States should propose a resolution in the United Nations Security Council to condemn the violations of international law being committed in Darfur, particularly the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the obstruction of humanitarian aid by the government. The U.N. should demand immediate international access to the region to assess the full scale of the need for assistance. The U.N. should also insist on adequate support for international human rights monitors and for monitors of the ceasefire agreement reached last week. The international community must demand that Sudan stop the violence now, and give full humanitarian access to Darfur without question or qualification. To minimize the suffering of those affected by the violence, we should immediately identify funds and food aid to meet at least the traditional U.S. share of the $110 million appeal from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to support urgently needed assistance for internally displaced persons and refugees. These internally displaced persons and refugees must also be allowed by the Sudanese Government and militias to return safely to their homes, to rebuild their lives and communities, as soon as possible. The European Community, African countries and the rest of the international community should use their considerable influence to pressure Sudan to end the violence in Darfur, and end it now. If the international community fails to act--and to act now--the consequences will be dire. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was eloquent in his statement at the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. He said that he would not permit Darfur to become the first genocide of the 21st century. There will be discussion in Washington and around the world about whether the ethnic violence in Darfur is, in fact, genocide, but we cannot allow the debate over definitions obstruct our ability to act as soon as possible. It is a matter of the highest moral responsibility for each of us individually, for Congress, for the United States, and for the global community to do all we can to stop the violence against innocents in Darfur. We must act, because thousands of people's lives will be lost if we don't.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it has been seven long years since Congress last acted to raise the minimum wage. The cost of living keeps going up, and these workers keep falling farther and farther behind, because the minimum wage they're paid buys less and less. The current minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. You can't work hard, raise a family, and pay for food and rent and clothing, on $5.15 an hour-- $10,700 a year--$5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The minimum wage is too low. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004, which I introduce today, will raise the minimum wage by $1.85 to $7.00 an hour. The raise to $7.00 would be carried out in three moderate steps in just over two years. More than 7 million workers would directly benefit from this minimum wage increases. Let me be clear about who we're talking about here--the janitors who clean our great buildings late into the night; the school aides who support our kids and their teachers; home healthcare workers caring for our elderly parents in their home; the children whose parents can't afford to give them more than a single slim meal a day. There is one thing that stands in the way of a decent minimum wage-- one thing--and that's the Republican Party. If this President and the Republican Party really cared about working Americans--about minimum wage workers--why would they oppose a decent wage for a hard day's work? But for seven long years, they have blocked every effort in this Congress to raise the minimum wage. Why would they oppose unemployment benefits for the 8 million out-of- work Americans? Why would they oppose overtime pay if you have to work more than 40 hours a week? Why would they support shipping your jobs overseas? A fair increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. We should all be able to agree on the principle that no one who works for a living should have to live in poverty. How can Congress keep saying no, when more and more workers can't make ends meet? I plan to be back on the Senate floor offering this bill as an amendment over and over again until Congress agrees to give low-wage workers the raise they have earned.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Protecting America's Workers Act. This week, on Workers' Memorial Day, we remember and honor those who have died or been injured on the job in the past year. We remember and honor their families. And we pledge to do more to end the unsafe and unhealthy conditions that still plague so many workplaces across America. We have made significant progress in protecting worker safety since 1970, when we passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. But there is still a tremendous amount to be done. Every year, over five thousand workers are killed and nearly five million others become ill or are injured on the job. That's an average of 15 deaths and 13,000 injuries or illnesses each and every day. Too many companies are doing too little to deal with this crisis. They blatantly ignore the law, but they never go to jail--even when their actions or lack of action kill loyal employees who work for them. Criminal penalties are so low that prosecutors don't pursue these cases. Employers who violate safety laws again and again pay only minimal fines--which they treat as just another cost of doing business. We cannot let these shameful practices continue. We cannot allow employers to put millions of workers at risk in our factories, nursing homes, construction sites, and many other workplaces every day. We need to hold this Administration accountable--require them to act, instead of sweeping serious violations under the rug. We also need to protect workers with the courage to speak out against health and safety violations in the workplace. That is why we are today introducing the Protecting America's Workers Act. It will protect millions of workers not covered by current safety laws. By extending the Occupational Safety and Health Act, we will cover 8 million public employees and millions of transportation and other workers. The bill imposes jail time--up to ten years, instead of only six months under current law--on those whose blatant violation of safety laws leads to a worker's death. We also increase civil penalties, to provide additional deterrence for employers. We require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate more cases, and we give workers and their families more rights in the investigation process. We provide stronger protections for workers who report health or safety violations. I know it will be an uphill battle to get this legislation through this Republican Congress. But I'm committed to the fight. I'm committed to fighting for people like Jeff Walters, whose son Patrick was killed when a trench collapsed on him two years ago. His employer was known to be violating critical safety rules. We will fight for people like Ron Hayes, whose son Patrick suffocated in a grain elevator. Ron is now helping families throughout the United States deal with the grief of having a family member killed at work. We intend to do everything we can to keep other working families from that grief. These deaths and injuries aren't accidents they're crimes, and it's time we started treating them like crimes. I urge my colleagues to join in this fight for a safe workplace for all of America's workers. We can take a major step forward by the Protecting America's Workers Act.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Protecting America's Workers Act. This week, on Workers' Memorial Day, we remember and honor those who have died or been injured on the job in the past year. We remember and honor their families. And we pledge to do more to end the unsafe and unhealthy conditions that still plague so many workplaces across America. We have made significant progress in protecting worker safety since 1970, when we passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. But there is still a tremendous amount to be done. Every year, over five thousand workers are killed and nearly five million others become ill or are injured on the job. That's an average of 15 deaths and 13,000 injuries or illnesses each and every day. Too many companies are doing too little to deal with this crisis. They blatantly ignore the law, but they never go to jail--even when their actions or lack of action kill loyal employees who work for them. Criminal penalties are so low that prosecutors don't pursue these cases. Employers who violate safety laws again and again pay only minimal fines--which they treat as just another cost of doing business. We cannot let these shameful practices continue. We cannot allow employers to put millions of workers at risk in our factories, nursing homes, construction sites, and many other workplaces every day. We need to hold this Administration accountable--require them to act, instead of sweeping serious violations under the rug. We also need to protect workers with the courage to speak out against health and safety violations in the workplace. That is why we are today introducing the Protecting America's Workers Act. It will protect millions of workers not covered by current safety laws. By extending the Occupational Safety and Health Act, we will cover 8 million public employees and millions of transportation and other workers. The bill imposes jail time--up to ten years, instead of only six months under current law--on those whose blatant violation of safety laws leads to a worker's death. We also increase civil penalties, to provide additional deterrence for employers. We require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate more cases, and we give workers and their families more rights in the investigation process. We provide stronger protections for workers who report health or safety violations. I know it will be an uphill battle to get this legislation through this Republican Congress. But I'm committed to the fight. I'm committed to fighting for people like Jeff Walters, whose son Patrick was killed when a trench collapsed on him two years ago. His employer was known to be violating critical safety rules. We will fight for people like Ron Hayes, whose son Patrick suffocated in a grain elevator. Ron is now helping families throughout the United States deal with the grief of having a family member killed at work. We intend to do everything we can to keep other working families from that grief. These deaths and injuries aren't accidents they're crimes, and it's time we started treating them like crimes. I urge my colleagues to join in this fight for a safe workplace for all of America's workers. We can take a major step forward by the Protecting America's Workers Act.