John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my friend and colleague, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, Kit Bond, in introducing the ``Independent Office of Advocacy Act.'' This legislation will help ensure the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Advocacy has the necessary autonomy to remain an independent voice for America's small businesses. I would like to thank the Chairman and his staff for working with me and my staff to make the necessary changes to this legislation to garner bipartisan support. This legislation is similar to a bill introduced by Chairman Bond, which I supported, during the 106th Congress. While this legislation received strong support in the Senate Committee on Small Business and on the floor of the Senate, the House did not take any action. I am hopeful that this legislation will be enacted during the 107th Congress. The Independent Office of Advocacy Act rewrites the law that created the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to allow for increased autonomy. It reaffirms the Office's statutory and financial independence by preventing the President from firing the advocate without 30 days prior notice to Congress and by creating a separate authorization for the Office from that of SBA's. It also states that the Chief Counsel shall be appointed without regard to political affiliation, and shall not have served in the Administration for a period of 5 years prior to the date of appointment. The legislation also makes women-owned businesses an equal priority of the Office of Advocacy by adding women-owned business to the primary functions of the Office of Advocacy, wherever minority owned business appears. It also adds new reporting requirements and additional functions to the Office of Advocacy with regard to enforcement of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, SBREFA. The provisions regarding SBREFA are already a part of existing law in Chapter 6 Title 5 of US Code, and will now, rightly, be added to the statute establishing the Office of Advocacy. But at its heart, this legislation will allow the Office of Advocacy to better represent small business interests before Congress, Federal agencies, and the Federal Government without fear of reprisal for disagreeing with the position of the current Administration. For those of my colleagues without an intimate knowledge of the important role the Office of Advocacy and its Chief Counsel play in protecting and promoting America's small businesses, I will briefly elaborate its important functions and achievements. From studying the role of small business in the U.S. economy, to promoting small business exports, to lightening the regulatory burden of small businesses through the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, SBREFA, the Office of Advocacy has a wide scope of authority and responsibility. The U.S. Congress created the Office of Advocacy, headed by a Chief Counsel to be appointed by the President from the private sector and confirmed by the Senate, in June of 1976. The rationale was to give small businesses a louder voice in the councils of government. Each year, the Office of Advocacy works to facilitate meetings for small business people with congressional staff and executive branch officials, and convenes ad hoc issue-specific meetings to discuss small business concerns. It has published numerous reports, compiled vast amounts of data and successfully lightened the regulatory burden on America's small businesses. In the area of contracting, the Office of Advocacy developed PRO- Net, a database of small businesses used by contracting officers to find small businesses interested in selling to the Federal government. The U.S. Congress, the Administration and of course, small businesses, have all benefitted from the work of the Office of Advocacy. For example, between 1998 and 2000, regulatory changes supported by the Office of Advocacy saved small businesses around $20 billion in annual and one-time compliance costs. Mr. President, small businesses remain the backbone of the U.S. economy, accounting for 99 percent of all employers, providing 75 percent of all net new jobs, and accounting for 51 percent of private- sector output. In fact, and this may surprise some of my colleagues, small businesses employ 38 percent of high-tech workers, an increasingly important sector in our economy. Small businesses have also taken the lead in moving people from welfare to work and an increasing number of women and minorities are turning to small business ownership as a means to gain economic self- sufficiency. Put simply, small businesses represent what is best in the United States economy, providing innovation, competition and entrepreneurship. Their interests are vast, their activities divergent, and the difficulties they face to stay in business are numerous. To provide the necessary support to help them, SBA's Office of Advocacy needs our support. The responsibility and authority given the Office of Advocacy and the Chief Counsel are crucial to their ability to be an effective independent voice in the Federal Government for small businesses. When the Senate Committee on Small Business held a Roundtable meeting about the Office of Advocacy with small business concerns on April 21, 1999, every person in the room was concerned about the present and future state of affairs for the Office of Advocacy. These small businesses asked us to do everything we could to protect and strengthen this important office. I believe this legislation accomplishes this important goal. I have always been a strong supporter of the Office of Advocacy and I am pleased to join with Chairman Bond in introducing this legislation, which will ensure that it remains an independent and effective voice representing America's small businesses.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I believe the United States must do more to stop international criminals from legitimizing their profits from the sale of drugs, from terror or from organized crime by laundering money into the United States financial system. That is why today, along with Senators Grassley, Sarbanes, Levin and Rockefeller, I am introducing the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anticorruption Act of 2001, which will give the Secretary of the Treasury the tools to crack down on international money laundering havens and protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system from the influx of tainted money from abroad. During the 106th Congress, the House Banking Committee reported out this legislation with a bipartisan 33-1 vote. Money laundering is the financial side of international crime. It occurs when criminals seek to disguise money that was illegally obtained. It allows terrorists, drug cartels, organized crime groups, corrupt foreign government officials and others to preserve the profit from their illegal activities and to finance new crimes. Money laundering provides the fuel that allows criminal organizations to conduct their ongoing affairs. It has a corrosive effect on international markets and financial institutions. Money launderers rely upon the existence of jurisdictions outside the United States that offer bank secrecy and special tax or regulatory advantages to non residents, and often complement those advantages with weak financial supervision and regulatory regimes. Today, the global volume of laundered money is estimated to be 2-5 percent of global Gross Domestic Product, between $600 billion and $1.5 trillion. The effects of money laundering extend far beyond the parameters of law enforcement, creating international political issues while generating domestic political crises. International criminals have taken advantage of the advances in technology and the weak financial supervision in some jurisdictions to smuggle their illicit funds into the United States financial system. Globalization and advances in communications and technologies allow criminals to move their illicit gains faster and farther than ever before. The ability to launder money into the United States through these jurisdictions has allowed corrupt foreign officials to systematically divert public assets for their personal use, which in turn undermines U.S. efforts to promote stable democratic institutions and vibrant economies abroad. In December 2000, a federal interagency working group in support of the President's International Crime Control Strategy released an International Crime Threat Assessment. This report states that international banking and financial systems are currently being used to legitimize and transfer criminal proceeds and that huge sums of money are laundered in the world's largest financial markets including the United States. The report warns that international criminal groups will use changes in technology and the world economy to enhance their capability to launder and move money and may be able to cause significant disruption to international financial systems. In October 2000, the General Accounting Office determined that Euro- American Corporate Services, Inc. had formed more than 2,000 corporations for Russian brokers. From 1991 through January 2000, more than $1.4 billion in wire transfer transactions was deposited into 236 accounts for these corporations opened at two United States banks. More than half of these funds were then transferred out of the U.S. banking system. The GAO believes that these banking activities raise questions about whether the U.S. banks were used to launder money. In February 2000, State and Federal regulators formally sanctioned the Bank of New York for ``deficiencies'' in its anti-money laundering practices including lax auditing and risk management procedures involving their international banking business. The sanctions were based on the Bank of New York's involvement in an alleged money laundering scheme where more than $7 billion in funds were transmitted from Russia into the bank. Federal investigators are currently attempting to tie the $7 billion to criminal activities in Russia such as corporate theft, political graft or racketeering. In November 1999, the minority staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations released a report on private banking and money laundering. The report describes a number of incidences where high level government officials have used private banking accounts with U.S. financial institutions to launder millions of dollars from foreign governments. The report details how Raul Salinas, brother of former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas, used private bank accounts to launder money out of Mexico. Representatives from Citigroup testified at a Subcommittee hearing that the bank had been slow to correct controls over their private banking accounts. Earlier this month, the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Carl Levin, released a report that reveals that most U.S. banks lack appropriate anti-money laundering safeguards on their correspondent accounts. This report proves that high risk foreign banks that are denied their own correspondent accounts at U.S. banks can get the same access by opening correspondent accounts at other foreign banks that have U.S. accounts. The report recommends that U.S. regulators and law enforcement offer increased assistance to help banks identify high-risk foreign banks. During the 1980s, as Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I began an investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and uncovered a complex money laundering scheme. Unlike any ordinary bank, BCCI was from its earliest days made up of multiplying layers of entities, related to one another through an impenetrable series of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. By fracturing corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits, the complex BCCI family of entities was able to evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of capital and goods as a matter of daily practice and routine. In designing BCCI as a vehicle fundamentally free of government control, its creators developed an ideal mechanism for facilitating illicit activity by others. BCCI's used this complex corporate structure to commit fraud involving billions of dollars; and launder money for their clients in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Fortunately, we were able to bring many of those involved in BCCI to justice. However, my investigation clearly showed that rogue financial institutions have the ability to circumvent the laws designed to stop financial crimes. In recent years, the U.S. and other well-developed financial centers have been working together to improve their anti-money laundering regimes and to set international anti-money laundering standards. Back in 1988, I included a provision in the State Department Reauthorization bill that requires major money laundering countries to adopt laws similar to our own on reporting currency or face sanctions. This provision led to Panama and Venezuela negotiating what were called Kerry agreements with the United States decreasing their vulnerability to the placement of U.S. currency by drug traffickers in the process. Unfortunately, other nations--some small, remote islands--have moved in the other direction. Many have passed laws that provide for excessive bank secrecy, anonymous company incorporation, economic citizenship, and other provisions that directly conflict with well- established international anti-money laundering standards. In doing so, they have become money laundering havens for international criminal networks. Some even blatantly advertise the fact that their laws protect anyone doing business from U.S. law enforcement. Last year, the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body established to develop and promote policies to combat financial crime, released a report naming fifteen jurisdictions--including the Bahamas, The Cayman Islands, Russia, Israel, and the Philippines--that have failed to take adequate measures to combat international money laundering. This is a clear warning to financial institutions in the United States that they must begin to scrutinize many of their financial transactions with customers in these countries. Soon, the Financial Action Task Force will develop bank advisories and criminal sanctions that effectively drive legitimate financial business from these nations, depriving them of a lucrative source of tax revenue. This report has provided important information that governments and financial institutions around the world should learn from in developing their own anti-money laundering laws and policies. Last year, the Financial Stability Forum released a report that categorizes offshore financial centers according to their perceived quality of supervision and degree of regulatory cooperation. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) began a new crackdown on harmful tax competition. Members of the European Union reached an agreement in principle on sweeping changes to bank secrecy laws, intended to bring cross-border investment income within the net of tax authorities. The actions by the Financial Action Task Force, the European Union and others show a renewed international focus and commitment to curbing financial abuse around the world. I believe the United States has a similar obligation to use this new information to update our anti-money laundering statutes. The International Counter-Money Laundering and Anticorruption Act of 2001, which I am introducing today, would provide the tools the U.S. needs to crack down on international money laundering havens and protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system from the influx of tainted money from abroad. The bill provides for actions that will be graduated, discretionary, and targeted, in order to focus actions on international transactions involving criminal proceeds, while allowing legitimate international commerce to continue to flow unimpeded. It will give the Secretary of the Treasury--acting in consultation with other senior government officials and the Congress--the authority to designate a specific foreign jurisdiction, foreign financial institution, or class of international transactions as being of ``primary money laundering concern.'' Then, on a case-by-case basis, the Secretary will have the option to use a series of new tools to combat the specific type of foreign money laundering threat we face. In some cases, the Secretary will have the option to require banks to pierce the veil of secrecy behind which foreign criminals hide. In other cases, the Secretary will have the option to require the identification those using a foreign bank's correspondent or payable-through accounts. If these transparency provisions were deemed to be inadequate to address the specific problem identified, the Secretary would have the option to restrict or prohibit U.S. banks from continuing correspondent or payable-through banking relationships with money laundering havens and rogue foreign banks. Through these steps, the Secretary will help prevent laundered money from slipping undetected into the U.S. financial system and, as a result, increase the pressure on foreign money laundering havens to bring their laws and practices into line with international anti-money laundering standards. The passage of this legislation will make it much more difficult for international criminal organizations to launder the proceeds of their crimes into the United States. This bill fills in the current gap between bank advisories and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEEPA, sanctions by providing five new intermediate measures. Under current law, the only counter-money laundering tools available to the federal government are advisories, an important but relatively limited measure instructing banks to pay close attention to transactions that involve a given country, and full-blown economic sanctions under the IEEPA. This legislation gives five additional measures to increase the government's ability to apply pressure effectively against targeted jurisdictions or institutions. This legislation will in no way jeopardize the privacy of the American public. The focus is on foreign jurisdictions, financial institutions and classes of transactions that present a threat to the United States, not on American citizens. The actions that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to take are designated solely to combat the abuse of our banks by specifically identified foreign money laundering threats. This legislation is in no way similar to the Know- Your-Customer regulations that were proposed by bank regulators in 1999. Further, the intent of this legislation is not to add additional regulatory burdens on financial institutions, but, to give the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to take action against existing money laundering threats. Let me repeat, this legislation only gives the discretion to use these tools to the Secretary of the Treasury. There is no automatic trigger that forces action whenever evidence of money laundering is determined. Before any action is taken, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with other key government officials, must first determine whether a specific country, financial institution or type of transaction is of primary money laundering concern. The Treasury Secretary will develop a calibrated response that will consider the effectiveness of the measure to address the threat, whether other countries are taking similar steps, and whether the response will cause harm to U.S. financial institutions and other firms. This legislation will strengthen the ability of the Secretary to combat international money laundering and help protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system. This bill has been supported by the heads of all the major federal law enforcement agencies. Today, advances in technology are bringing the world closer together than ever before and opening up new opportunities for economic growth. However, with these new advantages come equally important obligations. We must do everything possible to insure that the changes in technology do not give comfort to international criminals by giving them new ways to hide the financial proceeds of their crimes. This legislation is a first step toward limiting the scourge of money laundering and will help stop the development of international criminal organizations. I believe this legislation deserves consideration by the Senate during the 107th Congress.