John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chairman. This year's appropriations debate coincides with new discussions among GEF members for a new replenishment, one which must for the first time accommodate the new responsibility for implementing POPS. Hence it's critical that the U.S. send a strong statement that we remain committed to meeting our obligations to the GEF. american companies doing business in Colombia

Mr. KERRY. I have been a part of international environmental discussions for a decade, and attended talks not only in Kyoto but also in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and The Hague. During this time, I have watched tensions grow between the developed and developing world, which increasingly views Western efforts to convince them to adopt strict environmental standards as an effort to hold them down economically. This concern is an important factor in the dispute over a new round of world trade negotiations. Cooperative efforts between developed nations and the developing world through organizations like the Global Environmental Facility can bridge this distrust.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. For the purpose of planning, could the Senator give us a sense of both amendments and how long he thinks he will talk.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, it was depending entirely on what the Senator from Wisconsin was doing. I reserve that now and see where we are heading.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I have 5 minutes, but I will not use it. I want to make two very quick points. One, as a former prosecutor, I am sympathetic to the comments of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I think all of us ought to be respectful of what the Senator from Wisconsin has been talking about this evening. I will vote for the bill. I am particularly sensitive to what the majority leader has said about the delicacy and the balance. Even within that delicacy, there are some very legitimate concerns. It is my hope that when this goes to conference, some of the positions of the House will be thought about carefully and respected and that the Senate may even be able to improve what we have by taking those into account. The second point is that there is within this legislation for the first time a very significant effort on money laundering. I will say to my colleagues that of all the weapons in this war and for all of our might militarily, the most significant efforts to ferret out and stop terrorists are going to come from the combination of information, intelligence that we gather and process, and from our ability to take unconventional steps, particularly those such as the money-laundering measures. Senator Levin has done an outstanding job of helping to frame that, as has Senator Sarbanes. The truth is, there are banking interests that even to this moment still resist living up to the standards of the Basel convention and the international standards about knowing your customer and being part of the law enforcement effort rather than a blockade to it. We are told there may be some effort through the House to try to strip this out. It is my hope that the Senate will stand firm and hold to the full measure of what President Bush has asked us to do. This will be a long effort, a painstaking effort. If we are serious about it, we have to have the law enforcement tools to make this happen. One of the most critical ones is empowering the Secretary of the Treasury to do a reasonable, ratcheted, sort of geared process of addressing the concerns of ferreting out money laundering and taking the money away from these illicit interests around the globe. They are not just in terrorism. They are linked to money laundering, to illegal alien trafficking. They are all part of the same network which also funds the terrorists themselves. We recognize that three-quarters of the heroin that reaches the United States comes from Afghanistan. The Taliban and al-Qaida were both trafficking in that heroin. These networks and the interconnectedness of them to the banking institutions, the financial marketplace, are absolutely essential for us as we fight a war on terrorism. I hope this money-laundering component will be part of the final terrorism bill. I yield whatever remaining time I have.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak for a few minutes about the Uniting and Strengthening America, USA, Act that is before the Senate today. This legislation reflects the hard work of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I want to thank them for their commitment to ensuring that Congress address this legislation as quickly as possible and for paying great attention to the civil rights and liberties of the American people. Right now our Nation is strongly united. We are bound together by, among other things, a desire to see justice brought to those who planned the terrorist attacks and those who aided and abetted the terrorists. And Americans are united by our desire to prevent future terrorist attacks. At this time, more so than at any time in the past 40 years, the American people are standing firmly behind the Federal Government and they trust government to do the right thing. The American people support the idea that we must provide the FBI and the Department of Justice will the tools necessary to punish the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks and to prevent future attacks. But as much as the American people seek a just resolution to the acts of terror, they are adamant about protecting their rights and liberties. We have heard it time and again since September 11: our Nation must be secure, but must not become so at the expense of our freedoms, our rights, and our liberties. We must not let the American people down. I want to thank Senator Leahy for his leadership on this legislation and his concern with important Constitutional principles, such as due process and unreasonable search and seizure. At Senator Leahy's urging, the administration's anti-terrorism proposal was carefully and closely analyzed and Senator Leahy did not yield to the political pressures that threatened to push this legislation through the Congress without its careful consideration. I believe that the bill before the Senate is vastly improved from the proposal that the administration sent up, and I appreciate that important changes were made. Though I am grateful that important changes have been made to the Senate bill, I am still troubled by certain provisions in the legislation which fail to strike the proper balance between the need for security and the need for civil liberties. Moving an anti-terrorism bill through the Congress in a timely fashion is critically important, particularly in light of the ongoing air strikes in Afghanistan. We all know that a real threat exists for future terrorist attacks in this country and passing legislation that helps the Federal Government prevent those attacks is crucial. I support the process, I support moving this legislation forward, and I will vote for it. But I also believe that the bill that passed the House better balances our civil liberties and the Federal Government's need for greater surveillance powers, and I am hopeful that the bill that emerges from the conference committee retains some of these provisions. I am disturbed by comments made yesterday by the administration in which swift consideration by both houses of Congress of the Senate bill was urged. This legislation deserves the full measure of our attention and should not be hastily dispensed with when the threat to our most cherished civil liberties is so great. The wide-ranging legislation before us would enhance domestic surveillance powers, stiffen penalties for terrorism, increase the penalties for money-laundering, and make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share information. There was broad agreement on some elements of the administration's anti-terrorism package, such as the need to update our anti-terrorism laws to take account of new technologies--such as cell phones--and to ensure that counter-terrorism investigators wield the same powers that apply to drug trafficking and organized crime. But agreement was more difficult to reach on other issues, like detaining foreign nationals, and I am pleased that we are in a position to move forward on the legislation. I am also pleased that this package includes a bill, which I sponsored, that will 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. This legislation was part of a package of anti-money laundering provisions that unanimously passed the Senate Banking Committee last week. Today, the global volume of laundered money is estimated to be 2 to 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 and generating domestic political crises. It is becoming more and more apparent that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, known as al Qaida, provided assistance to the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with funding that was transported from the Middle East to the United States through the global financial system. Al-Qaida has, for years, developed a worldwide terrorist network by taking advantage of an open system of international financial transactions. The United States has declared a war on terrorism. This new war is going to be unlike anything that we have ever engaged in previously. If we are to lead the world in the fight against terror, we must insure that our own laws are worthy of the difficult task ahead. The International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anti- corruption Act of 2001, which I sponsored and which has been included in this legislation, will stop the flow of assets through the international financial system that have been used by bin Laden, the al Qaeda terrorist network and other terrorist groups. The United States has the largest and most accessible economic marketplace in the world. Foreign financial institutions and jurisdictions must have unfettered access to markets to effectively work within the international economic system. The goal of this legislation is to give the Treasury Secretary, in conjunction with our allies in the European Union and the Financial Action Task Force, the authority to leverage the power of our markets to force countries or financial institutions with lax money laundering laws or standards to reform them. If they refuse, the Secretary will have the authority to deny foreign financial institutions or jurisdictions access to the United States marketplace. This will help stop international criminals from laundering the proceeds of their crimes into the United States financial system or using the proceeds to commit terrorist acts. Specifically, the bill will give the Secretary of the Treasury-- acting in consultation with other senior government officials--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 of 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 will 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 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 provides a clear warning to those who have assisted or unwittingly assisted those involved in the al Qaeda network or other terrorist organizations in laundering money. The United States will take whatever actions are necessary, including denying foreign banks and jurisdictions access to the United States economy, in order to stop terrorists and international criminal networks from continuing to launder money through the international financial system. Passage of this legislation will make it much more difficult for new terrorist organizations to develop. 