Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending business for the purpose of offering an amendment.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Montana and suggest that never, ever has the Montana fight song been read quite like it was just read on the Senate floor. Amendment No. 2758

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, since the sponsor of the legislation wishes to get on with the conclusion of business tonight, I will simply say this amendment, which I hope will be considered at the beginning of next week, calls for the permanent repeal of the death tax. As all of our colleagues know, we did repeal the death tax after phasing it down over a period of years, but the repeal only lasts for 1 year before that legislation is sunsetted, and we go right back after 10 years to the death tax as it currently exists. I do not think any of us who voted for its repeal really intended that effect. We want to make its repeal permanent, and this amendment will do that. We will have the opportunity to vote on that next week as part of the stimulus package. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, a recent article in the Far Eastern Economic Review on China's use of foreign technology to modernize its military explains the far-reaching impact of China's purchase of foreign technology on that country's military capabilities. For example, it describes Rolls Royce's recent sale to China of 90 Spey jet engines, some of which will likely be used for the Chinese military's JH-7 fighter bombers. The technology used in these engines is admittedly dated; but some are concerned that the sale may represent the beginning of a larger relationship between Rolls Royce and China. The article also details China's growing reliance on Russian-designed aircraft, missiles, and navy destroyers and submarines. A February 2001 article in Jane's Intelligence Review described the relationship further, stating: Between 1991 and 1996 Russia sold China an estimated $1 billion worth of military weapons and related technologies each year. That figure doubled by 1997. In 1999 the two governments increased the military assistance package for a second time. There is now a five-year program (until 2004) planning $20 billion worth of technology transfers. Perhaps of even greater concern is that, according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, the United States approved $15 billion in ``strategically sensitive exports'' to China during the 1990s. These exports included equipment that can be used to design nuclear weapons, build nuclear weapons components, improve missile designs, and build missile components. And it is important to remember China's primary objective in acquiring these and other military technologies, to be able to defeat our long-standing, democratic ally Taiwan in a conflict quickly enough to prevent American military intervention. Last September, the Senate passed S. 149, the Export Administration Act of 2001. S. 149 was approved despite serious concerns of some, including myself, that the U.S. export control process is ineffective in stopping the export of militarily sensitive technologies to countries, like China, that pose a potential military threat to the United States or to U.S. interests abroad. S. 149, if enacted into law, would allow China to import even more sensitive technology than it has in the past. It would decontrol a number of dual-use technologies, including items used to make nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. I urge my colleagues to take a moment to read the Far Eastern Economic Review article, and to consider the impact on China's military capabilities of foreign technology purchases and, more importantly, the potential long-term ramifications of further weakening the U.S. export control process. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask that I be allowed to speak in morning business for a period of 25 minutes.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, tomorrow evening President Bush will be giving his State of the Union speech. He will undoubtedly review the actions of the past year and talk about his plans for this current year. It seems to me appropriate to focus a little bit on what I believe is one of the most important decisions he made in the last year and to reflect a little bit upon what that decision will mean for the United States in the years to come. It was made at a time when Congress was not in session and the country, frankly, was primarily thinking about the Christmas season. There was not a lot of media attention paid to the decision. For reasons I will discuss in some subsequent speeches, it seems to me one of the most fundamental and important decisions of any President in recent years and certainly of President Bush during his first term. I refer to his decision on behalf of the United States to give notice to Russia of the withdrawal of the United States from the 1972 ABM Treaty. As I said, I am going to discuss different aspects of this decision in some subsequent remarks. For example, I will discuss the President's legal authority to withdraw. Some have suggested action by the Senate should take place or that somehow the President doesn't necessarily have the authority to withdraw from the treaty. That is not true; he does. I will be discussing that. I also want to address in subsequent remarks how I think this decision changes the geopolitical relationships and, frankly, reflects a 21st century view of the world, especially the relationship between the United States on one hand and Russia on the other hand, a view far different from that of the adversarial cold war relationship between the two superpowers, and how this ABM decision is probably the most dramatic recognition of that new relationship. I will discuss what that means both in terms of the relationship between the two countries in the future but also what it means in terms of a change in the direction of the philosophy of this country with respect to national security issues, especially how it relates to the question of how we protect ourselves. Is it through a combination of ideas that are premised on peace through strength, going back to the Reagan days, or more of a focus on arms control agreements, reflecting more of the Clinton administration view? Clearly, the Bush administration has decided defending the United States depends first and foremost upon our ability to defend ourselves through missile defense, for example, and less on arms control agreements. I will be discussing what I think are the important ramifications of that decision. Today, I will first of all commend the President for his decision, made on December 13 of last year, of the intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and, secondly, discuss the reasons I believe this was the right decision for the President to make. Let me note those two reasons in summary. It is highly questionable whether the ABM Treaty ever served U.S. interests. It did not stop an arms race, its purpose, as proponents claims. It was the product of a bipolar international structure, as I said before, that no longer exists and no longer reflects the relationship we should have with Russia as a result. It remains a serious obstacle to U.S. ability to defend itself against the long- range threat of ballistic missiles. The President's decision was a necessary step forward in addressing that threat. The future national security of the United States requires the construction of ballistic missile defenses that were flatly prohibited by the treaty. Let me discuss those items in turn. First, with respect to the purpose of the treaty, the premise of the ABM Treaty back in 1972 was that if neither the United States nor the Soviet Union took steps to protect itself against a devastating nuclear strike, then both nations would feel confident in their ability to retaliate against each other, secure in the knowledge that each possessed that capability, and neither would find it necessary to increase the size of their nuclear arsenals. An accompanying agreement, SALT I, was intended to limit the size and shape of the arsenals in order to enhance strategic stability. Proponents of the ABM Treaty--and their numbers are many --have for the 30 years or so since the treaty's ratification considered it the cornerstone of strategic stability. They view the treaty not just as the guiding document in United States-Soviet and now United States-Russian relations but as the principal constraint on all countries considering developing missile forces with which to threaten neighbors and argue that the absence unleashes a destabilizing arms buildup around the world, including in Russia. Well, what of this? The central premise of the ABM Treaty, that the United States and Soviet nuclear arsenals would be restrained by the absence of missile defenses, is refuted through the simplest quantitative analysis. In the 15 years since the treaty's ratification, the number of strategic ballistic missile warheads in the inventory of the Soviet Union grew from around 2,000 to 10,000. The U.S. level grew from around 3,700 in 1972 to about 8,000 in 1987. In fact, strategic nuclear forces expanded not just quantitatively but qualitatively as well. The decade following the ABM Treaty signing witnessed introduction into the Soviet arsenal of entire generations of new long-range missiles, not just in contradiction to the intent of the ABM Treaty but in contravention of the accompanying SALT I accord as well. The post-cold-war picture similarly argues against the treaty's effectiveness at restraining offensive forces. China has been exceedingly belligerent in its use of warlike rhetoric targeted against the concept of a regional missile defense plan encompassing the island of Taiwan. Yet in the absence of missile defenses, it has been deploying missiles opposite Taiwan at the rate of 50 a year. China made the decision and embarked on a modernization of its long-range missile force targeted against the United States long before the United States made a decision to deploy missile defense systems. Similarly, India and Pakistan missile developments which, combined with each country's nuclear weapons programs, create the most dangerous region on Earth right now, occur without reference to missile defenses. And of course missile programs of countries such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea have been restrained at times by technological factors but never by the presence of missile defenses in countries they might target. The point is that missile forces are not a response to missile defenses. They are the result of national perceptions of threat and political and military requirements. As the new National Intelligence Estimate on foreign ballistic missiles states: The ballistic missile remains a central element in the military arsenals of nations around the globe and almost certainly will retain this status over the next 15 years. In other words, ballistic missiles are not being built as a result of missile defenses being built. Those missile forces are already occurring, are already being built, and it is the defenses which now need to restrain them. Another point: The bipolar world structure that I referred to no longer exists. The problem of proliferation here has to be addressed. The ABM Treaty was negotiated between two countries, one of which no longer exists. At its signing, little consideration was given to a post-Cold War world. The developments of the late 1980s and early 1990s were simply not foreseen. Nuclear and missile proliferation, while certainly acknowledged as issues, took a backseat in the two superpowers' thinking to direct bipolar considerations back in 1972. Proliferation is today, however, one of our principal national security challenges. Roughly two dozen countries have or are developing ballistic missiles. These weapons have also become a common feature of modern warfare. Used but once between 1945 and 1980, thousands of ballistic missiles have been fired in at least six conflicts since 1980, and their range and sophistication are growing. In fact, despite the promised reductions in Russian strategic forces, the threat from other countries seeking to target the United States with long-range missiles has grown since the end of the Cold War. Let me give some examples of this trend: China is actively modernizing and expanding its long-range missile force. The newly released National Intelligence Estimate states that, by 2015, ``the total number of Chinese strategic warheads will rise several-fold.'' Despite difficulties it has experienced in developing its Shahab-3 medium-range missile--and it should be pointed out that all countries, including the United States, experience developmental problems with new missile programs--Iran continues to place much emphasis on its missile activities. With considerable Russian assistance, it is developing missiles capable of striking Central Europe. The new NIE concludes that ``Teheran's longstanding commitment to its ballistic missile programs . . . is unlikely to diminish.'' Iraq is believed to covertly possess a stockpile of banned missiles. While Iraq's missile programs have been constrained by sanctions in effect since the Persian Gulf War, the gradual but steady erosion of those sanctions could result in its