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I believe the United States must do more to stop international criminals from legitimizing their profits from the sale of drugs, from terror or from organized crime by laundering money into the United States financial system. That is why today, along with Senators Grassley, Sarbanes, Levin and Rockefeller, I am introducing the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anticorruption Act of 2001, which will give the Secretary of the Treasury the tools to crack down on international money laundering havens and protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system from the influx of tainted money from abroad. During the 106th Congress, the House Banking Committee reported out this legislation with a bipartisan 33-1 vote. Money laundering is the financial side of international crime. It occurs when criminals seek to disguise money that was illegally obtained. It allows terrorists, drug cartels, organized crime groups, corrupt foreign government officials and others to preserve the profit from their illegal activities and to finance new crimes. Money laundering provides the fuel that allows criminal organizations to conduct their ongoing affairs. It has a corrosive effect on international markets and financial institutions. Money launderers rely upon the existence of jurisdictions outside the United States that offer bank secrecy and special tax or regulatory advantages to non residents, and often complement those advantages with weak financial supervision and regulatory regimes. Today, the global volume of laundered money is estimated to be 2-5 percent of global Gross Domestic Product, between $600 billion and $1.5 trillion. The effects of money laundering extend far beyond the parameters of law enforcement, creating international political issues while generating domestic political crises. International criminals have taken advantage of the advances in technology and the weak financial supervision in some jurisdictions to smuggle their illicit funds into the United States financial system. Globalization and advances in communications and technologies allow criminals to move their illicit gains faster and farther than ever before. The ability to launder money into the United States through these jurisdictions has allowed corrupt foreign officials to systematically divert public assets for their personal use, which in turn undermines U.S. efforts to promote stable democratic institutions and vibrant economies abroad. In December 2000, a federal interagency working group in support of the President's International Crime Control Strategy released an International Crime Threat Assessment. This report states that international banking and financial systems are currently being used to legitimize and transfer criminal proceeds and that huge sums of money are laundered in the world's largest financial markets including the United States. The report warns that international criminal groups will use changes in technology and the world economy to enhance their capability to launder and move money and may be able to cause significant disruption to international financial systems. In October 2000, the General Accounting Office determined that Euro- American Corporate Services, Inc. had formed more than 2,000 corporations for Russian brokers. From 1991 through January 2000, more than $1.4 billion in wire transfer transactions was deposited into 236 accounts for these corporations opened at two United States banks. More than half of these funds were then transferred out of the U.S. banking system. The GAO believes that these banking activities raise questions about whether the U.S. banks were used to launder money. In February 2000, State and Federal regulators formally sanctioned the Bank of New York for ``deficiencies'' in its anti-money laundering practices including lax auditing and risk management procedures involving their international banking business. The sanctions were based on the Bank of New York's involvement in an alleged money laundering scheme where more than $7 billion in funds were transmitted from Russia into the bank. Federal investigators are currently attempting to tie the $7 billion to criminal activities in Russia such as corporate theft, political graft or racketeering. In November 1999, the minority staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations released a report on private banking and money laundering. The report describes a number of incidences where high level government officials have used private banking accounts with U.S. financial institutions to launder millions of dollars from foreign governments. The report details how Raul Salinas, brother of former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas, used private bank accounts to launder money out of Mexico. Representatives from Citigroup testified at a Subcommittee hearing that the bank had been slow to correct controls over their private banking accounts. Earlier this month, the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Carl Levin, released a report that reveals that most U.S. banks lack appropriate anti-money laundering safeguards on their correspondent accounts. This report proves that high risk foreign banks that are denied their own correspondent accounts at U.S. banks can get the same access by opening correspondent accounts at other foreign banks that have U.S. accounts. The report recommends that U.S. regulators and law enforcement offer increased assistance to help banks identify high-risk foreign banks. During the 1980s, as Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I began an investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and uncovered a complex money laundering scheme. Unlike any ordinary bank, BCCI was from its earliest days made up of multiplying layers of entities, related to one another through an impenetrable series of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. By fracturing corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits, the complex BCCI family of entities was able to evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of capital and goods as a matter of daily practice and routine. In designing BCCI as a vehicle fundamentally free of government control, its creators developed an ideal mechanism for facilitating illicit activity by others. BCCI's used this complex corporate structure to commit fraud involving billions of dollars; and launder money for their clients in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Fortunately, we were able to bring many of those involved in BCCI to justice. However, my investigation clearly showed that rogue financial institutions have the ability to circumvent the laws designed to stop financial crimes. In recent years, the U.S. and other well-developed financial centers have been working together to improve their anti-money laundering regimes and to set international anti-money laundering standards. Back in 1988, I included a provision in the State Department Reauthorization bill that requires major money laundering countries to adopt laws similar to our own on reporting currency or face sanctions. This provision led to Panama and Venezuela negotiating what were called Kerry agreements with the United States decreasing their vulnerability to the placement of U.S. currency by drug traffickers in the process. Unfortunately, other nations--some small, remote islands--have moved in the other direction. Many have passed laws that provide for excessive bank secrecy, anonymous company incorporation, economic citizenship, and other provisions that directly conflict with well- established international anti-money laundering standards. In doing so, they have become money laundering havens for international criminal networks. Some even blatantly advertise the fact that their laws protect anyone doing business from U.S. law enforcement. Last year, the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body established to develop and promote policies to combat financial crime, released a report naming fifteen jurisdictions--including the Bahamas, The Cayman Islands, Russia, Israel, and the Philippines--that have failed to take adequate measures to combat international money laundering. This is a clear warning to financial institutions in the United States that they must begin to scrutinize many of their financial transactions with customers in these countries. Soon, the Financial Action Task Force will develop bank advisories and criminal sanctions that effectively drive legitimate financial business from these nations, depriving them of a lucrative source of tax revenue. This report has provided important information that governments and financial institutions around the world should learn from in developing their own anti-money laundering laws and policies. Last year, the Financial Stability Forum released a report that categorizes offshore financial centers according to their perceived quality of supervision and degree of regulatory cooperation. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) began a new crackdown on harmful tax competition. Members of the European Union reached an agreement in principle on sweeping changes to bank secrecy laws, intended to bring cross-border investment income within the net of tax authorities. The actions by the Financial Action Task Force, the European Union and others show a renewed international focus and commitment to curbing financial abuse around the world. I believe the United States has a similar obligation to use this new information to update our anti-money laundering statutes. The International Counter-Money Laundering and Anticorruption Act of 2001, which I am introducing today, would provide the tools the U.S. needs to crack down on international money laundering havens and protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system from the influx of tainted money from abroad. The bill provides for actions that will be graduated, discretionary, and targeted, in order to focus actions on international transactions involving criminal proceeds, while allowing legitimate international commerce to continue to flow unimpeded. It will give the Secretary of the Treasury--acting in consultation with other senior government officials and the Congress--the authority to designate a specific foreign jurisdiction, foreign financial institution, or class of international transactions as being of ``primary money laundering concern.'' Then, on a case-by-case basis, the Secretary will have the option to use a series of new tools to combat the specific type of foreign money laundering threat we face. In some cases, the Secretary will have the option to require banks to pierce the veil of secrecy behind which foreign criminals hide. In other cases, the Secretary will have the option to require the identification those using a foreign bank's correspondent or payable-through accounts. If these transparency provisions were deemed to be inadequate to address the specific problem identified, the Secretary would have the option to restrict or prohibit U.S. banks from continuing correspondent or payable-through banking relationships with money laundering havens and rogue foreign banks. Through these steps, the Secretary will help prevent laundered money from slipping undetected into the U.S. financial system and, as a result, increase the pressure on foreign money laundering havens to bring their laws and practices into line with international anti-money laundering standards. The passage of this legislation will make it much more difficult for international criminal organizations to launder the proceeds of their crimes into the United States. This bill fills in the current gap between bank advisories and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEEPA, sanctions by providing five new intermediate measures. Under current law, the only counter-money laundering tools available to the federal government are advisories, an important but relatively limited measure instructing banks to pay close attention to transactions that involve a given country, and full-blown economic sanctions under the IEEPA. This legislation gives five additional measures to increase the government's ability to apply pressure effectively against targeted jurisdictions or institutions. This legislation will in no way jeopardize the privacy of the American public. The focus is on foreign jurisdictions, financial institutions and classes of transactions that present a threat to the United States, not on American citizens. The actions that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to take are designated solely to combat the abuse of our banks by specifically identified foreign money laundering threats. This legislation is in no way similar to the Know- Your-Customer regulations that were proposed by bank regulators in 1999. Further, the intent of this legislation is not to add additional regulatory burdens on financial institutions, but, to give the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to take action against existing money laundering threats. Let me repeat, this legislation only gives the discretion to use these tools to the Secretary of the Treasury. There is no automatic trigger that forces action whenever evidence of money laundering is determined. Before any action is taken, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with other key government officials, must first determine whether a specific country, financial institution or type of transaction is of primary money laundering concern. The Treasury Secretary will develop a calibrated response that will consider the effectiveness of the measure to address the threat, whether other countries are taking similar steps, and whether the response will cause harm to U.S. financial institutions and other firms. This legislation will strengthen the ability of the Secretary to combat international money laundering and help protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system. This bill has been supported by the heads of all the major federal law enforcement agencies. Today, advances in technology are bringing the world closer together than ever before and opening up new opportunities for economic growth. However, with these new advantages come equally important obligations. We must do everything possible to insure that the changes in technology do not give comfort to international criminals by giving them new ways to hide the financial proceeds of their crimes. This legislation is a first step toward limiting the scourge of money laundering and will help stop the development of international criminal organizations. I believe this legislation deserves consideration by the Senate during the 107th Congress.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my friend and colleague, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, Kit Bond, in introducing the ``Independent Office of Advocacy Act.'' This legislation will help ensure the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Advocacy has the necessary autonomy to remain an independent voice for America's small businesses. I would like to thank the Chairman and his staff for working with me and my staff to make the necessary changes to this legislation to garner bipartisan support. This legislation is similar to a bill introduced by Chairman Bond, which I supported, during the 106th Congress. While this legislation received strong support in the Senate Committee on Small Business and on the floor of the Senate, the House did not take any action. I am hopeful that this legislation will be enacted during the 107th Congress. The Independent Office of Advocacy Act rewrites the law that created the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to allow for increased autonomy. It reaffirms the Office's statutory and financial independence by preventing the President from firing the advocate without 30 days prior notice to Congress and by creating a separate authorization for the Office from that of SBA's. It also states that the Chief Counsel shall be appointed without regard to political affiliation, and shall not have served in the Administration for a period of 5 years prior to the date of appointment. The legislation also makes women-owned businesses an equal priority of the Office of Advocacy by adding women-owned business to the primary functions of the Office of Advocacy, wherever minority owned business appears. It also adds new reporting requirements and additional functions to the Office of Advocacy with regard to enforcement of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, SBREFA. The provisions regarding SBREFA are already a part of existing law in Chapter 6 Title 5 of US Code, and will now, rightly, be added to the statute establishing the Office of Advocacy. But at its heart, this legislation will allow the Office of Advocacy to better represent small business interests before Congress, Federal agencies, and the Federal Government without fear of reprisal for disagreeing with the position of the current Administration. For those of my colleagues without an intimate knowledge of the important role the Office of Advocacy and its Chief Counsel play in protecting and promoting America's small businesses, I will briefly elaborate its important functions and achievements. From studying the role of small business in the U.S. economy, to promoting small business exports, to lightening the regulatory burden of small businesses through the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, SBREFA, the Office of Advocacy has a wide scope of authority and responsibility. The U.S. Congress created the Office of Advocacy, headed by a Chief Counsel to be appointed by the President from the private sector and confirmed by the Senate, in June of 1976. The rationale was to give small businesses a louder voice in the councils of government. Each year, the Office of Advocacy works to facilitate meetings for small business people with congressional staff and executive branch officials, and convenes ad hoc issue-specific meetings to discuss small business concerns. It has published numerous reports, compiled vast amounts of data and successfully lightened the regulatory burden on America's small businesses. In the area of contracting, the Office of Advocacy developed PRO- Net, a database of small businesses used by contracting officers to find small businesses interested in selling to the Federal government. The U.S. Congress, the Administration and of course, small businesses, have all benefitted from the work of the Office of Advocacy. For example, between 1998 and 2000, regulatory changes supported by the Office of Advocacy saved small businesses around $20 billion in annual and one-time compliance costs. Mr. President, small businesses remain the backbone of the U.S. economy, accounting for 99 percent of all employers, providing 75 percent of all net new jobs, and accounting for 51 percent of private- sector output. In fact, and this may surprise some of my colleagues, small businesses employ 38 percent of high-tech workers, an increasingly important sector in our economy. Small businesses have also taken the lead in moving people from welfare to work and an increasing number of women and minorities are turning to small business ownership as a means to gain economic self- sufficiency. Put simply, small businesses represent what is best in the United States economy, providing innovation, competition and entrepreneurship. Their interests are vast, their activities divergent, and the difficulties they face to stay in business are numerous. To provide the necessary support to help them, SBA's Office of Advocacy needs our support. The responsibility and authority given the Office of Advocacy and the Chief Counsel are crucial to their ability to be an effective independent voice in the Federal Government for small businesses. When the Senate Committee on Small Business held a Roundtable meeting about the Office of Advocacy with small business concerns on April 21, 1999, every person in the room was concerned about the present and future state of affairs for the Office of Advocacy. These small businesses asked us to do everything we could to protect and strengthen this important office. I believe this legislation accomplishes this important goal. I have always been a strong supporter of the Office of Advocacy and I am pleased to join with Chairman Bond in introducing this legislation, which will ensure that it remains an independent and effective voice representing America's small businesses.