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 involving billions of dollars. Fortunately, BCCI was forced to close and we were able to bring many of those involved in to justice. However, as we have learned since the closing of BCCI, Osama bin Laden had a number of accounts at BCCI and we had dealt him a very serious economic blow. So as we consider this bill as a response to recent attacks, we must not lose sight of the potential this legislation will have to stop the development of terrorist organizations in the future. With the support of the United States and the European Union, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has begun a crackdown on tax havens by targeting 36 jurisdictions which it said participate in unfair tax competition and undermine other nations' tax bases. The OECD approach does not punish countries just for having low tax rates, instead, it looks for tax systems that have a lack of transparency, a lack of effective exchange of information and those countries that have different tax rules for foreign customers than for its own citizens. Countries with these types of tax systems assist terrorists and international criminal organizations looking to hide money that was derived from the sale of drugs, weapons and other criminal enterprises that have already been laundered in the international financial system. Mr. President, earlier this evening my colleague Senator Feingold offered an amendment to the section of the USA Act that deals with the interception of computer trespass communications. This amendment, at its core, was intended to prevent law enforcement from abusing their authority to monitor computer activity. The Senator from Wisconsin's amendment would have limited the amount of time that law enforcement could monitor suspicious activity without a court order to 96 hours, after which time investigators would have to obtain a warrant for continued surveillance. I support the intent of this amendment, and regret that I felt compelled vote to table the amendment. I voted to table the amendment for two reasons: First, I was concerned that the amendment was overly restrictive because it prevented law enforcement from investigations unrelated to the computer trespass. My concern is that law enforcement authorities would, for example, be able to monitor activity which permitted a computer hacker to establish a ``dead drop'' zone for terrorists to post messages, but would not be able to monitor the content of those messages. I also voted to table Senator Feingold's amendment because I strongly believe that we must move forward with this anti-terrorism legislation. Just today the FBI issued a statement warning of terrorist attacks and put law enforcement on the highest alert. I believe these serious threats to our security justify our this legislation swiftly. But I sincerely hope that an acceptable compromise can be reached--on this and on other issues--in the final legislation. This legislation is a crucial step toward limiting the scourge of money laundering and to stop the development of international criminal organizations. It is my hope that the Congress will be able to develop anti-terrorism legislation that will provide needed protections of our citizens without eliminating any of our cherished individual liberties.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, with the passing of Mike Mansfield, this Chamber lost a man who embodied the true meaning of public service. And while he will no longer be with us, his spirit and his commitment to serving our Nation survives him and guides us. I rise today to pay my respects for his service as well as to ask that we honor his life by following his example. Mike Mansfield's patriotism and commitment to public service resided in the very core of who he was. At the ripe old age of 14, when most boys are signing up for freshman football, Mike Mansfield was signing up for his first tour with the Navy. After the Navy discharged him due to his age, Mike Mansfield would reenlist and serve in the Army and Marine Corps. For a young man from Montana, those experiences led him to develop an interest and passion for defining America's role in this world. Back in 1921, when the word ``globalization'' was not exactly in vogue, Mike Mansfield was taking his first trip to Asia. His commitment to United States-Asia relations was unprecedented, while his leadership in this area was unparalleled. It is with awe that in an age of hyper- partisanship, we look back at a life of service that always put principles above partisanship. One can only look back with awe and respect at a man who not only served as the longest serving Senate majority leader but also the longest serving U.S. Ambassador to Japan. While this Nation said goodbye this weekend to our modern day ironman, Cal Ripken, it's only appropriate that the nation recognizes the Senate's own ironman. Mike Mansfield's legacy will be found not only in the accomplishments of his service, but equally in the vision he left for his colleagues and the manner in which he demonstrated his leadership. Senator Mansfield once said that ``by exploring the cultural, religious, and social forces that have molded a nation, we can begin to better understand each other and contribute to the knowledge and understanding that will strengthen our ties of friendship and lead to a better world.'' As we lead this Nation into a more globally interdependent future, it will serve us well to keep Mike Mansfield's words, and his legacy, close to us.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to make a short comment regarding energy legislation. I have heard a few of my colleagues question how Majority Leader Daschle is handling the Senate schedule. I want to take exception to those complaints. I believe the Majority Leader has done an outstanding job moving legislation this Congress. We started the year with a new Administration and then the Senate changed hands, that is difficult enough. And since September 11 we are in truly extraordinary times. Yet, under his leadership, and with the leadership of President Bush and Minority Leader Lott, we have moved quickly and decisively to approve the use of force, to appropriate emergency funding and assist the airline industry. That progress stalled this week with objections over the airline security proposal, but that is hardly the fault of the Majority Leader. It's ironic that members came to the floor to protest the schedule for an energy bill on a day that their leadership delayed the airline security bill. Majority Leader Daschle is not the problem. As for the Majority Leader's decision to move an energy bill directly to the floor, that's his prerogative as our majority leader. It's been done before and it will very likely be done again. Chairman Bingaman has asked that we support the Majority Leader's decision, and I do. The Majority Leader's decision recognizes the reality that energy policy reaches beyond the Energy Committee in an important ways. It impacts issues in the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, Commerce Committee, the Environment and Public works Committee, among others. As for his managing of the Senate schedule for the remainder of this session, I trust that he will use his best judgement, and will, as he always has, confer with the minority, to decide the order of legislation. We have spent more than a week on airline security, a priority issue I believe. We then must address the terrorism prevention bill. We have several appropriation bills to take up and pass. We may consider an economic stimulus package. We may consider a Farm Bill. And we really don't know what else will be necessary of us in the coming weeks. The past month has demonstrated the unpredictability of our work. So, I would urge the Majority Leader to listen to all Senators' concerns but to be wary of demands from members that we consider legislation in their preferred order. We have a lot of work to do, little time to do it, and don't know what the coming weeks may hold. Very briefly, I'd like to comment on two statements made regarding energy security on the floor yesterday. First, one of my colleagues noted that America imports more than 50 percent of our oil, and then implied that should we find ourselves in a military conflict those imports, half the oil we consume, might be lost. I want to say, to assure my colleagues and the public, that that dire scenario is not at all plausible. Today, America depends less on the Middle Eastern oil than we did during the oil embargo of the 1970s. We import almost 30 percent of our oil from Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Colombia, Norway and Venezuela. It's wrong to suggest that these nations would abandon the United States during a military conflict. Secondly, I have heard statements referring to the energy needs of the U.S. military, suggesting, I guess, that if we don't pass an energy bill immediately the military might run short of fuel. The military doesn't lack the oil it needs to operate. Even if this fictitious worldwide embargo of U.S. oil imports that my colleagues contemplate ever took place, this Nation's military would have all the oil it needs. I don't want any suggestion that our military is unprepared because of a shortage for oil to stand. There are real energy security issues this Nation must address, but we do not need to exaggerate the threat. We need to be reasonable, in the process and the substance of this bill. I support the Majority Leader's decision and look forward to participating in the broader effort to craft a sound bill.