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it has been seven long years since Congress last acted to raise the minimum wage. The cost of living keeps going up, and these workers keep falling farther and farther behind, because the minimum wage they're paid buys less and less. The current minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. You can't work hard, raise a family, and pay for food and rent and clothing, on $5.15 an hour-- $10,700 a year--$5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The minimum wage is too low. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004, which I introduce today, will raise the minimum wage by $1.85 to $7.00 an hour. The raise to $7.00 would be carried out in three moderate steps in just over two years. More than 7 million workers would directly benefit from this minimum wage increases. Let me be clear about who we're talking about here--the janitors who clean our great buildings late into the night; the school aides who support our kids and their teachers; home healthcare workers caring for our elderly parents in their home; the children whose parents can't afford to give them more than a single slim meal a day. There is one thing that stands in the way of a decent minimum wage-- one thing--and that's the Republican Party. If this President and the Republican Party really cared about working Americans--about minimum wage workers--why would they oppose a decent wage for a hard day's work? But for seven long years, they have blocked every effort in this Congress to raise the minimum wage. Why would they oppose unemployment benefits for the 8 million out-of- work Americans? Why would they oppose overtime pay if you have to work more than 40 hours a week? Why would they support shipping your jobs overseas? A fair increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. We should all be able to agree on the principle that no one who works for a living should have to live in poverty. How can Congress keep saying no, when more and more workers can't make ends meet? I plan to be back on the Senate floor offering this bill as an amendment over and over again until Congress agrees to give low-wage workers the raise they have earned.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it's a privilege to join my colleagues Senator Durbin, Senator Leahy, and Senator Feingold in introducing this important legislation, the ANTI-GANG Act. Gang violence is a serious problem in many communities across the nation, and it deserves a serious response by Congress. The key to success is an effective strategy that rejects partisanship and ``lock- em-up'' sound bites in favor of tough, targeted law enforcement; aggressive steps to take guns out of the hands of criminal gang members and other violent juvenile offenders; and heavy emphasis on prevention programs that discourage gang membership and provide realistic alternatives for at-risk youth. The past decade saw a dramatic reduction in violent juvenile crime, in large part because of these crime-fighting strategies. Many of us remember the dire ``juvenile superpredator'' predictions that were common before that reduction took place. In 1996, William Bennett and John Walters wrote that America was a ``ticking crime bomb,'' faced with the ``youngest, biggest, and baddest generation'' of juvenile offenders that our country had ever known. Fortunately, these predictions were wrong. From 1993 to 2001, arrest rates for violent juvenile crime fell by more than two-thirds. We're still reaping the benefits of this lower crime rate today. The decrease in crime is explained partly by the sensible measures taken by Congress on gun safety in the early 1990's, including the ban on assault weapons. In 1999, the National Center for Juvenile Justice concluded that all of the increase in homicides by juveniles between the mid-1980's and mid-1990's was firearms-related. The Surgeon General concluded that guns were responsible for both the epidemic in juvenile violence in the late 1980's and the decrease in violence after 1993. ``It is now clear,'' the Surgeon General wrote, ``that the violence epidemic was caused largely by an upsurge in the use of firearms by young people. . . . Today's youth violence is less lethal, largely because of a decline in the use of firearms.'' The current ban on assault weapons is scheduled to expire in September, and given its proven results against crime, it is reckless for anyone to oppose its continuation. Another factor that contributed to the remarkable decrease in juvenile violent crime was the innovative, cooperative crime-fighting strategy developed in Boston and other communities across the nation. The Boston strategy was neither a ``liberal'' nor a ``conservative'' approach. It engaged the entire community, including police and probation officers, clergy and community leaders, and even gang members themselves in a united effort to crack down on gang violence, strengthen after-school prevention programs, and take guns out of the hands of juvenile offenders. This strategy was very successful-- juvenile homicides dropped 80 percent from 1990 to 1995--and it succeeded without prosecuting more juveniles as adults, without housing nonviolent juvenile offenders in adult facilities, and without spending huge sums of money on new juvenile facilities. The call for expanding federal prosecution of juveniles as adults was already controversial in those years when juvenile violent crime was at its peak. It makes no sense today, when juvenile violent crime rates have fallen to historic lows. Unfortunately, an expansion is exactly what is sought by the supporters of S. 1735, the Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act. Their bill responds to the problem of gang violence in the wrong way. They want the expanded federal prosecution of juveniles as adults. They want to federalize a broad range of street crimes now being prosecuted effectively at the local level. They want to create an unnecessary bureaucratic morass by duplicating law enforcement efforts now taking place on drug trafficking. They support a one-size-fits-all, Washington-knows-best approach to juvenile crime that ignores the achievements of the past decade and will only make the current problem of gang violence worse. Our bill, the ANTI-GANG Act, avoids the most serious defects of S. 1735 by recognizing, first and foremost, the primary role of state and local law enforcement in responding to violent crime. The American Bar Association and the Judicial Conference have both called on Congress to consider the risks of federalizing offenses that have traditionally been the responsibility of state criminal justice systems. Many of us support the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (S. 966), to deal with hate crimes. It would require the Justice Department to certify the need for federal involvement before commencing federal prosecution of a hate crime. We also oppose the enactment of federal ``concealed carry'' laws, which would undermine state and local gun-safety laws. Instead of ignoring the primary role of state and local governments in fighting violent gang crimes in their communities, our ANTI-GANG Act strengthens that role, by giving local law enforcement and prosecutors the resources they need. It authorizes $52 million for cooperative prevention, investigation, and prosecution of gang crimes. It authorizes $20 million for technology, equipment, and training, so that state and local sheriffs, police agencies, and prosecutors can improve their identification of gang members and maintain databases with information to facilitate coordination among law enforcement and prosecutors. It authorizes $60 million for the protecting and relocation of witnesses and victims of gang crimes, and $40 million for grants for gang prevention, research, and intervention services. The resources in our bill for witness relocation and protection are particularly important. At a Judiciary Committee hearing last September, state and local prosecutors specifically asked for Congress's help in protecting witnesses of gang crimes. Our bill responds to this need by authorizing $60 million in assistance. By contrast, the most recently revised version of S. 1735 authorizes only $12 million. In addition, our bill amends the current law on governing federal witness relocation and protection to make clear that the Attorney General can use these provisions to support witnesses in state gang, drug, and homicide cases. We also allow states to obtain the temporary protection of witnesses in gang cases, without any requirement of reimbursement. The current complex reimbursement procedures deter state and local prosecutors from obtaining witness protection assistance from the federal government, even in emergencies. Our bill offers needed relief to state prosecutors undertaking difficult prosecutions of gang offenders, but no such relief is included in S. 1735. The ANTI-GANG Act respects the primary role of state and local governments in fighting street crime, but it also recognizes that violent gangs can be a substantial impact on federal interests. According to the most recent National Drug Threat Assessment, criminal street gangs are responsible for the distribution of much of the cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and other illegal drugs being distributed in communities throughout the United States. Gang activity interferes with lawful commerce and undermines the freedom and security of entire communities. The current provision on criminal street gangs in federal law is a seldom-used penalty enhancement. To address these legitimate federal interests, the ANTI-GANG Act replaces that provision with a stronger set of measures criminalizing participation in criminal street gangs, recruitment and retention of gang members, and witness intimidation. It also increases penalties for gang members who target minors for recruitment. It targets gang violence and gang crimes in a sensible way, avoiding the confusing and counterproductive approach taken in S. 1735. Before any federal prosecution can take place under our bill, a high-level representative from the Justice Department, after consultation with state and local prosecutors, must certify that the federal prosecution is in the public interest and necessary to achieve substantial justice. The Act strengthens the ability of prosecutors at all levels-- federal, state and local--to prosecute violent street gangs, and it does so without increasing any mandatory minimum sentences or unnecessarily expanding the federal death