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I'd like to make a few comments today in recognition of Black History Month. For a quarter-century, our country has held the month of February in special regard as a time to remember and reflect on the rich history and extraordinary achievements of African Americans. Today, I would like to speak about some important and influential African Americans from my home State of Massachusetts. The diversity we celebrate during this month encompasses many areas. African-American leaders should be recognized not only for their achievements in the face of racial discrimination, but for the accomplishments they have made in a wide variety of occupations. Diversity stretches beyond race and crosses into gender, age, and occupation. The following men and women cover a wide spectrum of interests, eras, and accomplishments, and each has made a significant contribution to the Massachusetts community. In 1845, Macon B. Allen became the first African American officially admitted to the bar, and he practiced law for many years in Worcester, Massachusetts before moving to South Carolina, where he became one of the first black Federal judges in the Nation. Mr. Allen set a precedent that opened many doors for the minority attorneys and judges who followed in his footsteps. Dr. W.E.B DuBois has long been recognized as a figure of leadership in African-American history. Dr. Dubois fought racism through words, writing in such publications as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People journal. He approached civil rights boldly, advocating the eradication of all distinctions on the basis of race or color. Throughout the early half of the 20th century, DuBois sought this ideal, in his words, ``to obtain without compromise such rights and privileges as belonged to members of civilization of which he was a part.'' John Thomas, an athlete from Massachusetts, truly soared above his competition. As a freshman at Boston University, Thomas established a new world record for the high jump at 7 feet, 1\1/4\ inches in 1959. As the first athlete to consistently jump more than 7 feet, Thomas went on to break his own record twice. He represented America in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, medaling in the high jump. In addition to his athletic activities, Thomas served his local community as a leader in several organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Dorothy West was heralded as ``the last living member of the Harlem Renaissance'' until her death in 1998. Despite her ties to the New York artists' movement, her roots in Massachusetts run deep. Ms. West was born near Martha's Vineyard and spent nearly her entire life there. Ms. West became an award-winning writer when she was still a teenager, and she started and edited several literary magazines that focused on black writers of the era. She returned to Martha's Vineyard to finish her first novel, The Living is Easy, published in 1948, and to write her second novel, The Wedding, later published in 1995. These stories provide meaningful snapshot of how African Americans have contributed greatly to Massachusetts and our Nation. Their triumphs, along with the everyday achievements of African-Americans in my state, should be applauded. I am proud that my State has such a richly diverse history and I'm pleased we have set aside this month to commemorate these accomplished individuals. I hope as a Nation we will remember these achievements not only this month, but everyday.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is a special privilege to join all of you today to honor the life and extraordinary accomplishments of Alan Cranston. As we all know, Alan was a sprinter and--always with an incredible mischievous twinkle in his eye he sprinted through life. I think one of the most enduring images of him is of Alan on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in 1984 at the Holiday Inn in Keokuk, Iowa, sprinting barefooted down the 40-meter hallway, walking back and repeating the exercise for about 40 minutes. It was no coincidence that Alan's favorite hotel in the country, Chicago's O'Hare Hilton, boasts 250- meter hallways. Three weeks ago in California we shared a goodbye to our friend, this sprinter, at a memorial service--calling to mind the many ways he enriched public lives and personal relationships. There in the Grace Cathedral, we heard Colette Cranston say that in death Alan Cranston ``has become my Jiminy Cricket--that little voice in her conscience that says, `Colette, think before you leap.' '' It would not be an exaggeration to say that warning was characteristic of Alan when he served here in the United States Senate. He wanted us to look, and he wanted us to leap. He implored us to put a human face on public policy--to think not in statistics and numbers and programs alone, but in terms of people: and the people he spoke of most often were senior citizens, children, those without decent housing, immigrants, and those in need of a helping hand regardless of race or religion. He was a moral voice, a voice of conscience, someone who understood that even as he remained vigilant defending the needs of the homefront in California, he was also a global citizen who knew this institution had global responsibilities. Through four terms as a United States Senator, he remained a man of enormous humility on his answering machine he was simply ``Alan''--as he was to so many who knew him. This personal sense of place and restraint made it easy to underestimate the contributions he made to the Senate, and to our country. Certainly he never paused long enough to personally remind us of the impact of his service, of the history he was a part of and the lives he touched. I first met Alan in 1971 when I had returned from Vietnam and many of our veterans were part of an effort to end a failed American policy in Vietnam. In Alan Cranston we found one of the few Senators willing not just to join in the public opposition to the war in Vietnam, but to become a voice of healing for the veterans of the war a statesman whose leadership enabled others, over time, to separate their feelings for the war from their feelings for the veterans of the war. At a time when too many wanted to disown its veterans, Alan offered Vietnam veterans a warm embrace. He was eager to do something all too rare in Washington: listen--and he listened to veterans who had much to say, much of it ignored for too long. He honored their pride and their pain with sensitivity and understanding. That's when I first saw the great energy and commitment Alan brought to the issues affecting veterans, especially those of the Vietnam era. He was deeply involved on veterans' health care issues, among the first to fight for recognition of post-Vietnam stress syndrome, and a leader in insisting on coverage under the V.A. for its treatment. When the Agent Orange issue came to the fore, Alan insisted on getting answers from an unresponsive government about the consequences of exposure to dioxin, making sure that veterans and their families got the health care they needed. Under his leadership Congress grudgingly increased GI Bill benefits for Vietnam veterans--veterans who too often had to fight for benefits they should have been guaranteed without question--indeed, for veterans who had to fight if only to have a memorial and if only to have the government recognize that they fought in a war and not a police conflict Alan's leadership made all the difference. It is a sad truth in our country's history that a weary Nation seemed eager to turn its back on so many Vietnam veterans who simply sought their due; it should forever be a source of pride to the Cranston family that Alan was chief among those who insisted that America honor that service and keep faith with sons who left pieces of themselves and years of their lives on the battlefield in that far-away Nation. This was a man who fought with the greatest of passion for those who had fought in a difficult war--even as he was also the Senator who fought against all that war represents--remembering that war, brutality, and killing are the ultimate failure of diplomacy. Alan Cranston was above all a man of peace. With him it was not just a policy but a passion. Remember: This was a man who, in 1934, found himself in the same room as Adolf Hitler. Five years later, he wrote a critical English translation of Adolf Hitler's ``Mein Kampf'' in an effort to reveal the German leader's true plans. He wore Hitler's ensuing lawsuit as a badge of honor, proud that he had stood up to try and warn the English-speaking world about the evils of Nazism. Throughout the rest of his service he used public office to force Americans to listen to other prescient warnings--about nuclear arms, about a dangerous arms race spiraling beyond our control, and about hopes for peace that he refused to give up even as others chose to beat the drums for war. Senator Cranston came to his famous commitment to arms control after meeting with Albert Einstein in 1946. He left that meeting convinced that the threat of atomic weapons had to be stemmed--and he spent the balance of his life arguing that conviction before the Nation. As a member of the Senate leadership and a senior voice on the Democratic side of the Foreign Relations Committee he worked to reduce the nuclear threat. One of his most important efforts was one of the least publicized. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980's, Alan convened a unique arms control study group the ``SALT Study Group''. This senators-only gathering met monthly in his office, off the record, and face to face to define common ground. He knew the impact quiet diplomacy could have on the issues he cared about most of all. He loved what the Peace Corps does, and he fought for it. He fought to attach human rights conditions on aid to El Salvador and to halt contra aid. He was a leading national advocate for a mutual verifiable nuclear freeze. He was always an idealist whose increase in political power was always met by progress for the issues he cared about so deeply. It was not just the work of a career, but of a lifetime--after he left the Senate he chaired the State of the World Forum and joined with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation/USA and in 1999, he founded the Global Security Institute. He did that because he sensed that the end of the Cold War, with all the opportunity it afforded, created a more dangerous world, with aging nuclear weapons in increasingly disparate and unreliable hands. He was haunted by the threat of nuclear terrorism. He was passionate about the nuclear test ban treaty and was angry when it went down to a shallow and partisan defeat in the Senate. We missed his voice in that debate; we miss him still more today. When he left the Senate, Alan reflected upon his service and his accomplishments. Of his lasting legacy, he said simply: ``Most of all, I have dedicated myself to the cause of peace.'' That dedication was real and lasting--a legacy of peace for a good and peaceful man who gave living embodiment to Culbertson's simple, stubborn faith that ``God and the politicians willing, the United States can declare peace upon the world, and win it.'' That belief was Alan Cranston and it is a belief worth fighting for.

Mr. KERRY

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

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Will my colleague yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am introducing a resolution, which I send to the desk, that addresses one of the most urgent needs of citizens all across the country. That resolution is cosponsored by Senators Schumer, Harkin, Kennedy, Durbin, and Boxer. What it does is call on Congress to take immediate action to enact supplemental appropriations that will include funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. This program helps more than 30 million of our fellow citizens in low-income households around the Nation to pay rising energy bills. Every one of these households have fixed and low incomes, and many include children and elderly. More than two-thirds of the households eligible for this assistance have annual incomes of less than $8,000. As energy prices have risen and so have the costs to heat or cool a home, those families face an unacceptable proposition of choosing between their food, medicine, and other basic necessities. Unfortunately, this program has literally exhausted its funds in a number of States, and it is nearly exhausted in many others. As a result, thousands of households around the Nation--particularly in areas that may face several more weeks of the severe cold weather--are at risk. As many colleagues know, the price of heating oil, natural gas, kerosene, propane, and electricity has risen significantly over the past year and in some areas sharply enough to cause a deep financial burden on many households. It is my hope that President Bush and the Congress can work together to address this situation. I have talked with many of my colleagues. They share my concern, and they, too, have constituents in need. We are only in the middle of February at this point, and already some States have exhausted their LIHEAP support. March and April can be very cold months in New England, New York, and throughout the Midwest. This resolution calls on President Bush, who has been a strong advocate for LIHEAP, to work with our leadership to craft and enact legislation that would put $1 billion into the LIHEAP program to help those in need now when they need it. It also calls on Congress to support supplemental appropriations of $152 million in weatherization and $37 million on State energy conservation plan grants. These programs we believe can significantly help reduce energy use and reduce the overall expense of the program. There has been a lot of talk of bipartisanship in this Congress. I am reminded that bipartisanship really always counts the most when the national needs blur the lines of ideology and party. These are the times when the Senate has been at its very best. I suggest, respectfully, that with Americans struggling with their heating bills, and all of their bills as a result of their heating bills, and with commonsense relief for so many people directly within our grasp, there should not be an excuse for inaction. There would be every reason to act responsibly and rapidly. I hope my colleagues will join us in doing so. I thank the Senator from Alaska for his courtesy, and I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Let me say to my colleague, I very much welcome what he is suggesting, and this is a debate I will welcome and I know many of my colleagues will because there is a great deal of difficulty for the country in deciding what we do about the dependency as described. I say again to my colleague and to my other colleagues, there is a distinction between the authorization that he is requesting, which is in the next budget cycle, and the supplemental appropriations that we are requesting to deal with the crisis now for families who are out of money and States that are out of money. Regrettably, what the Senator--and I know the Senator knows the distinction well--is proposing is down the road, whereas we face an immediate crisis in LIHEAP funding at this moment. I think the Senator will agree with me, will he not, that there is that distinction between these bills?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators Schumer and Brownback as an original cosponsor on the Federal Election Modernization Act of 2001. It has been approximately three months since Americans cast their vote for President, and for many, there remains a degree of uneasiness about the whole process. Many Americans who voted or tried to vote feel disenfranchised. They believe their votes didn't count and their voices weren't heard. We can be thankful that we are past the days of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other discriminatory practices that kept voters away from the polls. But if there is even an inadvertent flaw in the design or administration of our voting systems that prevents Americans from having their votes counted, it is our utmost responsibility to ensure that we remedy the situation. There is simply no excuse for the most technologically savvy nation in the world to be using voting equipment that is 30 years old. And it is disturbing, to say the least, that much of the oldest and least reliable equipment is found in the poorest counties across the country. Often, people of color make up the majority of the population in those counties. None of us should ever again be in the position of having to explain to urban, minority voters why a portion of their votes didn't get counted, while their white suburban neighbors, using better equipment, could rest assured that there were no voting irregularities in their precincts that would have caused their votes to be discarded. If we can't promise all of our citizens that their votes will count equally, then all of the past work this nation has done to guarantee the right to vote to women, people of color and the poor will have been squandered. That is why I am pleased to join my colleagues on this bill. The bill creates a blue ribbon commission that will study the way we administer Federal elections and recommend ways to modernize the process. The bill also establishes a five-year, $2.5 billion grant program to help upgrade state and local election systems. Both of these elements are critical if we are going to have real reform of our election processes. The commission, which will include among its advisory members a representative from the US Commission on Civil Rights, will study methods of voting and counting votes, methods of ensuring accessibility to the polls and to voting equipment, and methods of identifying registered voters. Its mission will be to provide Congress with recommendations to better ensure that all of our citizens can exercise their fundamental right to vote and have that vote count. The second piece of this legislation provides states with a portion of the estimated $3-9 billion they will need to upgrade their voting systems. This bill provides $2.5 billion over five years in Federal matching grants to States and localities to buy new voting equipment, overhaul election administration technology, train poll workers, or implement any other recommendation of the Commission. States and localities will maintain their independence in administering their elections, as states are not required to carry out the Commission's recommendations. But more and more states are sure to apply for grants to finance the reforms they wish to adopt. The Federal government must provide states with at least a portion of the resources they will need to overhaul their voting systems. State officials, from governors to county supervisors, face competing demands for funds every day, as they decide how to pay their teachers, pave their roads, and remove their garbage. When it comes to paying for Federal elections, buying the newest, most reliable technology may be far down on their list of priorities. That is why the Federal matching grant program is so important. It gives the incentive, as well as the resources, to make improvements that are necessary to assure the integrity of our elections. If there is a silver lining to the chaos that followed the election in November, it is that Congress is now fully aware that we must repair our election system nationwide. This bill is critical to that effort.