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, it is somewhat extraordinary that so many weeks after the events of September 11, in the immediate days thereafter, almost all of the relevant personnel within the aviation industry--the people who fly the planes, the screeners, the people at the airports responsible for security, the flight attendants--all of them came forward and said we need a Federal system with Federal employees and Federal standards that guarantees the safety of our aircraft access and our airways. Here we are, after this extraordinary outpouring of emotion and genuine bipartisanship within the Congress that came together to pass $40 billion immediately, and that united to provide a clear statement of the will of the American people expressed through the Congress with regard to our reaction to those events in a series of measures on which we found the capacity to come to the floor of the Senate and vote as one, here we are now weeks later still procrastinating over when we are going to have a final vote, or how we are going to get to a final vote on the question of aviation security. It seems to me extraordinary that at a moment when we are trying to prove to a lot of countries the virtues of democracy we are struggling in the greatest deliberative body on the face of the planet--as we are often referred to or even like to call ourselves--we are struggling to find the capacity to have a vote, to let the votes fall where they may. Let them fall where they may. Some people do not like the Carnahan amendment. I am amazed that they would call extraneous assistance to people who went to work on one morning and found out a few hours later their jobs were gone. I wonder how one can call extraneous a flight attendants who got on a plane after the events of that day to help people get back to their homes or locations from where those planes flew, to return them, and then got home and found after taking that risk they got a pink slip, their job no longer existed. Mr. President, 140,000 aviation employees have lost their jobs since September 11. How anybody can suggest that for those people who did not have the opportunity to plan for a layoff, for those people who did not have the savings put away because of these events that clearly altered their lives in such a dramatic way, that we are not going to find it in our capacity, even as we bail out the airlines to the tune of billions of dollars, that we somehow are not prepared to extend health care benefits to them by paying their COBRA premiums or making training available to them to find another job or find additional unemployment compensation once the State unemployment compensation has run out. That is not extraneous. That is fundamental to who we are as a people and to the kind of reaction we ought to spontaneously summon as a consequence of the events that happened. I also hear my colleagues talking about the need to have some kind of boost to the economy. We have had a rather sizable tax cut which enormously benefited those people at the upper end of the income scale, but for some 28, 29 million Americans who pay most of their taxes through the payroll tax, they did not get any break. For a lot of Americans, the best way to begin to bring back the economy as fast as possible is to give people the ability to spend money, to give them the ability to pay their bills and do the things that people do which will have the most profound impact in terms of stimulus at this point in time. For those who look at the tax cut side of the ledger--and we have all embraced those tax cuts over the course of the past months in one form or another--the fact is certain kinds of business tax incentives and certain kinds of monetary efforts--for instance, lowering the interest rates at this point in time--are simply not going to make a difference in the rapid restoration of the economy. We could lower the interest rates to zero at this moment and it is not going to affect the creation of a new plant or the investment in some new business where that business is already affected by an intense overhang of excess capacity. For somebody who built their plant in the last year and a half, of course, that has a negative effect. What you have to do is use up that capacity. Most of that, most people would agree, is going to take place on the demand side and the consumer side, and we have to face that. It seems to me, both as a matter of fairness and common sense about how we are going to deal with the economy under these circumstances, providing assistance under the Carnahan amendment is the proper way to address the needs of 140,000 people who were summarily thrown out of work as a direct consequence of the events that took place, and I might add not just as a direct consequence but also to some degree as a calculated effort by some of the airlines to position themselves differently from where they were positioned prior to September 11. Every one of us on the Commerce Committee and on the Aviation Subcommittee, those of us who have been following this issue for a period of time, know the aviation industry was already a significant percentage off, maybe 30 percent and in some cases more, prior to September 10. What we are seeing now, even after we have taken taxpayer dollars and provided billions of dollars to help bail out the airline industry, they are reducing capacity and adjusting the numbers of flights and the number of personnel well beyond the impact of September 11. So if it is okay and appropriate--and many of us believed it was--to help bail out that industry because of the impact that industry has on a whole set of other downstream industries: the car rental industry, the restaurant industry, hotel, entertainment, a lot of things are tied to getting people back into airplanes, at the same time as the health and long-term welfare of that industry is being sought, we ought to be looking at the health and long-term welfare of those employees who have suffered as a consequence of both of those linked facts. I think it is critical we pass the Carnahan amendment, as a matter of fairness to those workers. Let me also say something about the aviation bill itself. I have heard from a number of pilots who have privately contacted me in the course of the last weeks to tell me stories that have not necessarily reached the public about why it is so critical to have this national standard applied to our employees. When you walk up to any counter anywhere in the country and talk to the people who check you in and talk to them about why they think it is important, you will really gain a much stronger understanding of the virtue of having this national system of employees who are accountable to one standard, accountable across the country to one system, and who work with an esprit de corps and with an expertise that provides those people flying on our aircraft the sense of safety they both want and deserve. I think most of us who have been following this issue for a long time are convinced it is only when you have that kind of system and not a sort of disparate, multiheaded effort that stems from the contracting out of various airports all across the country to the low bidders for those particular airports, we know that by virtue of the imperatives of the bottom line and the structure of the airlines themselves and the way in which that has been managed that there has been an incentive to find employees that do not cost a lot, that do not require a huge amount of training, do not require a huge amount of supervision because that costs a lot more money for airlines that have already been in difficult straits. Unless we raise the pay level of those employees, the training level, the supervisory level, and the standards to which they are supervised and under which they have to work, we are not going to have that kind of control. Senator Hollings, again and again, has referred to El Al. El Al is a classic example of a security system that has escaped the kind of terror we witnessed on September 11. It does so because of the layered structure of government input that guarantees a standard which can be adhered to and which is accountable to those standards. If we want to get people back in our airplanes to the levels they were previously and to even greater levels as we go down the road, we need to make certain we have the highest standards possible, the greatest accountability possible, and the broadest supervisory standards, with accountability, that we could put into place. The American people demand nothing more and they deserve nothing less. Ultimately, if we are doing less than that, we leave ourselves open to the possibility that not in the next weeks--I do not believe that will happen in the next weeks or even the next months--but when people begin to relax a little bit, as is normal, when you begin to back off because you have these different companies and you do not have the kind of standardization that we are seeking, that is when someone will once again look to find the weakness in the system. Even as we talk about the airlines, I want to reiterate what a number of us have said on a number of different occasions. It is not just the airlines that require standards with respect to security. Our trains are exposed and our buses, as we have seen, other forms of transportation. If we are truly in the kind of conflict we have described to the American people--and we are--and if indeed threats are possible down the road as we proceed forward--and they are--and all of us know that, then it behooves us to try to minimize the potential exposure to the American people with the maximum return in effectiveness. We currently have the National Guard, the FBI, marshals. You walk into an airport today and you have this conglomerate of people who are there. Why? Because everybody knows what we have before them in terms of that screening system is inadequate. What we need to do is guarantee those marshals can be on the aircraft not waiting at a screening section; that the Guard can be doing what the Guard may be called on to do in the course of the next months; that the FBI and the other personnel can be following up on leads and preventing rather than guarding our airport entrances, and the only way we will ultimately have the kind of esprit de corps that we need is to build the supervisory capacity and supervision and accountability that we have within the INS, within the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard and all of those other security measures that we take at other levels. I hope the Senate, within the next 24 hours, will finally vote on this legislation. I thank the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from South Carolina for their leadership on this on the Commerce Committee. I am pleased to be an original author and cosponsor with them of this legislation, but I am frustrated we cannot have a series of votes and let the votes fall where they may. If the Carnahan amendment deserves a majority of support from the Senate, then it should receive it. If it does not, then we move on, and we have a final vote on the question of aviation security. We need to get this done, and we need to get it done now. We should have had it done previously. I hope in the next hours the Senate will end this process of procrastination and restore the sense of unity and purpose and urgency that has guided us to this moment. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the majority leader. I want to emphasize, as I know Senator McCain and Senator Hollings feel, nobody at this point wants the good work of the Senate to be distracted in any way by any kind of finger pointing or accusations. That is not the purpose of my question. But we have now been discussing airport security for several weeks-- several weeks. There is a very significant majority of the Senate who are poised to vote in a certain way. It is my hope my colleagues will allow the will of the Senate to be worked. The American people expect nothing less of this Congress than a prompt response in a responsible way. Frankly, I think we can do better at the job of resolving this faster than we seem to be at this moment. I hope that will happen in short order, in the course of the next 24 or 48 hours. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I ask the majority leader if we could clarify something for the record. We had 97 Senators vote, publicly saying they are prepared to have a motion that allows us to at least proceed to the bill, but we are not actually able to get on the bill itself. Nobody should be mistaken that suddenly the Senate is actually making big progress on aviation security. I ask the majority leader if he would just clarify what the procedural hurdle is now, and also, what is the substantive resistance here and how he sees the Senate proceeding.

