Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to speak today about Dale Earnhardt. During this past week, millions of racing fans all around the country have been mourning the death of this stock car great. He was killed on the last turn of the last lap of the prestigious Daytona 500 just a week ago Sunday. I rise today not only to eulogize Dale Earnhardt but to try to explain to those who are not racing fans why his life and death means so much to those of us who are. I believe there are some lessons of life here that have relevance to all of us and, indeed, to the health of our country. Why is Dale Earnhardt's death an occasion for such reflection? The first reason has to do with the man himself. I did not know him well. His closest friends talked not just about Dale Earnhardt the race car driver but about Dale Earnhardt the man, a family man, a man who was intensely loyal to his friends, a man who went out of his way to do thoughtful favors, who took great care of his employees, and who helped younger drivers. Ironically, he died at almost the precise moment that Michael Waltrip took the checkered flag at the Daytona 500 race. It was Waltrip's first victory ever in a very long racing career, well over 400 starts. Dale Earnhardt believed in Michael Waltrip. He believed he could win if he had the right equipment. So he hired him; he provided him a car that could win, and Michael Waltrip did the rest. In private, Earnhardt always seemed to me to be quiet; in fact, even shy. But on the track he was anything but shy. He was known as ``the Intimidator.'' That is precisely because of the way he raced. He was tough. It seemed he would always find a way to win, even if his car was not as good that day as some of the others. Sometimes, especially earlier in his career, he was perhaps too aggressive. But he didn't see racing as a sport for the weak. Indeed, I don't think there is anything wrong with having a very strong desire to be the very best you can be. That seemed to be Dale Earnhardt's motivation in life. As racing fans, as sports fans of any kind, we all have our favorites, but no real NASCAR fan would deny that he was the greatest driver of his time. It takes away nothing from the other great drivers to acknowledge that Dale Earnhardt was the best. He had enormous natural talent and courage. It takes courage to drive a car right on the edge, at 200 miles per hour. He had experience, racing smarts, and he had an intangible will--the will to win. He won seven NASCAR championships, tied only by Richard Petty. He had a lot of other racing victories as well. One of the racing series is called IROC, International Race of Champions, where everybody is given an identical car and it is up to the drivers to show who is the best using identically prepared cars. Earnhardt frequently won because of his skill. It may simply be a sport, but we can all appreciate excellence. Whether in art, music, business, or sport, it is a joy to watch the very best perform. That is one of the reasons Dale Earnhardt will be so sorely missed. His peers will miss him as well as his fans. Why was he so tough? It had to do with respect. One of the highest accomplishments for a race car driver was to have the respect of Dale Earnhardt. In NASCAR racing, you knew you had made it when Dale Earnhardt said so. Some wonder how well NASCAR will fare with the death of its greatest driver. But Dale Earnhardt would scoff at that thought. It was always his dream to drive a NASCAR. NASCAR was a great sports organization before he got there, and it will continue to grow. It is the Nation's fastest-growing sport. Just as Richard Petty's 200 wins and 7 championships earned him the moniker ``The King,'' NASCAR will add Dale Earnhardt to its great history and tradition, and it will continue. Back to the original question: Why do so many millions of Americans mourn his death? I think it has to do with the very nature of NASCAR itself. It is a family affair, and all NASCAR fans consider themselves part of that family. You start with NASCAR itself, the National Association of Stock Car Racing, which was started by Bill France, from Daytona Beach, FL. His family took it over. His son Bill France, Jr., has been the head of NASCAR during its great growth period. I pray for Bill France, Jr.'s health. He has, in effect, turned most of the business over to other members of his family now and also to the CEO of NASCAR, Mike Helton. The crews, the owners, the sponsors, the drivers, the owners of the tracks, and the media that cover the sport are all a very close-knit unit. They race hard against each other, but they will always come to each other's aid in times of difficulty. Not only is there a strong sense of values within the people who participate in the sport, but also strong values within the family, starting with a firm belief in God. When the race is over, ordinarily when the driver maneuvers himself out of the car and claims victory, first of all he will thank God for a safe race and for the talent, he will thank his crew for preparing the car, and he will thank a lot of other people for enabling him to win. At the races, each Sunday morning before the race starts there is a chapel service and a prayer before the race. A lot of these things don't characterize typical sports events. These are good people. They are not prima donnas like some other sports figures. They provide interviews and give autographs and do appearances. They appeal to young people. They are really normal people doing very extraordinary things. Fans can relate to them. They look at them not as role models but as people who, in a sense, are like them. Many came up the hard way, as Earnhardt did. He didn't even graduate from high school. His father was a great driver in his own right. Now Dale Earnhardt's son, Dale Jr., will have to do the same. In the end, Dale Earnhardt is mourned because his life is an example of the American dream. He came from very humble beginnings--in his case, from the small town of Kannapolis, NC --worked hard, and ended up a success. Dale Earnhardt is mourned because he embodied the qualities not only personifying NASCAR but, in a sense, life in general, and humility, loyalty, caring, hard work, pride in one's work, and the competitive spirit. Most of all, he was a lover of family and friends. Today, I join the millions of Americans who are praying for Dale's wife Theresa, his children, and all of the good people who are fans of NASCAR.