Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Thank you, Mr. President. When my colleague, the Senator from Idaho, arrives, I will stop my presentation and give him an opportunity to join me in our comments today. We intend to take this hour to both talk about the same general subject.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair. I conclude by urging all of my colleagues to work with us so we can get these people to the Senate floor and get them confirmed before the August recess. If we do, we will feel better about doing our job and the country will feel better because we will have served the interests of the American people. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me mention one other very practical problem. The Attorney General, John Ashcroft, told me of a situation which I hope by now has been corrected. But he literally was at his farm in Missouri after he became the Attorney General and I think he was the sole executive person at the Department of Justice. An aide had to literally bring a warrant out to Missouri, fly on an airplane from Washington, DC, out to Missouri so he could sign it because he was the only one who had the authority at that point to sign this particular document. I believe since then we have confirmed some people who also have that authority. But the point here is we have to get the executive team in place. We have 155 people who need to be confirmed; at least about 130 of them need to be confirmed before we leave for the August recess. In the name of bipartisanship, for the good of the American people, for the sake of doing the important jobs we have outlined here before, and for the sake of filling our judiciary, I urge my colleagues to work with us to get these people to the floor and to get them confirmed before we leave for the August recess. Mr. President, might I inquire, do I have another minute or so left? What is the time?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me mention a couple more before my time is up. One would think we would want to have in place the Solicitor for the Department of Labor to ensure the Nation's labor laws are fairly and forcefully adhered to. Eugene Scalia was nominated back in April-- April 30--to be Solicitor for the Department of Labor. There have been no hearings for his nomination. Yet that person is responsible, at the Department of Labor, for monitoring agency activities, providing advice and opinions to ensure Department of Labor employees and agencies fully comply with laws and regulations, and to assist in the development of regulations and standards to protect workers in this country. This is another very important position, Eugene Scalia. We need to have a hearing on him and he needs to be brought to the Senate floor for confirmation before we leave here for our August recess. Brian Jones, general counsel of the Department of Education: We all like to talk a good game when it comes to education. This is for the children. We need to help them. We need to staff up the Department of Education. It needs to be able to do the work we have asked it to do. Brian Jones was nominated back in April as well, April 30. He has had no hearing. Yet his responsibilities as the general counsel for the Department of Education are to help support equal access to education and education excellence around the country by providing sound, understandable, and useful legal services and effectively managing the Department on all of the ethics and legal issues that come before it as well as to serve as the principal adviser to the Secretary on all legal matters affecting the Department's programs and activities. I mentioned another individual who was nominated more recently but whose name has really been before the Senate for a long time: Otto Reich. This is one of the key priorities for President Bush because, as everyone, I think, knows, the President has paid special attention to Mexico and the countries of Central and South America. Otto Reich would be the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. It is an extraordinarily important position to manage and promote U.S. interests in that region by supporting democracy, trade, and sustainable economic development in dealing with a whole range of problems from drug trafficking to crime and poverty reduction and environmental protection. Otto Reich deserves to have a hearing and deserves to be considered by the Senate before we go out in August. The Senator from Idaho and I could go through each of these names, well over a hundred. In every case, we are dealing with an important position and we are dealing with people whose lives have basically been held in abeyance. They do not know whether or not to move their families or to do what is necessary to prepare to serve the President. The Senator from Idaho told me of a meeting he had with people who were about ready to give up because their nominations had simply been languishing for so long. I think the Senator from Idaho said: Persevere; the Senate is going to do its work. I might ask the Senator to recount that brief experience.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, Mary Gall was nominated as chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission on May 8. She is pending before the Commerce Committee to this day.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho for being instrumental in bringing this issue to this Chamber. He helped to prove we can do more than one thing at once. We can do our legislative work on the appropriations bills that come before the Senate, and at the same time have the committees meeting on the nominees and holding hearings and bringing them to the Senate floor, in most cases for a quick unanimous consent vote that does not require a lot of Senate time. I know he and I will continue to work to see we complete this list of nominees for confirmation before we leave for the August recess. It would be a shame to leave here with that unfinished business, leaving the President without the team he needs to help in the important responsibilities he has. The Senator from Idaho pointed out he has visited with different committee chairmen--for example, the Agriculture Committee chairman. There are 10 nominees pending before the Agriculture Committee. They need hearings and need to be acted upon. There are 9 pending before the Armed Services Committee, and in addition to that, J.D. Crouch, on whom we need to vote. In the Banking Committee, there are 7 pending; in the Commerce Committee, there are 8; in the Energy Committee, there are 3; before the EPW Committee, there are 8; before the Finance Committee, there are 12; Foreign Relations has 41, many of whom are important nominees to Ambassadorial positions to various countries. What do these countries think when that we sit on these nominations for so long before confirming them and sending them on to serve the United States abroad? There are 4 pending before the Governmental Affairs Committee, 6 before the health committee; as I said, before the Judiciary Committee, there are 27 judicial nominees and either 12 or 13, depending on my count of positions, to other judicial branch appointments, and 3 before the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and another before the Judiciary Committee, since the Senator from Idaho singled out the Judiciary Committee out. I am on that committee and the Judiciary Committee has not done its job either with the executive branch nominees or the judiciary, the judges. John Gillis was nominated in April to head the Office of Victims of Crime. He would be the Director of the Office for Victims of Crime at the Department of Justice. He has had no hearing. John Gillis is an extraordinary man. He is an African American, former police officer from the Los Angeles police force. His daughter was killed, murdered. John Gillis became a very strong advocate for victims' rights. He is a national hero in this regard. He is a man of great character, of passion for the cause of victims of crime. President Bush has also strongly advocated the rights of victims of crime. My colleagues know that has been one of my passions, as it has been of Senator Feinstein from California. In April, John Gillis was nominated. It is critical that he join the team at the Justice Department--no hearing. He has not been approved by the Senate. Mary Sheila Gall, this is another interesting nominee, interesting in the sense of the position she would hold. She was nominated back on May 8. Apparently there may be a hearing for her on July 25. But she would chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This is only the Commission that is responsible for the regulations and enforcement of regulations that protect the public against unreasonable risks of injuries and deaths associated with consumer products--a very important position for children as well as adult men and women in our country. It is an independent, Federal regulatory agency, and it has jurisdiction over about 15,000 different types of consumer products. Let me give you a couple of examples of things they have been doing: This past month, the month of July, a Columbus, OH, firm voluntarily recalled 32,000 hand trucks with faulty tires that can explode under intense pressure and injure bystanders or users. A Los Angeles company voluntarily recalled 600 baby walkers that will fit through standard doorways but are not designed to stop at the edge of a step. A Pennsylvania firm announced a voluntary replacement program providing free parts and labor to replace faulty sprinkler heads that relate to the ability for firefighting equipment to work, and so on and so on. I could go down a long list here.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I believe everyone is aware that Senators do a certain amount of posturing. We are a political body. People who are watching us, however, I am sure, cannot get a sense that none of this is posturing. Everything that has been said by Republicans and Democrats alike is heartfelt. We miss Paul Coverdell very much and, as someone said, it does not seem it has been a year he has been gone. The outpouring of affection for Paul is very real because of the kind of individual he was. Most people can never know what Paul Coverdell meant to the Senate, to his home State of Georgia, and to people on both sides of the aisle. Unless you were a part of this body and worked with Paul on a daily basis, it would be impossible to know what he meant to all of us. I hope, though, by this tribute today, people will get a little bit of a sense of what Paul meant to all of us. He was a friend. He was a counselor. He made things happen in the Senate, and it was never with any personal aggrandizement or publicity on his part. There was no fanfare when Paul did his work. He will be known, even though only having served a relatively short period of time in the Senate, as one of the most effective Senators who ever served here. It is instructive that the person who took his place in the Senate, a great public servant in his own right, former Governor and now Senator Zell Miller, asked how he could ever begin to fill Paul Coverdell's shoes. The reason he cannot and none of us can, of course, is that Paul Coverdell was unique and no one can ever do exactly what Paul Coverdell did. We can each aspire to have his attitude, selflessness, friendship, and helpfulness to others. If we all aspire to do that, this Senate will be a better place. We do hear every week: We need a Paul Coverdell to solve this problem or solve that problem. That is how Paul is remembered: as a person you could always turn to, to get something done when no one else could quite figure out how to do it, and frequently, by the way, that was because of personalities. Paul had a way of bridging the gap between people who were of strong minds on something; he would find a way to bring them together. As Senator Feinstein just said, we miss Paul Coverdell very much. We love him. We love his wife, Nancy. We wish her and the family the very best.