being able to reconstitute its long-range missile programs. Iraq's ability to surprise us in the past with the scale of its missile and nuclear, chemical and biological programs should serve as a warning of what can happen should the sanctions regime collapse completely. North Korea has extended its moratorium on testing its intercontinental-range Taepo-dong missiles, but its surprise August 1998 test flight over Japan of one such missile should similarly temper any enthusiasm about that regime's capabilities and intentions. The National Intelligence Estimate pointed out that North Korea has not abandoned the the Taepo-dong 2, and that it could reappear ``as a [space-launch vehicle] with a third stage to place a small payload into the same orbit the North Koreans tried to achieve in 1998.'' If the National Intelligence Estimate is nebulous in its description of the threat to the continental United States of long-range ballistic missiles, it is emphatic in its description of the threat from shorter- range missiles: The probability that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be used against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most of the Cold War, and it will continue to grow as the capabilities of potential adversaries mature . . . (T)he missile threat will continue to grow, in part because missiles have become important regional weapons in the arsenals of numerous countries. Moreover, missiles provide a level of prestige, coercive diplomacy, and deterrence that nonmissile means do not. What this tells us is that missiles remain an extremely important component of the arsenals of the very regimes that represent our greatest foreign policy challenges. Yet, the NIE suggests that the threat from medium-range missiles is not likely to be matched by a commensurate threat from long-range missiles in the next 15 years, in spite of the fact that the very same arguments for medium-range missiles exists in the case of longer-range ones. Fortunately, we have today a Secretary of Defense who understands intimately the weaknesses of intelligence estimates that seek to predict foreign technological developments. As chairman of the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld led an effort to assess the threat of foreign ballistic missiles and the ability of the intelligence community to accurately estimate the scale of that threat. The commission's unanimous conclusion was that the missile threat to the United States ``is broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has been reported in estimates and reports by the intelligence community,'' and a rogue nation could acquire the capability to strike the United States with a ballistic missile in as little as 5 years. That analysis was accepted by the Congress, by the President, and by a majority of the intelligence community. The Rumsfeld Commission turned out to be more prescient than anybody anticipated. Within months of the completion of its report, North Korea shocked the intelligence community with its launch of the Taepo-dong. Indeed, for all of its successes--and they have been both numerous and vital to our security--it does not disgrace the intelligence community to point out that either it or its political overseers have, at times, missed important developments. A recent article in Jane's Intelligence Review describes the three times during the 1990s that North Korea alone surprised the United States within the realm of missile programs: The first was in 1990 with the testing of the No-dong IRBM . . . The second surprise was in 1994, when aerial photographs revealed mock-ups of two new two-stage ballistic missiles, named Taepo-dong 1 and 2. The third surprise came in August 1998 with the test launch of Taepo-dong 1. . . . President Bush recognized the changed post-Cold War security environment typified by the ballistic missile programs of numerous real or potentially hostile countries, when he stated in his December 13 announcement of his intent to withdraw the United States from the ABM Treaty: . . . as the events of September the 11th made all too clear, the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction. The President's announcement was the culmination of a period of negotiations intended to convince Russia of the need to amend or scrap an outdated treaty. He did this because he believes that the appropriate response to the threat from foreign missile programs must include defenses against those missiles, and that the ABM Treaty prevents the United States from developing and deploying those defenses. What of that latter point? Some have argued maybe we could stretch our research time and testing time and still not be in direct violation of the treaty. In fact, the previous administration sought to deal with the threat of ballistic missile attack primarily by relying on treaties or agreements as articulated in 1994 by Under Secretary of State John Holum: The Clinton Administration's policy aims to protect us first and foremost through arms control--by working hard to prevent new threats--and second, by legally pursuing the development of theater defenses for those cases where arms control is not yet successful. Arms control, first and foremost; only secondarily by pursuing the development--not deployment--of theater defenses, not defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles, and only in those cases where arms control is not yet successful. That is an entirely different paradigm, that we can rely upon arms control to protect the people of the United States. There are no arms control agreements with rogue states, and they don't prevent nuclear blackmail. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice noted this problem in her July 13 speech before the National Press Club: We must deal with today's world and today's threats, including weapons of mass destruction and missiles in the hands of states that would blackmail us from coming to the aid of friends and allies. Nor do I think it is a good idea to rely principally on deterrence. One problem with deterrence is that it does fail. We acknowledge that fact when applied regionally. We support the Israeli Arrow missile program because we know that Israel's adversaries may not be deterred by threat of retaliation. In fact, in the case of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, such retaliation was invited. When the subject becomes the safety of American cities, however, such acknowledgements disappear. The fact remains, though, that deterrence does fail, and we ought not be left with massive retaliation as the only response to an attack on the United States. It has always been of concern to me that we would rely on deterrence against a largely innocent population of a country headed by a tyrant. The best deterrence is the ability to defeat an attack. The principal impediment to our ability to develop the means to actually defend against missile attack is not technology. It is the ABM Treaty, as I said before. As the President stated in his December 13 announcement: We must have the freedom and the flexibility to develop effective defenses against those attacks. Defending the American people is my highest priority as Commander in Chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses. Despite the failure of the ABM Treaty to slow the growth in nuclear arms, it was remarkably successfully at preventing the development of missile defenses. We cannot develop, let alone deploy, a national missile defense system under the constraints of the ABM Treaty. That was its whole purpose. But times have changed, and, as the President has pointed out, the treaty has become an unacceptable restraint on our ability to defend ourselves against the threat of ballistic missile attack. To repeat, we cannot develop, let alone deploy, a national missile defense system under the constraints of the ABM Treaty. Both its letter and its intent are very clear on this point. Let me just take a moment to explain why. Article I, Section 2, states: Each Party undertakes not to deploy ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its country and not to provide a base for such a defense, and not to deploy ABM systems for an individual region except as provided for in Article III of this treaty. Additionally, under the terms of the treaty, specifically Article III, we can only build one treaty-permissible site around either Washington, D.C., or around an ICBM field. The treaty prevents the defense of any other part of the United States. That is why the Fort Greely, AK, site under the terms of the treaty, cannot be an operational missile defense site. Critics of the President argue that the decision to withdraw from the treaty is premature, and that the treaty does not really prevent the development of the capability to build a nationwide defense. For example: The Union of Concerned Scientists concludes, on the basis of its own examination of the issue, that ``there is no compelling reason for the United States to withdraw from the ABM Treaty for at least the next several years.'' One of our colleagues from the State of Florida, Senator Nelson, stated at a hearing in June: We need, for the sake of defense of our country, to proceed with robust research and development, but you can't deploy something that's not developed. The fact is, we cannot develop a nationwide system under the constraints of the ABM Treaty. That was the efficacious thing about the treaty: it effectively prevented the development of such a system. Furthermore, we cannot even research the kind of layered defense necessary to maximize the prospects of a successful intercept. Article V of the treaty states: Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space- based, or mobile land-based. Article VI states: Each Party undertakes not to give missiles, launchers, or radars, other than ABM interceptor missiles, ABM launchers, or ABM radars, capabilities to counter strategic ballistic missiles or their element in flight trajectory, and not to test them in an ABM mode. It is critical. That is why the Secretary of Defense was forced in October to alter the most recent missile-flight test. It would have violated the treaty had we used a U.S. Navy ship to track the target missile in flight--precisely, by the way, what we want to do in developing a successful missile defense system. Because the sea-based option remains among the most promising for a secure, flexible missile tracking capability, we should be actively integrating the AEGIS system into these flight tests, but under Articles V and VI of the treaty that is prohibited. Similarly, use of a Multiple Object Tracking Radar at Vandenberg Air Force Base, which was going to be used to track the target missile, is prohibited. An administration official was quoted in the Washington Post as noting: This shows that the ABM Treaty is already constraining us in a very material way. These are aspects of tests that we canceled, and they need to be done at some point. Similarly, how can we exploit the capabilities that may emerge from development of the Airborne Laser Program, a system designed to shoot down enemy missiles early in their ascent phase when they are larger and hotter and therefore easier to target? The Airborne Laser won't necessarily know whether it is shooting at a short-range missile, or one with intercontinental range. The former would be permissible under the treaty, but not the latter. In short, the treaty, as it was designed to do, prevents us from even developing let alone deploying a national missile defense system that exploits the most promising technologies. In conclusion, the ABM Treaty was signed in a vastly different strategic environment than exists today. It can hardly be said to have been a success during the cold war, the geopolitical context in which it was written. Today, it serves only to prevent us from addressing the post-cold war challenges that confront us from a number of other countries. A treaty that failed in a strictly bipolar structure to restrain nuclear weapons developments, it is even more ill-suited to the security environment of today's multipolar world. The President's decision to withdraw the United States from its provisions should be commended. We cannot predicate the defense of the American people on a theory of deterrence that assumes hostile regimes make decisions in the same manner as do we, and that leaves us vulnerable to a particular type of threat we know is on the horizon. We have a fundamental responsibility to the American public to defend it against all threats. The threat from the ballistic missile programs of foreign countries is real, and it can be expected to grow. We cannot address that threat within the confines of the ABM Treaty. The decision to move beyond it was the right decision, and I applaud President Bush's leadership on this issue of tremendous importance to all Americans. As I said, he probably will be too modest to address this much in his State of the Union speech tomorrow evening, but I believe it to be one of the most important decisions he made last year, and its ramifications will be felt and be defined by greater security for the American people for decades to come. I commend him for that decision. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, for over 200 years, our Nation has championed ideas and ideals that have placed us in harm's way. In certain parts of the world, our actions have at times made us the object of ridicule. But liberty, toleration, and the inalienable rights of the individual have been our strength, and that strength is undimmed by criticism of the United States. We stand legitimately for freedom; for us it is not a mere word employed in presidential speeches or diplomatic exchanges. The concept of ordered liberty has been the foundation of our national resolve, consecrated with the blood of our sons and daughters on many fields of battle across the world, and now, tragically, in the wreckage in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. I rise to call my colleagues' attention to a speech that the senior Senator from North Carolina delivered to the second annual Hillsdale College Churchill Dinner on December 5, 2001, which I will ask to be printed in the Record. This speech is a remarkably good statement of our national character and our national purpose, drawing as it does upon a wealth of knowledge and experience second to none. We need to hear from statesmen like Jesse Helms at a time like this. In his Hillsdale speech, he offers a powerful assessment of the state of affairs facing United States policy makers who must develop a strategy to combat forces that would seek to destroy us and our way of life. As Senator Helms so ably explains, this is a task that we have faced before. Though the names and the faces and even the tactics of our adversaries change, the threat to us is the same. We must confront this threat and we must defeat it. At the same time, Senator Helms admonishes us to remain vigilant of those world powers that maintain historic practices of hostility toward us, powers that are strengthening their war-making capacities, and that might well seek to lull us into a false sense of security as we pursue our campaign against the terrorist networks. The good Senator provides us with a thought-provoking analysis that is sobering, but also hopeful. He urges us, at a time when the geopolitical map of the world is in great flux, to remember and reaffirm, in all we do, the principles upon which America was founded. He remarks on how well we are bearing up under the worst assault we've sustained since Pearl Harbor. ``They thought that their attacks would frighten and divide us,'' writes Senator Helms. ``Instead, they have drawn us closer to God, and to each other.'' I highly commend to my colleagues this Churchillian call to unity. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Helms' speech be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I object and just note that I do so on behalf of the minority leader as well as myself. I note there is no intention to delay. If we could pass the bipartisan Centrist Coalition amendment and not have a point of order raised on that, we could have this done by this afternoon. So the object is not to delay. The object is to try to make sure we have a good bill.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to explain what I think is really going on. There is an old saying that if you let me define the terms of the debate, I will win the debate every time. That, I think, is what the majority leader and the assistant majority leader are trying to do today. They are suggesting, with a straight face, that the proposal is agreed to by both sides, so why should we not proceed with it and who would want to amend it? Well, it is not agreed to by both sides. Let us get back to the definition. Something that is called an agreement, that both sides have agreed to the provisions of, would seemingly be something that could pass very quickly, and that would not be amended. So why are those of us on this side of the aisle saying, ``Wait a minute, you are trying to hijack the President's stimulus package, redo it the way you want it, and still characterize it as something that we agree with?'' We do not agree with it. What happened is after September 11, whether the economy was beginning to improve by then or not, it was clear the events of September 11 were driving our economy down, especially in the travel and tourism area but all throughout the economy. Large and small businesses both were beginning to suffer. People stopped traveling. They did not invest as much. Businesses were not investing as much. The President very quickly called for a proposal that would stimulate the economy and protect and create new jobs. That was the essence of his proposal, to protect jobs and to create new jobs. In fact, he was able to put together a program and propose it on October 4 and 5, about 3 weeks after the September 11 event, and he called upon Congress to join him in this effort. Some of us on this side of the aisle were urging the President to propose certain things we thought would be very effective in stimulating the economy, and the President said no. He said that while he agreed with us that cutting the capital gains tax and making the tax cuts permanent and doing things of that sort would really help to stimulate the economy and protect jobs, he was not going to propose that in his package because now that we are in a time of war, he believed that he had to act in a bipartisan way to promote unity among our leaders in Washington, and to get both Democrats and Republicans to quickly agree on a package we can pass in Congress and he could sign into law. That is what is needed for the American people. He said, I am going to propose a package that includes a few of the things that Republicans think are good ideas to stimulate the economy and a few of the things our friends on the Democratic side believe should be in such a package, and I will present that in a bipartisan way. He did that on October 4 and 5. There were ideas that represented the main themes of both political parties. Republicans had primarily asked for a repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax, acceleration of all marginal income tax reductions, and accelerated enhanced depreciation. Those were the kinds of things that Alan Greenspan and others who came before our Finance Committee said would help stimulate the economy and get over what he defined as an ``investment recession.'' In other words, businesses were not doing enough to make capital expenditures. These kinds of provisions would help provide the incentive for those capital expenditures. Democrats had called for other things: Payments to nontaxpayers who were not part of the rebate program from the original tax cuts of 2001, an extension of unemployment insurance, and grants to States for health benefits for displaced workers. The President said: I will take those three components that our Democratic friends supported, I will take the three components that some Democrats and Republicans support, and I will put them together in a bipartisan bill in the hope we can quickly, in a unified, bipartisan way, enact this package for the benefit of all Americans. By the way, the House quickly passed a version of what the President proposed, but not exactly what he proposed. The majority leader in the Senate said no. Let me fast forward, before going through the rest of the history, what the majority leader and the assistant majority leader have talked about this morning, something they call a lowest common denominator package, something to which both sides agree. They have defined it that way. What they have done is take the things from the President's original proposal that they wanted and said: We agree to those, so that is our package. By the way, we will take one of the things the President wanted and stick it in there. That means we have a bipartisan, lowest common denominator package. Why can't we just pass this little bill? At least we both agree on it. As the assistant majority leader said: Maybe there should be more stimulus in the bill. Indeed, there should be more stimulus in the bill. There is only one item in the bill that provides any kind of stimulus to the economy, only one item, the accelerated depreciation-- which we still don't know the details of--that provides investment incentive to protect and create new jobs. It is clearly not a stimulus package. However, by defining what we have agreed upon as what you have agreed upon, they have tried to hijack the President's proposal and recharacterize it as something it is not. It is not something we have agreed upon. The President would never have proposed just the items in this bill and said, that is good enough for me, it is a balanced package. It is designed to provide benefits to people who are unemployed. That does not stimulate the economy. But the President believed that was important to do. At the same time, it included limits that would actually provide more incentive for investment--that critical element of capital that is needed to spur the economy and protect and create jobs. The Democratic leader has said: Fine, I will take one part--the part I like--say we have not agreed on the rest, and define that as a bill upon which we have all agreed. It reminds me of the old saying: What is mine is mine, and what is yours is up for grabs. They basically pocketed what the President was proposing as a compromise, a bipartisan proposal, taken the part they liked, rejected what they did not like, and then said: Why not bring that to the floor and have a vote on it? After all, it was part of what the President proposed. Exactly. It was ``part'' of what the President proposed, but not, importantly, the part that would stimulate the economy. I am all for helping those who are unemployed. The President made a big point of wanting to help those who are unemployed and therefore to extend the unemployment benefits. However, I think we all agree, people would rather have a paycheck than an unemployment check. This bill does virtually nothing to stimulate the economy, to protect jobs, and to create new jobs. It would be a sham. When the minority leader yesterday said, you bet it will take beyond next Tuesday to get this right, all he was doing was stating a fact that, without amendments to this bill which provide real stimulus, of course we could not, with a straight face, vote on this bill and call it a stimulus package. Of course, the President is right next Tuesday to urge us to do what he asked us to do in early October, throughout the month of October, throughout the month of November, and then December, until we finally went home on December 22 without having acted on a stimulus package. The economy is still not doing very well. People are still out of work. What the President is going to be asking is to please get on with the job of enacting a bill and to not redefine this by simply taking what you like out of his proposal and recharacterizing that as a lowest common denominator agreement upon which we both agreed. I see the distinguished majority leader is here. Before I conclude my remarks, let me make this statement. I think the proposal he has made here treats the President in a very unfair way. I know the President was trying to reach out to the other side, to include things the other side wanted, and that he wanted, in an effort to be bipartisan, in an effort to try to get this done quickly, so we wouldn't be into next year, the year 2002, when we finally passed a stimulus package. I do know for a fact, he left things out I would have liked to have seen in there. I don't think the distinguished majority leader probably would have liked them very much. The President knew that. He didn't want to have a highly partisan bill. He didn't want to have a particularly controversial bill. That is why he proposed a balanced package. I think it takes unfair advantage of the President, in his offer to be bipartisan and to try to get this done quickly, to just take the part you like and say, that is the part we agree with, we reject almost all the rest of it, but why not pass that? Let me go back a little bit in time to review what happened. After the President made his proposal on October 4 and 5, the House passed a bill. The Finance Committee, on which I sit, began to work on the bill. By the way, remember, the Finance Committee enacted a bipartisan tax cut proposal earlier in the year, so it is a committee that has in the past and even began last year working together in a bipartisan fashion to get things done. I thought I could do that with the stimulus package, taking the President's proposal, perhaps modifying it, but trying our best to come up with something that would be passed in a bipartisan and quick fashion. It turned out that the Finance Committee was not going to write the bill. It would be written in a partisan fashion by just one party, not both. When the package finally came before the committee, I thought it was interesting, I never could figure out who claimed parentage of it. Several leaders on the Democratic side said actually they didn't write it, and with good reason: It was not something of which to be proud. It had $54 billion in new spending; only $21 billion could be characterized remotely as stimulative measures. Out of a total of $117 billion in the bill, it had $5 billion in extra agricultural spending, provisions added in the dead of night to bring Democrats on board--and also, in my personal view, as a means of getting some of the special interests on board on the bill. For example, the Commodity