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators Schumer and Brownback as an original cosponsor on the Federal Election Modernization Act of 2001. It has been approximately three months since Americans cast their vote for President, and for many, there remains a degree of uneasiness about the whole process. Many Americans who voted or tried to vote feel disenfranchised. They believe their votes didn't count and their voices weren't heard. We can be thankful that we are past the days of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other discriminatory practices that kept voters away from the polls. But if there is even an inadvertent flaw in the design or administration of our voting systems that prevents Americans from having their votes counted, it is our utmost responsibility to ensure that we remedy the situation. There is simply no excuse for the most technologically savvy nation in the world to be using voting equipment that is 30 years old. And it is disturbing, to say the least, that much of the oldest and least reliable equipment is found in the poorest counties across the country. Often, people of color make up the majority of the population in those counties. None of us should ever again be in the position of having to explain to urban, minority voters why a portion of their votes didn't get counted, while their white suburban neighbors, using better equipment, could rest assured that there were no voting irregularities in their precincts that would have caused their votes to be discarded. If we can't promise all of our citizens that their votes will count equally, then all of the past work this nation has done to guarantee the right to vote to women, people of color and the poor will have been squandered. That is why I am pleased to join my colleagues on this bill. The bill creates a blue ribbon commission that will study the way we administer Federal elections and recommend ways to modernize the process. The bill also establishes a five-year, $2.5 billion grant program to help upgrade state and local election systems. Both of these elements are critical if we are going to have real reform of our election processes. The commission, which will include among its advisory members a representative from the US Commission on Civil Rights, will study methods of voting and counting votes, methods of ensuring accessibility to the polls and to voting equipment, and methods of identifying registered voters. Its mission will be to provide Congress with recommendations to better ensure that all of our citizens can exercise their fundamental right to vote and have that vote count. The second piece of this legislation provides states with a portion of the estimated $3-9 billion they will need to upgrade their voting systems. This bill provides $2.5 billion over five years in Federal matching grants to States and localities to buy new voting equipment, overhaul election administration technology, train poll workers, or implement any other recommendation of the Commission. States and localities will maintain their independence in administering their elections, as states are not required to carry out the Commission's recommendations. But more and more states are sure to apply for grants to finance the reforms they wish to adopt. The Federal government must provide states with at least a portion of the resources they will need to overhaul their voting systems. State officials, from governors to county supervisors, face competing demands for funds every day, as they decide how to pay their teachers, pave their roads, and remove their garbage. When it comes to paying for Federal elections, buying the newest, most reliable technology may be far down on their list of priorities. That is why the Federal matching grant program is so important. It gives the incentive, as well as the resources, to make improvements that are necessary to assure the integrity of our elections. If there is a silver lining to the chaos that followed the election in November, it is that Congress is now fully aware that we must repair our election system nationwide. This bill is critical to that effort.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank you and express my gratitude to Senators Lott, Dodd, and Kennedy for their courtesy and their assistance in helping to bring us to the point where this important resolution has been adopted by this Congress with respect to Joe Moakley. I thank my colleague for his comments with respect to Joe that we just shared. In these last hours since Joe Moakley announced his retirement from Congress, we have had the opportunity in our State--and I think many people down here in Washington--to share in a unique outpouring of support and emotion, all surrounding our friend and our colleague, the dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. Today, with this resolution in Congress, we have had the opportunity not only to forever honor Joe, through the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, but to also share our affection and our perceptions of this very special public servant, public person, this special representative of the people of Boston. We have been able to share that with all of our colleagues in the Congress and, indeed, with our fellow citizens in this country. On Monday, as Senator Kennedy just described, Joe shared with his constituents--with all of our State--that he has been diagnosed with an incurable form of leukemia, and that he will retire after he serves his current term in the House of Representatives. Joe made this announcement together with friends and supporters at the courthouse that he helped to build in Boston, and he made it with a remarkable level of candor, of courage, and with a great, great sense of humor. When Joe told us of the severity of the illness--and people learned of the severity of that illness--and the nature of the battle that still lies ahead for Joe, I think it reminded all of us of all of the battles that he has fought and, indeed, of the degree to which Joe Moakley is a fighter, a special kind of fighter for the things he believes, and which, most of all, is doing what is right for his fellow citizens. In all of the endeavors he has undertaken, all the years he has been in Congress, all the important people he has met, and all the important things he has done, this is a man who has never lost his sense of direction, his compass, if you will, which in his case is a special one with a unique sense of direction. Joe has--I think everyone will agree--come out on the winning side of almost every fight he has ever fought. He was born and raised--and living a lifetime--in south Boston, MA. Joe is not just from south Boston; he is of south Boston. He wears those roots proudly as a badge of honor, never shy to admit that, in the end, this is a man who still knows how to settle an argument. He is a member of a group of citizens we have proudly called our Greatest Generation. He earned his stripes as a member of that generation in a way that was not completely atypical but which I think sort of demonstrates the special nature of his patriotism and his sense of duty. When he was 15 years old, Joe rose to the call of service to his country by falsifying his birth certificate so he could enlist in the U.S. Navy. He fought for his country, with honor, in World War II. When he returned home from the South Pacific, he received his education at the University of Miami in Florida, but believe me, south Boston was never far from his heart or his consciousness. He returned home and went to law school at night at Suffolk University. Then he went to work for the people of Massachusetts. He began his career in public life in the Massachusetts State Legislature at the age of 25, and then, before his election to the House of Representatives in 1972, he served in the State senate and on the Boston City Council. In both his approach and his effectiveness, Joe followed the path that was laid down by his great mentor in the Congress, former Speaker Tip O'Neill, a man who knew himself, who knew what he believed, and who knew there were things worth fighting for every single day. That is what Joe has done the entire time he has served in Congress. As chairman of the Rules Committee, he did more than steward the course of important legislation and the operation of the House. He fought for an agenda, and he secured its passage into law. He built a reputation as a tough and effective legislator with a real ability to work across party lines and achieve consensus on so many issues. He put many of his opponents in the unenviable position of having to explain themselves to the gentleman from south Boston, a fight that people soon learned they were smarter to avoid. Joe made it clear there were no borders, no limits that would apply to the fights he would embrace, and he insisted--and I think this is one of the most interesting things about Joe Moakley--that foreign policy was not something foreign, even to the work of a bread-and- butter Democrat from south Boston, but an extension of the ideals he brought to work for his own constituents. In 1983, Joe was among the first in the Congress to understand the simmering injustice in El Salvador. When he gathered with a small group of refugees from the brutal fighting in that country and listened to their stories, he was moved again to service. Those refugees told Joe they were in danger of being deported to El Salvador. That lit a fire under Joe Moakley. He understood that being deported back to that country for those people, given their history, would mean death. A Congressman from south Boston wasted no time in helping people from the southern part of our hemisphere. He sent his top aide, Jim McGovern, to find answers. And, as always, Joe, himself, personally followed through, traveling again and again to El Salvador, heading up the Moakley commission and working to make it possible not just for those refugees to stay in the United States but also to address the broader questions of human rights abuses in Central America. For more than a decade, Joe kept at it. For 10 long years plus, when a lot of people turned their attention elsewhere, Joe Moakley continued to understand the difference between right and wrong. He fought against hundreds upon hundreds of deportations and, finally, he won an amendment barring them altogether in 1989. Later that year, when six Jesuit priests were murdered in El Salvador, he led an investigation that pointed to elements of the U.S.- backed military as the murderers. It was quite fascinating, when we listened to Joe at the courthouse in Boston announcing the end of his career within the U.S. Congress--it was fascinating that even as he described himself as a bread-and- butter Democrat and a person who cared always about the issues of all of his constituents in his home city as well as in the rest of his constituency, measured against all the things he had done, he thought he was proudest of what he had done in El Salvador. He thought it so because it was a reflection of the kinds of things he learned from his constituents and from his home, and it reflected the depth of who he was as a citizen of south Boston. Joe has been delivering for south Boston and the Nation for almost half a century, and he has done it the only way he knows--with hard work, with a smile, and with a special brand of humor. Whether it has been finding money for the ``Big Dig,'' project after project, or for a whole host of other projects in Boston, he has been a national leader on issues from Central America to our relationship with Cuba. Joe will tell you his secret, whether it is in a senior center in south Boston or when meeting with the heads of state around the world. It is his ability to listen and to remember who he is and from where he comes. And when he completes his 15th term in the House and retires, we will miss his service, his friendship, and his passion, but we will also know that until his last day in office, Joe Moakley will continue to be a giant, caring first and foremost for the people he represents, living by Tip O'Neill's old adage--all politics is local--and with a special Moakley corollary that certain values and commitments are global as well. He has used his remarkable clout to do what is right for Massachusetts and the Nation. And knowing Joe, having watched him and learned from him, as so many of us have, I know that in these next 2 years this courthouse will not be the only way he will be honored. The fights he will continue to wage for all that he believes, for working people, for jobs, for social and economic justice, will be the ultimate testimony to the full measure of the man whom we pause to honor today, and it will be the real measurement of those values by which Joe Moakley has served. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I join several of my colleagues to introduce an innovative education reform proposal, the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention, and Responsibility Act, or Three R's for short. Three R's aims to help states and districts raise the academic achievement of all children by increasing the federal government's investment in public education, by highly-targeting those resources toward to most economically disadvantaged children, by increasing the flexibility with which states and districts use federal dollars, and by holding schools accountable for results. I believe that it is past time to break the partisan gridlock in Washington over education reform and to come together around programs, policies, and initiatives that members of both parties can agree are critical to improving education for our neediest children. I am very pleased that President Bush agrees with my colleagues and I on the fundamental principles underlying this legislation--that meaningful education reform requires more resources, more flexibility, and more accountability. I look forward to working with President Bush and my Republican colleagues to reach a bipartisan consensus on education reform. I believe that the Three R's legislation provides a great framework for finding the common ground necessary to reach a consensus. Bipartisanship means compromise, not capitulation--and education reform is an issue for compromise. We've been pushing for three years for real education reform for our kids--we've been willing to put aside hot button issues--and now I hope that President Bush will join us by putting aside his voucher proposals and working toward meaningful public education reform that both parties can agree on. Both Republicans and Democrats can agree that the federal government should focus on helping states improve academic results for our children instead of developing more rules, on encouraging states and schools to enact bold reforms instead of passively tolerating failure. It is time to step back from mico-managing public education from Washington, and time instead to give states and school districts the flexibility they need to improve public education. And we must hold those schools and states accountable for results. Members of both parties know that we must increase our investment in public education so that schools can meet high standards, that we must maintain our commitment to the most economically disadvantaged students, that to be successful schools must have capable leaders and fully certified teachers, and that schools must be held accountable for providing children with a quality education. I have worked on education reform in a bipartisan way in the past. In the last Congress Senator Gordon Smith and I introduced education reform legislation and were supported by many of our colleagues. Our proposal represented an education reform agenda that members of both parties could support and contained initiatives that many agreed were fundamental to improving public education. The Three R's legislation--a focus on increased investment, increased flexibility, and increased accountability--is also an education reform agenda on which many can agree and I want to reach out in the next few weeks and ask those Republicans, like Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, to join in this effort to reform education in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I join several of my colleagues to introduce an innovative education reform proposal, the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention, and Responsibility Act, or Three R's for short. Three R's aims to help states and districts raise the academic achievement of all children by increasing the federal government's investment in public education, by highly-targeting those resources toward to most economically disadvantaged children, by increasing the flexibility with which states and districts use federal dollars, and by holding schools accountable for results. I believe that it is past time to break the partisan gridlock in Washington over education reform and to come together around programs, policies, and initiatives that members of both parties can agree are critical to improving education for our neediest children. I am very pleased that President Bush agrees with my colleagues and I on the fundamental principles underlying this legislation--that meaningful education reform requires more resources, more flexibility, and more accountability. I look forward to working with President Bush and my Republican colleagues to reach a bipartisan consensus on education reform. I believe that the Three R's legislation provides a great framework for finding the common ground necessary to reach a consensus. Bipartisanship means compromise, not capitulation--and education reform is an issue for compromise. We've been pushing for three years for real education reform for our kids--we've been willing to put aside hot button issues--and now I hope that President Bush will join us by putting aside his voucher proposals and working toward meaningful public education reform that both parties can agree on. Both Republicans and Democrats can agree that the federal government should focus on helping states improve academic results