Mr. KERRY

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

Mr. KERRY. I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to proceed for such time as I may consume.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, we are in morning business; is that correct?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Jersey for his courtesy in allowing me to step in front of him to introduce this legislation.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his comments. He could not be more correct about the problems with the FBI. In fact, the FBI had a lot of information regarding the potential of the events on September 11 4 and 5 years ago, I have learned, in certain compartments. Regrettably, just because of the compartmentalization and the process, that information was never adequately followed up on, as I think we will learn over the course of the next few months. We regret that. There needs to be an enormous amount of work done in the coordination of the processing of information between the CIA and the FBI. The FBI, obviously, has been much more focused on prosecuting crimes after they happen and not necessarily on taking information and evaluating it in the context of a crime that may happen. The CIA has been much more involved in the processing of information. Their human intelligence component in the CIA has been so devastated in the last 10, 15 years, that we are light years behind where we ought to be. I will correct my colleague. We had the security chief from El Al in yesterday with Senator Hollings. He said that every facet of airline security is in fact Government managed at this point--in fact, the employees. I don't know if that was an older process or what. Yesterday, El Al gave us a clear description of how they are doing it now. It is entirely managed by the Government, which is precisely what we are suggesting ought to happen here. (The remarks of Mr. Kerry pertaining to the introduction of S. 1499 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am introducing today, together with Senator Bond, the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and 26 of my colleagues, including Senators Wellstone, Harkin, Cleland, Lieberman, Edwards, Carnahan, Levin, Snowe, Schumer, Clinton, Daschle, Bingaman, Inouye, Sarbanes, Akaka, Reed of Rhode Island, Durbin, Kennedy, Grassley, Torricelli, Lincoln, Rockefeller, Hollings, Leahy, Corzine, Cantwell, Landrieu, Allen, Murray, and Johnson, the American Small Business Emergency Relief and Recovery Act of 2001. This is emergency legislation to help small businesses that have been impacted as a consequence of the attacks that took place on September 11. Thousands of small businesses employing millions of Americans are suffering significantly as a consequence of what has happened. Many of these companies may not survive. But these businesses are the engine of our economy and we need to act to help them. This bill is the product of bipartisan work on our committee. I thank Senator Bond for cosponsoring it and for working with us. It includes input from many sources, much of which was gathered through a combination of about 30 meetings and conference calls with small business trade associations, contractors, subcontractors, small business lenders, and small business consultants. Of course, I think we have all learned firsthand a lot from the small business owners who have told us their personal stories of healthy businesses--up until September 11--which have simply taken a nosedive as a consequence of the tragic events. Our airport small businesses, our taxi drivers, small hotels and restaurants, small suppliers, travel agents, crop dusters, charter bus companies, and many others have called to explain their plight. For example, there is a woman in my State who started a travel agency 26 years ago in a suburb of Boston. She has six employees. She is hanging on now only through personal savings because they have zero business all of a sudden. The agency has virtually no incoming sales, and has had to refund commissions on all canceled vacation packages, cruises and airline tickets that had generated income over the past 6 months. Yesterday, I met with a fellow who does a lot of business out in North Dakota. Senator Conrad introduced us. They were doing 20,000 sales a day. They went down to two sales a day for a period of time. They are now back up to about 10,000. But the problem is that banks are withholding the lines of credit for many of these companies, and we want them to survive. In New York where more than 14,000 businesses inside and around ground zero have been impacted, there's the story of Sydmore Sportswear just four blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood. Joseph Pinkas, who's owned the small business for 20 years owes $100,000 to his suppliers, and revenues are down 65 percent. ``We don't know where our customers are going to come from,'' he said in an AP story. ``I'm worried about the future, about survival. I don't sleep at night.'' Other businesses in the area are filled with dust and debris, and their phones are dead. Small businesses doing business with the Federal government have also felt the impact of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Small business contractors, because of very real and legitimate security concerns, have experienced a dramatic increase in costs for work in and around Federal government facilities. We have heard reports of small businesses being denied access to their equipment on military bases, waiting for hours each day to enter government facilities and being limited in the hours they can work on their contracts. Once again, let me stress, these security precautions are very necessary, but they are having a dramatic impact on our small businesses. Many small businesses, particularly those performing government contracts, operate on a tight profit margin, so when the contract takes longer to complete, or rented equipment goes unused or can not be returned, unanticipated costs are incurred. Let me cite the situation faced by Dave Krueger, president of AS Horner Construction, Inc. out of Albuquerque, NM. Dave is currently doing work on a Federal contract at an Air Force facility pouring concrete parking aprons. Immediately after the attack, his company was locked out of the facility for nearly two weeks and currently have limited hours to access the construction site. Dave estimates that this will result in cost increases of at least 10 to 15 percent, meaning he will take a loss on this contract. Such situations cannot go unresolved. Small businesses are far too important, not just to our national economy, but to our national defense as well. Small business are a vital component of our national supply chain and essential to our national security interests. This act was designed to mitigate bankruptcies, business closures, and layoffs related to the attacks. It also addresses the shrinking availability of credit and venture capital to small businesses through traditional lenders and investors, which has been exacerbated by the attacks. It includes changes in SBA's main non-disaster lending and venture capital programs in order to encourage borrowing and lending for new and expanding small businesses that might otherwise be reluctant to start or expand their businesses in the post-September 11 economy. This legislation addresses three categories of small businesses: One, small businesses directly affected because they are physically located in or near the buildings or areas attacked or closed for security measures, or are located in national airports. For example, a brokerage firm located in one of the World Trade Center Towers or an independent souvenir shop in the Reagan National Airport or the Miami International Airport. These businesses will be eligible for SBA's economic injury disaster loans, under more favorable terms, such as deferring the payments and forgiving the interest on these loans for two years, as well as increasing the loan caps and extending the deadline for applying for disaster loans to one year. Small businesses not physically damaged or destroyed or in the vicinity of such businesses, but directly or indirectly affected because they are a supplier, service provider or complementary industry, especially the financial, hospitality, travel and tour industries. For example, a tour company in Hawaii or Rhode Island that has had hardly any sales since the attacks because the average occupancy at its client hotels has dropped to 10 percent. These businesses are eligible for 7(a) loans, tailored to be easier to qualify for, to have lower interest rates, and to offer the option of deferring the principal payments for 1 year. Small businesses in need of capital and investment financing, procurement assistance or management counseling in the economic aftermath of September 11. These businesses will have access to a variety of SBA's programs with incentive features, such as waiving the borrower's fee for a regular 7(a) loan for working capital or a 504 loan to buy equipment to increase productivity and beat the competition, or cut energy consumption and utility costs. Mr. President, history has taught us that, during an economic down turn, lenders become increasingly reluctant to lend to small businesses. From our contact with lenders, we know loan committees decided days after the attacks to clamp down on loans to small businesses. And to make matters worse, lenders are already calling in existing loans. One example is a woman who owns a manufacturing businesses in Quincy, MA, whose bank called her loan and credit line. She's never missed a payment. Where is she going to come up with more than $1 million? If her business closes, 40 jobs are lost, her contribution to the tax base is lost, and she's out of a job. It is critical to keep credit available to small businesses. In addition to getting credit into the hands of small businesses, it is important to make sure they have access to counseling and training to run their businesses better, deal with the volatile market, and adjust to the changing times. Providing access to such counseling helps protect our investment in their loans because a stronger business is more likely to repay its loans. This legislation