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I ask the Senator, did he ask for 1 minute or 10 minutes?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Idaho on the points he was making. I look forward to joining him in tackling this very difficult problem of making some sense out of our national energy policy. Senator Craig has the expertise to lead us, along with Senator Murkowski. I will be looking forward to joining them in that effort.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I was surprised to read the headlines in the paper this morning--and I actually saw a little bit of this on the news last night--that billionaires in the United States actually support the estate tax and oppose President Bush's plan to repeal the estate tax. One would think for a moment that is a man-bites-dog story; that is counterintuitive. Upon reflection, it actually makes a lot of sense and makes no sense. I will discuss that today. I will get back to the billionaires in just a moment. First, to set the stage, we all know President Bush has proposed an important and innovative set of tax relief proposals that will help working American families, will help the economy at this time when it is beginning to falter, and will provide more fairness in our Tax Code. It has three essential features. There may be some other pieces added to this by the Congress. Primarily, it calls for reduction in marginal income tax rates. That way, everybody who pays taxes receives a tax benefit, tax rate relief. Second, it repeals the estate tax, one of the most unfair taxes we have ever produced in this country. Third, it largely does away with what we call the marriage penalty, which actually provides a higher rate of taxes for two people who are married and working than if they were living together without having been married. Both the repeal of the estate tax and the elimination of the marriage penalty were passed by the Senate and the House last year. We sent those bills to President Clinton and he vetoed them. In the campaign, Governor Bush said: If you send those bill to me, I will sign them. So they represent an important part of his tax relief proposal. Mr. President, I aim to say we will send them to President Bush so he can sign them. Because there is such momentum behind the repeal of the estate tax, people who fear now that its repeal will actually become a reality have begun to take to the air waves and get their petitions out and to get on television proclaiming that naturally this is a very important and needed tax. The ones who would get the most publicity, of course, are the billionaires who say: Look, we will be paying a lot of this tax. If we can be for it, surely, everybody else can be for it; why would you want its repeal? It turns out there are two primary reasons. I will summarize first and then go into a little more detail. The first is that these are the very people who can well afford, A, to pay the taxes; but, B, to pay for the multimillions of dollars to find the loopholes to avoid paying most of the tax, to do the estate planning. That is the euphemism for the term which means hire accountants and lawyers to try to figure out a way to avoid paying most of the tax--and there are ways you can do this if you are willing to pay enough money to these lawyers. And there are ways, also, if you pay enough money to insurance companies. By the way, I got a letter from an estate planner in New York. He said: You can't do away with the estate tax. This would hurt my livelihood. I make a living finding ways for people to avoid paying the estate tax. I didn't do this, but I felt like writing back to him and saying, if we could figure out a way to eliminate death, I would probably get a letter from a mortician saying, you can't put me out of business like this. These people make a lot of money helping people like George Soros, Bill Gates, Sr., and other people of great wealth. By the way, I admire all of these people for what they have been able to accumulate over their life. But they make a lot of money on these people doing estate planning. Frankly, I think it would be very interesting if all of the billionaires who have signed the petition calling for a continuation of the estate tax would tell us publicly how much money they have spent on estate planning and how much money they have been able to save as a result of what they have been able to accomplish with their lawyers and accountants. I expect they have been able to save more than most people will ever pay in taxes. The first point we should realize is with these billionaires, this is chump change. They can pay the lawyers and accountants to figure out a way to save the most money and they are still happy to pay what they have to pay because it doesn't mean that much to them, unlike what it means to most Americans. My first challenge to all of these petition signers: Please come forward and state how much you are going to actually pay in estate taxes versus how much is in your estate. Specifically, is any one of these people willing to pay the entire obligation of the estate tax without any opportunity for estate planning to save money; without taking advantage of any loophole? If they think this is such a great tax, are they willing to pay all that is due without any kind of estate planning to avoid any part of the tax on their part? That would be very interesting to find out for these people who think this is such a wonderful tax. And I present that challenge to them today. My guess is that during their lifetime, one reason they accumulated so much wealth was because they knew very well how to manipulate the stock market, how to manipulate the currency market, how to make sound investments, all the while eliminating or reducing to the lowest possible amount taxes they would have to pay. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how a lot of people make their living. And certainly these very wealthy people have undoubtedly taken advantage of whatever provisions we have in the Tax Code for avoiding the payment of taxes. The second reason why, even though this seems counterintuitive, and this makes a lot of sense, is many of these same people have as one of their primary goals in life running charitable foundations; in effect, spending other people's money for their charitable giving. It is very easy to be very charitable when you are using someone else's money. What some of these people have said is, we need the force of Federal law to make people give their money when they die or make the widows and the orphans cough up the money when the breadwinner dies. We need to take 55 percent of their estate so we can put it into our charitable foundations and hand it out and get invited to all kinds of fancy dinners and do good. We are all for the good these charitable groups do. Let no one make any mistake about that. It is easy to be charitable with someone else's money. The question is, Are you willing to be charitable with your own money? Even if you think other people should also give, would it be better for you to ask them to give from the goodness of their heart to charity or to use the confiscatory power of government to make them give by saying, we are going to take 55 percent of everything you own when you die? There is one way to avoid it: If you can give it all away, then you are not passing it on to your heirs. That is the first great problem with those who defend the estate tax. They say it would prevent the concentration of wealth if we can maintain this tax. That is absolutely, 180 degrees off from the American dream. Generation after generation in this country has said: We want to leave our family better than the previous generation. We want to work hard. We want to save. We want to provide for our kids' education so when we die they have a better chance in life than we did. What is wrong with that? That is the American dream. These people say no. What is wrong is for one generation to be able to pass wealth on to another generation. Everybody should have to start from exactly the same point in life. There are those who would manipulate Government, and our very lives, to force equality in fact rather than equality in opportunity. That is, in effect, what these people are saying: We are going to force everybody to be exactly equal because whatever it is you accomplished in life we are going to take away from you at the end of your life so your family, then, has to start all over again. What incentive is there for most people to save for future generations, to try to help their kids or their grandkids to have a good start in life? I want to be able to put some things away for not just my kids but my grandkids. They mean so much to me. I want to make sure they have a good start in life, that they will be able to get a good education. What is wrong with that incentive to save? These billionaires, they don't have any problem with that. They could buy half the countries in the world. They do not have to worry about what most of us have to worry about in life, and that is putting enough aside to be able to take care of ourselves in our old age and maybe provide something for our kids and grandkids thereafter. That is the American dream. These people would destroy that dream. That is wrong. I understand it is hard for them to appreciate that problem for many Americans. But it is a very real problem. I am going to get back to that problem in just a moment. Let me talk about the next myth these people are trying to perpetrate, that actually it will hurt poorer people because if we do away with the estate tax, we are going to have to raise other taxes to make up for the revenue. Have these people been living on another planet? Are they not aware that this Government is going to be running a $5.6 trillion surplus? The whole notion President Bush has here, as he said when he was Governor and running for the Presidency: We are going to have a massive surplus. We will have more than enough to have whatever we need to spend money on--save Social Security and Medicare and have enough left to have tax relief for the people. You don't have to raise taxes. That is what the surplus enables us to do. This is a specious argument. People ought to know better than to make this argument. For the upcoming fiscal year, fiscal year 2002, the on-budget surplus is estimated to be at $142 billion, according to the CBO. We can afford, with an overtax payment of that amount, to return some of that money to the American people. And we do not have to then raise taxes somehow to do that. The last budget of President Clinton projected estate tax revenues at $34-plus billion. That is for this fiscal year, 2002. That would represent about 1.5 percent of our revenues. So we have to keep this tax in place, a tax that produces only 1.5 percent of our revenues and causes great disruption and consternation in America's families? Let me get back to what I said before about the problem of this business of creating wealth and the American dream. The fact is, of course, most Americans will not pay the death tax. But they still see something terribly wrong with a system that allows Washington to seize more than half of whatever is left when someone dies, that prevents hard-working Americans from passing the bulk of their nest egg on to their future generations. Mr. President, I love a lot of things in this country. I give to charity. I love my country. But I think I love my kids and grandkids and my wife more than anything else in the world, and with this tax the Government says we cannot benefit them. We are going to force you to give that money to somebody else or to the U.S. Government. You cannot pass it on. Most Americans see that as unfair, even if they are not going to have to pay for the tax and even if they don't have to pay a lot of money to try to avoid paying the tax through estate planning. A McLaughlin Associates poll conducted from January 26-27, just a week or so ago, found 89 percent of the people surveyed believed: . . . it was not fair for Government to tax a person's earnings while it is being earned and then tax it again after a person dies. Let's understand: All the money you earned is taxed. We have an income tax in this country. So it is taxed. Then you invest it and do whatever, and you die and it is taxed again. So it is not as if this money has not already been taxed at least once. Mr. President, 79 percent of the people in this survey approve the idea of abolishing the estate