for our children instead of developing more rules, on encouraging states and schools to enact bold reforms instead of passively tolerating failure. It is time to step back from mico-managing public education from Washington, and time instead to give states and school districts the flexibility they need to improve public education. And we must hold those schools and states accountable for results. Members of both parties know that we must increase our investment in public education so that schools can meet high standards, that we must maintain our commitment to the most economically disadvantaged students, that to be successful schools must have capable leaders and fully certified teachers, and that schools must be held accountable for providing children with a quality education. I have worked on education reform in a bipartisan way in the past. In the last Congress Senator Gordon Smith and I introduced education reform legislation and were supported by many of our colleagues. Our proposal represented an education reform agenda that members of both parties could support and contained initiatives that many agreed were fundamental to improving public education. The Three R's legislation--a focus on increased investment, increased flexibility, and increased accountability--is also an education reform agenda on which many can agree and I want to reach out in the next few weeks and ask those Republicans, like Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, to join in this effort to reform education in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation that helps to address the significant price increase of heating fuels and the adverse impact those prices are having on our 24 million small businesses and the self-employed. I thank my colleagues who are cosponsors. Senators Lieberman, Snowe, Bingaman, Landrieu, Johnson, Domenici, Levin, Wellstone, Jeffords, Harkin, Schumer, Clinton, Kohl, Edwards, Leahy, Baucus, and Collins. As so many of my colleagues know, many small businesses are dependent upon heating oil, propane, kerosene and natural gas. They are dependent either because they sell or distribute the product, or because they use it to heat their facilities or as part of their business. The significant and unforseen rise in the price of these fuels over the past two years, compounded by cold snaps and slowed economic conditions this winter, threatens their economic viability. The financial falter or failure of small businesses has the potential to extend far beyond the businesses themselves, and we simply can't afford that. Jobs alone make this a reason to mitigate the small business disruptions or failures because they provide more than 50 percent of private-sector jobs. And the self-employed, who largely work out of their homes, and number 16 million according to the National Association for the Self-Employed, NASE, represent more than 7 percent of the nation's workforce. My bill, the Small Business Energy Emergency Relief Act of 2001, would provide emergency relief, through affordable, low-interest Small Business Administration Disaster loans, to small businesses adversely affected by, or likely to be adversely affected by, significant increases in the prices of four heating fuels--heating oil, propane, kerosene, and natural gas. Who are these business owners? They are the self-employed who work out of their homes and can't turn down the thermostat to 55 degrees while they are at the office from 8 am to 6 pm. They are the home heating oil distributers who see the price of their inventory skyrocket beyond the reach of their credit lines and cash flows. They are the Mom-and-Pop stores, local restaurants and corner cafes that need to keep a warm place for folks to enjoy. They are the small day-cares for children and nursing homes for the elderly. According to Department of Energy statistics, the cost of heating fuel has been highly volatile in recent years. For example, The cost of heating oil nationally climbed 72 percent from February 1999 to February 2000. The cost of natural gas nationally climbed 27 percent from September 1999 to September 2000. And the cost of propane climbed 54 percent from January 2000 to January 2001. While these national fluctuations capture the larger market trends, they do not demonstrate how some localities have been even harder hit by unpredictable and sudden price spikes because of a greater dependence on a single fuel, insufficient inventories, distribution problems and other reasons. Last year in New England, for example, the threat of a relatively common cold winter snap put such serious pressure on the insufficient supply of heating oil that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. With consumers at the mercy of a market--need up and supply down--the price of heating oil soared. In a matter of weeks, the average price per gallon of heating oil fuel went up 60 percent, from $1.12 to $1.79. When operating costs rise gradually, small businesses have time to plan and adjust their pricing and operations accordingly. Rapid shifts in operating costs, however, can disrupt a small company's business plans causing short-term cash flow difficulties. It is the kind of volatility that can make planning month to month as difficult as planning year to year. Here's the situation. For those businesses in danger of or suffering from significant economic injury caused by crippling increases in the costs of heating fuel, they need access to capital to mitigate or avoid serious losses. However, commercial lenders typically won't make loans to these small businesses because they often don't have the increased cash flow to demonstrate the ability to repay the loan. In fact, the Massachusetts Oilheat Council in Wellesley Hills, which is a state trade association that represents the heating oil industry, and whose members deliver more than 60 percent of the heating oil to homes and businesses across the state, retailers of heating oil faced not only ``stretched credit lines'' but even ``negative cash flows.'' Who is going to give you a loan when you have a negative cash flow? To exacerbate the situation, banks have tightened their lending to small businesses by 45 percent over the past three months. According to the Federal Reserve Board's quarterly survey on lending practices that was released Monday, February 5th, banks surveyed said they have tightened credit to small businesses, particularly on riskier loans, by making borrowing more expensive and requiring customers to have less outstanding debt. They have changed their lending policies because they are concerned about ``a less favorable or more uncertain economic outlook . . . and a reduced tolerance for risk.'' While the banks say that only a handful of borrowers canceled their plans under the stricter lending policies, I think the Federal Reserve Board's survey reinforces the need for this legislation. You see, Mr. President, commercial lenders are unlikely to make the type of loans we're talking about without an added incentive, such as a Federal loan guarantee. And last year I supported that approach to help small businesses deal with the heating oil problem by enlisting the SBA, its lending partners, and relevant trade associations to use and publicize the SBA 7(a) government guaranteed loan program to make loans to affected small businesses. In the 7(a) loan program, the bank makes the loan, and the SBA guarantees 75 to 80 percent so that if the borrower can't repay the loan, the bank isn't on the hook for every outstanding dollar. I wrote to the SBA. I called the Massachusetts Bankers Association, and I called individual bank presidents and asked them to use this tool for affected small businesses and to aggressively market the availability of the 7(a) loans and SBA's other programs. Some of the publications helped to spread the word, including the Boston Business Journal and the Boston Herald. It was a real team effort. While tapping into the SBA's guaranteed loan programs was helpful for some, and one part of the solution, the heating fuel price spike has turned out to be more than a one-year anomaly and so there is a need to go a step further--we need to make capital accessible to even more small businesses. We can do that through the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Economic injury disaster loans give affected small business necessary working capital until normal operations resume, or until they can restructure or change the business to address the market changes. These are direct loans, made through the SBA, at subsidized interest rates, of 4 percent or less, versus the current Federally guaranteed lending rate of Prime + 2\1/4\ percent, 10\3/4\ percent on Monday. Paying 4 percent versus almost 11 percent in interest makes a big difference to that small business owner. Further, SBA tailors the repayment of each economic injury disaster loan to each borrower's financial capability, enabling them to avoid the robbing Peter to pay Paul syndrome, as they juggle bills. Clearly, these loans are much more affordable for the already struggling small businesses, and, since time is of the essence, the infrastructure is already in place to quickly distribute the loans. SBA delivers disaster loans through four specialized Disaster Area Offices located in New York, Georgia, Texas and California. In addition, the 70 SBA District Offices can help small businesses learn the program and direct the paperwork to the disaster offices. And there are the Small Business Development Centers in every state, with a network of more than 1,000 service locations, the Business Information Centers, and the Women's Business Centers to help small businesses seeking information about and applying for these loans. Building on the SBA's Disaster Loan Program so that small businesses adversely affected by the heating fuel prices are eligible to apply for economic injury loans complements our efforts last year. I encourage SBA's lending partners to continue to publicize and provide guaranteed loans to affected small businesses. It creates a comprehensive approach to helping small businesses across the nation get the assistance they need, and gives us one more way to assist in the success of our small businesses. And again, economic injury disaster loans are a reasonable approach to the problem. By providing assistance in the form of loans which are repaid to the Treasury, the SBA disaster loan program helps reduce the Federal emergency and disaster costs, compared to other forms of disaster assistance, such as grants. On practical terms, SBA considers economic injury to be when a small business is unable, or likely to be unable, to meet its obligations as they mature or to pay its ordinary and necessary operating expenses. To be eligible to apply for an economic injury loan, you must be a small business, you must have used all reasonably available funds, and you must be unable to obtain credit elsewhere. Under this program, the disaster must be declared by the President, the SBA Administrator, or a governor at the discretion of the Administrator. Small businesses will have six months to apply from November 1, 2000 or, for future disasters, from the day a disaster is declared. This legislation will help those who have nowhere else to turn. We've got the tools at the SBA to assist them, and I believe it's more than justified, if not obligatory, to use the economic injury disaster loan program to help these small businesses. The volatile price jumps of heating fuels are tied to international factors relating to larger energy issues--among them the supply and demand of crude oil--and therefore beyond the control of small business owners. While you have scholars and industry experts making prognostications about whether the price spikes were temporary or here for the long haul, I have grown weary of long-term prognostications. As Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, ``Predictions are always difficult, especially about the future.'' I believe small business owners can be cautious and budget for the proverbial rainy day, but I think it is unreasonable to expect that they can anticipate, and afford to budget enough money to cover, price jumps of 60 to 100 percent. And who can predict the weather, particularly cold snaps during historically mild winter conditions? These price spikes are largely unforeseeable, even though there will always be the people who say, ``I told you so.'' Introducing this legislation is only a first step. We need to consider it in Committee, Congress to pass it, and the President to sign if before it is too late to help struggling small business owners. I thank Senator Bond for his cooperation on this legislation, particularly his willingness to expedite judicious consideration by the Small Business Committee. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. SBA's programs make recovery affordable, and with the right support, can help mitigate the cost of significant economic disruption in your states caused when affected small businesses falter or fail, leading to job lay-offs and unstable tax bases. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a letter to Aida Alvarez be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation that helps to address the significant price increase of heating fuels and the adverse impact those prices are having on our 24 million small businesses and the self-employed. I thank my colleagues who are cosponsors. Senators Lieberman, Snowe, Bingaman, Landrieu, Johnson, Domenici, Levin, Wellstone, Jeffords, Harkin, Schumer, Clinton, Kohl, Edwards, Leahy, Baucus, and Collins. As so many of my colleagues know, many small businesses are dependent upon heating oil, propane, kerosene and natural gas. They are dependent either because they sell or distribute the product, or because they use it to heat their facilities or as part of their business. The significant and unforseen rise in the price of these fuels over the past two years, compounded by cold snaps and slowed economic conditions this winter, threatens their economic viability. The financial falter or failure of small businesses has the potential to extend far beyond the businesses themselves, and we simply can't afford that. Jobs alone make this a reason to mitigate the small business disruptions or failures because they provide more than 50 percent of private-sector jobs. And the self-employed, who largely work out of their homes, and number 16 million according to the National Association for the Self-Employed, NASE, represent more than 7 percent of the nation's workforce. My bill, the Small Business Energy Emergency Relief Act of 2001, would provide emergency relief, through affordable, low-interest Small Business Administration Disaster loans, to small businesses adversely affected by, or likely to be adversely affected by, significant increases in the prices of four heating fuels--heating oil, propane, kerosene, and natural gas. Who are these business owners? They are the self-employed who work out of their homes and can't turn down the thermostat to 55 degrees while they are at the office from 8 am to 6 pm. They are the home heating oil distributers who see the price of their inventory skyrocket beyond the reach of their credit lines and cash flows. They are the Mom-and-Pop stores, local restaurants and corner cafes that need to keep a warm place for folks to enjoy. They are the small day-cares for children and nursing homes for the elderly. According to Department of Energy statistics, the cost of heating fuel has been highly volatile in recent years. For example, The cost of heating oil nationally climbed 72 percent from February 1999 to February 2000. The cost of natural gas nationally climbed 27 percent from September 1999 to September 2000. And the cost of propane climbed 54 percent from January 2000 to January 2001. While these national fluctuations capture the larger market trends, they do not demonstrate how some localities have been even harder hit by unpredictable and sudden price spikes because of a greater dependence on a single fuel, insufficient inventories, distribution problems and other reasons. Last year in New England, for example, the threat of a relatively common cold winter snap put such serious pressure on the insufficient supply of heating oil that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. With consumers at the mercy of a market--need up and supply down--the price of heating oil soared. In a matter of weeks, the average price per gallon of heating oil fuel went up 60 percent, from $1.12 to $1.79. When operating costs rise gradually, small businesses have time to plan and adjust their pricing and operations accordingly. Rapid shifts in operating costs, however, can disrupt a small company's business plans causing short-term cash flow difficulties. It is the kind of volatility that can make planning month to month as difficult as planning year to year. Here's the situation. For those businesses in danger of or suffering from significant economic injury caused by crippling increases in the costs of heating fuel, they need access to capital to mitigate or avoid serious losses. However, commercial lenders typically won't make loans to these small businesses because they often don't have the increased cash flow to demonstrate the ability to repay the loan. In fact, the Massachusetts Oilheat Council in Wellesley Hills, which is a state trade association that represents the heating oil industry, and whose members deliver more than 60 percent of the heating oil to homes and businesses across the state, retailers of heating oil faced not only ``stretched credit lines'' but even ``negative cash flows.'' Who is going to give you a loan when you have a negative cash flow? To exacerbate the situation, banks have tightened their lending to small businesses by 45 percent over the past three months. According to the Federal Reserve Board's quarterly survey on lending practices that was released Monday, February 5th, banks surveyed said they have tightened credit to small businesses, particularly on riskier loans, by making borrowing more expensive and requiring customers to have less outstanding debt. They have changed their lending policies because they are concerned about ``a less favorable or more uncertain economic outlook . . . and a reduced tolerance for risk.'' While the banks say that only a handful of borrowers canceled their plans under the stricter lending policies, I think the Federal Reserve Board's survey reinforces the need for this legislation. You see, Mr. President, commercial lenders are unlikely to make the type of loans we're talking about without an added incentive, such as a Federal loan guarantee. And last year I supported that approach to help small businesses deal with the heating oil problem by enlisting the SBA, its lending partners, and relevant trade associations to use and publicize the SBA 7(a) government guaranteed loan program to make loans to affected small businesses. In the 7(a) loan program, the bank makes the loan, and the SBA guarantees 75 to 80 percent so that if the borrower can't repay the loan, the bank isn't on the hook for every outstanding dollar. I wrote to the SBA. I called the Massachusetts Bankers Association, and I called individual bank presidents and asked them to use this tool for affected small businesses and to aggressively market the availability of the 7(a) loans and SBA's other programs. Some of the publications helped to spread the word, including the Boston Business Journal and the Boston Herald. It was a real team effort. While tapping into the SBA's guaranteed loan programs was helpful for some, and one part of the solution, the heating fuel price spike