increases funding for the Small Business Development Centers, with an emphasis on New York and Virginia, as well as the volunteer Service Corps of Retired Executives, the Women's Business Centers, and SBA's microlending experts. To help alleviate the unfortunate situations related to delayed Federal contracts, my legislation includes provisions to help expedite the claims of small business contractors applying for equitable adjustments to their contracts. The goal of this provision, simply, is to help offset the unanticipated and temporary costs of the increased security at Federal Government facilities. Additionally, it establishes a $100 million fund under the control of the Small Business Administration to ensure that no contracting agency has to pay out of previously allocated funds the increased costs of existing contracts because of the security measures implemented as a result of the September 11th attacks. I have confidence in our economy. The attacks may have arrested one of our financial centers momentarily and robbed families and businesses of thousands of brilliant and hard-working folks who helped make our country prosperous, but our economic foundation is strong. We have world-class universities, we have a great work force made up of people with an amazing work ethic, our banks are strong, we have a reliable infrastructure for communications, energy and transport, and the dollar is holding up. Now is not the time to pull back on investing in our economy, particularly in small-business development and growth. The SBA is doing a good job with the tools it has, but we need to improve those tools and give SBA more resources to deal with the scope of the problems faced by small businesses in the aftermath of September 11th. This legislation does just that. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and the Senate to act quickly so that this emergency help is available very soon. Mr. President, Senator Akaka could not be present to voice his support for this bill and concern for the small businesses in Hawaii, so I ask unanimous consent that his statement be included in the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that a letter of support and the bill be printed in the Record. In addition to this legislation that I am introducing today, there are a series of tax items that we believe fall into the category of stimulus, but they are not within the jurisdiction of our committee. As a member of the Finance Committee, I am going to encourage our committee to embrace these. One would be an increase in expensing, so that you can deduct an expense up to $24,000 of the cost of qualifying property; and we would encourage that increase and expensing to encourage greater business investment, and we want that expensing allowance increased to a higher amount. In addition, I have several times introduced--and I will reintroduce--a zero capital gains tax for those companies with capitalization up to $200 million or $300 million in new capitalization in the critical technologies or entrepreneurial businesses, where we would most respond to the creation of the high-value-added jobs or some of the technology fixes that will exist for security, for instance, or for national defense and other things that we need to do with respect to the battle against terrorism. Third would be changes in depreciation. There are a number of proposals for changes to depreciation rules. We would support some, such as changing the depreciation schedule for computer hardware from 5 years to 3, software from 3 years to 2, or several other proposals. Mr. President, there are a number of these tax proposals which the Small Business Committee will refer to the Finance Committee and to our colleagues with hopes that we can embrace them as a component of the stimulus package because they will have a stimulus effect and a long-term beneficial effect on our economy. Small businesses, as we all know, small businesses represent 99 percent of all employers, provide 75 percent of all net new jobs and contribute significantly to our economy. Every single company on the stock exchange today began as a small business. Some of them, such as Callaway Golf, Federal Express, Intel, and many others, got help through the Small Business Administration's loans or venture capital. The Federal Government helped provide the impetus for those companies. We have many times over repaid the Federal Treasury the entire budget of the Small Business Administration and its lending programs through the taxes paid by the success stories of our investments. I encourage my colleagues to embrace this emergency relief act, the American Small Business Emergency Relief and Recovery Act, and these emergency tax measures, as a way of encouraging further business growth and development. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from the National Community Reinvestment Corporation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business and, after I have completed, Senator Torricelli be recognized.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am introducing today, together with Senator Bond, the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and 26 of my colleagues, including Senators Wellstone, Harkin, Cleland, Lieberman, Edwards, Carnahan, Levin, Snowe, Schumer, Clinton, Daschle, Bingaman, Inouye, Sarbanes, Akaka, Reed of Rhode Island, Durbin, Kennedy, Grassley, Torricelli, Lincoln, Rockefeller, Hollings, Leahy, Corzine, Cantwell, Landrieu, Allen, Murray, and Johnson, the American Small Business Emergency Relief and Recovery Act of 2001. This is emergency legislation to help small businesses that have been impacted as a consequence of the attacks that took place on September 11. Thousands of small businesses employing millions of Americans are suffering significantly as a consequence of what has happened. Many of these companies may not survive. But these businesses are the engine of our economy and we need to act to help them. This bill is the product of bipartisan work on our committee. I thank Senator Bond for cosponsoring it and for working with us. It includes input from many sources, much of which was gathered through a combination of about 30 meetings and conference calls with small business trade associations, contractors, subcontractors, small business lenders, and small business consultants. Of course, I think we have all learned firsthand a lot from the small business owners who have told us their personal stories of healthy businesses--up until September 11--which have simply taken a nosedive as a consequence of the tragic events. Our airport small businesses, our taxi drivers, small hotels and restaurants, small suppliers, travel agents, crop dusters, charter bus companies, and many others have called to explain their plight. For example, there is a woman in my State who started a travel agency 26 years ago in a suburb of Boston. She has six employees. She is hanging on now only through personal savings because they have zero business all of a sudden. The agency has virtually no incoming sales, and has had to refund commissions on all canceled vacation packages, cruises and airline tickets that had generated income over the past 6 months. Yesterday, I met with a fellow who does a lot of business out in North Dakota. Senator Conrad introduced us. They were doing 20,000 sales a day. They went down to two sales a day for a period of time. They are now back up to about 10,000. But the problem is that banks are withholding the lines of credit for many of these companies, and we want them to survive. In New York where more than 14,000 businesses inside and around ground zero have been impacted, there's the story of Sydmore Sportswear just four blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood. Joseph Pinkas, who's owned the small business for 20 years owes $100,000 to his suppliers, and revenues are down 65 percent. ``We don't know where our customers are going to come from,'' he said in an AP story. ``I'm worried about the future, about survival. I don't sleep at night.'' Other businesses in the area are filled with dust and debris, and their phones are dead. Small businesses doing business with the Federal government have also felt the impact of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Small business contractors, because of very real and legitimate security concerns, have experienced a dramatic increase in costs for work in and around Federal government facilities. We have heard reports of small businesses being denied access to their equipment on military bases, waiting for hours each day to enter government facilities and being limited in the hours they can work on their contracts. Once again, let me stress, these security precautions are very necessary, but they are having a dramatic impact on our small businesses. Many small businesses, particularly those performing government contracts, operate on a tight profit margin, so when the contract takes longer to complete, or rented equipment goes unused or can not be returned, unanticipated costs are incurred. Let me cite the situation faced by Dave Krueger, president of AS Horner Construction, Inc. out of Albuquerque, NM. Dave is currently doing work on a Federal contract at an Air Force facility pouring concrete parking aprons. Immediately after the attack, his company was locked out of the facility for nearly two weeks and currently have limited hours to access the construction site. Dave estimates that this will result in cost increases of at least 10 to 15 percent, meaning he will take a loss on this contract. Such situations cannot go unresolved. Small businesses are far too important, not just to our national economy, but to our national defense as well. Small business are a vital component of our national supply chain and essential to our national security interests. This act was designed to mitigate bankruptcies, business closures, and layoffs related to the attacks. It also addresses the shrinking availability of credit and venture capital to small businesses through traditional lenders and investors, which has been exacerbated by the attacks. It includes changes in SBA's main non-disaster lending and venture capital programs in order to encourage borrowing and