penalty to include state murder offenses. An increasing number of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and other criminal justice authorities now agree that mandatory minimum sentences are, in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, ``unfair, unjust, and unwise.'' They are inconsistent with and undermine the sentencing guidelines that Congress established in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The supporters of S. 1735 have commendably removed some of the mandatory sentencing provisions in their original bill, but even a single increased mandatory minimum is counterproductive and unjustified. The ANTI-GANG Act also requires the General Accounting Office to conduct a comprehensive study and report on the current treatment of juveniles by states and local governments and the capability of the Bureau of Prisons and other parts of the federal criminal justice system to take on the additional cases that would result from an expansion of the federal prosecutions of juvenile offenders as adults. This report will enable Congress to make a better informed decision on this criminal issue. Finally, the Act encourages the recruitment and retention of highly- qualified prosecutors and public defenders by establishing a student loan forgiveness program modeled on the current program for federal employees. According to the National District Attorneys Association, this provision ``would allow prosecutors to relieve the crushing burden of student loans that now cause so many young attorneys to abandon public service.'' The provision is also strongly supported by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the American Council of Chief Defenders. I commend my colleagues for their leadership in developing this important legislation to protect American communities from gang violence without undermining fundamental principles of fairness and federal-state relations. I urge the Senate to approve it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it's a privilege to join my colleagues Senator Durbin, Senator Leahy, and Senator Feingold in introducing this important legislation, the ANTI-GANG Act. Gang violence is a serious problem in many communities across the nation, and it deserves a serious response by Congress. The key to success is an effective strategy that rejects partisanship and ``lock- em-up'' sound bites in favor of tough, targeted law enforcement; aggressive steps to take guns out of the hands of criminal gang members and other violent juvenile offenders; and heavy emphasis on prevention programs that discourage gang membership and provide realistic alternatives for at-risk youth. The past decade saw a dramatic reduction in violent juvenile crime, in large part because of these crime-fighting strategies. Many of us remember the dire ``juvenile superpredator'' predictions that were common before that reduction took place. In 1996, William Bennett and John Walters wrote that America was a ``ticking crime bomb,'' faced with the ``youngest, biggest, and baddest generation'' of juvenile offenders that our country had ever known. Fortunately, these predictions were wrong. From 1993 to 2001, arrest rates for violent juvenile crime fell by more than two-thirds. We're still reaping the benefits of this lower crime rate today. The decrease in crime is explained partly by the sensible measures taken by Congress on gun safety in the early 1990's, including the ban on assault weapons. In 1999, the National Center for Juvenile Justice concluded that all of the increase in homicides by juveniles between the mid-1980's and mid-1990's was firearms-related. The Surgeon General concluded that guns were responsible for both the epidemic in juvenile violence in the late 1980's and the decrease in violence after 1993. ``It is now clear,'' the Surgeon General wrote, ``that the violence epidemic was caused largely by an upsurge in the use of firearms by young people. . . . Today's youth violence is less lethal, largely because of a decline in the use of firearms.'' The current ban on assault weapons is scheduled to expire in September, and given its proven results against crime, it is reckless for anyone to oppose its continuation. Another factor that contributed to the remarkable decrease in juvenile violent crime was the innovative, cooperative crime-fighting strategy developed in Boston and other communities across the nation. The Boston strategy was neither a ``liberal'' nor a ``conservative'' approach. It engaged the entire community, including police and probation officers, clergy and community leaders, and even gang members themselves in a united effort to crack down on gang violence, strengthen after-school prevention programs, and take guns out of the hands of juvenile offenders. This strategy was very successful-- juvenile homicides dropped 80 percent from 1990 to 1995--and it succeeded without prosecuting more juveniles as adults, without housing nonviolent juvenile offenders in adult facilities, and without spending huge sums of money on new juvenile facilities. The call for expanding federal prosecution of juveniles as adults was already controversial in those years when juvenile violent crime was at its peak. It makes no sense today, when juvenile violent crime rates have fallen to historic lows. Unfortunately, an expansion is exactly what is sought by the supporters of S. 1735, the Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act. Their bill responds to the problem of gang violence in the wrong way. They want the expanded federal prosecution of juveniles as adults. They want to federalize a broad range of street crimes now being prosecuted effectively at the local level. They want to create an unnecessary bureaucratic morass by duplicating law enforcement efforts now taking place on drug trafficking. They support a one-size-fits-all, Washington-knows-best approach to juvenile crime that ignores the achievements of the past decade and will only make the current problem of gang violence worse. Our bill, the ANTI-GANG Act, avoids the most serious defects of S. 1735 by recognizing, first and foremost, the primary role of state and local law enforcement in responding to violent crime. The American Bar Association and the Judicial Conference have both called on Congress to consider the risks of federalizing offenses that have traditionally been the responsibility of state criminal justice systems. Many of us support the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (S. 966), to deal with hate crimes. It would require the Justice Department to certify the need for federal involvement before commencing federal prosecution of a hate crime. We also oppose the enactment of federal ``concealed carry'' laws, which would undermine state and local gun-safety laws. Instead of ignoring the primary role of state and local governments in fighting violent gang crimes in their communities, our ANTI-GANG Act strengthens that role, by giving local law enforcement and prosecutors the resources they need. It authorizes $52 million for cooperative prevention, investigation, and prosecution of gang crimes. It authorizes $20 million for technology, equipment, and training, so that state and local sheriffs, police agencies, and prosecutors can improve their identification of gang members and maintain databases with information to facilitate coordination among law enforcement and prosecutors. It authorizes $60 million for the protecting and relocation of witnesses and victims of gang crimes, and $40 million for grants for gang prevention, research, and intervention services. The resources in our bill for witness relocation and protection are particularly important. At a Judiciary Committee hearing last September, state and local prosecutors specifically asked for Congress's help in protecting witnesses of gang crimes. Our bill responds to this need by authorizing $60 million in assistance. By contrast, the most recently revised version of S. 1735 authorizes only $12 million. In addition, our bill amends the current law on governing federal witness relocation and protection to make clear that the Attorney General can use these provisions to support witnesses in state gang, drug, and homicide cases. We also allow states to obtain the temporary protection of witnesses in gang cases, without any requirement of reimbursement. The current complex reimbursement procedures deter state and local prosecutors from obtaining witness protection assistance from the federal government, even in emergencies. Our bill offers needed relief to state prosecutors undertaking difficult prosecutions of gang offenders, but no such relief is included in S. 1735. The ANTI-GANG Act respects the primary role of state and local governments in fighting street crime, but it also recognizes that violent gangs can be a substantial impact on federal interests. According to the most recent National Drug Threat Assessment, criminal street gangs are responsible for the distribution of much of the cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and other illegal drugs being distributed in communities throughout the United States. Gang activity interferes with lawful commerce and undermines the freedom and security of entire communities. The current provision on criminal street gangs in federal law is a seldom-used penalty enhancement. To address these legitimate federal interests, the ANTI-GANG Act replaces that provision with a stronger set of measures criminalizing participation in criminal street gangs, recruitment and retention of gang members, and witness intimidation. It also increases penalties for gang members who target minors for recruitment. It targets gang violence and gang crimes in a sensible way, avoiding the confusing and counterproductive approach taken in S. 1735. Before any federal prosecution can take place under our bill, a high-level representative from the Justice Department, after consultation with state and local prosecutors, must certify that the federal prosecution is in the public interest and necessary to achieve substantial justice. The Act strengthens the ability of prosecutors at all levels-- federal, state and local--to prosecute violent street gangs, and it does so without increasing any mandatory minimum sentences or unnecessarily expanding the federal death penalty to include state murder offenses. An increasing number of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and other criminal justice authorities now agree that mandatory minimum sentences are, in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, ``unfair, unjust, and unwise.'' They are inconsistent with and undermine the sentencing guidelines that Congress established in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The supporters of S. 1735 