has turned out to be more than a one-year anomaly and so there is a need to go a step further--we need to make capital accessible to even more small businesses. We can do that through the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Economic injury disaster loans give affected small business necessary working capital until normal operations resume, or until they can restructure or change the business to address the market changes. These are direct loans, made through the SBA, at subsidized interest rates, of 4 percent or less, versus the current Federally guaranteed lending rate of Prime + 2\1/4\ percent, 10\3/4\ percent on Monday. Paying 4 percent versus almost 11 percent in interest makes a big difference to that small business owner. Further, SBA tailors the repayment of each economic injury disaster loan to each borrower's financial capability, enabling them to avoid the robbing Peter to pay Paul syndrome, as they juggle bills. Clearly, these loans are much more affordable for the already struggling small businesses, and, since time is of the essence, the infrastructure is already in place to quickly distribute the loans. SBA delivers disaster loans through four specialized Disaster Area Offices located in New York, Georgia, Texas and California. In addition, the 70 SBA District Offices can help small businesses learn the program and direct the paperwork to the disaster offices. And there are the Small Business Development Centers in every state, with a network of more than 1,000 service locations, the Business Information Centers, and the Women's Business Centers to help small businesses seeking information about and applying for these loans. Building on the SBA's Disaster Loan Program so that small businesses adversely affected by the heating fuel prices are eligible to apply for economic injury loans complements our efforts last year. I encourage SBA's lending partners to continue to publicize and provide guaranteed loans to affected small businesses. It creates a comprehensive approach to helping small businesses across the nation get the assistance they need, and gives us one more way to assist in the success of our small businesses. And again, economic injury disaster loans are a reasonable approach to the problem. By providing assistance in the form of loans which are repaid to the Treasury, the SBA disaster loan program helps reduce the Federal emergency and disaster costs, compared to other forms of disaster assistance, such as grants. On practical terms, SBA considers economic injury to be when a small business is unable, or likely to be unable, to meet its obligations as they mature or to pay its ordinary and necessary operating expenses. To be eligible to apply for an economic injury loan, you must be a small business, you must have used all reasonably available funds, and you must be unable to obtain credit elsewhere. Under this program, the disaster must be declared by the President, the SBA Administrator, or a governor at the discretion of the Administrator. Small businesses will have six months to apply from November 1, 2000 or, for future disasters, from the day a disaster is declared. This legislation will help those who have nowhere else to turn. We've got the tools at the SBA to assist them, and I believe it's more than justified, if not obligatory, to use the economic injury disaster loan program to help these small businesses. The volatile price jumps of heating fuels are tied to international factors relating to larger energy issues--among them the supply and demand of crude oil--and therefore beyond the control of small business owners. While you have scholars and industry experts making prognostications about whether the price spikes were temporary or here for the long haul, I have grown weary of long-term prognostications. As Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, ``Predictions are always difficult, especially about the future.'' I believe small business owners can be cautious and budget for the proverbial rainy day, but I think it is unreasonable to expect that they can anticipate, and afford to budget enough money to cover, price jumps of 60 to 100 percent. And who can predict the weather, particularly cold snaps during historically mild winter conditions? These price spikes are largely unforeseeable, even though there will always be the people who say, ``I told you so.'' Introducing this legislation is only a first step. We need to consider it in Committee, Congress to pass it, and the President to sign if before it is too late to help struggling small business owners. I thank Senator Bond for his cooperation on this legislation, particularly his willingness to expedite judicious consideration by the Small Business Committee. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. SBA's programs make recovery affordable, and with the right support, can help mitigate the cost of significant economic disruption in your states caused when affected small businesses falter or fail, leading to job lay-offs and unstable tax bases. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a letter to Aida Alvarez be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to make a short statement about the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001. This bill is identical to legislation we considered and passed in the 106th Congress. Last year, I took the time to outline the problem we now face in regard to this issue, and I want to take a moment to do that again. To understand this legislation, you must understand the situation from which we started. The federal government, through the Department of Transportation, regulates more than 2,000 gas pipeline operators with more than 1.3 million miles of pipe and more than 200 hazardous liquid pipeline operators with more than 156,000 miles of pipe. To protect the public safety and the environment and maintain reliability in the energy system over that massive infrastructure is an enormous challenge. The responsibility for meeting that challenge, no matter how great it is, falls upon the industry and federal government, specifically, DOT's Office of Pipeline Safety. It is clear that both OPS and the industry have failed to rise to that challenge, and we have paid a high price. According to the OPS, since 1984, there have been approximately 5,700 natural gas and oil pipeline accidents nationwide, 54 of them in my home state of Massachusetts. In the 1990s, nearly 4,000 natural gas and oil pipeline ruptures--more than one each day--caused the deaths of 201 people, injuries to another 2,829 people, cost at least $780 million in property damages, and resulted in enormous environmental contamination and ecological damages. Two accidents in particular show us the tragic consequences of pipeline accidents. On June 10, 1999, a leaking gasoline pipeline erupted into a fireball in Bellingham, Washington. The fire extended more than one and half miles, killing two 10-year-old boys and a young man. The second accident took place in August in Carlsbad, New Mexico. A leaking natural gas pipeline erupted killing 12 members of an extended family on a camping trip. My sympathies go out to all those involved in these incidents. They are truly tragic. The Senate Commerce Committee and others have investigated the cause of this tragic record. What we found, sadly, is that OPS was simply failing to do its job. The head of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jim Hall, gave the OPS ``a big fat F'' for its work. As we considered the legislation in the Commerce Committee, I found that OPS had fallen short in the area of enforcement, in particular. Enforcement is the backbone of any system of safeguards designed to protect the public and the enforcement. Without the threat of tough enforcement, companies, the unfortunate record shows, do not consistently comply with safeguards. The resulting harm to people and places is predictable and regrettable. I will not outline all of the details here today, but I recommend to anyone interested that they read the General Accounting Office's investigation into OPS dated May 2000. The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001 includes enforcement reforms and enhances the role of OPS and the Department of Justice in enforcement. These provisions, which I proposed in the Commerce Committee in the 106th Congress, will, I believe, put some teeth into our pipeline safety laws. They include raising the maximum fines that OPS can assess a company from $500,000 to $1,000,000; ensuring that companies cannot profit from noncompliance; clarifying the law regarding one-call services; and allowing DOJ, at the request of DOT, to seek civil penalties in court to ensure that serious violators can be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The bill makes other significant improvements to existing law. My colleagues Mr. McCain and Ms. Murray have outlined many of these provisions and how they will improve pipeline safety. In addition, Mr. Corzine has offered a successful amendment that will require pipeline inspections on a 5 year basis when appropriate. That is a significant improvement. However, Mr. President, despite the improvements in the underlying bill and Mr. Corzine's amendment, S. 235 falls short in some areas. It is my hope that the legislation will be further improved in the House and in the House-Senate conference by including worker certification, enhancing right-to-know provisions and other steps that would improve environmental and public safety protections. I look forward to continuing to work on this legislation, improve it, and, ultimately, improving the pipeline safety throughout the nation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the powerful earthquake which recently devastated India's densely populated western state of Gujarat has focused our attention, once again, on India. Gujarat officials estimate that 28,000 to 30,000 people have died. Thousands more have been injured, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. In response to India's dire need for help, USAID has sent blankets, generators, water containers, plastic sheeting, food, and other relief supplies--all part of our official commitment to provide some $10 million in emergency humanitarian aid. But in my view this is not enough. We can and should do more. In the initial phase of this disaster when India particularly needed search and rescue teams and medical assistance, the United States was conspicuous in its absence. The Russians, the Brits, the Swiss and others were engaged in pulling people out of the rubble. We were not. At least half a dozen countries, including Denmark, Israel, and Sweden, sent field hospitals, doctors and medical personnel. We did not. Given our slow start, it is especially important for the United States to be particularly generous when it comes to reconstruction. Indian-Americans, on the other hand, have moved quickly to mobilize their own relief effort--collecting sizeable donations and medical supplies as well as assembling teams of doctors. Reflecting the depth of concern among Americans for the tragedy that has struck India, President Bush, last week, made a condolence call to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I commend the President for making this call, not only because it was the right thing to do under the circumstances, but also because it was an important gesture by the new Administration toward a country in a region that the United States tends to ignore, except in times of crisis. Regrettably the Clinton Administration paid little attention to developments in South Asia until May 1998, when India broke its 25 year moratorium on nuclear testing with five underground tests. Taken by surprise, the Administration tried--to no avail--to persuade Pakistan not to test in response. Confronted with escalating tensions not only in the nuclear realm but on the ground over Kashmir, the Administration was forced to focus on growing instability in the subcontinent. Belatedly the Administration picked up the pace of its diplomacy in the region, opening a high level dialogue with India and Pakistan on nuclear issues, interceding to reduce tensions over Kashmir, and arranging a Presidential visit last March to India, with a brief stop in Pakistan. President Clinton's trip to India--the first by a US president in 22 years--was an effort, in his words, to ``rekindle the relationship'' between the United States and India. It was a welcome initiative. I was in India in December 1999, a few months before President Clinton's visit, to participate in the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit. While there, I had an opportunity to meet with a number of Indian officials including the Prime Minister, his National Security Adviser and the Defense Minister. During the course of these meetings, it became very clear to me that India wanted a better relationship with the United States. In many respects, this was predictable because from India's perspective, the neighborhood in which it lives has become less friendly and more threatening, and its historical ally, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. Pakistan is under the control of a military regime rather than a democratically elected government--a regime which New Delhi views as illegitimate and threatening. In the months before the Clinton visit, tensions with Pakistan had intensified not only over Kashmir but also over Pakistani support for terrorists. Although tensions have subsided since then, Kashmir continues to be a volatile issue that could provoke another war between India and Pakistan both armed with nuclear weapons. Pakistan, like India, has declared its intention to be in the nuclear game. Pakistan clearly poses a security problem for India but not of the magnitude of China. As one Indian told me during my visit, ``Pakistan is a nuisance but not a threat--China is a threat.'' The biggest and from the Indian viewpoint most menacing power in the neighborhood is China--a country with which India has had longstanding tensions over border and territorial issues. China's past assistance to Pakistan's nuclear program and its ongoing efforts to build influence with other smaller countries in the region, particularly those on India's border such as Burma, are proof at least in the minds of Indians that China is trying to encircle India. Whereas most of the countries in Southeast Asia see Chinese aspirations as limited to that of a regional power that wants recognition and respect, India is wary of China's aspirations both in the region and globally. The Indian fear of China seems to me to be larger than reality but it is real nonetheless, and it is a major reason why India has been seeking improved relations with the United States. The Clinton Administration, recognizing that improved relations would be in America's interests as well as India's, wisely took advantage of this opportunity. India is the largest democracy in Asia and a potentially important partner in our efforts to promote regional stability, economic growth and more open political systems in surrounding countries. It is a fledgling nuclear power with the potential to affect the nuclear balance in South Asia as well as our nonproliferation goals on a global level. It is involved in a longstanding conflict with Pakistan which could erupt into another war possibly at the nuclear level. It is a player in a region dominated by China, with whom the US has mutual interests but also major differences. While the United States and India have differences over serious issues related to the development of India's nuclear program, labor and the environment, Cold War politics and alliances no longer stand in the way of improved relations. In fact, as many of my Indian hosts suggested, the United States and India are ``natural allies''. Both are vibrant democracies; Indian-American family ties are strong and extensive. As India has begun to open and liberalize its economy over the past decade, American business and investment in India has grown, particularly in the high tech region of Bangalore, and America has become India's largest trading partner and source of foreign investment. And on the flip side, Indians are playing a major role in the growth of our high tech industry in California, Massachusetts, New York, and elsewhere. Together with the Taiwanese, Indians own more than 25 percent of the firms and supply more than 25 percent of the labor in this country in those technology fields. All of India's political parties have accepted the need to continue India's economic modernization. Undoubtedly there will be disagreements over how to do it but continuation of the process holds out the prospects of increased economic interaction with the United States. The potential exists for the U.S. and India to have a strong, cooperative relationship across a broad range of issues. President Clinton's visit to India was an important step in laying the foundation for this new relationship. Working groups were set up on trade, clean energy and environment, and science and technology. A broad range of environmental, social and health agreements were signed. To strengthen economic ties, $2 billion in Eximbank support for U.S. exports to India was announced;.U.S. firms signed some $4 billion in agreements with Indian firms. The effort to institutionalize dialogue was capped by an agreement between President Clinton and Prime Minister Vajpayee for regular bilateral summits between the leaders of both countries. An invitation was extended to the Prime Minister to visit Washington, which he did last September. During that visit, the two leaders agreed to expand cooperation to the areas of arms control, terrorism and AIDS. The seeds have been sown for a new Indo-American relationship. It is up to the Bush Administration to nurture them. The Administration must devote time and attention to the relationship--and to developments in the region--on a consistent basis, not on a crisis only basis. President Clinton and Prime Minister Vajpayee set out to regularize bilateral contacts not only at the working level but also at the highest levels. President Bush should continue this process. Personal diplomacy at the highest levels, particularly when dealing with Asian countries, is an essential element of relationship-building. I also believe that the time is long overdue for the United States to distinguish, once and for all, between India and Pakistan and to treat each differently and according to the demands of those bilateral relationships. A constant source of irritation for Indians has been the inability or unwillingness of the United States to differentiate between India and Pakistan. From their perspective, India's commitment to democracy and economic reform dictate that the United States have a different relationship with India than with Pakistan, which has a military regime that supports terrorism. I agree that a distinction must be drawn. That the United States lumps them together or even worse is soft on Pakistan is clearly unacceptable from the Indian point of view. To a certain extent, they have a point. To a certain extent, they have made their point accurately. Just as the passing of the Cold War has improved the atmosphere for an improvement in Indo-American relations, it has also removed the need for the United States to ignore Pakistan's transgressions both within and outside of its borders. The United States no longer needs to tilt toward Pakistan in pursuit of larger strategic objectives. We should look at our relationships with India and Pakistan separately, analyzing each in terms of mutual interests and differences and being more candid in defining areas of agreement