lending for new and expanding small businesses that might otherwise be reluctant to start or expand their businesses in the post-September 11 economy. This legislation addresses three categories of small businesses: One, small businesses directly affected because they are physically located in or near the buildings or areas attacked or closed for security measures, or are located in national airports. For example, a brokerage firm located in one of the World Trade Center Towers or an independent souvenir shop in the Reagan National Airport or the Miami International Airport. These businesses will be eligible for SBA's economic injury disaster loans, under more favorable terms, such as deferring the payments and forgiving the interest on these loans for two years, as well as increasing the loan caps and extending the deadline for applying for disaster loans to one year. Small businesses not physically damaged or destroyed or in the vicinity of such businesses, but directly or indirectly affected because they are a supplier, service provider or complementary industry, especially the financial, hospitality, travel and tour industries. For example, a tour company in Hawaii or Rhode Island that has had hardly any sales since the attacks because the average occupancy at its client hotels has dropped to 10 percent. These businesses are eligible for 7(a) loans, tailored to be easier to qualify for, to have lower interest rates, and to offer the option of deferring the principal payments for 1 year. Small businesses in need of capital and investment financing, procurement assistance or management counseling in the economic aftermath of September 11. These businesses will have access to a variety of SBA's programs with incentive features, such as waiving the borrower's fee for a regular 7(a) loan for working capital or a 504 loan to buy equipment to increase productivity and beat the competition, or cut energy consumption and utility costs. Mr. President, history has taught us that, during an economic down turn, lenders become increasingly reluctant to lend to small businesses. From our contact with lenders, we know loan committees decided days after the attacks to clamp down on loans to small businesses. And to make matters worse, lenders are already calling in existing loans. One example is a woman who owns a manufacturing businesses in Quincy, MA, whose bank called her loan and credit line. She's never missed a payment. Where is she going to come up with more than $1 million? If her business closes, 40 jobs are lost, her contribution to the tax base is lost, and she's out of a job. It is critical to keep credit available to small businesses. In addition to getting credit into the hands of small businesses, it is important to make sure they have access to counseling and training to run their businesses better, deal with the volatile market, and adjust to the changing times. Providing access to such counseling helps protect our investment in their loans because a stronger business is more likely to repay its loans. This legislation increases funding for the Small Business Development Centers, with an emphasis on New York and Virginia, as well as the volunteer Service Corps of Retired Executives, the Women's Business Centers, and SBA's microlending experts. To help alleviate the unfortunate situations related to delayed Federal contracts, my legislation includes provisions to help expedite the claims of small business contractors applying for equitable adjustments to their contracts. The goal of this provision, simply, is to help offset the unanticipated and temporary costs of the increased security at Federal Government facilities. Additionally, it establishes a $100 million fund under the control of the Small Business Administration to ensure that no contracting agency has to pay out of previously allocated funds the increased costs of existing contracts because of the security measures implemented as a result of the September 11th attacks. I have confidence in our economy. The attacks may have arrested one of our financial centers momentarily and robbed families and businesses of thousands of brilliant and hard-working folks who helped make our country prosperous, but our economic foundation is strong. We have world-class universities, we have a great work force made up of people with an amazing work ethic, our banks are strong, we have a reliable infrastructure for communications, energy and transport, and the dollar is holding up. Now is not the time to pull back on investing in our economy, particularly in small-business development and growth. The SBA is doing a good job with the tools it has, but we need to improve those tools and give SBA more resources to deal with the scope of the problems faced by small businesses in the aftermath of September 11th. This legislation does just that. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and the Senate to act quickly so that this emergency help is available very soon. Mr. President, Senator Akaka could not be present to voice his support for this bill and concern for the small businesses in Hawaii, so I ask unanimous consent that his statement be included in the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that a letter of support and the bill be printed in the Record. In addition to this legislation that I am introducing today, there are a series of tax items that we believe fall into the category of stimulus, but they are not within the jurisdiction of our committee. As a member of the Finance Committee, I am going to encourage our committee to embrace these. One would be an increase in expensing, so that you can deduct an expense up to $24,000 of the cost of qualifying property; and we would encourage that increase and expensing to encourage greater business investment, and we want that expensing allowance increased to a higher amount. In addition, I have several times introduced--and I will reintroduce--a zero capital gains tax for those companies with capitalization up to $200 million or $300 million in new capitalization in the critical technologies or entrepreneurial businesses, where we would most respond to the creation of the high-value-added jobs or some of the technology fixes that will exist for security, for instance, or for national defense and other things that we need to do with respect to the battle against terrorism. Third would be changes in depreciation. There are a number of proposals for changes to depreciation rules. We would support some, such as changing the depreciation schedule for computer hardware from 5 years to 3, software from 3 years to 2, or several other proposals. Mr. President, there are a number of these tax proposals which the Small Business Committee will refer to the Finance Committee and to our colleagues with hopes that we can embrace them as a component of the stimulus package because they will have a stimulus effect and a long-term beneficial effect on our economy. Small businesses, as we all know, small businesses represent 99 percent of all employers, provide 75 percent of all net new jobs and contribute significantly to our economy. Every single company on the stock exchange today began as a small business. Some of them, such as Callaway Golf, Federal Express, Intel, and many others, got help through the Small Business Administration's loans or venture capital. The Federal Government helped provide the impetus for those companies. We have many times over repaid the Federal Treasury the entire budget of the Small Business Administration and its lending programs through the taxes paid by the success stories of our investments. I encourage my colleagues to embrace this emergency relief act, the American Small Business Emergency Relief and Recovery Act, and these emergency tax measures, as a way of encouraging further business growth and development. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from the National Community Reinvestment Corporation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, as one of the original authors and cosponsors of the Aviation Security Act, I take a moment to underscore where the Senate finds itself at this moment, which I find distressing and deeply frustrating and less than an adequate response to the compelling requests made by the President of the United States a few days ago in a joint session of Congress. Only a few days ago, the Senate came together with the House to listen to the President describe a war, to describe the most compelling circumstances this Nation has faced certainly since Pearl Harbor, and perhaps in its history in the context of the nature of the attack on New York City and the Pentagon. There is a danger in raising the level of rhetoric and not meeting it with the actions that the American public understand are required of a nation facing urgent circumstances. It is extraordinary to me that the Senate is in gridlock. That is where we are, essentially, stopped cold in our capacity, not just to do the Airport Security Act and let the Senate vote its will, whatever that may be--I don't know what the outcome will be--but let the democratic process of the Senate work, Rather than trying to hold it up completely, to subject it to some kind of prenegotiation that appears to be impossible when we even have meetings canceled and there is no negotiating going on. We tried to go forward on the foreign ops bill. I cannot think of a bill, second to the Department of Defense authorization we just passed a few days ago, that is more important in the context of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. But we are not even permitted to proceed forward with that because, essentially, once again politics and ideology are rearing their heads with a stubbornness that suggests that a few Members of the Senate are unwilling to allow the entire Senate to work its will. What an incredible display at a time when the world is watching the greatest deliberative body, and the greatest nation on the face of this planet with its democracy, try to work effectively to respond to these needs. What is even more incredible to me is that common sense tells us what the realities are with respect to airport security and, I might add, rail security in this country. We woke up this