Purchase Program, and expenditures for things such as soybeans, pumpkins, snap beans, rum, tuna--all kinds of things--special tax credits for Amtrak, almost all of which have virtually nothing to do with getting the economy going again as a result of the September 11 events, but all of which were designed to bring more people on to support the bill. Needless to say, that bill could never pass. It was voted out of committee on a strictly party line vote and obviously did not pass before the end of the session. The President, in an effort to try to move this thing along, kept encouraging us to develop a bill that could pass. The House passed another bill which I thought was a much better bill than the first bill they passed and much more along the lines that some of our colleagues on the Democratic side were proposing. Still, that bill did not come before the Chamber. Finally, in desperation, in mid-December, a group of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate--the so-called centrist group--got together and developed a proposal that they thought would at least be an approach to stimulus as well as taking care of unemployed workers and be representative of the compromise that might bring about the President's agreement, and which they could then propose to the Senate and get it passed. They took it down to the White House and met with the President. He said: OK, you have a deal. It isn't what I originally proposed, but it is a great effort at compromise, and I will agree to it, and I will agree to sign it; it is passed. The President urged those of us on the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate to lay aside the other things we wanted to try to accomplish in this bill in an effort to get this finished before we went home for Christmas--to agree to the centrist coalition approach the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, described, part of which was in his remarks earlier. I also confess that I wasn't enamored by some of the provisions of the bill. I thought it did far too little to stimulate the economy. But in an effort to reach bipartisan compromise and get this done before the end of the year, as far as I know, virtually all of my colleagues on the Republican side of the Senate agreed to support that centrist, bipartisan approach which the President said he would sign. Still, the majority leader said no. Instead of taking that proposal up, we took up the railroad retirement bill, a big agricultural spending bill, and some other items before we went home for Christmas and the New Year's recess. We didn't do a stimulus package. Now, we come back in January after the recess when a lot of criticism has been heaped upon those who prevented us from getting a stimulus package voted on, passed, and sent to the President. The American people are not happy with the status quo. I think they understand with the President that we should have done something a long time ago but that it still is not too late to try to help our economy. People continue to be laid off around the country. We have to help them, not only by temporarily extending their unemployment benefits but, as I said before, to get them a paycheck and not just unemployment checks. That means providing the capital for investment that will create the jobs that will put them back to work and get the economy moving again. That is what the President proposed today. It is what the second House proposal did. It is what, at least to some extent, the centrist coalition proposal would do, and it is necessary that we get on with that job. What is before us today is not that kind of proposal. What is before us today is not a compromise. What is before us today is not something that has been ``agreed to'' by both sides. It has been characterized by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle as moving forward on what we agreed on. That is a mischaracterization. As I said before, it is taking some pieces of the bipartisan proposal the President suggested, pocketing those, and saying: Well, we both agreed on that. We are going to reject the rest of what you proposed, Mr. President, but since you proposed this as part of your package, we will characterize that as what we agreed on, and that is what we will vote on here. That is incorrect, and, as I said before, I think it is taking advantage of the President's good faith efforts to try to move something forward with which both sides could identify and which would have gotten the economy moving back in October of last year. That is why on this side we have said we are happy to now have this stimulus bill on the floor. We can finally begin debating what is necessary to get this economy moving again, take care of the people who are unemployed today, and make sure we can get them back to work tomorrow. That is the key. But in order to do that, we are going to have to put something in this bill that actually provides stimulus and will help to actually put more capital investment into the system so jobs can be created and people can go back to work. We can't simply accept what has been put on the floor here, which, as I said before, has essentially no stimulus effect in it. That is why we are not going to agree to a process which would terminate our ability to offer amendments which we see as necessary to try to get this bill back to a more balanced kind of a bill and to try to provide something that will actually stimulate the economy. I will have more to say about this. I see some of my colleagues on the other side. I am, frankly, curious to see what their approach to this is, given the fact it should be very clear by now that they can no longer characterize this as a bill comprised of things we agreed upon, because we don't agree to them. Three of the four items were in the President's package. In one form or another, they were in packages we were willing to support as long as they were accompanied by other provisions, but not standing alone. Standing alone, there will be virtually nothing to stimulate the economy. And I don't think we can with a straight face, therefore, say this is a job creation, stimulus package. With the amendments we could propose, we could get them. If our colleagues on the other side will be open minded about some of those amendments, I think we can get there. As a matter of fact, we have a couple of amendments ready to go. We will, I think, have majority support on the other side of the aisle. I regret that probably it is going to take 60 votes to pass any amendment because of the rules of the Senate. I am not objecting to the rules. I understand those rules. But because any amendment is probably going to take 60 votes, it will be very hard for any amendment to pass. As a result, we will probably be stuck with the bill that has already been laid down. But I think it will be interesting to see whether a majority of our colleagues will actually agree to certain proposals such as that offered by the centrist coalition. That should suggest there is a bipartisan way to proceed here. I just hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will agree that in that circumstance, if at least a majority of the Senate is willing to vote on a compromise package that will have a stimulative effect, we have an obligation to get this done for the sake of the American people sooner rather than later and that maybe we could work together and accomplish this result without too many more days having elapsed. I will have a little more to say about this in the future. I hope very much that we can over the next few days get to a point where we can pass a bill, go to conference with the House of Representatives, and quickly present the President with a bill that will get people back to work in this country and get our great economic engine moving forward full steam ahead.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President. I rise today to give my qualified support to the Defense Appropriations bill. I voted for this bill because the men and women who are, at this very moment, defending our honor and protecting our freedoms from the most horrific assault ever perpetrated against this Nation need critical items funded in the bill. I qualify that support because there are numerous programs and pork projects that will not support the critical needs of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Even worse, there are projects that I believe are necessary to our national defense which have been severely under-cut to meet the top line numbers while these less than mandatory projects have been added and given millions, if not billions, of dollars. I agree with my colleague from Arizona that, once again, the Appropriations Committee has run roughshod over the legislative process, circumventing the authorization process and the will of the Senate at the last minute of the last day of the session. Obviously, we must fund our current military campaign and our other defense needs; so I will support this bill to provide necessary funding. I only hope we will be able to make more efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars for our national security needs in the future.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, the Senate has failed to follow the House of Representatives in passing compromise, bipartisan legislation to help stimulate our economy and provide temporary assistance to displaced workers. While the Bush administration and the House compromised, some would say too much, in their effort to act responsibly and find the middle ground, opponents of this legislation were tireless in their efforts to undermine its passage. I applaud the House, the Bush administration, and the Senate Republican leadership, including Senator Grassley, for their effort to provide the Senate with an opportunity to pass an economic stimulus package. Sadly, the majority leader refused even to allow a simple vote on this legislation. Why? Was it because he knew that this compromise would pass the Senate? If the economy continues to falter, there can be no question where the blame lies. Voting on the economic stimulus package would have provided an excellent opportunity for members to put aside their partisan objectives, and come together in the best interests of the American people. The economic data are compelling. The terrorist attacks have thrown an already struggling economy into a tailspin, and the dismal economic reports released for the months of October and November, detailing the rise in unemployment and the decline in manufacturing activity, confirmed these worst fears; that we are in the midst of a recession. As many economists, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, have correctly noted, this is an ``investment'' recession, meaning that the slowdown is caused by a contraction of business investment, with resultant job loss and economic dislocation. Yet the majority leader fought against proposals that would have provided incentives for investment, and innovation. He and his supporters incomprehensibly denied the unarguable truism that meaningful economic stimulus emanates from the private sector, from businesses both large and small. An objective observer would likely note that, having already passed legislation that provides for $40 billion in emergency spending for disaster relief, and $15 billion in additional spending for an emergency airline package to deal with the temporary shut-down of air travel, it made sense for Congress to balance this spending, and any further spending, with tax relief targeted towards stimulating economic activity in the private sector. The majority leader argued instead that spending would be more beneficial. But it should already be obvious that the perils of unrestrained spending are real. Congress has already spent all of the Social Security surplus, and our Federal budget is now in a deficit position. Consequently, additional Federal spending will require the Federal Government to issue new debt in order to finance new spending. This new debt will mean that the government, in addition to maintaining post-World War II record high levels of income tax burdens of Americans, must again borrow from the American public to finance its operations. This renewed Federal borrowing may cause interest rates to rise, which in turn would slow down our economic recovery. In short, Congress must be extremely skeptical about any new spending, especially when it results in deficit spending. The real point, however, is that we cannot spend our way out of a recession. Everyone agrees that some additional spending is needed to assist the hundreds of thousands of workers both directly, and indirectly affected in the aftermath of September 11. But should the goal be to provide these workers with unemployment checks? Or should it be to provide them with paychecks? Clearly, people would prefer to work, not collect unemployment benefits. And creating jobs starts with spurring investment so that entrepreneurs are able to form and grow businesses, which in turn, will be able to employ workers. Nearly 2 months ago, President Bush proposed a package that promised to both provide additional spending to support those workers who lost their jobs and, at the same time, enact fundamental tax relief measures to promote investment and ensure that those same workers would be able to find work