and disagreement. President Clinton attempted to find a new balance during his trip last year, by spending several days in India and only a few hours in Islamabad. But more needs to be done. In my view, we can advance our interests and strengthen our relationship with India by immediately terminating the sanction on loans to India from international financial institutions (IFIs). Although President Clinton waived most of the sanctions imposed on India after it tested in 1998, he chose not to exercise the waiver for IFI loans to India, amounting to some $1.7 billion, or for FMF (foreign military financing) for India. I believe that we should lift the IFI sanction at this time. The release of these funds would send an important signal to India of our ongoing commitment to improved relations while also encouraging the government of India to continue its economic modernization. The sanction on FMF needs discussion in hopes of finding further progress regarding India's position on nuclear issues. At the moment, Indian officials have made it clear that there would be no rollback of India's nuclear program and that India intends to have a credible minimum nuclear deterrent which means nuclear weapons and delivery systems. They believe that the United States is under-emphasizing India's security needs and overemphasizing nonproliferation objectives. I believe there is a happy medium between these two. Although there has been ongoing dialogue between Indian and American officials on the Clinton Administration's four nonproliferation benchmarks set after the 1998 tests--signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), halting fissile material production, refraining from deploying or testing missiles or nuclear weapons, and instituting export controls on sensitive goods and technology. Despite the fact that we set up these benchmarks, the truth is there has been little progress made with respect to them. We must be frank and acknowledge at the same time, as we see and measure the progress, that we have to be honest about our own status, if you will. That requires us to acknowledge that our failure in the Senate to approve the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty has undermined our ability to influence India and many other countries. And Pakistan, obviously, is in the same equation. Nevertheless, it is imperative that the dialog continue because too much is at stake in terms of regional stability and nonproliferation to allow it to wither. We need to understand the fears that are driving India's sense of security and insecurity. We need to ask ourselves what is realistic to expect from India in light of those fears. For their part, the Indians must understand that much can be gained in the relationship with the United States and with progress on these issues. Arms control and regional stability are inextricably linked, and global security is inextricably linked to our resolution of these issues. I am very hopeful we can quickly reach a mutual understanding to permit the FMF sanction to also be lifted. I believe we can make progress on these difficult issues if both parties are prepared to tackle them and to be sensitive to understanding the other's security concerns. India and the United States have begun to build a new cooperative relationship that reflects our common ties and our common interests. A process has begun, and the administration needs to continue that progress with commitment and with zeal. India and the United States have an enormous amount to offer each other. We both can benefit, in my judgment, from a more cooperative and friendly working relationship. I think the groundwork has been laid. I hope this administration can move rapidly to lift the current sanctions, to enter into the talks, and to move forward in this most critical relationship. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am proud to join our esteemed majority and minority leaders in sponsoring the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001. I am proud that our two leaders have been willing and able to work in a bipartisan manner to fulfill a promise that they made last month to re-introduce this critical legislation. I thank them, and I thank Senator Biden and Senator Hutchison for their strong leadership as well. Their commitment to this bill cannot be overstated. This legislation would allow Amtrak to sell $12 billion in bonds over the next ten years and permit the federal government to provide tax credits to bondholders in lieu of interest payments. Amtrak would use this money to upgrade existing rail lines to high-speed rail capability. This bill has supporters from both parties and all regions of the country. Mr. President, high speed rail is not a partisan issue. It is not a regional issue. It is not an urban issue. The High-Speed Rail Investment Act has the support of the National Governors Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty newspapers, from the New York Times and Providence Journal, to the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post Intelligencer, have called for the enactment of this legislation. It is in our national interest to construct a national infrastructure that is truly intermodal. Rail transportation helps alleviate the stress placed on our environment by air and highway transportation. It is a sad fact that America's rail transportation, and its lack of a national high-speed rail system, lags well behind rail transportation in most other nations--we spend less, per capita, on rail transportation than Estonia and Greece. Mr. President, I know I made many of these same points on the floor of the Senate in December when we discussed a similar version of the High Speed Rail Investment Act. However, I believe that this legislation is critical to our nation's transportation infrastructure needs, and these facts bear repeating: The federal government has invested $380 billion in our highways and $160 billion in airports since Amtrak was created. By contrast, the federal government has spent only about $30 billion on Amtrak. We have spent just four percent of our transportation budget on rail transportation in the last 30 years. The Congress has mandated that Amtrak soon achieve operational self-sufficiency. That does not, nor should it, preclude further capital improvement grants. This is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Amtrak has reduced its operating losses over the last two years, and remains capable of meeting its goal. However, it will continue to need the federal government to support its track upgrades, rolling stock improvements and other large- scale upgrades so that it may maintain its trademark quality service. There is a compelling need to invest in high-speed rail. Our highways and skyways are overburdened. Intercity passenger miles traveled have increased 80 percent since 1988, but only 5.5 percent of that has come from increased rail travel. Meanwhile, our congested skies have become even more crowded. The result, predictably, is that air travel delays are up 58 percent since 1995. Things have gotten so bad in Chicago that O'Hare airport maintains 1,500 cots for snow-bound travelers. This summer, the airport had to order additional cots to accommodate passengers left stranded by myriad delays and cancellations. Amtrak ridership is on the rise. More than 22.5 million passengers rode Amtrak in Fiscal Year 2000, a million more than the previous year. Nearly six million riders took Amtrak in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the best first quarter in the company's 30-year history. Ridership for the quarter was up 8.5 percent, while ticket revenue climbed almost 14 percent over the first quarter of FY00. We should welcome that increased use and support it by giving Amtrak the resources it needs to provide high-quality, dependable service. The High-Speed Rail Investment Act is critical to the future of Amtrak. For about the cost of the new Denver International Airport, we can improve intercity transportation in 29 states. For less than double the cost of constructing the new Woodrow Wilson bridge improving transportation in two states, we can create eight high-speed rail corridors in 29 states. High-speed rail is a viable transportation alternative. There is a large and growing demand for rail service in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak captures almost 70 percent of the business rail and air travel market between Washington and New York and 30 percent of the market share between New York and Boston. True high-speed rail will undoubtedly increase that market share. These new trains, like the Acela Express that debuted in the Northeast this year, currently run at an average of only 82 miles per hour, but with track improvements, will run at 130 miles per hour. As a nation, we have recognized the importance of having the very best communication system, and ours is the envy of the world. That investment is one of reasons our economy is the strongest in the world. And we should do the same for our transportation system. It should be equally modern and must be fully intermodal. Rail transportation is a part of that network and I hope that we can pass this critical, cost- efficient legislation this year.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am proud to join our esteemed majority and minority leaders in sponsoring the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001. I am proud that our two leaders have been willing and able to work in a bipartisan manner to fulfill a promise that they made last month to re-introduce this critical legislation. I thank them, and I thank Senator Biden and Senator Hutchison for their strong leadership as well. Their commitment to this bill cannot be overstated. This legislation would allow Amtrak to sell $12 billion in bonds over the next ten years and permit the federal government to provide tax credits to bondholders in lieu of interest payments. Amtrak would use this money to upgrade existing rail lines to high-speed rail capability. This bill has supporters from both parties and all regions of the country. Mr. President, high speed rail is not a partisan issue. It is not a regional issue. It is not an urban issue. The High-Speed Rail Investment Act has the support of the National Governors Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty newspapers, from the New York Times and Providence Journal, to the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post Intelligencer, have called for the enactment of this legislation. It is in our national interest to construct a national infrastructure that is truly intermodal. Rail transportation helps alleviate the stress placed on our environment by air and highway transportation. It is a sad fact that America's rail transportation, and its lack of a national high-speed rail system, lags well behind rail transportation in most other nations--we spend less, per capita, on rail transportation than Estonia and Greece. Mr. President, I know I made many of these same points on the floor of the Senate in December when we discussed a similar version of the High Speed Rail Investment Act. However, I believe that this legislation is critical to our nation's transportation infrastructure needs, and these facts bear repeating: The federal government has invested $380 billion in our highways and $160 billion in airports since Amtrak was created. By contrast, the federal government has spent only about $30 billion on Amtrak. We have spent just four percent of our transportation budget on rail transportation in the last 30 years. The Congress has mandated that Amtrak soon achieve operational self-sufficiency. That does not, nor should it, preclude further capital improvement grants. This is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Amtrak has reduced its operating losses over the last two years, and remains capable of meeting its goal. However, it will continue to need the federal government to support its track upgrades, rolling stock improvements and other large- scale upgrades so that it may maintain its trademark quality service. There is a compelling need to invest in high-speed rail. Our highways and skyways are overburdened. Intercity passenger miles traveled have increased 80 percent since 1988, but only 5.5 percent of that has come from increased rail travel. Meanwhile, our congested skies have become even more crowded. The result, predictably, is that air travel delays are up 58 percent since 1995. Things have gotten so bad in Chicago that O'Hare airport maintains 1,500 cots for snow-bound travelers. This summer, the airport had to order additional cots to accommodate passengers left stranded by myriad delays and cancellations. Amtrak ridership is on the rise. More than 22.5 million passengers rode Amtrak in Fiscal Year 2000, a million more than the previous year. Nearly six million riders took Amtrak in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the best first quarter in the company's 30-year history. Ridership for the quarter was up 8.5 percent, while ticket revenue climbed almost 14 percent over the first quarter of FY00. We should welcome that increased use and support it by giving Amtrak the resources it needs to provide high-quality, dependable service. The High-Speed Rail Investment Act is critical to the future of Amtrak. For about the cost of the new Denver International Airport, we can improve intercity transportation in 29 states. For less than double the cost of constructing the new Woodrow Wilson bridge improving transportation in two states, we can create eight high-speed rail corridors in 29 states. High-speed rail is a viable transportation alternative. There is a large and growing demand for rail service in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak captures almost 70 percent of the business rail and air travel market between Washington and New York and 30 percent of the market share between New York and Boston. True high-speed rail will undoubtedly increase that market share. These new trains, like the Acela Express that debuted in the Northeast this year, currently run at an average of only 82 miles per hour, but with track improvements, will run at 130 miles per hour. As a nation, we have recognized the importance of having the very best communication system, and ours is the envy of the world. That investment is one of reasons our economy is the strongest in the world. And we should do the same for our transportation system. It should be equally modern and must be fully intermodal. Rail transportation is a part of that network and I hope that we can pass this critical, cost- efficient legislation this year.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am honored to be joined by Senators Lugar, Levin, Reid, Wellstone, and Graham in introducing a resolution focused on the important issue of international education. My colleagues and I strongly believe that the United States should continue to build a vigorous international education policy. Former Secretary of Education Richard Riley has noted that nations across the world are keen on fostering greater faculty and student exchanges and suggested a series of new steps to re-energize the cause of international education in the United States. The conference report of the FY01 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill included language recognizing that international education is a foreign policy priority. On November 11-17, 2000, campuses and schools across the country celebrated the first-ever International Education Week, recognized by Presidential Proclamation. I hope that this resolution will build on these efforts to preserve and extend a proud tradition of support for U.S. international education programs that dates back almost a half century. Providing an excellent education to America's children has always been vital in preserving U.S. leadership abroad. During the cold war, we demonstrated democracy's strength by winning the space race, by possessing superior scientific knowledge, and by understanding the languages, cultures and history of regions where the defense of liberty and freedom was paramount. In 1958, in response to the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, the Congress enacted the National Defense Education Act as a major tool of cold war policy. The NDEA focused on improving the teaching of science and math education, history, geography and foreign languages in all levels of education. The National Defense Education Act provided capital funds to colleges and universities so that they could make low-interest loans to students. Today more than ever, in an environment of intense global economic, scientific and technological competition, a national education policy is crucial to America's leadership in the world. I believe that we need a new national defense education policy that focuses on foreign languages and the history and cultures in other parts of the world, because we can not lead in a world we do not understand. Unfortunately, we are once again falling behind when it comes to providing our children the tools they need to compete on the global stage. Less than one-tenth of graduating American college students have studied abroad. The reality of the global economy dictates that we cannot allow this rate to stand. In order for graduates to be effective in the increasingly international business community, they must better understand the world. Secretary Richard Riley put it well last year when he argued that ``college students [should] expect their education to give them a diverse global perspective that enriches their learning. More and more, international education will become the norm, not the exception, and students will routinely study abroad and know multiple languages.'' Of course, international education works both ways. The resolution we are introducing today also recognizes the intrinsic value of bringing international students to study in this country. Today, the percentage of science and engineering doctoral recipients from abroad is declining. We must reverse this trend, because international students working in our universities make a valuable contribution to the research and study of their American counterparts and an invaluable contribution to global peace and stability when they return to their home nations imbued with all the possibilities democracy has to offer.