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I wanted to speak briefly about the decision made last Friday to hold the next Olympics in Beijing, the 2008 games. Our Government was not involved in that. It is not a government-to-government kind of decision. But I am hopeful the fact that the United States did not, as a nation, weigh in on that decision--I am hopeful that did not send a signal to the leaders in Beijing that the U.S. Government either supports what that Chinese Government leadership does or does not object to many of the things which are done by that Government that violate human rights and in other ways suggest the country of China is not yet willing to join the family of nations. I wanted to note a few of the activities of this recent Chinese Government that suggest to me the United States needs to take a very firm position with respect to China. That is why I say I am hopeful this decision that the Olympics go to China not be mistaken for U.S. support for what China has done. As illustrated in recent press reports, China's bid for that honor has been the subject of much international attention. For example, the European Union Parliament recently passed a resolution declaring that China's bid is ``inappropriate'' and that it is ``unsuitable'' for the Games due to its ``disastrous record on human rights.'' The American government, however, chose to remain neutral on China's bid--a decision that I hope will not convey to China's leaders a signal that the United States is willing to blindly tolerate that country's continuing failure to abide by internationally-recognized norms of behavior. Consider just a few events of recent months: The collision of our reconnaissance plane with a Chinese fighter jet--the result of a Chinese pilot's aggressive flying. China's detention and interrogation of our plane's crew for nearly two weeks, and submission of a $1 million bill to the United States. China's detention and arrest of American citizens and permanent residents without clear evidence of wrongdoing or illegal activity-- including Gao Zhan, Wu Jianmin, Li Shaomin, and Tan Guangguang. Li Shaomin was convicted of espionage on July 14 and reportedly will be expelled from China in the near future. China's systematic torture and murder of hundreds of members of the Falun Gong--including the recent deaths of approximately fourteen peaceful adherents in a Chinese labor camp. China's hardening of its crackdown on this group--including a new legal directive issued by Chinese judicial authorities on June 10 authorizing courts to prosecute Falun Gong practitioners for intentional wounding or murder, or for organizing, encouraging or helping other followers commit suicide or injure themselves. Additionally, it states that followers can be prosecuted if they produce or distribute anti-government materials. China's execution of at least 1,781 persons during the past three months--more than the total number of executions worldwide over the past three years A former Chinese doctor's testimony on June 27 to the House International Relations Committee that his job required him ``to remove skin and corneas from the corpses of over one hundred executed prisoners, and, on a couple of occasions, victims of intentionally botched executions.'' The Chinese military's ongoing large-scale military exercises in the South China Sea aimed at preparing that country for an invasion of Taiwan. China's shipments to Cuba of arms and explosives, the latest of which reportedly occurred in December. China's continuing assistance and provision of military technology to rogue regimes, including the case involving the Chinese firm that helped Iraq outfit its air defenses with fiber-optic equipment. China's continuing purchases from Russia of conventional weapons, including plans to purchase two additional Sovremenny destroyers armed with Sunburn anti-ship cruise missiles. There is no doubt that dealing with China will continue to be a challenge. Whatever we do, we have to make sure that we don't send signals to China that we approve of these kinds of actions. Not standing in the way of their getting the Olympic games I hope will not send that kind of a signal. And there is no alternative. It is the world's most populous nation (and biggest potential market); it has the world's largest armed forces; and it is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Its economic and military strength has grown a great deal in recent years, and is projected to continue to grow significantly in the coming decades. There are many areas of potential disagreement with other nations, such as trade policy and human rights violations. But the one source of potentially catastrophic consequences is China's insistence that, by negotiation or force, Taiwan must be reunited with the mainland, and that conflict with the United States is inevitable as long as we stand in the way of that objective. We cannot ignore this very real and potentially dangerous situation. How we deal with it will dictate the course of history. The United States must develop a more comprehensive and realistic policy toward China, one which promotes good relations while not ignoring unpleasant exigencies. In March, two days prior to the collision over the South China Sea, I spoke on the Senate floor about the challenge of dealing with China's growing military strength. I discussed in detail China's threatening rhetoric aimed at the United States and Taiwan, and warned of that country's rapid military modernization and buildup. And most importantly, I asked the question: what if China's leaders mean what they say? To assume they do not, particularly in light of the prevalence of highly threatening public statements and military writings could mean leaving ourselves deliberately vulnerable to potential Chinese aggression, (or impotent to deal with Chinese aggression against others). China, unfortunately, has not been a very cooperative member of the international community. Several years ago, at a New Atlantic Initiative conference in Prague, I discussed America's role in that community and our vision for a world in which the United States could work side-by-side with other democracies, stating, If I had to sum up in one sentence the U.S. national interest in the world, I would say that it is promoting the security, well-being, and expansion of the community of nations that respect the democratic rights of their peoples. China cannot become a member of this trusted family until there is a serious change in the attitude of its leadership. Indeed, China's leaders systematically violate the most fundamental rights of the Chinese people. Moreover, they increasingly lack respect for the democratic rights of individuals visiting China, including U.S. citizens. The Chinese government seeks to maintain absolute control over all domestic political matters. It remains resistant to what it considers interference in its internal affairs, threatening the use of force, if necessary, to achieve its objectives, including reunification with Taiwan. And China actively pursues foreign policies that risk destabilizing the South China Sea. In the long-term, our goal must be to live in peace and prosperity with the Chinese people; however, to do so requires that we reconcile the different aspirations of our governments. It is clear that many of the Chinese government's goals conflict with American values, and it is important that we do not to compromise these values in dealing with the communist regime. We should, instead, encourage China to adopt a less aggressive and less threatening attitude through firm and principled interactions with that country's leaders. Since the formal establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the United States has purposely remained ambiguous about the degree to which we recognize the governments in Beijing and Taipei. Our ``One-China'' policy, dating back to the Shanghai Communique of 1972, has served U.S. strategic and economic interests, allowing the United States to peacefully retain ties with China and Taiwan. On one subject, however, there should be no ambiguity--U.S. policy in the event China should ever attack democratic Taiwan. That is why I am pleased that President Bush made very clear to China that the United States will actively resist any such aggression. Yet even those measures ostensibly intended to eliminate any doubt of our commitment to Taiwan have not been so concrete. While we presented Taiwan with an arms package that will help that island build its defensive forces, the United States cannot ensure that Taiwan will ever receive the diesel submarines that were included since we do not build them and it remains unclear as to whether another country would be willing to provide a design for them. Additionally, President Bush chose not to include Aegis destroyers in this arms package, though he reserves the right to sell them in the future should China continue or increase its belligerent behavior toward Taiwan. In light of China's military exercises in the South China Sea, perhaps now is the time to seriously consider this option. We must be very clear in our own minds about our strategic intentions and just as clear in signaling these intentions to China. The object is to avoid a situation in which China's leaders miscalculate and are tempted to use force against Taiwan in the mistaken belief that they won't meet resistence from the United States. History is replete with examples of ambiguity fostering aggression. Perceptions of American ambivalence contributed to North Korea's invasion of South Korea and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, for example. We have also observed instances where conflict never occurred because of the resoluteness of our stance. Our unambiguous commitment to contain Soviet expansion and defend our Western European allies during the Cold War enabled Western Europe to escape the grip of communism. And it led to one of the greatest accomplishments in history: the West's victory without war over the Soviet Empire. There is an old saying that, ``There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don't respond with encores.'' Let us not repeat the mistake--failing to signal our commitment to defend our friends and our interests--that has many times led the United States to military conflict. China should be certain that we will help Taiwan resist any aggression against it. We should make every effort to work with China, trade with China and seek greater understanding of our mutual cultures--while, at the same time, appropriately dealing with all aspects of China's troubling behavior. This offers our greatest hope for maintaining a balanced relationship near-term and helping to bring about change in the communist regime in the longer term. While reconciling our two very different views about the relationship of a nation's people to its government requires patience, and even some short-term compromise, the United States cannot remain true to its fundamental belief in the natural rights of man without promoting respect for human rights, the rule of law, and the embrace of democracy by all governments, including the government of China. There are five specific aspects of China's behavior that require a straightforward, firm response from United States: China's proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction; its threats and corresponding military buildup opposite Taiwan; its threatening rhetoric and missile buildup aimed at the United States; its human rights abuses; and its history of refusing to play by economic rules. China is perhaps the world's worst proliferator of the technology used to develop and produce ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Beijing has sold ballistic missile technology to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, and Pakistan. It has also sold nuclear technology to Iran and Pakistan. It has aided Iran's chemical weapons program and sold that nation advanced cruise missiles. And it has sold Iraq fiber-optic cables, and assisted with their installation between antiaircraft batteries, radar stations, and command centers. Chinese assistance has been vital to the missile and weapons of mass destruction programs in these countries. And because of this assistance, the American people and our forces and friends abroad now face a much greater threat. The United States needs to impose sanctions on Chinese organizations and government entities for their proliferation activities, as required by U.S. laws. Sanctions need not be the first or only tool used in the fight against proliferation. Nor, however, should this tool grow rusty from disuse. As the Washington Post noted in an editorial on July 14, 2000, ``China's continuing assistance to Pakistan's weapons program in the face of so many U.S. efforts to talk Beijing out of it shows the limits of a nonconfrontational approach.'' We must back our frequent expressions of concern with actions if our words are to be perceived as credible. Unfortunately, the United States has all too often sent a signal to Beijing that its irresponsible behavior will be tolerated by failing to enforce U.S. laws requiring sanctions, or doing so in ways deliberately calculated to undermine the intent of the sanctions. For example, China transferred M-11 missiles and production technology to Pakistan in violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime, despite promising to adhere to that agreement. U.S. law requires sanctions to be imposed on nations that transfer technology regulated by the MTCR. In 1993, the Clinton Administration imposed sanctions on China's Ministry of Defense and eleven Chinese defense and aerospace entities for violations of Category 2 of the MTCR--despite the fact that the M-11 transfers were Category 1 violations--thereby imposing the mildest form of sanctions possible. Then, in return for a Chinese promise in October 1994 not to export ``ground-to-ground missiles'' covered by the MTCR, the Clinton Administration waived the sanctions. After the waiver, despite a steady stream of press reports, Congressional testimony, and unclassified reports by the intelligence community that described China's continued missile assistance to Pakistan, the Clinton Administration did not impose sanctions as required by law. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn said in Senate testimony in 1997 that sanctions had not been invoked on China for the sale of M-11s to Pakistan because the Administration's ``. . . level of confidence [was] not sufficient to take a decision that [had] very far-reaching consequences.'' The Clinton Administration appeared to have purposely set a standard of evidence so high that it was unattainable. Madam President, China has promised six times during the past two decades not to transfer missiles and missile technology--in 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 2000--and six times has broken its promises without any consequences. It is no wonder that China does not take seriously its obligations. I recently joined several of my colleagues in sending a letter to President Bush expressing concern about Beijing's continuing proliferation activities. The letter states: The PRC's most recent missile nonproliferation promise was made on November 21, 2000. China promised not to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons, and to abide by the MTCR. The PRC further pledged to issue export regulations covering dual-use technologies. However, no regulations have been promulgated, and we are concerned that China has continued to transfer missile equipment and technology in contravention of both the MTCR and its November pledge. In return for China's November 2000 pledge, the previous administration ``swept the decks clean,'' sanctioning numerous Chinese entities for their activities and subsequently waiving those sanctions. And again it appears as though China may be continuing to transfer missile equipment and technology. We do not need more empty promises from China--we need action. It is important that the Bush Administration signal to China by imposing sanctions required by U.S. nonproliferation statutes and making them stick that the United States will no longer tolerate that country's irresponsible proliferation activities. In addition to enforcing nonproliferation laws, we should also resist efforts to weaken controls on the export of dual-use technologies, which China can use to further modernize its military, as well as transfer to other countries. In particular, I am concerned that the Export Administration Act of 2001 would reduce the ability of the U.S. government to maintain effective export controls on such items. An Asian Wall Street Journal op-ed published on March 19 by two researchers at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control described how the Chinese firm that helped Iraq outfit its air defenses with fiber-optic equipment has purchased a significant amount of technology from U.S. firms and is seeking to import more. For example, the op-ed indicated that one such firm has applied for an export license to teach this Chinese company how to build high-speed switching and routing equipment that will allow communications to be shuttled quickly across multiple transmission lines. The U.S. government should have the ability to deny exports of dual-use technology to a company such as the Chinese firm in this case. The second of five areas of concern is China's belligerent behavior toward Taiwan. China is intent on gaining control over that island--by force if necessary--and is taking the necessary military preparations that would enable it to do so. According to an article published in the Washington Post on April 27, Wu Xinbo, a professor at Fudan University's Center for American Studies in Shanghai, stated: At this moment it's very difficult to argue that there's still a high prospect for a peaceful solution of the Taiwan issue . . . From a Chinese perspective there has to be a solution to Taiwan either way, peacefully or with the use of force. Given [the] change in U.S. policy . . . you have to give more weight to the second option.'' The ``change'' to which he was referring was the U.S. commitment to come to Taiwan's defense articulated by President Bush. China's threats have been backed by rapid efforts to modernize its military. The immediate focus of the modernization is to build a military force capable of subduing Taiwan swiftly enough to prevent American intervention. According to the Department of Defense's Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, released in June 2000, ``A cross-strait conflict between China and Taiwan involving the United States has emerged as the dominant scenario guiding [the Chinese Army's] force planning, military training, and war preparation.'' To solidify its ability to launch an attack against Taiwan, China is increasing its force of short-range ballistic missiles opposite the island. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal on April 23, U.S. defense officials estimate that China currently has 300 such missiles aimed at the island, and is increasing this number at a rate of 50 per year. China is also in the process of modernizing its air force and navy. The Defense Department's June 2000 report predicted that after 2005, ``. . . if projected trends continue, the balance of air power across the Taiwan Strait could begin to shift in China's favor.'' The same report warned, ``China's submarine fleet could constitute a substantial force capable of controlling sea lanes and mining approaches around Taiwan, as well as a growing threat to submarines in the East and South China Seas.'' In response to the growing threat and Taiwan's increasing vulnerability to an attack, President Bush approved the sale to Taiwan of some much-needed defensive military equipment. As noted, however, the sales are limited in practical effect and, in any event, must be accompanied by proper training and coordination with the U.S. military in order to be useful in conflict. In addition to the Chinese military's investment in hardware, Beijing has increasingly focused on advanced training methods, demonstrating joint-service war-fighting skills in its military exercises that are steadily altering the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait. Over the past several years, these exercises have shifted from an intimidation tactic to a more serious effort intended to prepare China for an invasion of Taiwan. Beijing's amphibious exercises at Dongshan Island in the Taiwan Strait have illustrated this increasing level of sophistication in war- fighting tactics and interoperability. A Chinese state-owned newspaper, Hong Kong Ming Pao, reported on June 1 that China's Central Military Commission proposed that these exercises be held near Taiwan ``in order to warn the United States and the Taiwan authorities not to play with fire over the Taiwan issue.'' Furthermore, according to the same article, ``the main aim of this exercise will be to attack and occupy Taiwan's offshore islands and to counterattack U.S. military intervention.'' Another article in the state-owned Hong Kong Wen Wei Po on June 4 stated that the purpose of the exercise ``not only includes capture of [the islands around Taiwan], but also how to tenaciously defend these islands and turn them into wedges for driving into the heart of the enemy.'' According to an article in the New York Times on July 11, the official Chinese publication, International Outlook Magazine, described in detail these recent ``war games''. The games reportedly occurred in three stages. The first, information warfare, was intended to paralyze enemy communications and command systems electronically. The second involved a joint navy, infantry, and air force landing on Dongshan Island. And the third, according to the Chinese publication, simulated a ``counterattack against an enemy fleet attempting to intervene in the war.'' It was also reported that this final stage incorporated Russian- bought SU-27 fighter aircraft. Thus far, military experts state that China has had difficulty incorporating these aircraft into its arsenal, and its ability to do so indicates a significant improvement in its ability to integrate military operations. Taiwan's war-fighting skills are not nearly as advanced. For over twenty years, the United States has cut Taiwan off from the intellectual capital that should accompany the hardware we sell, thus reducing the readiness of that island's forces. Our defense officials and military personnel need to be able work with their Taiwanese counterparts to ensure that they know how to use the equipment and they will be capable of operating alongside U.S. forces. Increased interaction would better prepare Taiwan's military to defend itself in the event of a Chinese attack, reduce the possibility that the United States would need to become involved in such a conflict, and inevitably save lives. This leads directly to the third area of concern--China's actions that directly threaten America. China's harsh rhetoric aimed at the United States is accompanied by Beijing's build-up of long-range missiles targeted at our cities, acquisition of anti-ship cruise missiles to counter U.S. carrier battle groups, and development of cyberwarfare and anti-satellite capabilities. China also understands the importance of aggressive intelligence operations against the United States. In February 2000, the People's Liberation Army Daily, a state-owned newspaper, warned the United States against intervening in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, stating, On the Taiwan issue, it is very likely that the United States will walk to the point where it injures others while ruining itself . . . China is neither Iraq or Yugoslavia . . . it is a country that has certain abilities of launching a strategic counterattack and the capacity of launching a long- distance strike. Probably it is not a wise move to be at war with a country such as China, a point which U.S. policymakers know fairly well also.'' China is, in fact, continuing to increase its capacity to launch a long-distance strike against the United States. The Defense Department's report, Proliferation: Threat and Response, states: China currently has over 100 nuclear warheads. . . While the ultimate extent of China's strategic modernization is unknown, it is clear that the number, reliability, survivability, and accuracy of Chinese strategic missiles capable of hitting the United States will increase during the next two decades. China currently has about 20 CSS-4 ICBMs with a range of over 13,000 kilometers, which can reach the United States. Some of its ongoing missile modernization programs likely will increase the number of Chinese warheads aimed at the United States. For example, Beijing is developing two new road-mobile solid-propellant ICBMs. China has conducted successful flight tests of the DF-31 ICBM in 1999 and 2000; this missile is estimated to have a range of about 8,000 kilometers. Another longer-range mobile ICBM also is under development and likely will be tested within the next several years. It will be targeted primarily against the United States.'' China's military has also taken steps to improve its capability to counter U.S. carrier battle groups, in response to its encounter with the U.S. Navy in 1996. It has acquired two Sovremenny destroyers from Russia armed with Sunburn anti-ship cruise missiles, and according to an article in the Washington Times on May 4, plans to purchase two more. These weapons were designed to attack U.S. carriers and Aegis ships during the Cold War and are a significant improvement to the Chinese Navy's capabilities in this area. In addition to its buildup of conventional and nuclear weapons, China's military is also placing an emphasis on information warfare, including computer network attacks and anti-satellite operations. In September 2000, the U.S. Navy identified China, among several others, as having an acknowledged policy of preparing for cyberwarfare and as rapidly developing its capabilities. In fact, an article in the People's Liberation Army Daily in 1999 stated that the Chinese military planned to elevate information warfare to a separate service on par with its army, navy and air force. Also of great concern is the Chinese military's development of a broad range of counterspace measures, including an anti-satellite (ASAT) capability. According to China's Strategic Modernization: Implications for the United States, written by Mark Stokes, ``Chinese strategists and engineers perceive U.S. reliance on communications, reconnaissance, and navigation satellites as a potential Achilles' heel.'' The Defense Department's June 2000 report warned that China may already possess the capability to damage optical sensors on satellites and furthermore, that it may have acquired high-energy laser equipment and technical assistance that could be used in the development of ground-based ASAT weapons. An article in Jane's Missiles and Rockets on May 1 confirmed the Defense Department's warning, stating that China's state-run press reports indicate that country is, in fact, developing an ASAT capability. It is currently in the ground-testing phase and will start flight testing in 2002. In light of China's threatening rhetoric and its efforts to acquire the capabilities that could allow it to carry out those threats, we must begin to implement a broad range of measures that will safeguard our national security. First, we need to develop and deploy a missile defense system to protect ourselves and our allies from an accidental or deliberate missile launch and to eliminate the possibility of blackmail by hostile powers. As President Bush recently stated in a speech to the National Defense University, We must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us. . . . We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world. To do so, we must move beyond the constraints of the 30 year old ABM Treaty. This treaty does not recognize the present, or point us in the future. It enshrines the past. No treaty that prevents us from pursuing promising technology to defend ourselves, our friends and our allies is in our interests or in the interests of world peace. Second, the United States needs to develop better anti-ship cruise missile defenses. Systems to counter the cruise missile threat have lagged behind the level of that threat, despite the fact that, according to the U.S. Navy, over 75 nations possess more than 90 different types of anti-ship cruise missiles. We must also prepare for China's potential use of information warfare. It is important that we find ways to protect our computer networks from hacking, to eliminate future lapses in security, as most recently occurred at Sandia National Laboratory in Mexico. According to an article in the Washington Times on March 16, this attack has been partially attributed to hackers with links to the Chinese government. The United States should also develop defenses against China's ASAT weapons. As the Commission to Assess United States National Security, Space Management and Organization recently concluded: The present extent of U.S. dependence on space, the rapid pace at which this dependence is increasing and the vulnerabilities it creates, all demand that U.S. national security space interests be recognized as a top national priority. With this goal in mind, Secretary Rumsfeld recently announced a reorganization of our Nation's space programs. Moreover, President Bush, recognizing U.S. reliance on our network of satellites for civilian and military uses, has stressed the need for ``great effort and new spending'' to protect our satellites from attack. Of course, our ability to defend against China's increasing military capabilities is largely dependent on our knowledge of their development. We must do a better job of ascertaining Chinese government plans and intentions (and proliferation activities) and improve our counterintelligence vis-a-vis China. The fourth area of concern is the Chinese government's deplorable human rights record that, according to the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, has continued to deteriorate over the past year. The report states: The [Chinese] Government continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in violation of internationally accepted norms. These abuses stemmed from the authorities' extremely limited tolerance of public dissent aimed at the Government, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms . . . Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, the use of torture, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, the mistreatment of prisoners, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process. According to an Amnesty International report on June 7, China has executed at least 1,781 persons during the past 3 months--more than the total number of executions worldwide over the past 3 years. Moreover, the report indicates that 2,960 people have been sentenced to death in China during this brief time period. What is the significance to the United States of such abuses? First, they are not only directed at Chinese citizens; they are also directed at Americans. Second, if China is to become a reliable member of the international community, it must begin to adhere to accepted norms of behavior. In this regard, China's leaders seem to be oblivious to the understanding that all people deserve certain basic freedoms and that violation of such fundamental rights is an appropriate concern of the United States and the world at large. For example, when questioned by the Washington Post about China's detention of several Americans, Chinese President Jiang Zemin stated, ``. . . the United States is the most developed country in the world in terms of its economy and it high-tech; its military is also very strong. You have a lot of things to occupy yourself with . . . why do you frequently take special interest in cases such as this?'' Jiang Zemin's perplexity speaks volumes. Until the Chinese leadership understands why Americans and most of the rest of the world make such ``a big deal'' over denial of the rule of law, it will be hard to reach a reconciliation of our mutual aspirations. For example, the Chinese government's continued detention of two American citizens and two U.S. permanent residents--Gao Zhan, Wu Jianmin, Li Shaomin, and Tan Guangguang--is unacceptable, and should be much more the focus of official U.S. government attention. One of these individuals, Li Shaomin was convicted of espionage on July 14 and is expected to be deported from China. With regard to the others, China has failed to present evidence of wrongdoing or illegal activity, or indicate when their cases might begin to move forward. President Bush addressed China's detention of Americans in a phone conversation with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on July 6, making clear that they should be ``treated fairly and returned promptly.'' These words need to be reinforced with actions. While the State Department issued a travel advisory in March to American citizens and permanent residents of Chinese descent traveling to China who have connections to Taiwan or have openly criticized the Chinese government, we can also deny visas to Chinese officials, seek international sanctions, and continue to link an improvement in human rights to other policies, as we did with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. As I mentioned earlier, I am concerned that our government's neutrality on Beijing's ultimately successful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games may send a signal of U.S. tolerance of China's inappropriate behavior. With the Secretary of State visiting China to help prepare for the President's trip this fall, there is an opportunity to reinforce our opposition to the repressive behavior of China's leaders. While some hope otherwise, it seems unlikely that the International Olympic Committee's choice of Beijing will bring about positive change in the communist regime. In fact, I fear that the decision could serve to strengthen the standing of China's communist leaders in the world, as the 1936 Games glorified and emboldened Nazi Germany. The only hope for a positive result of China hosting the games is a concerted effort by our government, Europeans (and others) and human rights groups using the occasion to push China's leaders. The multitude of media covering the games can also help. During the 1980's President Reagan was a champion for human rights, standing up for freedom, democracy, and civil society. He passionately spoke of American values and universally-recognized rights, and more importantly, backed his words with action. In his 1982 ``Evil Empire'' speech before the British House of Commons, President Reagan stated: While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. This is the course we must chart in the coming years. China must understand that a friendly, productive relationship with the United States can only be based upon mutually shared values. Beijing's human rights abuses are anathema to the American people, and relations cannot reach their full potential as long as the communist government continues to violate the most fundamental rights of worship, peaceful assembly, and open discourse. A failure to reconcile this most basic attitude will result in continued strained relations. The final area of concern is that, in addition to its violation of other international norms, China has a history of failing to play by accepted economic rules, placing an extensive set of requirements on companies that wish to do business in China and imposing an array of trade barriers on imports that compete directly with products made by domestic Chinese firms. Such barriers make it difficult for U.S. companies to penetrate China's market. The result is a surging U.S. trade deficit between us, reaching $85 billion in 2000. On June 1, President Bush submitted to Congress a determination extending normal trade relations status to China for another year, allowing that country's WTO (World Trade Organization) negotiations to continue. Not until these negotiations are completed and China has acceded to the WTO will the permanent normal trade status approved by the 106th Congress take effect. In June, China took a significant step toward WTO accession by completing its bilateral WTO agreement with the United States. That country must now complete bilateral negotiations with Mexico and resolve several outstanding issues related to its multilateral agreement before its accession package proceeds to the WTO's Working Party, and then to the WTO's General Council, for approval. As a member of the WTO, China will be required to play by the same rules as all other members. China's membership in this organization has the potential to improve our trading relationship, benefitting many American businesses and consumers, as long as China holds to its agreements. Finally, we expect that China's accession to the WTO will be immediately followed by Taiwan's accession to this organization. Last September, I received a letter from President Clinton that responded to a letter I sent him in July 2000 (along with 30 other Senators), that sought assurances that his Administration remained committed to Taiwan's entry to the WTO under terms acceptable to Taiwan. In the letter the former President stated that, ``My administration remains firmly committed to the goal of WTO General Council approval of the accession packages for China and Taiwan at the same session.'' The letter went on to say that ``China has made clear on many occasions, and at high levels, that it will not oppose Taiwan's accession to the WTO.'' However, the President acknowledged that, ``China did submit proposed language to their working party stating that Taiwan is a separate customs territory of China,'' but went on to say that it had ``advised the Chinese that such language is inappropriate and irrelevant to the work of the working party and that we will not accept it.'' Further, in a September 2000 letter to Senators Lott and Daschle, President Clinton stated: . . . I am confident we have a common understanding that both China and Taiwan will be invited to accede to the WTO under the language agreed to in 1992, namely as the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (referred to as ``Chinese Taipei"). The United States will not accept any other outcome. We must continue to make clear to China that it would be unacceptable to the United States for China to fail to live up to its commitments not to block Taiwan's entry to the WTO as a separate customs territory, Chinese Taipei, not a customs territory of China. Mr. President, let me briefly recap the concerns I have raised today regarding China's proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, its threats and military buildup opposite Taiwan and the United States, it human rights abuses, and its history of failing to play by accepted economic rules. I believe our policy toward China should be one of strength and firmness, with friendly intentions, but never compromising U.S. principles. In the long-term, our goal must be to live in peace and prosperity with the Chinese people; however, to do so requires that China's leaders begin to alter their behavior. As Robert Kagan and William Kristol wrote on April 16 in the Weekly Standard, with regard to China's handling of the collision of our reconnaissance plane and China's fighter jet, ``China hands both inside and outside the government will argue that this crisis needs to be put behind us so that the U.S.-China relationship can return to normal. It is past time for everyone to wake up to the fact that the Chinese behavior we have seen is normal.'' To conduct business as usual with a communist regime that mistreats its people and threatens the security of Americans and our allies would be a dereliction of our duty as a world leader. We have no higher obligation than the protection of Americans, and the support of our friends and allies, including Taiwan, which stands to lose the freedoms it has worked so hard to sustain in face of resistance from China's communist regime. During his ``Sinews of Peace'' address in 1946, Winston Churchill stated, Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. As it has so often been said, those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. In the face of obvious belligerency and determination to impose a different set of rules by China's leadership, the United States must not repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot stand idle or look away in the face of the Chinese behavior and rhetoric I have discussed. There is no doubt that China will play a larger role on the world stage in the coming years. Our goal must be to ensure that China's leaders do not assume that this heightened stature grants them the right to attack Taiwan or be a force for belligerency and instability in the world. Dealing with China will be a challenge, but America does not fear challenge. Our greatest hope for change remains, as it has always been, to stand firmly as a force for peace and progress, and to champion no less for the people of other countries what we guarantee for our own citizens. I am confident that, if we make clear our friendly intentions to China and follow through with actions that reinforce our words, Beijing will, in time, respond positively, Taiwan will continue to flourish, and China can be welcomed as a peaceful and productive member to the community of nations. I express the hope that by holding those games in Beijing, the media, human rights organizations, and others will work to hold the Chinese leadership accountable for what goes on in that nation.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I thank the Senator from Nevada. Madam President, will the Chair advise me when I have gone 5 minutes. I do not want to impinge anymore on the time of the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, let me say I appreciate what the Senator from Nevada said about the reforms that Senators Domenici, Murkowski, and I effectuated with respect to the Department of Energy. It was a time of some confusion, and reasonable people could differ about what we did there. But I think it is working out well. I appreciate that the Senator from Nevada is now very much in support of that. Earlier I when spoke, I did no use the name of the Senator from Nevada but I did thank the Democratic leadership for moving nominations with such alacrity last week. I think there were 54 nominations and I think I mentioned that I hoped we could continue with that progress during the next couple of weeks. I wanted the Senator from Nevada to know I paid him a compliment today as well.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I yield.