have commendably removed some of the mandatory sentencing provisions in their original bill, but even a single increased mandatory minimum is counterproductive and unjustified. The ANTI-GANG Act also requires the General Accounting Office to conduct a comprehensive study and report on the current treatment of juveniles by states and local governments and the capability of the Bureau of Prisons and other parts of the federal criminal justice system to take on the additional cases that would result from an expansion of the federal prosecutions of juvenile offenders as adults. This report will enable Congress to make a better informed decision on this criminal issue. Finally, the Act encourages the recruitment and retention of highly- qualified prosecutors and public defenders by establishing a student loan forgiveness program modeled on the current program for federal employees. According to the National District Attorneys Association, this provision ``would allow prosecutors to relieve the crushing burden of student loans that now cause so many young attorneys to abandon public service.'' The provision is also strongly supported by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the American Council of Chief Defenders. I commend my colleagues for their leadership in developing this important legislation to protect American communities from gang violence without undermining fundamental principles of fairness and federal-state relations. I urge the Senate to approve it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to warn my colleagues about the potential low-income housing crisis that could jeopardize hundreds, if not thousands of people in their States as a result of an irresponsible, punitive, and unnecessarily harsh action taken last week by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. For the first time in the 30-year history of the Section 8 Voucher Choice Program, there is the very real possibility that tens of thousands of low-income Americans will lose their housing vouchers this summer and fall and be left with nowhere to turn but homeless shelters and the streets. The mere possibility of this is shocking and it's something my colleagues need to be aware of immediately. Congress did not intend for this to happen, and the appropriators pushed HUD to make sure it would not happen, but that is the course we are on. And it's all because of HUD's callous indifference to the plight of the most vulnerable and this administration's unrelenting drive to destroy the safety net. Using the most narrow possible interpretation of the appropriations bill, HUD issued a notification on Thursday that would retroactively abandon the long-standing practice of reimbursing public housing agencies for the actual costs of assisting the poor, the disabled, and the elderly through the section 8 voucher program. Instead, the new HUD policy will reimburse them on an inflation factor concocted by HUD's budgeteers that has absolutely no bearing on the actual operating costs of the Section 8 housing voucher program. As a result, public housing agencies across the country are about to be blindsided by a rule change they did not anticipate and could not have prepared for. The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials-- NAHRO--is conducting a complete national survey of the potential effects of this change, which should be available later this week. But early analysis is already available, and it is not reassuring. As a result of this change, the association thinks that maybe 60,000 families may be at risk of losing their vouchers in the coming year. 60,000. The notification does inform public housing agencies that they can appeal the decision by July 15, but offers no information about just how to do that. The notification also points out that HUD may not have any funds by then to adjust reimbursements that were appealed. So, go ahead and send the appeal letter, but just don't expect HUD to do anything about it. If my colleagues harbor any doubts that this HUD notification will have severe consequences, they need only look at what is happening in Massachusetts now. The State has directed public housing agencies to notify 600 families that their vouchers will be terminated effective June 1 as a result of HUD's abrupt funding change. Barring an 11 hour temporary reprieve, those notices go out tomorrow. And that is just the tip of the iceberg in Massachusetts, some thousands more may be in jeopardy. The State is being hit now because it must reconcile HUD's funding cuts within its existing fiscal year, which ends June 30, and there is no other way to do that other than withholding assistance from those currency receiving it. Who are these 600 families? More than 60 percent of them are disabled, a significant portion are elderly, and all are low-income. They are people like Mr. Milton Servis II. At the age of 15, he was hit by a speeding car while he walked. As a result of the collision, he sustained a serious head injury that has left himself disabled, with impairments of his vision, balance, and ability to walk. Then, just last year, Mr. Servis II, sustained third degree burns on his hands in the Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island. He lost his two best friends there as well, on that horrific and tragic night. Despite these hardships, he continues to work to lead an independent and dignified life. His only source of income is his monthly $698 SSI check, but he is able to make ends meet because of his section 8 voucher, which covers $394 of his $550 rent. Because of HUD's abrupt change, he may have to stretch his Social Security check all the more, because he is currently scheduled to receive a termination notice tomorrow, informing him he has 1 month before he is tossed out on the street. This doesn't have to be this way. People like Milton Servis II, who have struggled hard to overcome misfortunes that few others can relate to, don't need to be terrified by the prospect of homelessness. It should never have come to this. Last year, when the administration sent its budget to Congress, we didn't believe they were being accurate with the numbers. As our colleague, Senator Mikulski, the ranking member of the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, wrote last week to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, ``. . . the fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill provides $17.6 billion to renew expiring section 8 contracts. This amount was $1.4 billion above the amount requested by the Administration to renew existing vouchers.'' Congress went out of its way to make sure that adequate funding was available to renew all vouchers, even adding an additional $1.4 billion in these difficult budget times to make sure no one would lose their section 8 voucher. What is HUD done with this money? But the administration doesn't care what Congress intended with regard to this program. They remain committed to their ideological goal of ending the section 8 voucher program, and shredding the safety net. Last year, the administration proposed block granting the section 8 program so they could shift more of the responsibility for housing the elderly, the disabled, and the poor onto the State and local governments and reduce Federal spending on this critically important program. On a bipartisan basis, Congress rejected that radical proposal, because it would have provided fewer resources and contained perverse incentives. It would have actually rewarded housing agencies for terminating assistance for the poorest citizens and replacing it with assistance to people in less need. These ``compassionate conservatives'' described this new ability to ignore the truly neediest as a type of ``flexibility.'' The flexibility to abandon people, I guess. But despite Congress's complete rejection of the proposal, the administration is not about to concede defeat. If Congress will not accede to its demand to dismantle the 30-year- old section 8 program, HUD will do its best to ruin it administratively. And with this notification, HUD is attempting to do just that. They can't win the battle of ideas in an open and full debate. So they are trying to win it deviously by simply undermining the program's integrity. We know a Trojan Horse when we see it. Here is how they are using it on section 8 vouchers. First, HUD changes the rules in the middle of the fiscal year so that public housing agencies have to take drastic and truly brutal measures to comply, such as throwing people off public housing. Then HUD blames the public housing agencies for being mismanaged. In other words, HUD claims that public housing agencies are at fault for not having budgeted the resources to comply with HUD's unexpected policy change. HUD has already begun condemning the public housing agencies for not maintaining adequate reserves to offset this most recent HUD- manufactured financial crisis. HUD does this event though it knows that over 800 public housing agencies serving 690,000 people have already depleted their reserves to address other HUD policy changes or funding shortfalls in the past 2 years. HUD intends to use this funding crisis to claim that public housing agencies can't manage their programs effectively, compassionately, and efficiently. Once the horror stories start about people losing their vouchers and landlords leaving the program, HUD can then declare the existing program a failure and revive its block grant proposal that Congress has already flatly rejected before. This is not an academic issue. Real people are about to suffer for HUD's actions. Many are elderly, many are disabled. They deserve to be treated with respect and compassion, which is in short supply in this administration. HUD is about to impose these immense hardships on those of our constituents who need our help the most. The administration may not care that low-income, elderly, and disabled Americans are being needlessly hurt, but this Senate does, and we need to join together to fight these changes before this crisis gets any worse.