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, contrary to what some people may believe, thinking about how people make this choice and given some of the arguments that have surfaced in the course of this nomination, I suppose some people might think this is sort of automatic for some folks on different sides of the aisle. I want to make clear that I do not feel that way at all. I think there are many different crosscurrents with respect to anybody's nomination, and I certainly do not disagree with the comments of my good friend and colleague, Senator Dodd, who spoke a few minutes ago about what has happened to the nomination process, or to the review over the course of the last years here in this city. While I certainly raised questions early on with respect to this nominee, I tried, in the course of this process, to refrain from making any final judgments until the hearings were held, until questions were asked, until Senator Ashcroft himself had an opportunity to lay out the record, so to speak. I listened very carefully to what Senator Dodd said a moment ago about not making choices on ideology. I agree with that. My opposition, which I announced yesterday, to Senator Ashcroft's nomination, is not based on ideology. I might say, however, that our friends on the other side of the aisle in the Republican Party have certainly made ideology a significant component of their opposition to many people in the last years. Even Senator Ashcroft himself has engaged in a process of making judgments about people's fitness to be judges, people's fitness to be in the Attorney General's office--Bill Lann Lee--on a matter of ideology. In fact, I am told by some members of their party that they, themselves, have been the victims of ideological decisionmaking with respect to positions they might or might not be able to fill within the party itself. Perhaps there is the deepest irony at all, that people such as Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania, or Governor Keating, were themselves the subject of bitter dissension within the Republican Party over whether or not they might be fit to serve as Vice President of the United States, or hold some other office of importance, on the basis of ideology. So we need to be careful and thoughtful about who comes to that part of this debate with clean hands. But I am confident that all of us would agree with Senator Dodd, that we would like to see an end to that kind of division. There is another reason why this is difficult. It is because Senator Ashcroft comes to this question with all the advantages of a colleague. We know him. Many of us know him well enough to consider him a friend in the context of the Senate and like him personally. We certainly respect his conviction and his dedication to public service. As colleagues have noted, he was elected by the citizens of his State as attorney general, as Governor, and as Senator. But the truth is, in the final analysis this is not a vote or a decision about those personal relationships. This is not a vote about personality. And it is certainly not a vote that calls on us to somehow ratify the traditional expectations of the Senate, which are understood by everyone in the Senate and often are found very confusing to many people in the country who measure us and what we do by a different standard. The office of Attorney General is obviously not a political reward, left simply to the victors of national elections or to the crosscurrents of ideology within a particular party. It is one of the most sensitive positions of public trust. It is an office in which all Americans must have a deep and abiding faith that its occupant will enforce the laws with equal justice, with fairness, and impartiality. In other words, the person who comes to that office must come to it with a level of acceptance by the public at large about their moral and legal bonafides that they bring to the office in a way that is beyond dispute. It is very clear that there were others whom a uniting, not a dividing, President might have chosen for this job. I think everyone in the Senate would agree that if our colleague, former Senator John Danforth, had been chosen, you would have had a person who espoused all the ideology, the full measure of conservative views--he is an Episcopalian minister; he is pro- life--but he would have brought absolutely none of the controversy that has come with this nominee, which raises doubts--I am not saying certainties but doubts--in the minds of many people about this nominee's either willingness or capacity to apply the law in the way he has suggested he would in the course of these hearings. In fact, after closely examining the record set forth in those hearings, and the record as attorney general of the State of Missouri, I conclude that record makes him the wrong person for this job at this time. This is, without any question--I think everybody in the Senate would agree--a special time in our history. We have a President of the United States who was elected not with the popular vote of the country but for the third time in history by the electoral college. We have a President who was elected effectively by one vote, some would argue by the one vote in the electoral college, but there are many others in the country who would argue it was the one vote in the Supreme Court of the United States. There are many in the country, whether legitimately or not, who have a deep sense of alienation and outrage over what happened in the application of law in the course of the last months in our Nation. Because this election was so divisive, because the President himself has come to office saying that he acknowledges the deep need for him to be a unifier and not a divider, I believe, therefore, this nomination is particularly troubling. Senator Ashcroft's record reveals a series of actions--not beliefs; I want to distinguish this. I heard colleagues defending Senator Ashcroft again and again saying he should not be held accountable for his deep- rooted beliefs that reflect those who elected him. I am not holding him accountable, per se, for those beliefs. I believe, however, there are a series of actions that ignore the kind of need we face at this point in time to have an Attorney General come to office not needing to prove that the years in the past were somehow an aberration or a mistaken impression but, rather, who brings the full force of their history of commitment to civil rights, a commitment to a series of issues that are the law of the land. In effect, we are being asked to accept the nomination of an individual who, by definition, will have to wake up every single morning and curb his natural political instincts in order to do this job. I do not think that is an unfair statement because on all of those key issues where the Attorney General is so critical, whether it is guns or the law of the land with respect to Roe v. Wade, women's choice, or the law of the land with respect to civil rights in many areas, Senator Ashcroft again and again in his political life has been on the other side of those particular issues. There is a very simple question to ask yourself: Is that really what you want in an Attorney General of the United States? In my judgment, reviewing the record of the hearings and reviewing the record of Senator Ashcroft's stewardship as Attorney General, there are occasions where the Senator took actions that do not call to question today his ideology but call to question his judgment in pursuit of that ideology. Yes, Senator Ashcroft testified that he would enforce the laws with which he disagrees. But take, for instance, the voluntary school desegregation case in St. Louis, or the nomination of Judge Ronnie White, or the nomination of James Hormel to be Ambassador to Luxembourg, or the nomination of David Satcher for Surgeon General. Each of these, in my estimation, reveals a response by Senator Ashcroft that exhibited an exercise of judgment that I believe calls into question his ability to provide for the kind of moral and legal force necessary in the job of Attorney General. I am not convinced that you can simply dismiss each and every one of the instincts that led to the exercise of that judgment in each of those cases. Let me be very specific about each and every one of those. When he was Missouri attorney general, as we know--others have talked about it--Senator Ashcroft opposed the court-appointed voluntary desegregation plan for St. Louis. We know school desegregation is a controversial public policy, and there are many people who appropriately at various times in the country, in one place or the other, found fault with certain approaches to various voluntary desegregation plans. That is not the measure of my concern. What is deeply troubling to me is that despite the problems with the existing law and despite the problems that were found with the proposed voluntary remedy, Senator Ashcroft, in a position of leadership on this issue, duty bound to bring people together and to try to lead the community through this difficult time, failed to come up with an alternative that would have ameliorated the divisions of the community and, most importantly, would have addressed the segregated conditions. When children are trapped in schools that do not work, when cities are divided by racial lines, there is a choice that can be made: You can be a voice for reconciliation or you can be a voice for division. When Senator Ashcroft chose to politicize the issue beyond all proportion, which is what many people in the community have testified, he chose the latter, and that is a matter of judgment, not belief. Perhaps the most disturbing element in his record was the treatment of Judge Ronnie White. Many people have brought those facts to the floor, and I obviously am not going to go through all of them again. I remember that debate well. I remember the language which characterized this good person. He was called procriminal. It was said that he had a tremendous bent towards criminal activity--a judge had a tremendous bent toward criminal activity. It was claimed that he was the court's most liberal judge on the death penalty and did not care ``how clear the evidence of guilt.'' That is not true. Those words are simply not true. Of course he cared about guilt, and if you read his decision, his decision said nothing about whether or not he was not guilty or whether or not he should not, if guilty, be subjected to the death penalty. He did not think this man had a fair trial. I do not believe an Attorney General of the United States should interpret some judge's opposition to the lack of a fair trial to become on the floor of the Senate a rationale for a party-line vote, fully divided by virtue of his leadership on his protestations and characterizations of this judge. As is now well known, Judge White had a strong record of supporting capital punishment and often voted with Mr. Ashcroft's own appointees on the Missouri Supreme Court. Indeed, he had a tougher record on the death penalty than some of Senator Ashcroft's own nominees. Judge White voted for the death penalty in 41 of 59 cases that came before him, and he voted with the majority 53 times, including cases in which he favored reversal. So that is not an issue of ideology. That is not a matter of belief on which I choose to cast my vote. It is because I believe that Judge White was inappropriately characterized on the floor of the Senate. I believe that was a reflection of a judgment about another human being, about our politics, about life in our country. I do not believe, as some have claimed, at all--and I hope we would never insinuate--that Senator Ashcroft is racist. I do not think there is any evidence of that. I do not believe that he is. I think that is inappropriate to this debate. But I do think that it was an unfair distortion of Judge White's record branding him as procriminal. And the handling of that nomination in itself raises serious questions about judgment, about fairmindedness, and about fair play. Judge White, quite eloquently, made that very point during his testimony before the Judiciary Committee when he said: I believe that the question for the Senate is whether these misrepresentations are consistent with fair play and justice that you would require of the U.S. Attorney General. That is not a matter of ideology; that is a matter of judgment. I am also troubled that when David Satcher's nomination for Surgeon General came before the Senate with great bipartisan support, again, Senator Ashcroft filibustered and described him as a ``promoter of partial-birth abortion.'' David Satcher had led the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with distinction. He had been a leader at a medical college in Tennessee. He had the full backing of Senator Frist and Senator Thompson, both of whom are people of enormous integrity. They told us that David Satcher would not promote abortion. They told us that you could not question his character or his integrity. But John Ashcroft said that this individual would ``promote a heinous act, partial-birth abortion.'' Why? Simply because David Satcher believed that a ban on the procedure --which he was in favor of--ought to include an exception for the life and health of the mother. The kind of distortion we saw for David Satcher raises a question, not about ideology but about judgment and fairness and fair play. I am also troubled by Senator Ashcroft's judgment about the so-called alleged ``totality of the record'' with respect to a good man named James Hormel. I regret to say it, but I can only interpret the ``totality of the record'' as a code word for opposition to James Hormel because he was gay. Why do I draw that conclusion? Because in the course of debate, and in the course of comments publicly, Senator Ashcroft, at the Foreign Relations Committee, never doubted that Mr. Hormel was a competent businessperson, never doubted or questioned his record of philanthropy or commitment to his community, never doubted or questioned his effectiveness as a dean, or the job he had done prior to entering the business at the University of Chicago. Senator Ashcroft was only one of two people on the Foreign Relations Committee to vote against him. During the confirmation hearings a couple weeks ago, he again reiterated it was the ``totality of the record'' but, once again, without any explanation. As we know, Mr. Hormel was finally appointed by a recess appointment. But in my judgment, Mr. Hormel was opposed for a status offense. Senator Ashcroft did raise questions about the propensity or likelihood Mr. Hormel might have about ``promoting a certain kind of lifestyle.'' I think every single one of us understands that is a code word in and of itself for his sexuality. I would add that the people of Luxembourg, far from raising this question themselves, did not share that concern. And so it was that Senator Ashcroft sought to deny Luxembourg an Ambassador that they were asking to have appointed. I do not believe the American people should have an Attorney General who leaves even doubts--even doubts--about whether or not being gay is a status offense. I am also troubled by the lack of sensitivity that was displayed, even in the aftermath of the interview that took place with Southern Partisan magazine in 1998. Another colleague has gone into that at great depth on the floor, and I will not spend a lot of time on it. It is one thing to have done the interview and, I suppose, to have suggested later that you did not know what the magazine did or who they spoke to or what audience they talked about. It is another thing when you are a nominee for Attorney General not to acknowledge that there are, indeed, questions that would arise in an interview of this nature with that kind of magazine. This is a magazine that praises John Wilkes Booth for assassinating Abraham Lincoln. It has editorials against interracial dating. When you read the interview itself, and you recognize the folks the Senator was trying to talk to, and what he was appealing to, it seems to me that there are serious questions, again, about judgment, about the judgment of what the message is to a large part of America who sees that magazine and those who adhere to its philosophy as those who have never gotten over the fact that slavery was ended in the South. I would have liked--I think many of us would have liked--to at least have heard a disavowal of those views or an expression, recognition that some of the views are, in fact, inappropriate and appeal to some people's worst instincts rather than best instincts. I think those are the kinds of expressions that ought to come from somebody who is going to try to represent the healing of the divisions that have occurred over the course of the last years. I might add, they are not just the healings from the difficulties of the election. They are the healings from the problems of racial profiling. They are the healings from the problems of discrimination in housing. They are the healings from the problems of so many people of color who wind up in prison instead of in college. They are the divisions that occur because so many in this country still believe that the law is stacked against them rather than working for them. The choices that an Attorney General will make are obviously critical to our ability to move forward and not backward with respect to those kinds of divisions. It is these particular acts of personal judgment that I believe raise the most serious questions about the appropriateness of Senator Ashcroft assuming this remarkably sensitive position. As a former prosecutor--I see Senator Reid is on the floor; and he shares that prior occupation--I think for many of us there is an acute sensitivity to the judgments that an Attorney General makes on a daily basis: what cases will be taken on; what particular task forces might be created in order to try to address people's sense of grievance in the country; certainly, obviously, the power of the Solicitor General; the power of choosing who will sit on what courts; the power of deciding what you will appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States; and, most importantly, what you will investigate and how. All of these are issues of judgment, too. I believe the issues I have raised put before the Senate serious questions about the exercise in that judgment. I believe that in the end, notwithstanding what I have said, there is always a feeling by each of us with respect to a colleague that these votes are difficult. I don't pretend that it is not in this regard. That is true for all of us on our side. We have to make a choice. It is our responsibility and it is our oath to the Constitution to make the best judgments we can about the choices that are put in front of us. I believe the important thing at this moment in time in this particular position, above all, is to have a nominee who is free from this kind of controversy, who comes to this job not with the questions that have been raised in the Senate and this revisitation of the kind of divisiveness that so many of us are tired of. That is not something we asked for. That is something we were given by virtue of the President's choice to send us this nominee. With this nominee comes these questions about his ability to assume this job that requires such a special sensitivity, such a special sense of the need to bring the country together and to be able to apply the law equally and fairly to all. It may well be that every concern I have expressed is wiped away when John Ashcroft takes this job on, as we know he will. There is no question about whether he is going to be confirmed. But there is a question about whether or not we will ever, in the next few years, again have to revisit some of the questions that have been raised in the course of these hearings and in the course of this debate. My prayer is that we won't, and nothing, obviously, would please me more than to say to John Ashcroft: I am glad I sounded my warning bells, but I am equally glad that you proved us wrong and were the kind of Attorney General that the country needed at this moment. It may well be that all of our colleagues are absolutely correct in predicting that that is what we will have. If it is, so much the better for the Nation and so much the better for John Ashcroft. It is important for us to place as part of the record, as he assumes this job, the concerns that we have on behalf of so many people in this country who need to see the law applied more fairly and need to have a better sense of due process and of equal justice under the law. I hope, in the end, this administration and this Attorney General will produce that.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order be as follows: That following Senator Dodd, Senator Cochran speak, and that I be permitted to speak following Senator Cochran.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I gather that the order set is that Senator Dodd will speak and then Senator Cochran.