morning to the news that an airliner apparently has exploded and gone down over the Black Sea, a Russian airliner. We do not know yet to a certainty that it is terrorism, but we do know the early indicators of an eye witness report from the pilot in another aircraft is that he saw it explode and saw it disintegrate and go down into the sea. And Russian President Putin has said it appears as if there is some act of terrorism. Leaving that aside, we have promised the American people we are going to provide them, not with a level of security, not with some sort of half-breed sense that we have arrived at a notion of what is acceptable, but we are going to provide the best security, the fullest level of security we are capable of imagining, that is well within the reach of this country and well within our capacity to afford. I might add, what we are suggesting we want to provide to Americans, in terms of security, they have already suggested they are willing to pay for several times over. This is not a question of cost. It is not a question of our inability to afford this. It is a question of politics, ideology. We have some in the Senate who do not like the idea that there might be more Federal employees, that there might be more people who might join a union even, that there might be more people who somehow might not have their political point of view but who nevertheless might perform an important function for our country. When I was in the military, what I learned about, sort of a hierarchy and about authority and about training and management, is that there is a brilliant effectiveness to the chain of command and to the manner in which a Federal entity is organized or a law enforcement entity is organized. I do not think anybody in this body would suggest we ought to be contracting out the responsibilities of the Border Patrol, or contracting out the responsibilities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or contracting out the security of the Capitol, the security of the White House, or the security of a number of other efforts. But they are prepared to contract out to the lowest bidder, with unskilled workers, the security of Americans flying, notwithstanding everything we have learned. That is just unacceptable. It is unacceptable. I hear all kinds of excuses being made: There are transition problems; you might have contractors quit in the meantime. First of all, at a time of high unemployment and rising unemployment, I think common sense would tell us most of those contractors would leap at the opportunity to have a better-paid job and to get more training and they will stick on the job because they will be part of an important security corps of the United States of America and they would want to be part of that. And, incidentally, they would want to be part of it because they would then have the possibility of having benefits they do not get today, which is one of the reasons we have employees, notwithstanding all of their best efforts and all of their best intentions, who are, many of them, simply not fully enough trained or prepared to do the job they are being asked to do. It is not their fault, but it is the nature of the pay scale. If you were to compare the difference between the civilian nuclear industry and the military nuclear industry--i.e., the U.S. Navy on ships--we have not had major incidents on ships of the U.S. Navy. We have had Navy ships running nuclear reactors, and highly successfully, for years now: Submarines, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and others. But the military has an unlimited human personnel capacity for redundancy, for certitude in the human checks, and therefore is capable of providing a kind of safety net that you cannot provide in the private sector because the private sector is always thinking about the shareholders, the return on investment, the cashflow, and the capacity to do it. So you do not get that kind of redundancy often unless it is required. The same thing is true of the checking of the security process of people boarding aircraft. Moreover, we have now learned that this is something more than just a job, significantly more than just a job. It is part of the national security framework of our country. It is the way in which we will prevent a plane from being used as a bomb or a plane from simply being blown up, or passengers from being terrorized in some form or another. Passengers deserve the greatest sense of safety in traveling. For those who are concerned about the economy, there is not one of us who has not been visited in the last weeks by members of the auto rental industry, restaurant industry, travel industry, hotels, and countless mayors who are concerned about the flow of tourist traffic to their cities. We need to get Americans to believe in the level of safety that their Government is providing for them. It is extraordinary to me. We have been through this period of time where government has been so denigrated. We have had a long debate in this Senate with people arguing so forcefully the adage: It is not the Government's money, it is your money and you deserve a refund. But at the same time, you know, they are incapable of doing without the very people who have put on displays of courage that have been absolutely extraordinary over these last week. That was government people, paid by government money, who ran into those buildings to save lives in New York. It has been government people paid by government money who have saved so many people in the course of these weeks. It has been government people paid by government money who organized and managed people who have been homeless, people who searched for their loved ones, people who needed some kind of comfort. It has been a government display, if you will, of the effectiveness of money well spent when we invest it properly. The same thing is true of airport security. I want to just highlight the differences between what is being proposed by those of us who think we need to have a Federal structure versus what the administration has currently offered. With respect to turnover, we raise the wages. We raise the wages to a level that would put the employees on a Federal civil pay scale. That means you will attract more qualified people and you will have a right to be able to raise the standards and raise the demands of performance, which is precisely what the American people want. Under the administration's current proposal, they will only increase the wages and benefits if the legislation specifically mandates a living wage and health benefits for the employees. So there is no demand that the wages be raised. They want to leave it to the lowest bid process unless somehow there is a specific statement to the contrary. With respect to training, we create a stepped scale based on management responsibilities and seniority so there is an incentive within the structure for people to assume management responsibilities, to become supervisors and to actually supervise with something more than 3 months on the job. Currently the turnover rate at Atlanta airport, Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, is 400 percent. The turnover in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles ranges between 100 percent and 200 percent, 300 percent --extraordinary turnover rates. You can't expect somebody to be on the job at low pay and be able to provide the kind of skill necessary to read the x-ray machine properly, to profile a person, to see suspect activity, or even to make the kind of personal searches necessary when that is needed. Under the administration's current offer, the wage scale and the management decisions are left to the low bid contractor. Secretary Mineta was in front of our committee just the other day. I asked him specifically: Mr. Secretary, isn't it true that all of these companies are basically in a position where they take on the lowest bid, and it is a bid process that encourages low bids so that they can survive? He said yes. Jane Garvey said yes. That is precisely what the current proposal will continue. It is simply impossible to build more rail, or gain the kind of efficiency, or gain the kind of accountability and manage this process effectively if we are not prepared to have a Federal civil service structure for these employees. I might add that while the Europeans have a slightly amalgamated system, they have wage laws and they have labor laws that we do not have that guarantee the kind of pay structures and accountability structures which we are seeking in our approach. While there is a distinction, it is really a distinction without a difference because in the end they have achieved the kind of Federal vision and the kind of employee quality which they have been able to attract as a consequence of the ingredients they put together. For instance, Belgium has an hourly pay of $14 to $15, they have health benefits, and they have a turnover rate of less than 4 percent. The Netherlands: $7.50 an hour; England $8 an hour; in France, they receive an extra month's pay for each 12 months of work, and less than a 50-percent turnover rate plus health benefits. We are looking at an extraordinary difference between what European countries are able to do as they face these kinds of terrorism, and they have much stricter standards than we have for a longer period of time. It is imperative that we in the Senate get about the business of responding properly to the demands we face with respect to the security of our airports. It seems to me that the transitional issues are easy to work out. It is certainly, first of all, normal to assume that those people who are under contract now will still be under contract. If they breach it, I think the full wrath of the Government and the American people would be ready to come down on them, not to mention the lawsuits for breach of contract, and not to mention the loss of jobs for all the employees. Those transitional problems that are being conjured up simply don't hold up to scrutiny. The American public knows that if we had a Federal civil service corps which we could put under homeland defense, or where we could put it under the Defense Department, if the Department of Transportation is uncomfortable with it, what better