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to join in cosponsoring the Playwrights Licensing Antitrust Initiative Act, to permit the development of a standard, minimum contract for playwrights for the licensing and production of their work. The bill will provide needed protection for playwrights whose work is the creative force behind so many memorable successes in the Nation's performing arts. The stunning creations that millions of Americans enjoy on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in local communities across the country reflect the special genius of our creative artists. They express our Nation's hopes, disappointments, achievements and its challenges for the years ahead. If you travel to New York this week, you can attend any one of dozens of shows to entertain or enlighten us. There are classic musical productions--shows that we have loved all our lives such as Gypsy and 42nd Street and Fiddler on the Roof, and more recently, The Producers. There are other dramatic works on issues that are important to each of us--about personal struggles and individual achievement and growth, about immigration and race relations--Bridge and Tunnel, The Tricky Part and Caroline, or Change. They are the new classics from the emerging voices of theater. The men and women who write these shows should be fairly compensated for their creative achievements. The bill that Senator Hatch and I introduce today will provide a measure of greater fairness for them. Currently, they are prohibited from entering into any collective negotiation for compensation or control of their work. Because they are not members of a union, they must negotiate individually with producers of their work. For well-known authors, the negotiation can be challenging. For emerging authors, it can be impossible. The bill we are proposing will grant a very limited modification of the antitrust laws, so that playwrights will be able to negotiate a minimum compensation package as fair reimbursement for their work. It will give playwrights similar rights to actors, actresses, dancers, composers, musicians and others who bring theater to life on America's stages. Currently, writers who work in the film industry enjoy greater protection for their work than their counterparts in the theater. We need to do more to see that our talented playwrights are able to continue their work in our theaters, and end the alarming current trend away from writing for live theater. As President Kennedy once said, ``I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.'' I hope that we can take this opportunity to expand the creative arts in our country and contribute to the vital spirit of our citizens in communities across America with their performances in drama, comedy and music. American theater is as lively, diverse, and exciting as any in the world. We must do all we can to protect this unique legacy and ensure a healthy theater community in the years ahead. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to join in cosponsoring the Playwrights Licensing Antitrust Initiative Act, to permit the development of a standard, minimum contract for playwrights for the licensing and production of their work. The bill will provide needed protection for playwrights whose work is the creative force behind so many memorable successes in the Nation's performing arts. The stunning creations that millions of Americans enjoy on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in local communities across the country reflect the special genius of our creative artists. They express our Nation's hopes, disappointments, achievements and its challenges for the years ahead. If you travel to New York this week, you can attend any one of dozens of shows to entertain or enlighten us. There are classic musical productions--shows that we have loved all our lives such as Gypsy and 42nd Street and Fiddler on the Roof, and more recently, The Producers. There are other dramatic works on issues that are important to each of us--about personal struggles and individual achievement and growth, about immigration and race relations--Bridge and Tunnel, The Tricky Part and Caroline, or Change. They are the new classics from the emerging voices of theater. The men and women who write these shows should be fairly compensated for their creative achievements. The bill that Senator Hatch and I introduce today will provide a measure of greater fairness for them. Currently, they are prohibited from entering into any collective negotiation for compensation or control of their work. Because they are not members of a union, they must negotiate individually with producers of their work. For well-known authors, the negotiation can be challenging. For emerging authors, it can be impossible. The bill we are proposing will grant a very limited modification of the antitrust laws, so that playwrights will be able to negotiate a minimum compensation package as fair reimbursement for their work. It will give playwrights similar rights to actors, actresses, dancers, composers, musicians and others who bring theater to life on America's stages. Currently, writers who work in the film industry enjoy greater protection for their work than their counterparts in the theater. We need to do more to see that our talented playwrights are able to continue their work in our theaters, and end the alarming current trend away from writing for live theater. As President Kennedy once said, ``I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.'' I hope that we can take this opportunity to expand the creative arts in our country and contribute to the vital spirit of our citizens in communities across America with their performances in drama, comedy and music. American theater is as lively, diverse, and exciting as any in the world. We must do all we can to protect this unique legacy and ensure a healthy theater community in the years ahead. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. Ten minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the real crisis which confronts us is not an asbestos litigation crisis, it is an asbestos-induced disease crisis. Asbestos is the most lethal substance ever widely used in the workplace. Between 1940 and 1980, there were 27\1/2\ million workers in this country who were exposed to asbestos on the job and nearly 19 million of them had high levels of exposure over long periods of time, and that exposure changed many of their lives. Each year more than 10,000 of them die from lung cancer and other diseases caused by asbestos. Each year, hundreds of thousands of them suffer from lung conditions which make breathing so difficult they cannot engage in the routine activities of daily life. Even more have become unemployable due to their medical condition. Because of the long latency period of these diseases, all of them live with a fear of a premature death due to asbestos-induced disease. These are the real victims. They deserve to be the first and foremost focus of our concern. The victims are average, hard-working Americans. They are the construction workers who build our houses, machinists who keep our factories running, assembly workers who make products for our home, shipbuilders who help make our country strong and secure. They did their jobs faithfully and now it is time for us to do right by them. All too often, the resulting tragedy these seriously ill workers and their families are enduring becomes lost in a complex debate about the economic impact of asbestos litigation. We cannot allow that to happen. The litigation did not create these costs. Exposure to asbestos created them. They are the costs of medical care, the lost wages of incapacitated workers, the cost of providing for the families of workers who died years before their time. Those costs are real. No legislative proposal can make them disappear. All legislation can do is shift those costs from one party to another. Any proposal which would have the effect of shifting more of the financial burden on to the backs of injured workers is unacceptable to me, and I would hope that it would be unacceptable to every one of us. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Frist bill would do. The bill before us does not reflect what is necessary to compensate the enormous numbers of workers who suffer from asbestos-induced disease. It reflects only what the companies who made them sick are willing to pay. The compensation levels in the Frist bill are unreasonably low, especially for the most seriously ill worker. They would receive much less compensation under the bill than they are currently getting on average in the tort system. For example, workers with 15 years of exposure to asbestos, who are dying of lung cancer, would get as little as $25,000 under the Frist bill. That is absurd. While most of these workers smoke, a person who smoked and was exposed to asbestos is over four times more likely to get lung cancer than a person who smoked but was not exposed to asbestos. Asbestos was clearly a major contributing factor to their lung cancers. Yet this bill would give them next to nothing. Not only does this bill not provide adequate levels of compensation, there is no guarantee that sufficient funds will be available to fully pay all injured workers who are eligible, even what the bill promises them. According to a CBO analysis, the Frist bill is underfunded by nearly $30 billion. If the asbestos trust fund does become insolvent, workers will have to wait years before they can return to the tort system, and many of them will be dead by then. Any proposal which would merely create one new, large, unfunded trust in place of the many smaller underfunded bankruptcy trusts which exist today is unacceptable. Injured workers need certainty even more than businesses and insurers. The Frist bill merely shifts more of the financial burden of asbestos-induced disease to the injured workers by unfairly and arbitrarily limiting the liability of defendants. Sick workers would receive lower levels of compensation than they receive on average in the current system, and payment of even those lower levels of compensation would not be guaranteed. That is no solution at all. I hope we would not consider this bill before us but go back to the drawing board and get a bill that will meet the needs of all the parties. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in his remarks yesterday, Senator Byrd raised serious questions about whether the Bush administration violated the law when it first began to prepare for war with Iraq without informing Congress it was using funds appropriated for other purposes to do so. Three days after 9/11, both the Senate and the House of Representatives approved $40 billion in emergency funds in response to that tragedy. The legislation was signed into law on September 18, 2001. Its clearly stated purpose was ``to respond to the terrorist attacks on the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001, to provide assistance to the victims of the attacks, and to deal with other consequences of the attacks.'' When the Congress approved these funds images of the World Trade Center towers falling and the plume of smoke over the Pentagon were fresh in the minds of every American, and the Nation was mourning the loss of 3000 men and women who were brutally murdered in the worst terrorist attack in our history. We were at war with al-Qaida, a terrorist organization based in Afghanistan, and with the Taliban government that was giving it sanctuary. Congress was united in its determination to help the administration win the war in Afghanistan and do all we could to prevent any further terrorist attacks. Congress clearly did not intend those funds to be used for a war with Iraq. There had been no debate about Iraq. We were not thinking about Iraq in those painful and dark days after the 9/11 attacks. But the administration was. As we now know, the Bush administration was focused on Iraq from day one after the inauguration, and it was quick to use the 9/11 tragedy to advance its agenda on Iraq. According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's account in Ron Suskind's book, ``The Price of Loyalty,'' Iraq was on the agenda at the very first meeting of the National Security Council, just 10 days after President Bush's inauguration in 2001. As Secretary O'Neill said: ``Getting Hussein was now the Administration's focus. From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, `Fine. Go find me a way to do this.' '' September 11 gave the administration the excuse they were looking for to go to war with Iraq. According to notes taken by an aide to Secretary Rumsfeld on September 11, the very day of the attacks, the Secretary ordered the military to prepare a response to the attacks. The notes quote Rumsfeld as saying that he wanted the best information fast, to judge whether the information was good enough to hit Saddam and not just Osama bin Laden. ``Go massive,'' the notes quote him as saying. ``Sweep it all up. Things related and not.'' As Bob Woodward's new book, ``Plan of Attack'' reveals, President Bush himself asked Secretary Rumsfeld to get a war plan for Iraq on November 21--barely 2 months after the devastating attacks. In the many months that followed, Congress had no idea that secret preparations for war in Iraq were underway. It was not until September 2002, nearly 10 months later, that the administration even asked Congress to authorize war in Iraq. Senator Byrd is right to raise this issue and to ask the tough questions. In a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz gave us a non justification. He said that the administration notified Congress about $63 million in military construction spending for Iraq on October 11 2002--just 1 day after Congress passed the joint resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. After that, Secretary Wolfowitz said, ``some $800 million were made available over the following months to support Iraq preparatory tasks consistent with that joint resolution.'' But Mr. Wolfowitz's claim is inconsistent with the assertion in Bob Woodward's book that $700 million worth of ``preparatory tasks'' were approved in the summer of 2002 to accommodate the major U.S. troop deployment that would be required for the invasion of Iraq. Diverting funds from the war in Afghanistan or from the Pentagon's regular operating budget to prepare for war against Iraq without the knowledge of Congress is clearly a fundamental breach of the trust that must exist between Congress and the President in our system of government. It is clearly at odds with the requirement of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act itself, which states that ``the President shall consult with the Chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer of these funds.'' In the summer of 2002 when these plans were under way, the war against al-Qaida was far from over. Osama bin Laden was still at large. If Mr. Woodward is correct, the failure even to consult with Congress shows the contempt of the Bush administration for the constitutional role of Congress on the fundamental issue of war and peace. We need satisfactory answers to many questions: Did the administration divert funds provided to respond to the 9/11 attacks and spend them in the summer of 2002 to prepare for war in Iraq? If the administration did begin spending those funds in the summer of 2002, why did it not consult the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee as the law required.? If the administration did begin spending such funds in the summer of 2002, why did the quarterly reports provided to Congress not clearly indicate that projects were being funded to prepare for war with Iraq? The failure to engage the Congress confirms what many of us have said all along. The administration had a hidden agenda from day one, and it shamelessly capitalized on fears created by 9/11 to advance that agenda. The Congress and the American people deserve answers, and we deserve them now. The administration must tell the full truth and provide to the Congress and the American people a full accounting of all Iraq war related expenditures in 2002. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to join my colleagues, Senator Christopher Bond and Senator Tim Johnson, in introducing the Arthritis Prevention, Control, and Cure Act of 2004. Senator Bond has been outstanding in his leadership and support of this bipartisan legislation, which is a product of the untiring efforts of many leaders in the arthritis community including patients, families, and health care providers. The goal of this legislation is to lessen the burden of arthritis and other rheumatic diseases on citizens across our Nation. Seventy million adults in the United States now suffer from arthritis or related conditions. Of these, one in three is under 65. Over 300,000 are children who struggle each day to get out of bed, go to school, and play with their friends. Arthritis accounts for 4 million days of hospital care ach year. It costs $51 million in annual medical care, and $86 million more is lost in productivity. Arthritis is an overwhelming and debilitating hardship for countless families across the Nation. In recent years, increasing effective research into the prevention and treatment of arthritis has led to measures that successfully reduce pain and improve the quality of life for millions who suffer with this disease. Cooperative efforts at every level have led to the development of a National Arthritis Action Plan, with emphasis on public health strategies to make timely information and medical care much more widely available across the country. However, the commitment to implement these important public health approaches has been very limited so far. Advances in research and treatment reach less than 1 percent of people with arthritis. We need to do much more to bring the highest quality of care to those with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. Our legislation will reduce the burden of unnecessary suffering for our citizens by supporting implementation of effective strategies to carry out the National Arthritis Action Plan. That means support for comprehensive arthritis control and prevention programs. It means the development of arthritis education and outreach activities, and more research on the best ways to prevent and treat the illness at various ages. It also means developing better care and treatment for children with arthritis and rheumatic diseases. We include planning grants to support innovative research on juvenile arthritis. We support training for health care providers specializing in pediatric rheumatology, so that all children will have greater access to physicians trained in state- of-the-art care for arthritis. This legislation will improve the quality of life for large numbers of adults and children, and avoid thousands of dollars in medical costs for each patient. Millions of our fellow citizens will have greater access to the best available information and medical care to prevent and treat this debilitating disease. I urge our colleagues to support this timely and needed legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, the Kennedy family, the city, and the nation lost a respected and valued friend yesterday with the passing of Mary McGrory. My brothers, Jack and Bobby, admired her, as America does and did. Mary was Boston Irish to the core. Boston is proud of its many sons and daughters who have played a role in the country's life, and Mary McGrory was certainly in our nation's Hall of Fame as one of the all- time greats in journalism. Here in the Nation's Capital, in this city of America's monuments, Mary McGrory belongs among them. She will always be remembered and respected for her keen intellect, her deep allegiance to the truth, her unquestioned integrity, her respect for principled leadership, as well as her impatience for empty policies and hollow politics. Mary loved the issues, but she also loved her flowers and she loved to quote the poet Yeats. She was steeped with a keen sense of the levity of life, and she held everyone she met to the same high standards that she expected for herself. No other journalist could cut to the heart of a complicated issue as quickly or as beautifully as Mary McGrory could. Millions across the Nation eagerly looked for her writings, and the glow of her morning columns could last the entire day. I often thought she should win a Pulitzer Prize every year. Vicky and I had the chance to visit with Mary last month. We were saddened by her long illness, but she remained the same beautiful, inquisitive, insightful, and full-of-life Mary to the very end. We'll miss her very much. We love you, Mary, and we always will.