Mr. KYL. I am happy to yield.

Mr. KYL. I will not take the full 10 minutes. I take 30 seconds to simply say, Senator Domenici each year has a significant responsibility, as well as the other Members of the subcommittee on which he sits, to put together a bill for energy and water. As he pointed out, a great deal of the jurisdiction of that subcommittee deals with our nuclear weapons program. Senator Domenici does not simply put together what he has been told is a good idea. He has taken a career to learn from these laboratories--a couple of which he represents, and the people in those laboratories--what is best in our national interests and what needs to done. It is not glorious work and there is no big political payoff. Very few people have the knowledge he does. He relies on people such as his staff, Clay Sell and Dr. Peter Lyons, a nuclear physicist from Los Alamos Laboratory, to assist him in developing the kind of plans that the Senate then needs to act upon, particularly with the comments about the development of nuclear energy that will be safe and that we need to promote for this country. I think he is absolutely right on the mark. I plan to join him in his efforts to promote that in the coming months.

Mr. KYL. I want to take 30 seconds to compliment the Senator from New Mexico, and then I will ask unanimous consent to speak no more than 5 minutes in morning business.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will continue to work with the majority and minority leaders to ensure that we can consider these nominees.

Mr. KYL. We started this session of Congress, I think, on a fairly high note of bipartisanship. While there have been some recent events that may have detracted from that, I think most of us would like to proceed with as much bipartisanship as possible. Part of this, of course, concerns relationships between the Congress and the President. Since the majority in the Senate and the President are of different parties, that may be a little more difficult, but I have a suggestion today which I hope will enable us to move in that direction. The President has a number of nominees, executive branch nominees, there are a few legislative branch nominees that require our actions, and then there are some judicial nominees. I hope in a real spirit of bipartisanship we can get those nominees cleared; that is to say, the Senate can confirm the President's nominations and the personnel that he needs in the executive branch to get his work done, and that we can confirm the judges the courts need. These are people who need to be put into place so our country can move forward for all of the American people. Up until last week, unfortunately, the Senate had been acting at a relatively slow pace. I might also add the change from the majority to the minority, and vice verse, undoubtedly complicated this, but we were not making very good progress. Last week, I note that 54 nominees were confirmed by the Senate. In fact, 36 were confirmed just last Thursday. So we are finally beginning to make some progress. I urge my colleagues to continue this progress because, by my count, there are 93 executive branch nominees pending as of today. Only 26 have had hearings. But as we know, it does not take too much for the committee work to follow shortly after a hearing so the nominees can actually come to the Senate for full debate and confirmation by the full Senate. As of today, according to the administration's figures, approximately 347 nominees have come to the Senate, and only 187 have been confirmed. So we still have a fair amount of work to do. In terms of judicial nominees, my understanding is that there are 29 nominations pending, 3 of which have had hearings. Of those, 20 are circuit court nominees, 9 are district court nominees. The bottom line with regard to the courts is that as of today, no circuit or district court judges have been confirmed this year. We are, of course, now past the midway point of this year. We are going to have to get going. Again, I do not want to point any fingers in the spirit of bipartisanship which I am invoking here today. I am hoping Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the administration can work very closely together. What I would like to do, and I will do at the end of my remarks, is submit for the Record the names of the nominees who are pending. I was going to read the names of the people who are currently pending, but I do not need to do that. I will submit those for the Record. But I would note some of these have been pending going back to the month of April. Clearly the Senate can act on those nominees who have been before us for a long period of time, and we should expedite those who have come before us, even fairly recently. It should be our goal that by the time we conclude our work in July and return to our States for the August recess, that all of the nominees who have come to the Senate, except maybe in the last couple of days before that period of time, will have been cleared; that is to say, they will have had their hearings, come out of committee, and been acted upon by the full Senate. Very few of them are controversial, as I go down the list. I do note in a couple of cases nominees are being held up by Senators--actually in four or five cases. A couple of those are being held up by Republicans, and a few more are being held up by Democrats. I am going to urge my Republican colleagues to cooperate so the concerns they have expressed can be dealt with and the nominees can move forward. I hope my Democratic colleagues will do the same on their side of the aisle. I think it is important that while a Member of the Senate may put a technical hold on a nomination, we all appreciate all that means is that they have requested to be notified if the majority leader is going to call that nominee up for a full Senate consideration so that Senator will then have an opportunity to object. Obviously, we do not want to put Members in that position, but I do think it is important for the full Senate to be able to work its will on these nominees. That is why I am going to ask both Republicans and Democrats, where they have a problem with somebody, to try to work that out with the administration so we can proceed. Finally, last week I worked with the distinguished majority leader and the assistant majority leader in ensuring we could both bring the appropriations bills that we have to deal with to the Senate floor and to get these nominees done at the same time. There is nothing to prevent us from bringing an appropriations bill to the floor and then toward the end of the day, for those nominees that do not require debate and rollcall vote, having them considered in the wrap-up. I will continue to do that because it is my expectation that we will not have to use the rules of parliamentary procedure that we all have available to us to hold up business of the Senate in order to get these nominees done since they are the top priority; that we can actually do both at the same time. That is my request of the majority leader and of the assistant majority leader--to continue to work in that spirit moving forward both with the appropriations bill and with the nominees. I will have more to say about this later. I ask unanimous consent that the names of the nominees who are currently pending be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I first thank the Senator from Washington State for her kindness letting me speak next. I hope to make an appointment in my office. I will cut my remarks short and give a summary and put the remainder in the Record. I appreciate her generosity and that of the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask consent to speak in morning business for 5 minutes, and following my remarks, the Senator from Washington speak.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to simply urge the support of my colleagues for the amendment that my colleague, Senator McCain, has brought forward. We have to care about the lives and the safety, as well as the ability to carry out the mission that we have entrusted to them, of the young men and women in our military. What Senator McCain is doing is nothing more than taking the word of the military--the chiefs and the other military leaders of our country--about what they need, and providing a small amount of that as a part of this supplemental appropriations bill--$847 million worth. All of that money is offset from programs, frankly, that either can be deferred or from funds which are not going to be spent before the beginning of the next fiscal year. So there is very little in terms of loss of any program from the offsets. But this money would make a huge difference to the men and women of our military, if we can get it into the pipeline before October 1. So I hope my colleagues will support the amendment of Senator McCain to help the folks in our military and enable them to do the job we have entrusted them to do.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I would like to change gears a little bit and talk about another subject that is very distressing. Throughout this break I would turn the television on to the evening news, and invariably there would be a story about yet more violence in the Middle East. It really got me thinking about the fundamental issue that I think a lot of Americans have ignored. We wring our hands. We wish that the parties could get together, that there could be peace in the Middle East, and that they could put their problems behind them and live in harmony. So we ask--and I see newspeople basically asking different versions of this question--why can't they just go back to the peace process? Of course, Secretary Powell urged both parties to agree to a cease-fire, which temporarily they did, yet every single day there has been a bombing or other terrorist attack or attempt in the State of Israel. The Israeli people have said: Peace is a two-way street. If Yasser Arafat and the PLO are not willing to enforce the multiple cease-fire agreements and the peace process that we thought we had agreed to before, then we will have to enforce the law, and that includes going after those terrorists who threaten our people. No nation can do otherwise. I rise to comment briefly on this notion of ``returning to the peace process.'' The problem is that the 1993 Oslo accords, which were the genesis of this thing we call ``the peace process,'' we now learn were fundamentally flawed. That is now apparent to the Israeli people, despite significant differences. Talk about a robust democracy. It exists in Israel. You have very strongly held views by different citizens in Israel, and they fight it out. During their election process, they had a very robust election contest. Then they come together with a leader, and they hope to be unified as a people. They had desperately wanted, to borrow someone else's famous phrase, to give peace a chance. As a result, they tried to make the Oslo accords of 1993 work. What they found after Camp David, just about a year ago this month, was that the PLO was unwilling at the end of the day to make the kinds of commitments that would be necessary for a lasting peace in the region. The reason for that is a fundamental difference of approach. For the Israelis, it has been a question of buying peace with concessions, primarily of land, of territory. But the PLO and other Arab or Muslim groups in the Middle East apparently never had any intention of providing the quid pro quo of peace. Instead, too much of their effort has been focused on the illegitimacy, in their view, of the Israeli State, of the fundamental disagreement with the action that the United Nations took after World War II to literally create a homeland for the Jewish people. Because that homeland was taken from territory which the Palestinians saw as their lands, they have never been willing to concede the legitimacy of the Israeli State. At Camp David, after historic concessions were made by Prime Minister Barak, concessions which had to do with the most basic rights of the Israeli citizens--to name their own capital and to have that capital an undivided city, Jerusalem; concessions with respect to over 90 percent of the West Bank land returned to the Palestinians; concessions made in removing its troops from Lebanon and a whole variety of other things-- after all of those concessions had been made and there was an opportunity to seize the moment, Yasser Arafat, on behalf of the PLO, said no, he wanted one more thing. He wanted the right of return of all of the Palestinians, maybe 2 to 4 million people, maybe more, who he claims were dispossessed in order to create the Jewish state. All of those people had to have the right to go back to their homes. That, of course, was the ultimate deal breaker. No Israeli leader could ever agree to that concession. That would literally have meant the end of the Jewish state as it is. As a result, those accords of a year ago, that discussion at Camp David of a year ago, concluded with no agreement. It exposed the fundamental fallacy of the Oslo accords in the first instance. Very briefly, there were three essential premises of the Oslo accords. The first was that if the PLO was given this 30,000-manned armed force, that could be used to suppress violence rather than to promote more agitation in the Middle East. The idea was that whereas a democratic society such as Israel had a hard time dealing with these