an area for the security of our airports? There is no distinction between providing security for our borders with the Border Patrol on the ground and providing security for our air traffic and for those people who fly through the air across those borders. It is the same concept. I think most people in the country understand that. I hope the Senate is going to quickly get enough business of paying attention to this issue and resolving it today. It has been 3 weeks now. One would have thought this would have been one of the first things we would have done almost by edict and that it would have initially been on the table. We have seen the extraordinary process of sort of back and forth going on now as to whether or not we ought to do it. I don't think this enters into the realm of politics. I don't think security has a label of Democrat or Republican on it. It has a common sense label. What is the best way to guarantee that you are going to have security in an airport? If you have a whole bunch of different companies, each of which bid, even if you have the Federal standards, even if you have Federal supervision, they are hired by private sector entities. They belong in one airport to one group and in another airport to another group. You don't get the esprit de corps. You don't get the horizontal and vertical accountability and management that you get by having the civil service standard. That is why we have an INS. That is why we have a Border Patrol. That is why we have an ATF. That is why we have all of these other entities that are either State or Federal law enforcement entities, because they guarantee the capacity of the chain of command, they guarantee accountability, they guarantee the training, and they guarantee ultimately that we will give the American people the security they need. I want to add one other thing. It is not on this bill. I think we have to pass this bill rapidly. There is a whole different group within the Senate who, because of their opposition to trains, Amtrak, ports and so forth, somehow have a cloudy view of what we may need to do to provide security for our rails. But there is absolutely no distinction whatsoever between those who get on an airplane and travel and those who get on a train and travel. In point of fact, there are more people in a tunnel at one time on two trains passing in that tunnel than there are on several 747s in the sky at the same moment--thousands of people. We have already seen what a fire in a tunnel can do in Baltimore. We have tunnels up and down the east coast. We have bridges. All of these, if we are indeed facing the kind of long-term threat that people have talked about--and we believe we are--need to have adequate security. I was recently abroad, and I got on a train. I went through the exact same security procedures to get on that train as I do in an airport under the strictest examination--interview, examination of ID, and thorough inspection and screening of your bags. You can walk down to Union Station, go to any train station in America, and pile on with a bag. You can get off at any station and leave your bag on the train. Nobody will know the difference. We have an absolute responsibility in the Senate to be rapid in resolving this question of train security just as we are trying to resolve this question of airline security. A lot of these ideas have been around for a long time. We have always had the ugly head of bureaucracy raising its objections for one reason or another against common sense. We are not even looking for the amount of money that almost every poll in the country has said the American people are prepared to spend. Ask anybody. Ask any of the families in New York, or in Washington, or any part of this country who suffered a loss on September 11, what they would be willing to pay on any ticket to guarantee that they knew their loved ones were safe. We are talking about a few dollars per ticket to be able to guarantee that we have the strongest capacity and never again have an incident in the air, certainly because we weren't prepared to do what was necessary. There is no more urgent business before the Senate today. I hope the Senate will quickly restore itself as it was in the last few weeks to be able to discard ideology, discard politics, and discard sort of the baggage of past years to be able to find the unity and the common sense that have guided us these days and which have made the Nation proud. We need to do what provides the greatest level of security in our country, and that means a Federal system of screeners, and most of those people responsible for access to our aircraft and other forms of travel. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I will yield for a question. I need to move off the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to my colleague, I certainly have respect for and appreciate his concern about a local industry, but I think, as I said to Senator Hutchinson, this is a matter of labeling, it is a matter of regulatory process. It is not a question of whether or not you improve the overall agreement. I also say to my colleague-- he may not be aware of it--obviously, the People's Army Daily, the Army, are the hardliners. And there is a struggle going on in Vietnam between the reformers and the hardliners, as there are in many countries that are trying to deal with this kind of process of change. That statement by the Army colonel is not representative of the Government. I would like to share with all my colleagues that the President of Vietnam, the very next day after the terrorist attack, sent this message to the United States: The government and people of Vietnam were shocked by the tragedy that happened on the morning of 11 September 2001. We would like to convey to the government and people of the United States, especially the victims' families, our profound condolences. Consistently, Vietnam protests against terrorist acts that bring deaths and sufferings to civilians. This is the comment I received from the Foreign Minister: Your Excellency Mr. Senator, I was extremely shocked and deeply moved by the tragedy happening in the United States on the 11 September 2001 morning. I would like to extend to you, and through you, to the families of the victims, my deepest condolences. I am confident that the U.S. Government and people will soon overcome this difficult moment. We strongly condemn the terrorist attack and are willing to work closely with the United States and other countries in the fight against terrorist acts. This is a media report from the German press, Deutsche Presse. This is from Hanoi: American businesspeople, aid workers, and embassy officials said Wednesday they have been overwhelmed with the amount of support and sympathy offered by Vietnamese over last week's devastating terrorist attacks in the United States. While Vietnam's normally reserved state media has confined its expressions of sorrow to an announcement by President Duc Luong, personal reactions by Vietnamese have been deep and heartfelt. ``There has been a real outpouring of sympathy,'' said a spokesman at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh city, the former Saigon. Bouquets of flowers were left at the building's entrance, while locals and expatriates lined up last week to sign a condolence book. Similar acts were played out at the embassy in Hanoi where senior Vietnamese officials and contacts paid their respects. There have been reports of some U.S. firms receiving donations from Vietnamese for families of the victims in the United States. So I really think we have to recognize that the transition for the military is obviously slower and far more complicated, as it is with the People's Liberation Army in China, versus what the leadership is trying to do as they bring their own country along. I really think we need to take recognition of these facts. The fact is, there is participation in religious activities in Vietnam that continues to grow. Churches are full. I have been to church in Vietnam. They are full on days of worship and days of remembrance. Is it more controlled than we would like it? Yes. Has it changed. Yes? Is it continuing to change? Yes. I think we should also recognize that last year some 500 cases were adjudicated by labor courts. And there were 72 strikes last year, and more than 450 strikes in Vietnam since 1993. So even within the labor movement there has been an increasing empowerment of workers, and there has been change. Are things in Vietnam as we would want them to be tomorrow? The answer is no. But have they made progress well beyond other countries with whom we trade? You bet they have. Is their human rights record even better than the Chinese? Yes, it is. We need to take cognizance of these things. Let me correct one statement of the Senator from New Hampshire. I am not alone in objecting to this particular attempt to try to bring the human rights bill to the floor in conjunction with action on the trade agreement. I am for having a human rights statement at the appropriate time. This is not the appropriate time. There are Senators on both sides of the aisle and a broad-based group of Senators who believe this is not the moment and the place for this particular separate piece of legislation. At some point in the future, we would be happy to consider it under the normal legislative process. I respect the comments of the Senator, but I hope we will take notice of the official recognition that has come from Vietnam with respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, October 3, 2001, at 9:30 a.m., in Dirksen 226. Tentative Witness List [Invited]: United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC; Mr. Jerry Berman, Executive Director, Center for Democracy & Technology, Washington, DC; Professor David D. Cole, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC; Dr. Morton H. Halperin, Chair, Advisory Board, Center for National Security Studies, Washington, DC; Dean Douglas W. Kmiec, Dean and St. Thomas More Professor, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; Professor John O. McGinnis, Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, New York, NY; Mr. Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform, Washington, DC.