again in the near future. In the effort to avoid a partisan debate at this critical time, he included several recommendations from the Senate majority in his bipartisan proposal. It was a balanced and responsible combination of tax relief and temporary spending. Prior to September 11, our economy was beginning to show signs of a possible turnaround. The bipartisan tax relief package passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Bush on June 7 was just starting to make its way through the economy. However, any progress on the road to recovery has all but been lost due to the terrorist attacks. In fact, the general economic situation has worsened substantially. That is why the Senate would have passed the President's proposal. First, it would have accelerated all of the marginal income-tax rate cuts that became law this summer, but are now delayed until 2004 and 2006. The proposed plan would have them take effect on January 1, 2002, and would have applied to rates at every level of income. Considering that roughly one-third of personal tax filers are actually small businesses, I believe that it is essential that the 40 percent top marginal tax rate come down immediately to 33 percent to help unincorporated small firms retain and create more jobs. Entrepreneurs and the customers they serve are the life-blood of our economic system. More money in their hands means more money moving through the entire economy. In an effort to encourage investment, the President's original plan also incorporated a 30 percent depreciation bonus for the purchase of any new capital assets. This would enable companies to get much-needed equipment and other resources that might not otherwise have been affordable. Furthermore, his original plan included a full repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax, AMT, a thoroughly regressive, tortuously complicated, and utterly unfair tax that literally imposes a heavier burden on companies when their income falls. On November 6, the Treasury Department released data showing that, in 1998, some 30,226 companies paid higher taxes due to the corporate AMT than they would otherwise have paid. Thus, during an economic downturn like the one we are currently experiencing, as companies are currently seeing their sales and profits dip, their tax burden is actually increased. The President's original plan advocated a prospective repeal of the corporate AMT, unlike other proposals that are retroactive. Repeal would have immediately freed up monies for investment and employee retention. What's more, elimination of this administrative nightmare would dramatically lessen the tax code's current drag on the economy. It's really quite simple; repeal of the corporate AMT yields immediate short-term relief at a time when the economy needs it most. Lastly, in a bipartisan effort, the President reached across the aisle and embraced a Democratic proposal that would provide rebates of up to $300 for workers who filed income-tax returns but did not have an income-tax liability. Senate Republicans embraced the President's reasonable and responsible approach. We urged the majority leader to quickly act upon his plan and the first economic stimulus package that the House passed. Personally, I strongly supported the President's plan; however, I believed it could have been strengthened by a couple of key provisions. First, I believe it is absolutely crucial that we make the provisions of the tax law signed on June 7 permanent, especially with respect to repeal of the estate tax. The importance of permanence cannot be understated. It is critical to the financial planning of families and businesses, all of whom must make important decisions based on what they expect will be the tax laws in the future. Assuring taxpayers that the tax relief they now have will still be there 10 years down the line provides a level of economic certainty in these less-than-certain times, helping to bolster consumer confidence and encourage investment. Second, if we are to prevent thousands of bankruptcies, hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, and many other indirect consequences to the rest of the economy, we need to specifically help our struggling travel and tourism industry. Accordingly, I introduced legislation that I had hoped would be included in the economic stimulus package. My bill, entitled the Travel America Now Act of 2001, would provide a $500 tax credit per person, and $1,000 for a couple filing jointly, for personal expenses for travel originating within the United States. This includes travel by airplane, ship, train, car, and bus, hotel and motel accommodations, and rental cars, but not meals. As first drafted, the credit would have been effective from the date of enactment until December 31, 2001. The most important effect of such legislation is that it would get America moving and doing business again. Millions of small businesses would have benefited. I believed that the President's plan could be improved by these two proposals, but I supported the President's plan because I wanted to help enact legislation to help our economy get back on track. Unfortunately, most members of the Senate majority were less interested in compromising. In November, they crafted a partisan bill in the dead of night that was a special interest grab bag of new spending items, enhanced entitlement programs, and expanded bureaucracy. Its meager $20 billion business investment proposal, and the $14 billion consumer spending proposal would have done very little to stimulate consumer activity, and even less to stimulate investment. The bill increased spending and reduced revenues by $67 billion in fiscal year 2002, and $53 billion through 2011. However, two items made the real cost much more expensive than the advertised price tag might have suggested. First, the majority leader insisted on amending this partisan bill with an additional $15 billion of new spending, which would have included a veritable collage of new projects, from tunnels for Amtrak, ferries for New Jersey and New York, agriculture research, to highway repairs. Second, the unemployment provisions contained in this partisan bill included some $19 billion in accelerated Reed Act payments. The result: taxpayers would have seen a significant increase in their tax burden, approximately $14 billion, over the next 10 years. The bill was rammed through the Finance Committee on a strict, partisan vote. When it became clear that this partisan legislation could not pass on the Senate floor, the majority leader chose to stop the consideration of an economic stimulus package and move to low- priority legislation. The House had acted, as had the President, but in the Senate, the majority leader continued to block consideration of an economic stimulus package. He brought up a big spending railroad retirement bill and then a pork-laden farm bill, both of which could have waited until next year. For several weeks, the Bush administration, the majority in the House, and the minority in the Senate negotiated with the majority leader's deputies in an effort to craft a bill he would be willing to bring to the Senate floor for a vote. These deputies erected various roadblocks to disrupt these negotiations. Then the majority leader, himself, unilaterally raised the bar to agreement by insisting on a compromise package that would be acceptable to two-thirds of the Democrats in the Senate. Despite these deliberately constructed obstructions to compromise, advocates of an economic stimulus package continued to work hard to construct a compromise that would be acceptable to a majority of the House and Senate. The administration made significant compromises, especially related to greatly expanded health insurance benefits to the recently unemployed through an individual tax credit for health insurance. The majority leader once again raised the bar and insisted that these benefits be provided to employers for the benefit of all workers who are unemployed. Under his proposal, even those workers who chose to retire early would be entitled to this new expansive health care program. Additionally, he refused to empower these displaced workers with individual tax credits, but insisted on burdening businesses with a new government mandate. With three days left until the holiday weekend, the administration, the House, and a majority in the Senate agreed on a bipartisan compromise on economic stimulus and aid to dislocated workers. The House then passed this legislation. Despite the fact that a majority in the Senate was committed to voting for it, the majority leader still refused to allow this compromise legislation to come to the Senate floor. So the 2001 session ended without Senate action on the most important issue facing the country. Contained within this legislation is $60 billion of investment stimulus--just the sort of assistance that Chairman Greenspan had urged us to enact. Under the bipartisan stimulus package, the current 27 percent rate would drop to 25 percent in 2002. This provision accelerates the bipartisan decision the Senate made last summer to reduce individual tax rates. Under last summer's tax cut bill, the 27 percent rate would have fallen to 26 percent in 2004 and 25 percent in 2006. This cut benefits married couples with taxable income between $45,200 and $109,250; singles with taxable income between $27,050 and $65,550; heads of household with taxable income between $36,250 and $93,650. Acceleration of the 27 percent rate reduction would yield $17.9 billion of tax relief in 2002 for over 36 million taxpayers, or one-third of all income taxpayers. The bipartisan stimulus package provides 30 percent bonus depreciation for three years. Property eligible for the 30 percent bonus depreciation includes property depreciated over 20 years or less, water utility property, computer software, etc. Property which takes longer than three years to construct will qualify for bonus depreciation on a pro-rata basis, if the property is placed in service before 2007. The portion eligible for bonus depreciation would be the costs incurred within the three-year bonus depreciation window. This provision would encourage accelerating long-term construction activity into the next three years. Additional investment stimulus included in this legislation is an extension of net operating loss carrybacks for two years, corporate alternative minimum tax relief, and an increase of the small business expensing amount to $35,000. All of which would help stimulate economic activity in our country. The House-passed bipartisan stimulus package would also provide checks to low-income Americans in order to stimulate consumer spending. The legislation also would extend popular expiring tax provisions, provide targeted incentives to help with the New York City reconstruction, and exempt the victims of terrorist attacks from federal taxes. Finally, the bill would provide nearly $20 billion of aid to dislocated workers in the form of greatly expanded unemployment payments and health benefits. This proposal was a compromise. It is not the legislation that I would have written. But this legislation was a carefully crafted bipartisan, bicameral compromise that the President would have signed. It passed the House. It had the support of a majority of the Senate. But it died because the majority leader was unwilling to let the majority act. So the economy will not be helped. Unemployed workers will not be helped. Small businesses will not be helped. Taxpayers will not be helped. Workers hoping to save their jobs will not be helped. All because of one man. Remember that next year.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for her leadership in this effort. It has been a pleasure to work with her on this legislation. It demonstrates a couple of things: First, that all Americans care about the victims of the tragedy of September 11. Second, that the U.S. Government can be a facilitator but does not have to be the financier of good works on behalf of the people of the country. At the conclusion of my remarks, I will ask to print in the Record a letter from Robert K. Goodwin who is the president of the Points of Light Foundation. The president of the Points of Light Foundation points out that there are no Federal funds used in this project but, rather, that money has been raised by people from around the country to support these projects that literally will exist in every corner of this great country. Each one of these projects will be named for one of the victims of the September 11 tragedy. What the Points of Light Foundation will do is help coordinate so there is a common listing of all the different projects, in which part of the country they are located, and coordinating with the names of the victims. This is a good project for the American people to demonstrate their support for the country, to do good works at the same time, and to memorialize the victims of the tragedy of September 11. I compliment the cosponsor of the legislation and the chairman and ranking member of the committee for including this legislation in the Defense appropriations bill. I appreciate our colleagues' support for this important project. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the president of the Points of Light Foundation be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to submit for the Record an article written by Brian T. Kennedy, vice president of the Claremont Institute, entitled ``The Urgent Need for Ballistic Missile Defense.'' Published in the Imprimis publication of Hillsdale College, Mr. Kennedy persuasively argues that ``the United States is defenseless against [the] mortal danger . . . of a ballistic missile attack.'' In view of the events of September 11, I commend this article to the Senate for review as a cautionary warning to the U.S. Government of the potential danger of failing to meet its fundamental constitutional obligation to ``provide for the common defense.'' The article follows. [From Imprimis, Nov. 2001] The Urgent need for Ballistic Missile Defense (By Brian T. Kennedy) On September 11, our nation's enemies attacked us using hijacked airliners. Next time, the vehicles of death and destruction might well be ballistic missiles armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads. And let us be clear: The United States is defenseless against this mortal danger. We would today have to suffer helplessly a ballistic missile attack, just as we suffered helplessly on September 11. But the dead would number in the millions and a constitutional crisis would likely ensue, because the survivors would wonder--with good reason--if their government were capable of carrying out its primary constitutional duty to ``provide for the common defense.'' The Threat is Real The attack of September 11 should not be seen as a fanatical act of individuals like Osama Bin Laden, but as deliberate act of a consortium of nations who hope to remove the U.S. from its strategic positions in the Middle East, in Asia and the Pacific, and in Europe. It is the belief of such nations that the U.S. can be made to abandon its allies, such as Israel, if the cost of standing by them becomes too high. It is not altogether unreasonable for our enemies to act on such a belief. The failure of U.S. political leadership, over a period of two decades, to respond proportionately to terrorist attacks on Americans in Lebanon, to the first World Trade Center bombing, to the attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, to the bombings of U.S. embassies abroad, and most recently to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, likely emboldened them. They may also have been encouraged by observing our government's unwillingness to defend Americans against ballistic missiles. For all of the intelligence failures leading up to September 11, we know with absolute certainty that various nations are spending billions of dollars to build or acquire strategic ballistic missiles with which to attack and blackmail the United States. Yet even now, under a president who supports it, missile defense advances at a glacial pace. Who are these enemy nations, in whose interest it is to press the U.S. into retreating from the world stage? Despite the kind words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, encouraging a ``tough response'' to the terrorist attack of September 11, we know that it is the Russian and Chinese governments that are supplying our enemies in Iraq. Iran, Libya, and North Korea with the ballistic missile technology to terrorize our nation. Is it possible that Russia and China don't understand the consequences of transferring this technology? Are Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin unaware that countries like Iran and Iraq are known sponsors of terrorism? In light of the absurdity of these questions, it is reasonable to assume that Russia and China transfer this technology as a matter of high government policy, using these rogue states as proxies to destabilize the West because they have an interest in expanding their power, and because they know that only the U.S. can stand in their way. We should also note that ballistic missiles can be used not only to kill and destroy, but to commit geopolitical blackmail. In February of 1996, during a confrontation between mainland China and our democratic ally on Taiwan, Lt. Gen. Xiong Guang Kai, a senior Chinese official, made an implicit nuclear threat against the U.S., warning our government not to interfere because Americans ``care more about Los Angeles than they do Taipei.'' With a minimum of 20 Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) currently aimed at the U.S., such threats must be taken seriously. the strategic terror of ballistic missiles China possesses the DF-5 ballistic missile with a single, four-megaton warhead. Such a warhead could destroy an area of 87.5 square miles, or roughly all of Manhattan, with its daily population of three million people. Even more devastating is the Russian SS-18, which has a range of 7,500 miles and is capable of carrying a single, 24-megaton warhead or multiple warheads ranging from 550 to 750 kilotons. Imagine a ballistic missile attack on New York or Los Angeles, resulting in the death of three to eight million Americans. Beyond the staggering loss of human life, this would take a devastating political and economic toll. Americans' faith in their government--a government that allowed such an attack--would be shaken to its core. As for the economic shock, consider that damages from the September 11 attack, minor by comparison, are estimated by some economists to be nearly 1.3 trillion dollars, roughly one-fifth of GNP. Missile defense critics insist that such an attack could never happen, based on the expectation that the U.S. would immediately strike back at whomever launched it with an equal fury. They point to the success of the Cold War theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). But even MAD is premised on the idea that the U.S. would ``absorb'' a nuclear strike, much like we ``absorbed'' the attack of September 11. Afterwards the President, or surviving political leadership, would estimate the losses and then employ our submarines, bombers, and remaining land-based ICBMs to launch a counterattack. This would fulfill the premise of MAD, but it would also almost certainly guarantee additional ballistic missile attacks from elsewhere. Consider another scenario. What if a president, in order to avoid the complete annihilation of the nation, came to terms with our enemies? What rational leader wouldn't consider such an option, given the unprecedented horror of the alternative? Considering how Americans value human life, would a Bill Clinton or a George Bush order the unthinkable? Would any president launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against a country, even one as small as Iraq, if it meant further massive casualties to American citizens? Should we not agree that an American president ought not to have to make such a decision? President Reagan expressed this simply when he said that it would be better to prevent a nuclear attack than to suffer one and retaliate. Then there is the blackmail scenario. What if Osama Bin Laden were to obtain a nuclear ballistic missile from Pakistan (which, after all, helped to install the Taliban regime), place it on a ship somewhere off our coast, and demand that the U.S. not intervene in the destruction of Israel? Would we trade Los Angeles or New York for Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? Looked at this way, nuclear blackmail would be as devastating politically as nuclear war would be physically. roadblock to defense: the abm treaty Signed by the Soviet Union and the United States in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty forbids a national missile defense. Article I, Section II reads: ``Each Party undertakes not to deploy ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its country and not to provide a base for such a defense, and not to deploy ABM systems for defense of an individual region except as provided for in Article III of this Treaty.'' Article III allows each side to build a defense for an individual region that contains an offensive nuclear force. in other words, the ABM Treaty prohibits our government from defending the American people, while allowing it to defend missiles to destroy other peoples. Although legal scholars believe that this treaty no longer has legal standing, given that the Soviet Union no longer exists, it has been upheld as law by successive administrations--especially the Clinton administration-- and by powerful opponents of American missile defense in the U.S. Senate. As a side note, we now know that the Soviets violated the ABM Treaty almost immediately. Thus the Russians possess today the world's only operable missile defense system. Retired CIA Analyst William Lee, in the ABM Treaty Charade, describes a 9,000-interceptor system around Moscow that is capable of protecting 75 percent of the Russian population. In other words, the Russians did not share the belief of U.S. arms-control experts in the moral superiority of purposefully remaining vulnerable to missile attack. How to Stop Ballistic Missiles For all the bad news about the ballistic missile threat to the U.S., there is the good news that missile defense is well within our technological capabilities. As far back as 1962, a test missile fired from the Kwajaleen Atoll was intercepted (within 500 yards) by an anti-ballistic missile launched from Vanderberg Air Force Base. The idea at the time was to use a small nuclear warhead in the upper atmosphere to destroy incoming enemy warheads. But it was deemed politically incorrect--as it is still today--to use a nuclear explosion to destroy a nuclear warhead, even if that warhead is racing toward an American city. (Again, only we seem to be squeamish in this regard: Russia's aforementioned 9,000 interceptors bear nuclear warheads.) So U.S. research since President Reagan reintroduced the idea of missile defense in 1983 has been aimed primarily at developing the means to destroy enemy missiles through direct impact or ``hit-to-kill'' methods. American missile defense research has included ground- based, sea-based and space-based interceptors, and air-based and space-based lasers. Each of these systems has undergone successful, if limited, testing. The space-based systems are especially effective since they seek to destroy enemy missiles in their first minutes of flight, known also as the boost phase. During this phase, missiles are easily detectible, have yet to deploy any so-called decoys or countermeasures, and are especially vulnerable to space-based interceptors and lasers. The best near-term option for ballistic missile defense, recommended by former Reagan administration defense strategist Frank Gaffney, is to place a new generation of interceptors, currently in research, aboard U.S. Navy Aegis Cruisers. These ships could then provide at least some missile defense while more effective systems are built. Also under consideration is a ground-based system in the strategically important state of Alaska, at Fort Greely and Kodiak Island. This would represent another key component in a comprehensive ``layered'' missile defense that will include land, sea, air and space. Arguments Against Missile Defense Opponents of missile defense present four basic arguments. The first is that ABM systems are technologically unrealistic, since ``hitting bullets with bullets'' leaves no room for error. They point to recent tests of ground-based interceptors that have had mixed results. Two things are important to note about these tests: First, many of the problems stem from the fact that the tests are being conducted under ABM Treaty restrictions on the speed of interceptors, and on their interface with satellites and radar. Second, some recent test failures involve science and technology that the U.S. perfected 30 years ago, such as rocket separation. But putting all this aside, as President Reagan's former science advisor William Graham points out, the difficulty of ``hitting bullets with bullets'' could be simply overcome by placing small nuclear charges on ``hit-to- kill'' vehicles as a ``fail safe'' for when they miss their targets. This would result in small nuclear explosions in space, but that is surely more acceptable than the alternative of enemy warheads detonating over American cities. The second argument against missile defense is that no enemy would dare launch a missile attack at the U.S., for fear of swift retaliation. But as the CIA pointed out two years ago--and as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld reiterated recently in Russia--an enemy could launch a ballistic missile from a ship off one of our coasts, scuttle the ship, and leave us wondering, as on September 11, who was responsible. The third argument is that missile defense can't work against ship-launched missiles. But over a decade ago U.S. nuclear laboratories, with the help of scientists like Greg Canavan and Lowell Wood, conducted successful tests on space- based interceptors that could stop ballistic missiles in their boost phase from whatever location they were launched. Finally, missile defense opponents argue that building a defense will ignite an expensive arms race. But the production cost of a space-based interceptor is roughly one to two million dollars. A constellation of 5,000 such interceptors might then cost ten billion dollars, a fraction of America's defense budget. By contrast, a single Russian SS-18 costs approximately $100 million, a North Korean Taepo Dong II