terrorists, a firm dictatorial Yasser Arafat, with an armed 30,000- manned force, could put down these terrorists and bring peace to the area. Of course, the force expanded significantly beyond that which had been agreed to and eventually it was used to promote violence, not to suppress it. The second premise was that Israel could withdraw from the territory before a final peace accord was reached without losing its bargaining power or military deterrent. It had worked the other way around with regard to Egypt. Egypt, in good faith with President Sadat, dealt with the Israeli leaders up front. Israel ceded the land after the peace agreement was obtained. But peace was restored between Israel and Egypt as a result. That withdrawal of Israeli forces from Egyptian land prior to the peace ensuing was a true trade of land for peace. But under the Oslo accords, the situation was reversed. Israel was required to withdraw first and then negotiate. The result, of course, has been no credible peace. The third premise is that peace could be made with the PLO. In Israel there had been a consensus all along among all of the parties, including Labor and Likud, that it was not possible to deal with the PLO because, A, the Palestinian organization was philosophically committed to Israel's destruction. It is hard to deal with people in a peace process who are absolutely committed to your destruction. Secondly, the PLO's previous negotiations had been based on terrorism as the means of achieving their objectives. No Israeli government had been willing to negotiate with an entity committed to its destruction through violence. This peace process changed that. The Israeli leaders, in a leap of faith, said: All right, we will deal with the PLO, despite this historic background. The process itself became the basis for this understanding. A new assumption was basically created. If you are in the process of negotiating, then the quality of the people on the other side really didn't matter. That is why the Israelis were willing to make this leap of faith. It almost became a secular religion. In this country people talked about the peace process almost as the end in itself rather than the means to an end. It turns out that the nature of the leadership of the negotiating parties does matter. So do the actions on the ground. The quality of the other people is fundamental to the success of the negotiations. The parties were never close, as some thought. Rather, the question really is whether peace was ever achievable given the Palestinian objectives. That is why I say the fundamental assumptions of the peace process, of the Oslo accords, were flawed. In the end, none of the three premises turned out to be correct. They all turned out to be false. The Israeli people now understand that. The question now is how to repair the damage that resulted from an adherence to this peace process where Israel gave up more and more and more and, in the end, got no peace. Ever since the Secretary of State and other officials before him went to the Middle East, there has been a bombing or an attempt every single day, an attempt of terrorism. There is no peace. Hopefully, this helps to explain in brief form why it is not possible to simply return to the peace process as if there were some magic in that Oslo process. The Oslo process is dead. The reason it is dead is because it was premised on fundamental fallacies. That is why the Israeli people cannot go back to that flawed process. We in the United States should not be critical of that decision on the part of the Israeli people. The Israeli people are not to blame for dealing now with a situation of violence and lawlessness and terror in as firm a way as they possibly can to protect their own citizens. No country could do otherwise. And for Americans to be so presumptuous as to lecture the Israelis about overreacting and urging them to return to a peace process which they now recognize was fundamentally flawed is the height of arrogance. We in the U.S. have to be much more understanding about the difficulties of achieving peace. Fundamentally, Madam President, I think what we have to recognize is that as long as the leadership of the other side in this controversy-- primarily the PLO--is not democratically based but is totalitarian, as long as there is not an involvement of all of the Palestinian people in the decisions on the other side, there will continue to be conflict. The nature of the leadership on the other side matters, and it matters greatly. Until there is a democratically elected Palestinian Government, until the leaders are accountable to the people, whom I suspect want peace as much as anybody else in the region or in the world, then we are not likely to get the kind of peaceful resolution for which we all hope. So what I hope right now is that the American people will be understanding of the position of the Israeli Government; that they will be supportive of this long-time ally, the nation of Israel; that they will recognize that there is no moral equivalence between acts of terror on the one hand and attempting to enforce the law on the other hand; that they will be supportive both in terms of military and economic support but also psychologically and not buy into this notion that there is repression on the part of the Israeli Government against the Palestinians which is the cause of the problem. This whole idea of moral equivalence is wrong. If we go back to the founding of the Jewish state by the United Nations and recognize what was attempted there and the moral legitimacy of the Israeli State, then I think Americans will more carefully calibrate their criticism of the Israeli Government and understand that it is going to take a long time; that hearts have to change before there can be peace; and probably the best opportunity is for democracy to take hold in the Arab States so that the leaders are accountable to the people because in the long run, most people really want peace. They want to live together; they want to engage in commerce together; and they do not want to continue to send their sons and daughters to die for causes that are whipped up by their leadership--to die unnecessarily. That is why I urge my colleagues in the Senate today, the administration in Washington, and the American people generally, to learn to listen carefully and to recognize that the peace process was based upon flawed assumptions, and not to urge the Israelis to act in ways that would be inimical both to their own immediate self-interests in terms of safety and the long-term interests of peace. It is a difficult subject, one that we have to confront; and we have to stand by an ally and also recognize the legitimacy of other Arab aspirations and Muslim aspirations in the Middle East, in which we have a great stake as well. As long as we fail to recognize the complexity of this situation and understand the process that was urged for so long cannot be the basis for future peace negotiations, we are not going to be able to proceed in a constructive way. I hope the American people, as a result of these comments and others, will support the administration in its very delicate and difficult negotiations in that region and will be supportive of the Members of this body who seek to promote the kind of peace that will be not just temporary but lasting. Mr. President, yet again Israel's restraint and unilateral acceptance of a ``cease fire'' has been met with terrorist acts perpetrated against an innocent civilian population. The recent tragic deaths of 20 Israeli teenagers and serious wounding of another 48 by a Palestinian suicide bomber were stark and deeply sad reminders that the key to peace in the Middle East does not depend on the State of Israel. I am extremely concerned that the doctrine of moral equivalence has taken root among many in the United States and around the world with respect to perceptions of Arab-Israeli violence. While over the years Israel may have taken steps with which we do not always agree, the notion that it operates on the same moral plane as its adversaries is patently false. The suicide bombing, deliberately targeted against Israeli youth, was not the result of individuals driven to extremes by perceived Israeli intransigence in peace talks. It was, in fact, the action of organized groups committed to Israel's total destruction. At the urging of Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Israeli Government has entered into cease fires. The attacks continue. When the Israelis identify and eliminate the specific perpetrators of these mass terrorist killings, they are called murderers. Meanwhile, the world wrings its hands and asks why the parties can't just return to return to the ``peace process.'' This is a good time to answer that question, beginning with an assessment of what went wrong with the Oslo peace process. The effect of the violence in Israel today cannot be overstated. After the failure of the Camp David summit just a year ago, and the subsequent reignition of violence, Israel has suffered from an unrelenting assault on its people. The result has been a total reassessment in Israel of the premises of the Oslo peace process-- premises which have turned out to be invalid. Let's go back to 1993. The first of three basic premises of Oslo was that, if the PLO were given a 30,000-man armed force, it would be used to suppress, not to perpetuate, armed violence. Yitzhak Rabin was Defense Minister back in 1987 when the intifada started. The failure to stop it was a turning point for Rabin; it caused him to decide then to begin a peace process. He thought that if Israel couldn't handle the intifada, maybe Arafat could. But soon the 30,000-man force became a 40,000-man force, and anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired weapons and other prohibited arms found their way into the Palestinian force's arsenal--weapons that are now pointed and fired at Israeli communities. All of this has occurred in violation of the Oslo Accords. So the first premise--that the PLO would actually control the intifada with a 30,000-man force--turned out to be false. The second premise was that Israel could withdraw from territory before a final peace accord was reached without losing its bargaining power or sacrificing physical security. In the case of its dealings with Egypt, Israel had ceded land after the peace agreement was obtained. That withdrawal had worked as a true trade of land for peace. But, under the Oslo Accords, Israel was required to withdraw first and then negotiate. The result has been no credible peace. This premise of Oslo had been based on the assumption that Israel was finally strong enough to be able to relinquish land while preserving its ability to deter violence. So Israel withdrew from the West Bank, except for a few military posts authorized in the Oslo agreement, and in May of 2000 also withdrew from southern Lebanon. Both actions appeared to the Arab terrorist organizations and the Palestinian Authority as a retreat from a successful campaign of violence. After the intifada, Israel withdrew from the West Bank. After the terrorism of Hezbollah, Israel withdrew from Lebanon. The PA understandably saw violence as a way to achieve its goals. So the second premise of Oslo--that Israel could withdraw first and achieve its peace objectives later--has also proven false. Arafat and the PA interpreted the withdrawals simply as a sign of weakness thus emboldening them to incite the violence that has continued unabated since Rosh Hashana. The third, and central, premise of Oslo was that peace could be made with the PLO. In Israel, there was a consensus until 1993 among all parties, including Labor and Likud, that it was not possible to deal with the PLO. There were two reasons for this view: first, the PLO was philosophically committed to Israel's destruction; and, second, the PLO's negotiations had been historically based on terrorism. No previous Israeli government had been willing to negotiate with an entity committed to its destruction through violence. But in 1993, Oslo created a new assumption: If you had a process--a process of negotiating--then the quality of people on the other side did not really matter. The process became almost like a secular religion. The process was the important thing, and so actions on the ground didn't matter. This notion had roots in Western dealings with leaders in countries like North Korea, Iraq, and the Soviet Union. It turns out, though, that the nature of leadership does matter, and so do actions on the ground. The quality of people on the other side is fundamental to the success of negotiations. It is the people, not the process, that matters. The fact is, the parties were never as close as many believed. The issue was never the desirability of peace, or what either the United States or Israel could do to bring it about. Rather, the question was whether peace was ever achievable given Palestinian objectives. Yet when Barak and Arafat were near the end of negotiations, Arafat raised one more demand: that Israel must agree to the right of return, and admit more than a million Palestinians into Israel. This notion is anathema to all Israelis. Even those on the left oppose the right of return because of its consequences; literally, the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel could not survive the return of over a million Palestinians and continue to exist as a Jewish state. Barak made unprecedented concessions at Camp David. Even Leah Rabin complained that Barak's concessions would cause her late husband to turn over in his grave. This move by Arafat was so shocking that virtually all Israelis lost confidence in the process. Barak lost all support. And a radical reassessment of realities set in. Despite the disappointment at the failure of negotiations, the awakening of the Israeli people to the faulty premises and the reality of the failure of the Oslo Accords is a healthy development. The Bush Administration seems to have assimilated much of the Israeli attitude, and has been careful to avoid involving itself in the effort to restart the ``peace process'' at this time. For the future, it is helpful to acknowledge the falseness of the three key Oslo premises. The Oslo process had ended up doing severe damage to Israel's deterrent--its ability to match concessions with tangible peace. The principal goal now should be to repair that damage. Amid all the Israeli concessions and gestures, it was assumed that there would be reciprocity on the part of the Palestinians. But the Arabs believed showing reciprocity would be a sign of weakness on their part. The evidence abounds. More Israelis were killed by terrorist acts after Oslo then in the decade before. The PLO did not fulfill the promises it made; for example, disarming the terrorists--in fact, releasing from prison some of the most dangerous Hamas terrorists--limiting its arms, and guaranteeing peace. Moreover, and perhaps even more disturbing for the long run, the Palestinian authority created schools with a curriculum of brainwashing their children in hatred and violence. A shocked New York Times reporter last summer wrote of the creation of summer camps that even taught assassination. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paints the picture of posters throughout Palestinian communities showing a menacing Israeli soldier, armed to the teeth, towering over a pitiful looking Arab youngster who holds only one thing. Do you know what it is? A key. And every Arab child knows what it is. The Key to an Arab home in Jaffa, or Haifa, or any other Arab community of pre-1967 Palestine. So much for the view that the parties were ``just this close.'' All of this has caused a reassessment of the realities, and, as I said, that is a healthy development at this point. One must view the situation today clear eyed and in strategic terms. It is a situation of more than just military or economic power. For Israel it is quite simply a question of morale. Israel's problem right now is not that it lacks either economic or military power, but rather that its people have been following a conceptual and intellectual approach to achieving peace which has turned out to be false. The result has been confusion, frustration, and a problem of morale that can only be dealt with by reevaluation of the conceptual and intellectual approach to achieving peace. The people were sold on a ``process,'' and now find that the presumptions underlying that process were illusions. Their disillusionment has set them adrift because they see they have lost territory and credibility that would never have been lost by military force. The Camp David concessions are especially galling now that there is a recognition that they were based upon false premises, a quid pro quo that was never to be reciprocated by the Palestinians. It makes the last several years seem very lost indeed. So the Israelis are revising their thinking. Those of us who have cared about the security of Israel and have watched the process over the years, viewed it with great anxiety because we worried it might have resulted in irreversible losses. And yet, with the last election, we see the Israeli people rethinking the premises of Oslo and charting a course to recover the initiative. The fact that Ariel Sharon, with all his political baggage, won so overwhelmingly suggests that the Israeli people are prepared to do what it takes to defend their state and to survive. Like England fighting back from its unpreparedness in the 30's and the United States after its military decline of the 1970's, Israel seems to have said, ``This far and no more,'' and begun to rethink its approach to achieving peace and security. Countries seem to have a way of being better than their failed leaders, and we can hope that the Israelis are on their way back with a more realistic and sober view of what will be required for their long-term security--what kind of approach will provide real, lasting peace. It is recognized that peace is not available now, but that it can become available in the future. The key to peace is a more democratic and much less corrupt leadership. There are moderate Palestinians, but they are not politically relevant right now. The Palestinians have been cursed with leaders who have always seemed to be wrong for the times. In World War I, Palestinian leaders sided with the Turks against the British; in World War II, with the Nazis against the allies; in the Cold War, with the Soviets against the West; and in the Persian Gulf War, with Saddam against the coalition of allies. Given his long record as an ideologue, a terrorist, a breaker of promises and fount of untruth, it should not really surprise anyone that Arafat remains what he has always been. As Charles Krauthammer recently noted in the Weekly Standard, ``[Arafat] proved, even to much of the Israeli left, that the entire theory of preemptive concessions, magnanimous gestures, rolling appeasement was an exercise in futility.'' The key to peace is a Palestinian leadership that would appeal to the better nature of the Palestinian people, one that would reflect their aspirations for a prosperous and peaceful future--not one that exploits their misery through a policy of physically and vitriolically attacking Israel. In short, a democratic government. As my friend Douglas Feith expressed the point in an article in Commentary: ``A stable peace [is] possible . . . only if the Palestinians first evolved responsible administrative institutions and leadership that enjoyed legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, refrained from murdering its political opponents, operated within and not above the law, and practiced moderation and compromise at home and abroad.'' This would, of course, be a boon not only for the Israelis, but for the Palestinians--indeed especially for the Palestinians. For over fifty years, the United States and Israel have been bound together in a relationship that has weathered many efforts to drive a wedge between us. With the coincident election of a new leader in each country, our two great nations have an opportunity to reassess the lessons recent history has to teach us. For my part, I am optimistic that the new American administration will place a great value on our relationship with the Israeli people; and I am optimistic that the Israelis will maintain the strength and morale that they will need to await a change in Palestinian leadership. At that point there will be much more the Israelis can do to secure their future. The United States should not push Israel into a process or into an agreement with which the government and people of Israel are not completely comfortable, with their security ensured. It is their existence that is at stake, and we must take no actions that jeopardize their security. My colleague from Wyoming would like to use the remainder of our time.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I suspect that most of my colleagues, as myself, talked to a lot of our constituents over the Fourth of July recess who reminded us of the fact that out in America there is still a problem with an energy shortage. I know I had to gas up my vehicle, as did a lot of other Americans, when I drove up to the mountains in Arizona. I had a wonderful time. I marched in a Fourth of July parade in Show Low, AZ, really the heart of America as far as I am concerned. Folks out there are still concerned because they recognize that Washington is dithering; that we are not doing anything to solve the problem of an energy shortage in this country. Some people may call it a crisis; other people may not; but the fact is we have had a wake-up call. The question is, Will we answer the call or are we simply going to dither around, ignore it, and play partisan politics? My own view is that there is no better opportunity for us to show bipartisanship, to work together toward a solution to a common problem that affects all Americans, than working together to solve this energy shortage problem. This is something on which the administration has weighed in. They have taken the issue very seriously. Very early in his term, the President asked Vice President Cheney to convene a group of people to come up with some suggestions on what we could do--both short term and long term--to address this energy shortage problem. The Vice President, along with a lot of others, came up with a series of recommendations which I would like to have us consider in the Senate. They are recommendations which deal with new production, with conservation--a majority of the recommendations, incidentally, deal with conservation, even though that has largely been ignored in the media--and recommendations dealing with new energy sources, something in which I am very interested--hydrogen fuel cells, and a whole lot of things. The fact is, this is a serious effort. While the Republicans held the majority in the Senate, a bill was introduced which embodied many of these recommendations. Under the then-Republican leadership, it was going to be our program to take up that energy legislation in this Senate Chamber starting today or tomorrow. Sadly, that is not going to happen. The Democratic leadership announced some time ago that it had different priorities and that the Senate Chamber would not be the place for debate about the energy shortage the week following the Fourth of July recess. It is my understanding that hearings have been scheduled and both the Finance Committee and the Energy Committee will be taking up different pieces of legislation. There will be hearings on the administration's plan, as well as other ideas. And that is good. But we need to deal with this problem while we have had this wake-up call and not kick it to the back burner where we will forget about it and then, in another year or two, realize we wasted a couple of years that could have been spent in finding new energy sources, putting them into play, and providing an opportunity for Americans to enjoy the kind of prosperity we can enjoy with the proper mix of good energy sources. There are basically two issues. One deals with the cost of producing electricity and how that electricity will be produced. The other has to do with the reality that Americans are going to use a great deal of energy--petroleum products primarily, and primarily for transportation. That is not going to change in the near term, despite the fact that over the long run we will have to come up with some alternatives. I mentioned hydrogen fuel cells as one of those possibilities. It is a little closer than I think most people would recognize. We put money into basic research at the Federal Government level. The administration has pushed for that as part of their energy plan. I hope we can move down that path. But in the meantime, we have to be realistic about the fact that Americans are going to continue to drive their automobiles. We are going to have to continue to have gasoline. We cannot wish that problem away. The question is, Do we rely strictly on the sources of oil from the Middle East, for example, or do we recognize that it really puts us behind the 8 ball if the OPEC countries want to constrain supplies and increase prices? Or if there is jeopardy to those sources from military conflict, will we have to once again send our troops and spend a great deal of energy and money to protect those energy sources as we did during the Persian Gulf war? That is one path we can take. There are some in this country who would have us ignore the potential for energy development in this country. I think we ought to have a plan that both recognizes the potential within the United States for oil production as well as buying what we can on the market internationally. The other aspect of that problem is refineries. We have not built new refineries in this country for 20 to 25 years. We have actually had some shut down. As one of my Democratic colleagues said during a hearing in the Finance Committee a couple weeks ago, she is a little disappointed about the fact that there is criticism of refineries making money. She said: What are my business folks in my State to do--be in the business to lose money? The fact is, they are in the business to make money. In the process of making money, they make petroleum products that we demand when we go to the service station. When I filled up my vehicle last week, I wanted gasoline to be in that pump so I could drive my family where we were going. We have a lot of demand in this country. It is we who have the demand, not the oil companies. They are the ones that provide the product and the refineries that refine that product so that we can meet our demand. Yet there is a great deal of criticism about anybody who would make money in producing one of these products. That is the only way we get the products. The free market system has served us well. We ought to be very