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support this bill to provide enforceable rights to victims of crime, and I urge the Senate to approve it. For too long, our criminal justice system has neglected the hundreds of thousands of victims of crime whose lives are shattered by violence or other crime each year. Victims deserve better from our criminal justice system. Too often, the current system does not provide adequate relief for victims of crime. They are not given basic information about their case--such as notice of a defendant's arrest and bail status, the schedule of various court proceedings, and the terms of imprisonment. Victims deserve to know about their case. They deserve to know when their assailants are being considered for bail or parole or adjustments of their sentences. They certainly deserve to know when offenders are released from prison. Since 1997, Senator Leahy and I have sponsored legislation to provide enhanced protections for victims of violent or non-violent crimes and establish an effective way to implement and enforce these protections. Our legislation is designed to give victims a greater voice in the prosecution of the criminals who injured them and their families, fill existing gaps in Federal criminal law, guarantee that victims of crime receive fair treatment and the respect they deserve, and achieve these goals in a way that respects the efforts of the States to protect victims in ways appropriate to each State's unique needs. I am pleased to join Senator Kyle and Senator Feinstein, who are the lead sponsors of the proposed Victims' Rights Constitutional Amendment, in moving forward on victims' rights legislation now. Our bill is called the ``Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Lourana Gillis and Nila Lynn Crime Victims' Rights Act,'' and is named in honor of five persons who were victims of crime. Our bill provides victims with a number of important rights, including the right to receive notice of public proceedings; to receive notice of the release or escape of the accused; to attend and be heard at proceedings involving release, plea, or sentencing; to confer with the government's attorney; and to receive full and timely restitution as provided by law. The bill also provides for the enforcement of these rights, by directing government officials to notify victims of their rights, requiring courts to grant these rights to victims, and giving standing to both prosecutors and victims or their legal representatives to assert the rights at trial and on appeal. The legislation will protect all victims of crime, including victims of identity theft, personal property theft, fraud, embezzlement, vandalism, and other non-violent offenses. The National Center for Victims of Crime has emphasized the great importance of including protections for victims of non-violent crime. Our legislation does so, and I commend the Center for its leadership on this important aspect of the issue. Our Victims' Rights Act also directs the Attorney General to act within a year to issue regulations to enforce the rights of crime victims and ensure compliance by all relevant officials. The bill strengthens victims' rights at the Federal, State, and local levels by authorizing the use of Federal funds to establish programs to promote compliance and develop state-of-the-art systems for notifying victims of important dates and developments in their cases. Once this bill is enacted into law, we intend to monitor its implementation by the Justice Department, other law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, and the courts, so that we can take appropriate action, if necessary, to ensure that the victims' rights are protected, and also ensure that the effective functioning of the law enforcement and criminal justice system is not impaired. I commend my colleagues for their leadership in making this legislation possible, and I urge the Senate approve it. We know that victims of crime have been waiting too long for our action, and hopefully this long-needed measure is finally on the fast track for enactment into law.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleagues Senator Dorgan, Senator Snowe, Senator McCain, Senator Daschle, Senator Lott, Senator Chafee and others in introducing legislation to allow the importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This issue is about fairness for middle class Americans who are struggling to afford costly prescription drugs. Americans understand fairness, and they know it's wrong that Americans pay far too much for prescription drugs--more than Canadians, more than the British, more than in any other country in the world. That's not right. Prescription drugs mean the difference between sickness and health--even life and death--for millions of average Americans. It's not fair that drug companies overcharge middle class families and patients have to do without the drugs they need. We're here to say that help is on the way. Our legislation will legalize safe imports of U.S.-approved drugs manufactured in U.S.-approved plants. It is a creative new approach to meeting the needs of our middle class families. We know it will be opposed by the drug companies, who are determined to continue to reap windfall profits at the expense of American patients. It will be opposed by the Bush Administration, which is determined to protect the pharmaceutical industry and its powerful campaign contributors. But it will be welcomed by someone else--by every family in every community in America who needs to fill a prescription. Every pharmaceutical company in the world wants its drugs approved for sale in the United States. We're the largest market on Earth. A decision by the Food and Drug Administration that a drug is safe and effective is the gold standard for the world. But once that drug is approved for use in the United States, the drug manufacturer applies a greedy double standard. What's fair about a system that forces American patients to pay sixty percent more than the British pay or the Swiss pay for an FDA-approved drug manufactured to FDA standards? What's fair when, on average, Americans pay two-thirds more than Canadians? What's fair when Americans pay 80 percent more than Germans and twice as much as Italians? This legislation will end that indefensible disparity, by enabling U.S. consumers to buy FDA-approved drugs at the same fair prices as they are sold abroad. The drug companies and the Bush Administration claim that imported drugs threaten the health of American consumers because of the possibility of counterfeiting or adulteration. Under this bill, that argument can't pass the laugh test. One-quarter of the drugs that Americans use today are already legally imported into the United States. The American people have no idea how large a percentage of the pills they take are out-sourced--produced for U.S. drug-makers in plants overseas, where wages are cheaper. The catch is that the law allows that. Drugs can be legally imported by the drug companies themselves, who then sell them at the high U.S. price. If drug companies can import drugs at high prices, why can't patients import them at fair prices? Our legislation sets up iron-clad safety procedures to guarantee that every drug imported legally into the United States is the same FDA- approved drug that was originally manufactured in an FDA-approved plant--whether the drug is manufactured abroad and shipped to the U.S., or whether it is manufactured in the United States, shipped abroad and then imported back into the United States. Under our bill, the FDA is given new legal authority and resources to enforce the law. In fact, under this legislation, the procedures to prevent counterfeiting or adulteration of drugs shipped into the United States are actually stronger than the protections against counterfeiting of drugs manufactured for the domestic market. Our legislation also includes strict rules to close the loopholes that drug companies may use to evade the law. Violations will be considered unfair trade practices under the Clayton Act, and violators will be subject to triple damages. No doubt, in the months ahead, as the election approaches and the political pressure builds, drug companies and their allies in the Bush Administration and Congress will offer an alternative program. They'll call it an importation bill, but consumers beware. Counterfeit drugs have no place in American medicine cabinets, and counterfeit proposals to reduce drug prices have no place in Congress. Year in and year out, drug companies profits are the highest of any industry in the United States. Year in and year out, patients are denied the life-saving drugs they need because those astronomical profits are obtained by equally astronomical prices--prices that drug companies can't charge anywhere else in the world because no other country in the world would tolerate such high prices. It's time to end the shameful price-gouging here at home. It's time for basic fairness. It's time to pass this bill, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, all of us believe that the current system for compensating asbestos victims is not working well and that legislation creating a fairer, more effective process is needed. However, this bill, S. 2290, is not that legislation. In its current form, it does not create a system which will fairly and reliably compensate seriously ill victims of asbestos exposure. This is not a balanced approach to the asbestos problem which comes from negotiations between business and labor. The bill reads as if it was dictated by the defendants solely for the benefit of the defendants. In fact, there have been no serious negotiations for months on the central issues fair levels of compensation for seriously ill workers, and adequate funding for the asbestos trust to make sure that injured workers actually receive what they are promised. The only issue on which any progress has been made is the administrative structure of the compensation program. Senator Specter deserves great credit for convening a series of discussions on this topic involving both labor and business. However, as long as the compensation values are unreasonably low and the amount of money in the trust is grossly inadequate, improving the way in which that money is distributed to individual victims cannot make an otherwise bad bill acceptable. Since the Judiciary Committee voted out a bill in July, the process has moved backward, not forward. While I had serious objections to the committee-passed bill, the Frist bill is much worse. It reduces the funding level of the asbestos trust by more than $40 billion dollars-- $153 billion in the committee bill versus $109 billion in the Frist bill. They stripped out the major improvements we made in committee the two Feinstein amendments and the Biden amendment. They made a mockery of the committee process. The bill before us does not reflect what is necessary to compensate the enormous number of workers who suffer from asbestos-induced disease, it reflects only what the companies who made them sick are willing to pay. The Republican sponsors of this bill are insisting on compensation levels which are far below what these seriously ill workers deserve, and less than what they are receiving, on average, under current law. These are people whose health has been destroyed and, in many cases, whose lives have been substantially shortened, by asbestos induced disease. Shortchanging them would be extraordinarily cruel. There is also no adequate guarantee in the legislation that sufficient funds will be available to fully pay all injured workers who are eligible to collect, even at the low levels of compensation in the bill. For injured workers and their families, this proposal is clearly worse than the current system. The real crisis which confronts us is not an asbestos litigation crisis, it is an asbestos-induced disease crisis. Asbestos is the most lethal substance ever widely used in the workplace. Between 1940 and 1980, there were 27.5 million workers in this country who were exposed to asbestos on the job, and nearly 19 million of them had high levels of exposure over long periods of time. That exposure changed many of their lives. Each year, more than 10,000 of them die from lung cancer and