missile close to $10 million, and an Iraqi Scud B missile about $2 million. In other words, if we get into an arms race, our enemies will go broke. The soviet Union found it could not compete with us in such a race in the 1980s. Nor will the Russians or the Chinese or their proxies be able to compete today. Time For Leadership Building a missile defense is not possible as long as the U.S. remains bound by the ABM Treaty of 1972. President Bush has said that he will give the Russian government notice of our withdrawal from that treaty when his testing program comes into conflict with it. But given the severity of the ballistic missile threat, it is cause for concern that we have not done so already. Our greatest near-term potential attacker, Iraq, is expected to have ballistic missile capability in the next three years. Only direct military intervention will prevent it from deploying this capability before the U.S. can deploy a missile defense. This should be undertaken as soon as possible. Our longer-term potential attackers, Russia and China, possess today the means to destroy us. We must work and hope for peaceful relations, but we must also be mindful of the possibility that they have other plans. Secretary Powell has invited Russia and China to join the coalition to defeat terrorism. This is ironic, since both countries have been active supporters of the regimes that sponsor terrorism. And one wonders what they might demand in exchange. Might they ask us to delay building a missile defense? Or to renegotiate the ABM Treaty? So far the Bush administration has not demonstrated the urgency that the ballistic missile threat warrants. It is also troublesome that the President's newly appointed director of Homeland Security, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, has consistently opposed missile defense--a fact surely noted with approval in Moscow and Beijing. On the other hand, President Bush has consistently supported missile defense, both in the 2000 campaign and since taking office, and he has the power to carry through with his promises. Had the September 11 attack been visited by ballistic missiles, resulting in the deaths of three to six million Americans, a massive effort would have immediately been launched to build and deploy a ballistic missile defense. America, thankfully, has a window of opportunity--however narrow--to do so now, before it is too late. Let us begin in earnest.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I commend to my colleagues a recent column by Charles Krauthammer entitled ``Unilateral? Yes, Indeed.'' It ran in the December 14 issue of the Washington Post. Once again, Krauthammer has done a fine job of articulating sentiments shared by many of us regarding the President's conduct of foreign policy. The essence of the issue can be summarized in one word: leadership. Since the start of his presidency, George W. Bush has been the target of innumerable criticisms emanating from his approach to the conduct of foreign policy. Greatly exaggerated fears of isolationism have been voiced by the president's critics, both at home and abroad. With the conduct of the war against terrorism and the decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, however, the President has demonstrated not isolationism, but leadership. Leadership, as defined by the willingness to make unpopular decisions and accept the consequences out of a conviction that the decisions in question are in the best interests of the United States. Pre-war concerns that the entire Muslim world would rise up against us if we went after Al Qaeda and its Taleban protectors have proven unfounded. Worst-case scenarios surrounding the President's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty have similarly failed to materialize. There are consequences to both decisions, but they were the right decisions and the consequences are far less than the benefits accruing to the United States from their having been implemented. I urge my colleagues to take a minute to read the article by Charles Krauthammer. It articulates better than could I the importance of leadership in international affairs, and I highly recommend it. I ask that the article be printed in the Record. The article follows. [From the Washington Post, Dec. 14, 2001] Unilateral? Yes, Indeed (By Charles Krauthammer) Last month's Putin-Bush summit at Crawford was deemed an arms control failure because the rumored deal--Russia agrees to let us partially test, but not deploy, defenses that violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--never came off. In fact, it was a triumph. Like Reagan at the famous 1986 Reykjavik summit, at which he would not give up the Strategic Defense Initiative to Gorbachev, Bush was not about to allow Putin to lock the United States into any deal that would prevent us from building ABM defenses. Bush proved that yesterday when he dropped the bombshell and unilaterally withdrew the United States from the treaty, and thus from all its absurd restrictions on ABM technology. This is deeply significant, not just because it marks a return to strategic sanity, formally recognizing that the ballistic missile will be to the 21st century what the tank and the bomber were to the 20th, but because it unashamedly reasserts the major theme of the Bush foreign policy: unilateralism. After Sept. 11, the critics (the usual troika: liberal media, foreign policy establishment, Democratic ex-officials) were clucking about how the Bush administration has beaten a hasty retreat from reckless unilateralism. President Bush ``is strongly supported by the American people,'' explained former Senate leader George Mitchell, ``in part because he has simply discarded almost everything he said on foreign policy prior to Sept. 11.'' Bush had wanted to go it alone in the world, said the critics. But he dare not. ``It's hard to see the President restoring the unilateralist tinge that colored so many of his early foreign policy choices,'' wrote columnist E. J. Dionne just two months ago. ``Winning the battle against terror required an end to unilateralism.'' We need friends, they said. We need allies. We need coalition partners. We cannot alienate them again and again. We cannot have a president who kills the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases, summarily rejects the ``enforcement provisions'' of the bioweapons treaty, trashes the ABM Treaty--and expect to build the coalition we need to fight the war on terrorism. We cannot? We did. Three months is all it took to make nonsense of these multilateralist protests. Coalition? The whole idea that the Afghan war is being fought by a ``coalition'' is comical. What exactly has Egypt contributed? France sent troops into Mazar-e Sharif after the fighting had stopped, noted that renowned military analyst Jay Leno. (``Their mission?'' asked Leno. ``To teach the Taliban how to surrender.'') There is a coalition office somewhere in Islamabad. Can anyone even name the coalition spokesman who makes announcements about the war? The ``coalition'' consists of little more than U.S. aircraft, U.S. special forces, and Afghan friends-of-the- moments on the ground. Like the Gulf War, the Afghan war is unilateralism dressed up as multilateralism. We made it plain that even if no one followed us, we would go it alone. Surprise: Others followed. A unilateralist does not object to people joining our fight. He only objects when the multilateralists, like Clinton in Kosovo, give 18 countries veto power over bombing targets. The Afghan war is not a war run by committee. We made tough bilateral deals with useful neighbors. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia. The Brits and the Australians added a sprinkling of guys on the ground risking their lives, and we will always be grateful for their solidarity. But everyone knows whose war it is. The result? The Taliban are destroyed. Al Qaeda is on the run. Pakistan has made a historic pro-American strategic pivot, as have the former Soviet republics, even Russia itself. The Europeans are cooperating on prosecutions. Even the Arab states have muted their anti-American and anti- Israeli rhetoric, with the Egyptian foreign minister traveling to Jerusalem for the first time in three years. Not because they love us. Not because we have embraced multilateralism. But because we have demonstrated astonishing military power and the will to defend vital American interests, unilaterally if necessary. Where is the great Bush retreat from unilateralism? The ABM Treaty is dead. Kyoto is dead. The new provisions of the totally useless biological weapons treaty are even deader: Just six days before pulling out of the ABM Treaty, the administration broke up six years of absurd word-mongering over a bio treaty so worthless that Iraq is a signatory in good standing. And the world has not risen up against us--no more than did the ``Arab street'' (over the Afghan war), as another set of foreign policy experts were warning just weeks ago. The essence of unilateralism is that we do not allow others, no matter how well-meaning, to deter us from pursuing the fundamental security interests of the United States and the free world. It is the driving motif of the Bush foreign policy. And that is the reason it has been so successful.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to share concerns raised by the Bush administration and some of my colleagues regarding S. 1499, authored by my colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry. I strongly believe that we must come to the aid of small businesses hurt hard by the September 11 attacks. That is why I have enthusiastically endorsed the Bush administration's ongoing, active, and aggressive efforts to provide emergency small-business loan assistance. Unfortunately, S. 1499 came to the Senate floor without debate, without committee hearings, and without an opportunity for concerns about the bill to be raised and addressed. No CBO score was released, depriving those who are fiscally-responsible of a cost estimate of this legislation. Yet the Senate leadership attempted to pass this bill without affording us any opportunity to offer amendments. Scarcely any explanation of this bill's provisions was ever offered before it was moved to the Senate floor--and that is extremely troubling. We do know now that the costs of this bill--as much as $815 million-- would actually exceed the entire 2002 budget for the Small Business Administration, nearly doubling it, at a time of a economic slowdown. Additionally, the agency responsible for carrying out this legislation--the Small Business Administration (SBA)--has raised a number of concerns about this bill that have not been adequately addressed. First, some of the provisions of the Kerry bill duplicate efforts already underway by the Bush administration. After the terrorist attacks, the SBA established the September 11 Emergency Injury Disaster Loan, EIDL, assistance program to make loans available to small businesses throughout the United States, who could demonstrate economic injury as a result of the terrorist attacks. This was an appropriate and necessary response. I emphasize, Mr. President: these loans already are being made available. In addition to duplication of ongoing efforts, the SBA also expressed the concern that provisions of the Kerry bill would actually increase the number of small-business loan defaults, at the expense of the American taxpayer. As the SBA wrote in a letter to the sponsors of this measure: By relaxing credit requirements, reducing interest rates, eliminating fees, increasing the government guarantee, deferring principal payments, forgiving interest and increasing government liability, S. 1499 could make government-guaranteed small business loans more attractive than conventional loans, potentially displacing private sector options. In addition, S. 1499 significantly reduces lender and borrower stakes in a loan, thereby increasing the likelihood of default. Certainly the sponsors of this measure do not want to promote defaults. After all, the goal of small-business assistance is to help entrepreneurs build, sustain and grow small businesses, with sound and fiscally-responsible loan assistance programs. The existing EIDL assistance program provides a reasonable mechanism for needed aid by offering up to $1.5 million in emergency loans to small businesses at four percent interest over 30 years. Loans are not intended purely as a means of disaster relief. Additionally, S. 1499's language is so broad that loan assistance could be provided to any small business that have ``been, or, that (are) likely to be directly or indirectly adversely affected'' by the terrorist attacks. Obviously, such language is ripe for abuse and could lead to exorbitant costs for the American taxpayer. Surely, this is not what the bill sponsors intended from this provision. Lastly, the Small Business Administration expresses concerns regarding S. 1499's provisions providing emergency relief for Federal contractors. The provisions would allow an increase in the price of a federal contract that is performed by a small business in order to offset losses resulting from increased security measures taken by the Federal government at Federal facilities. As the SBA points out: ``providing equitable relief through SBA acting as a central clearing house would prove inefficient, costly, and burdensome on the Federal acquisition process.'' All of us want to come to the aid of small businesses adversely affected by the September 11 attacks and their aftermath. But we can do so in a cost-effective and responsible way, instead of a rushed, haphazard process designed to thwart compromise. I am confident that a bipartisan compromise on this issue can be found in the near-term, so that the concerns raised by the administration can be taken into account, and we can pass something the President will support.