careful about denigrating the suppliers who have made it possible for us to enjoy our standard of living. So my view, just to summarize, is that we should consider the President's recommendations in a bipartisan spirit. We should move along quickly with the hearings that I understand have been scheduled. And we should bring to this Senate Chamber, as soon as possible, the legislation or other recommendations that will enable us to deal with this issue now, when we have had the wake-up call, and not kick it down the road a couple years to when we can see some real problems not just in the State of California but spreading throughout this country in energy cost increases, potential blackouts and brownouts, and the like. This is the time to deal with that problem. Mr. President, to conclude, I rise today to express my concern that the Senate Democratic leadership has not yet scheduled floor time to allow the full Senate to promptly address the energy crisis that threatens all Americans. Having just returned from the July 4th recess in Arizona, I can tell you that not all Americans share the view that this should be a low legislative priority. Most of them want to deal with the problem in a bipartisan way. Because of its effect on the national economy as well as peoples' individual pocketbooks, I am particularly troubled that the energy crisis seems to take a back seat to other issues on the new leadership's agenda. This is not the bipartisanship those leaders urged when they were in the minority. The United States faces the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s. We all know about California's problems with rolling blackouts and soaring energy bills. The President thought it important enough to travel to California last month to address this problem firsthand. Unfortunately, energy shortages and price increases are spreading to other parts of the country. I want to make it as clear as I can that we should quickly address the energy recommendations offered by the administration. With oil consumption expected to grow by over six million barrels per day over the next 20 years, natural gas consumption to jump 50 percent and electricity demands to rise by 45 percent, we must act aggressively to increase production in each of these areas before the entire nation suffers from the shortfall. Just to meet expected electricity demands, for example, we must begin now to build between 1,300 and 1,900 new power plants over the next 20 years. To address this reality, we should act now on the 105 recommendations of Vice President Cheney's energy task force. This plan makes 45 recommendations to modernize and increase conservation through tax credits and the expansion of Energy Department conservation programs. It proposes 35 ways to diversify our energy supply and expand our infrastructure by encouraging new pipelines, generating plants and refineries, and streamlining our regulatory process. And this proposal strengthens America's national security by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil through increased energy production within our borders. Some opponents of the President and Vice President rely on ad hominem attacks, misinformation, and demagoguery to cast aspersions on the administration's proposals. They claim that, because the President and Vice President were once connected to the oil business, they somehow are disqualified from energy discussions. On the contrary--these are people who actually know something firsthand about the problems in the energy industry. They do not benefit personally from efforts to increase energy production. Opponents of this energy strategy applaud the recent imposition of price caps to the western states. However, price caps do nothing to increase energy supplies, and could very well discourage investment in new generation power production by artificially limiting a producer's return on his or her investment. Indeed, California's two largest utilities are basically bankrupt as a result of artificial price caps on retail electricity prices. I am particularly concerned about price caps because Arizona, unlike California, has moved aggressively to permit new power plants needed to satisfy the state's growing demand for electricity. FERC's recent imposition of price caps could result in delayed construction or cancellation of these new facilities. Opponents also say that the President's proposal will not encourage conservation. As an Arizonan, I certainly support commonsense conservation efforts that help preserve our natural resources. But these opponents must not have read the President's plan, for he devotes the bulk of his recommendations to efforts to enhance conservation. Among many provisions, the administration endorses tax credits to encourage use of more energy efficient products, such as hybrid or fuel-cell vehicles. It extends conservation programs in the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. It increases funding for conservation technologies and orders federal agencies to reduce their energy usage by at least 10 percent. In total, the administration proposes $795 million for conservation programs as part of its overall budget allocation for the Department of Energy. While these conservation efforts are important, we must also acknowledge that we cannot conserve our way out of an energy crisis. California has dramatically reduced its electricity use over the last two months, yet still faces the possibility of rolling blackouts. We must increase supply in the near-term or face even worse shortages than we have now. Opponents also claim that we can meet our increased demand with renewable energy sources. We should support research into renewable energy technologies, such as hydrogen and fuel cells. Remember that, even so, non-hydro renewable energy produced only two percent of our energy supply last year and the Department of Energy reports that renewable energy will only produce, at most six percent of our energy supply by the year 2020. That isn't nearly enough to meet the growing demands of the next few decades. Opponents also claim that the President's energy plan promotes ``dangerous'' energy use, such as nuclear energy and oil drilling. Let's address nuclear energy first. This is an energy resource that currently provides 22 percent of America's electricity needs, while producing no harmful emissions. Nuclear energy is safer than any comparable energy generation; capacity is more than 90 percent; power production is at an all-time high; and the costs are the lowest on record and continuing to fall. Nuclear energy use is neither a novel nor a risky concept; France receives 80 percent of all of its electricity from nuclear power. There is a problem with disposal of nuclear waste, but it isn't so serious that the critics of nuclear power are concerned with finding an answer. They appear to be happy enough with current on-site storage. Obviously, other countries more ``green'' than the U.S. have resolved the waste issue. The fact is that it's not a technology problem but a political problem. Increased oil drilling has proven as controversial, yet it shouldn't be. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, is a commonsense and safe proposal to increase domestic oil production. It is also very limited in scope. Oil exploration would occur in only a small portion of ANWR, in an area one-fifth the size of Washington's Dulles Airport. Technological advances have reduced any supposed risks to the environment. Drilling pads are roughly 80 percent smaller than they were a generation ago and high-tech drilling allows for access to supplies as far as six miles away from a single, compact drilling site. Two concerns are raised: oil spills and harm to wildlife. The threat of spills is far greater from ocean-going tankers than from the Alaska pipeline. And the caribou have prospered since drilling began on Alaska's North Slope. This modest effort in ANWR would provide enormous benefits, producing as much as 600,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 40 years--exactly the amount we currently import from Iraq. Moreover, oil drilling utilizes a smaller portion of our environment than the alternative energy sources advocated by others. The Resource Development Council for Alaska reports that, to produce 50 megawatts of power, natural gas production uses two to five acres of land, solar energy consumes 1,000 acres, wind power uses 4,000 acres, and oil drilling--less than one- half of an acre. That is real conservation of our natural resources. As it stands now, American consumers already depend on foreign and often hostile nations for more than half of our oil supply. In 20 years, that percentage will increase to 64 percent. Doesn't it make more sense to invest in domestic production so that we are not held hostage to the whims of OPEC and the need to militarily defend our interests in the major oil-producing regions? In conclusion, I commend President Bush and Vice President Cheney for producing serious and honest proposals to enact a long-term energy strategy on behalf of American consumers. A worsening energy crisis requires all of us to act swiftly on these proposals before the situation becomes more widespread. I urge our new Democratic leaders to take this proposal seriously and find a way to bring solutions to the floor of the Senate. As these leaders know from their days in the minority, it is much easier to find a way to accommodate the minority's requests than fight them. I hope the new leadership will act in a truly bipartisan way and consider the administration's ideas. We're all in this energy shortage together. Democrats should work with Republicans for the good of all Americans.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I am going to talk about two different subjects this morning. The two subjects are the energy crisis, No. 1, and, No. 2, the situation in the Middle East. There is some connection between those two, and I will go into that in a moment. But I would like to treat them as separate subjects and begin with the discussion of what I still refer to as the energy crisis. My colleague from Wyoming, Senator Thomas, will be addressing that briefly as well.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I yield all time on this side.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, there is nothing mandatory in this legislation. It is all voluntary. It is a simple choice for the employees. I hope my colleagues will support the amendment.

Mr. KYL. There are two people I know of who would like to speak briefly on my amendment. I would like to respond briefly to what Senator Kennedy said and then summarize. May I begin by congratulating the authors of the underlying legislation and expressing appreciation for all those who have worked with me. Especially I want to thank my colleague, John McCain, and congratulate him for his successful efforts in moving this legislation forward. It is not always easy when colleagues from the same State are not in total agreement on everything, but he let me know early on when I first came to the Senate he didn't expect to agree with me on every issue. He said he might even be in disagreement on some matters with me from time to time. I appreciate his efforts and the efforts of all of those who have worked with me. Just to summarize for those who were not here earlier, my amendment is very simple. It merely provides an option for employers that offer plans that are covered by this bill to also provide an alternative for their employees. That would permit the employees to have as their remedy the receipt of the health care or for the cost of that health care rather than going to court and getting damages as they are permitted to do under the bill. This should provide a lower cost alternative that could be made available to them. That, in turn, should provide a way for employers that might otherwise have to reduce the number of employees covered, or not have insurance for their employees at all, to continue to provide that coverage. As I pointed out before, according to the Congressional Budget Office information, and the Lewin Group, probably over a million American citizens will lose their health care as a result of the increased expenses that could result from this legislation. The effort that we have all tried to engage is to find ways to reduce those costs so premiums won't go up as much and so employers can continue to provide the care. The best way to do that is to allow them to provide a purely voluntary option for their employees to accept, which would not have the same lawsuit damage option but would provide them the health care for which they have contracted. It is about health benefits rather than lawsuits. We think this would provide the remedy for that. The only comment that Senator Kennedy made in opposition was that we are not regulating how the employer would have to contribute toward the insurance policies for their employees. That is very true. We are not doing that in the underlying bill. We are not doing it in the Breaux- Frist amendment. We are not doing it in my amendment. I don't think anybody here has suggested we should be mandating from the Federal Government how much money the employers have to pay for their insurance option that they provide for their employees. I do not think that is a relevant point. I reserve the remainder of my time for those who wish to speak to it. Then I will be prepared to yield back.