other diseases caused by asbestos. Each year, hundreds of thousands of them suffer from lung conditions which make breathing so difficult that they cannot engage in the routine activities of daily life. Even more have become unemployable due to their medical condition. And, because of the long latency period of these diseases, all of them live with fear of a premature death due to asbestos-induced disease. These are the real victims. They deserve to be the first and foremost focus of our concern. All too often, the tragedy these workers and their families are enduring becomes lost in a complex debate about the economic impact of asbestos litigation. We cannot allow that to happen. The litigation did not create these costs. Exposure to asbestos created them. They are the costs of medical care, the lost wages of incapacitated workers, and the cost of providing for the families of workers who died years before their time. Those costs are real. No legislative proposal can make them disappear. All legislation can do is shift those costs from one party to another. Any proposal which would have the effect of shifting more of the financial burden onto the backs of injured workers is unacceptable to me, and I would hope that it would be unacceptable to every one of us. The key test of any legislative proposal on asbestos claims is whether, by reducing transaction costs, it will put more money into the pockets of seriously injured workers and their families than they are receiving under the current system. That should be our goal. I believe that a properly designed trust fund to compensate workers suffering with asbestos-induced disease can move us toward that goal. To do so, it must use inclusive medical criteria which cover all workers who have sustained real injuries, it must provide fair levels of compensation for all workers who have been injured, and it must guarantee that all injured workers who qualify will receive full compensation on a timely basis. At best, this legislation satisfies only one of these three criteria. Any proposal which would merely create one new large underfunded trust in place of the many smaller underfunded bankruptcy trusts which exist today is unacceptable. Injured workers need certainty even more than businesses and insurers. One basic test of fairness is how a compensation system treats the most seriously injured victims. S. 2290 fails this test miserably. Those who meet the medical criteria for the most serious illnesses would still not be fairly compensated. Mesothelioma is a horrible disease which is usually fatal. There is no question that it is caused by asbestos exposure. In the current system, mesothelioma victims often receive multi-million dollar settlements. This bill will limit them to much less. The gravest injustice done by the bill is to lung cancer victims. We all understand how devastating lung cancer can be. The issue with lung cancer is causation. If a worker had substantial asbestos exposure and was a non-smoker, his primary lung cancer was almost certainly caused by asbestos. Yet the bill would pay these victims as little as $225,000. In many instances, that will not even cover their medical expenses. They are currently receiving much higher judgments in the courts, and fairness requires far more compensation for their life threatening diseases than this bill offers. If the worker smoked--and unfortunately most of these workers did-- the combination of tobacco and asbestos exposure dramatically increases the likelihood of contracting lung cancer. Workers who smoke and have been exposed to asbestos are over four times more likely to get lung cancer than smokers with no asbestos exposure. Asbestos is clearly a major contributor to their lung cancers. Yet, this bill would give them next to nothing. Under the terms of this bill, they would receive between $25,000 to $75,000. That is outrageous. These victims, who must have at least 15 weighted years of asbestos exposure, deserve much more--they deserve a level of compensation that reflects the reality of their conditions and their families' needs. Even when the worker's lungs show specific evidence of asbestos disease, raising the probability that the asbestos exposure significantly contributed to the lung cancer to a virtual certainty, the legislation would pay them as little as $150,000. That is incredibly low. These lung cancer victims have literally had their lives shattered by asbestos. They must be fairly compensated in any legitimate national trust proposal. They are not in the Frist proposal. To make matters even worse, the legislation would actually allow workers' compensation and health insurance companies to seek reimbursement out of the meager amounts these seriously ill workers receive from the asbestos trust. Thus, the worker and his family may literally end up with nothing despite his undeniable injuries. At the very least, the bill should protect the compensation paid to a worker by the trust from subrogation claims. Proponents of this bill argue that in the tort system too much money is going to victims who are not really impaired and not enough is going to those who are truly sick. But their self-proclaimed concern for the truly sick certainly is not reflected in this bill. Lung cancer victims are ``truly sick'' by anyone's definition. In fact, a large percentage of them will have their lives cut short by this disease. Yet even in these cases, the most compelling cases, S. 2290 provides grossly inadequate compensation. I am deeply troubled by the way this legislation treats even the sickest of the sick. Not only does this bill not provide adequate levels of compensation, but it does not even contain sufficient funding to pay the compensation levels contained in the bill. According to a CBO analysis, it is underfunded by over $25 billion dollars. CBO's cost estimate is $140 billion. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this bill will raise even the $109 billion which the sponsors say is necessary. The bill establishes contribution tiers for defendant corporations of various sizes and asbestos histories. However, the Senate has no hard information about the number of companies which will fall in each tier. Thus, the aggregate amount which will be raised to fund the asbestos trust is highly speculative. Under the proposed funding plan--some corporations--such as Halliburton and WR Grace--can escape accountability for their wrong-doing by paying only a small percentage of the amounts they are currently responsible to pay. As long as companies such as Halliburton and Grace are permitted to pay billions of dollars less than their fair share, it will be extremely difficult--if not impossible--to fund the trust at a level sufficient to fairly compensate those who have been poisoned by asbestos. Similarly, the manner of determining the amount that individual insurers and reinsurers will contribute to the trust is also questionable. It appears to unfairly benefit some companies at the expense of others. The way it has been structured, it may actually create unintended legal obstacles to the expeditious payment of billions of dollars into the trust by reinsurers with the largest asbestos exposure. These funding concerns seriously jeopardize the financial viability of the trust and its capacity to compensate injured workers in the manner promised. In fact, there is no guarantee that the dollars will be there to fully pay all eligible victims what the legislation promises they will receive. If the asbestos trust does become insolvent, workers will have to wait years before they can return to the tort system. Under the Biden amendment adopted by the Judiciary Committee, if the trust was unable to fully pay claims in a timely manner, injured workers would immediately regain their right to seek compensation in the courts. Unfortunately, that right--so essential to fundamental fairness--has been removed in the Frist bill. Victims will have to wait as long as 7 years after the trust becomes insolvent before they can take their claim to court. Many of them will be dead by then. And, if they do return to court, the workers will not have the same rights that they do today. Under the Frist bill, seriously ill workers can find themselves in an intolerable legal limbo through no fault of their own. All of us should find that unacceptable. The danger that the asbestos trust, as structured in this legislation, will be unable to meet its financial obligations to the victims is very real. There is a serious risk of a substantial shortfall in the early years, when nearly 300,000 pending cases will be transferred to the newly created national trust for payment. The trust may not have the resources to pay those claims in a timely manner. Payments to critically ill people may be delayed for years, and the trust itself may become insolvent. The best way to reduce the enormous financial burden on the trust in the early years would be to leave many of those pending cases in the tort system, especially cases which were close to resolution. That would be fair to the parties in those cases and it would greatly improve the financial viability of the trust. Unfortunately, the Frist bill would do just the opposite. It fails to respect stare decisis even in cases where substantial judicial determinations have already been made. In many cases, it would actually abrogate jury verdicts and existing settlements, requiring the injured workers to start from scratch. That is terribly unfair. It will also greatly increase the burden on the asbestos trust. Unfortunately, there is so much wrong with this legislation that I could literally discuss the shortfalls for hours. However, that would serve no purpose. Clearly, the issues are too complex and too interrelated to fix in a few days on the Senate floor. For that reason, the Senate should reject the motion to proceed to S. 2209 and send the parties back to the drawing board. The only way to produce an acceptable bill is to seriously address the legitimate concerns of injured workers as well as the concerns of the corporate defendants. The Frist bill clearly fails that test. It is not a bill which reduces the high transaction costs in the current system, and thus puts more money in the pockets of injured workers while reducing the costs to businesses and their insurers. That would be a real solution. It is a bill which merely shifts more of the financial burden of asbestos-induced disease to the injured workers by unfairly and arbitrarily limiting the liability of defendants. Sick workers would receive lower levels of compensation than they receive on average in the current system, and payment of even those lower levels of compensation would not be guaranteed. That is no solution at all. I suggest the absence of a quorum.