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont, the chairman of the committee, and thank him for having Justice Fred Martone as one of the judicial nominees we will be voting on this evening. I understand the only rollcall vote will be on Justice Fred Martone. Why do I call him Justice Fred Martone, when we are going to be voting on his confirmation to become a Federal district judge? The answer is, because he currently is one of the five justices on the Arizona Supreme Court, the highest court in the State of Arizona. He is a graduate of Holy Cross, Notre Dame Law School, and has an advanced degree from Harvard, and is an exceptionally fine jurist. I thank the chairman and members of the committee who unanimously approved him for consideration by the full Senate. I would appreciate the support of the full Senate for his confirmation.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The article focuses on the neighborhood around Los Angeles Airport, but it describes a scene all too familiar to many of us: Today, planes are once again buzzing just 300 feet above the head of the people of Lennox. But something even scarier has befallen them. The meltdown in the travel and tourism business has claimed thousands of their jobs. Working together, the government and industry leaders can help the industry recover. By now, my colleagues no doubt have seen the television advertisements sponsored by the Travel Industry Association of America. Featuring President Bush, this privately supported advertising campaign encourages Americans to travel, to see our great country again, and to enjoy our many blessings. Now that the industry has stepped forward, it is time for us to do our part. The time has come to enact a personal travel credit to get Americans on the road and in the air again. I am pleased that travel-credit legislation has broad, bipartisan support. Now is the time to translate that support into action. With the slowest travel months of the year about to begin, let's give the American public an incentive to travel. Let's get a credit enacted quickly. Let's bring families together and let's get Americans enjoying the blessings of our country again. In short, let's get America traveling again. Exhibit 1 [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11, 2001] Travel Downturn Spreads More Woes (By Eduardo Porter) Lennox, Calif.--Something strange washed over this area following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11: quiet. With planes grounded across the U.S., residents of this crowded community abutting Los Angeles airport weren't assaulted by the sound of jet engines for the first time in anybody's memory. The sudden silence was so at odds with the usual deafening roar that ``kids were scared'' by it, says Maria Van Deventer, assistant principal at Jefferson Elementary School. Today, planes are once again buzzing just 300 feet above the heads of the people of Lennox. But something even scarier has befallen them. The meltdown in the travel and tourism business has claimed thousands of their jobs. As much as any place in America, this 1.3-square-mile unincorporated area of Los Angeles County has been the victim of post-Sept. 11 economic fallout. Because this is practically a company town, with many of its 23,000 residents employed at the third busiest airport in the world and related businesses, Lennox has become a ground zero of sorts for the devastated travel and tourism industry. The impact of the near collapse in the industry has left a broad footprint. Airline industry revenue should decline 30% in the fourth quarter over the year-earlier period, estimates Kevin C. Murphy of Morgan Stanley, and PKF Consulting estimates that room revenue at hotels in major urban centers will be down 17.5%. Other travel-dependent firms, from airline caterers to airport concession owners, have also been hit hard. There is no precise count of how many Lennox residents, who are overwhelmingly immigrants from Mexico and Central America, have been laid off in the past 2\1/2\ months. But job losses--more than 8,000 at the airport alone and thousands more at area shops, hotels and other companies that depend on travel--have shot through the community. Isabel Gurdian lost her job cleaning planes on Sept. 12. A few weeks later Gladys Barraza was laid off as a cashier at the airport's City Deli, Margarita Uriostegui, who washed dishes at airline caterer Dobbs International Services, was let go, too. Alfonso Martinez, a barman at the New Otani hotel, got lucky. His workweek--and income--were cut by only two-thirds. The impact has rippled through Lennox's dusty streets. Sales are down about 30% at Daisy's Party Supply on Inglewood Ave., Where a pinata of Osama bin Laden dangles from the roof between a huge can of Modelo beer and Winnie the Pooh. And they're off about a fifth at El Taco Macho, just across the border in Hawthorne, even though $9 American flags have been added to an eclectic menu of tacos and seafood cocktails. Business also has plummeted at Noemy's Beauty Salon, which doubles as remittance outlet that wires money from local residents back to relatives in Latin America. On a recent Friday, shop owner Margot Noemy Canizales waited all morning for customers to show. None did. The pain is felt as far away as Jiquilpan, in central Mexico, which has dispatched workers to Lennox for decades. ``The whole town depends on money sent from here,'' says Martin Orejel, a Lennox resident who has had his work hours slashed as a bartender and bus-boy at a Ramada hotel not far from the airport. ``Now,'' he jokes, ``we need them to send money here.'' At the second floor offices of local 814 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union, the newly laid off lined up to register for unemployment benefits. But many Lennox residents are illegal immigrants and can't get such financial assistance. Downstairs, union volunteers handed out bags of food. Life in Lennox is pretty difficult to begin with. With an average of nearly five people per household, it is one of the most densely populated communities in California. More than 94% of the students in the local school district are in a program that provides free or reduced-cost lunches to poor children, one of the highest rates in the state. Hispanic immigrants began coming here in the late 1960's, sucked into the U.S. to help sate the explosive demand for low-wage service workers. Now, hit by the first wave of layoffs in a decade, ``it seems like the end of the world,'' laments Ms. Uriostegui, a mother of three whose husband is still hanging on to a job at a tortilla shop. Most days she hits the road looking for work, leaving applications everywhere from a factory for stamping T-shirts to a plant making refrigerator parts. To cope, some people are resorting to uncomfortable measures. After losing her job, Gladys Barraza, her husband and two children moved into her parent's two-bedroom home, also in Lennox. Rosa Saldivar is facing starker options. Her husband, Martin, who lost his job at a bakery that served airport restaurants, is pressuring her to take their three kids back to the family home in Durango, in northern Mexico. They wouldn't be the only ones to go. Ms. Van Deventer, the assistant principal, says that 50 to 60 children, out of a student body of about 1,100, have dropped out of Jefferson Elementary since Sept. 11. Some, she says, have gone back to Mexico and El Salvador, where it's cheaper to be unemployed and where extended families can provide support. Others have left to look for work in other American cities, including Las Vegas, where it is rumored there might be jobs. For those who are staying, the stress is growing. Health workers and parent-group coordinators at the schools are detecting more alcohol abuse and depression. A few days ago, Carmen Torres, a parent counselor at Jefferson Elementary, saw a couple bickering. The wife was dragging in her recently laid-off husband to register for English-language lessons. The husband, crying in despair, complained that the classes were beyond him. But many are confident that the community will prove its resilience. Yvonne Moreno, a counselor at a health program run by the school district, notes that most of those in Lennox have been working since they were six or seven years old. Many crossed the desert on foot, eluding border patrolmen, to get here. ``They are survivors,'' she says.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, three months ago, we experienced an unprovoked attack on our country. America took a terrible hit, but we have rebounded and we have reminded the world of the strength of the American people. Three months ago, one industry in particular was stricken, and it continues to struggle to regain its footing. When our government shut down our airlines and our airports, it also shut down our travel and tourism industry. Under the headline, ``Travel Downtown Spreads More Woes,'' the December 11 Wall Street Journal reminded us that the industry remains in dire straits. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I thank Senator Reid for the comments he made. He is absolutely right that after years of acrimony, representatives of the State of Nevada and Arizona solved a real difficult water issue which became a win-win for both States. I am hoping that the kind of work we need to do in the Senate on this proposal can likewise result in win-win situations. Western water law issues become very complex very quickly, and we want to ensure that nothing we do here in any way adversely affects the long-established, traditional water policies of the West. Senator Reid has assured me that it is not his intention that this legislation be contrary to State procedural or substantive water law, interstate compacts, or, of course, Federal law. We are preparing language that will affirm that. I appreciate the Senator's concurrence in that view. Given the comments of Senator Domenici, I am prepared to support his amendment as well. There are additional concerns that I have about this. We will try to work those out and deal with them in an appropriate way.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Massachusetts that he knows very well the administration has significant objections to the bill as written, that the President announced almost immediately after September 11 emergency programs for small business loans, that the White House believes that is sufficient under the circumstances today, and that the bill is too expensive for the needs of the people about whom the Senator has talked. Therefore, until there is more willingness than the Senator has expressed--and the Senator has made it clear there is no willingness to compromise--then the answer to the question is no. I would also be pleased to talk about the other subject, the travel and tourism tax credit, as part of the stimulus package, if the Senator wished to further yield on that.

Mr. KYL. Since the Senator has invoked my name on several occasions and not made it clear when he was connecting various criticisms to my name, I would like the opportunity to respond. The problem is, as the Senator knows, we have a 10:30 briefing on a very important subject. I would like the opportunity prior to that time to be able to respond to the comments. Could the Senator advise if he thinks that might be possible before 10:30? Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. KYL. Might I ask the Senator from Massachusetts a question; will he yield for a question?

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I would be happy to respond to my colleague. The answer to the question is no. As the Senator from Massachusetts is aware, there are ongoing negotiations with the Senator as well as the Senator from Missouri and representatives of the administration in an effort to reach a compromise on the legislation, and the Senator's request related to my unanimous-consent request related to the importance of considering Eugene Scalia as Solicitor for the Department of Labor, and I believed as long as we were making unanimous-consent requests to proceed to other business, I would take the opportunity to do so for that nomination.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, after consultation with the Republican leader, proceed to executive session no later than December 14 to consider Calendar No. 471, the nomination of Eugene Scalia to be Solicitor for the Department of Labor, and I further ask unanimous consent that there be 3 hours for debate, with the time equally divided in the usual form, with no other motions in order; and I ask unanimous consent that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to the vote on the confirmation of the nomination, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.