tax--79 percent. Most of them will never see any direct benefit from that, but they understand it is unfair. Most Americans are not envious. Most Americans do not want to squash everybody else down as a way of making themselves feel good. They aspire to earn more and to be able to save and maybe even have to worry about the estate tax. Other polls have reached the same conclusion. I found one very interesting, a Gallup poll of last year, which found that 60 percent of the people supported repeal at that time, even though about three- fourths of them did not think they would ever have to pay the death tax themselves. They still favored its repeal because they are good, fair people. And fairness is what the effort to repeal the death tax is all about. Edward J. McCaffrey--I think he would characterize himself as a liberal--a professor of law at the University of Southern California, said this: Polls and practices show that we like sin taxes, such as on alcohol and cigarettes. The estate tax is an anti-sin, or virtue tax. It is a tax on work and savings without consumption, on thrift, on long-term savings. He is exactly right. It is a tax on virtue. It punishes savings. It punishes saving something and trying to pass it on to your kids. It basically says: Spend it all because you can't take it with you. That is a lifestyle that some have, perhaps, lived in this ``me'' generation, but it is not the right lifestyle for most Americans. By the way, it is pretty hard to calibrate anyway. Spend it all because you can't take it with you; that is the idea here. What if you live a little longer than your bank account lasts? Then you turn to the Government to take care of you for the rest of the years of your life. Being able to save also means being able to take care of yourself and your family, another virtue. This is a tax on virtue. The professor is correct. Economists Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell reached similar conclusions in a 1992 study in which they said death taxes: . . . have failed to achieve their intended purposes. They raise little revenue. They impose large excess burdens. They are unfair. The next myth is that the estate tax is necessary to prevent the accumulation of wealth. A lot of people have noted that after about three generations the wealth seems to dissipate. But apart from that-- and I don't know of any study that can quantify that--I can at least with an anecdote tell you what happens in most cases. These are not the George Soros kinds of cases but the average case. A family in Arizona--and I am going to mention the man's name because he is a real hero to me. He was one of the best, big-hearted givers in Phoenix, AZ, for many years. His name is Jerry Wisotsky. Jerry moved out from New York to start a printing company by himself. He gradually added employees. He couldn't say no. Every charity in town went to him. He contributed. He has boys and girls clubs named after him. I won't get into his charitable contributions. He was a mainstay for our community and supported it. He had a very successful business that could support it. He had over 200 employees when he died. His family tried mightily to plan around that death and to avoid having to sell the business. His daughter and son-in-law wanted to continue to run the business. After 2 or 3 years, they realized it was futile. The estate tax was simply too much. They had to sell the business to pay the estate tax. Two things happened. First of all, they sold, I think, to a big German conglomerate. So much for preventing the accumulation of wealth. This little family-owned business that turned into a very good income producer, but which was still a small business, was sold to a giant company from another country. As I say, so much for the estate tax preventing the accumulation of wealth. But it did have the intended effect of making his family less able to give, to follow in his footsteps. So we now no longer have Jerry Wisotsky or his daughter, Pearl Marr, being able to contribute to their community as he used to do. That gets to another myth, that we have to have the estate tax in order to force charitable giving. Apart from the lunacy of that concept--it reminds me of the Woody Allen movie ``Take The Money And Run'' where Woody Allen plays this inept crook and his parents are seen with masks on saying: We tried to beat religion into that kid. Of course, it doesn't work. It really doesn't work to force people to give to charity either. In fact, there are some interesting statistics. It is a specious argument that we have to have the estate tax in order to support charitable giving. But I think it is especially interesting because of these billionaires now supporting the tax. There are also some studies that demonstrate the elimination of the estate tax would actually encourage the wealthy to give more during their lifetimes but less just before they die or in their bequeath--in their wills. A study by David Joulfaian, a former Treasury Department economist for the National Bureau of Economic Research at the Brookings Institution, found that the estate tax has an important effect on the timing of charitable gifts. It encourages the very wealthy to bunch gifts at death rather than over their lifetime. He noted that the very wealthy give much less to charity during their lifetimes than the less wealthy, and considerably more through their estate and wills and bequeaths. This suggests that the elimination of the estate tax will encourage the wealthy to give more during their lifetime and less at death but not necessarily reduce the total amount of lifetime giving. Another study shows that the bulk of charitable giving is made by people who can't deduct such gifts from their income taxes at all. According to Giving USA, total charitable giving in 1992 amounted to $190-plus billion, and only $15-plus billion--about 8 percent--came from bequeaths. If the goal is to encourage charitable giving, then Congress should consider an above-the-line deduction for all charitable gifts--for those who itemize as well as those taxpayers who don't itemize--rather than to continue to impose a punitive, confiscatory estate tax at the time of death when families can least afford to deal with it. We also find charitable giving is strongly related to income and wealth. Simply put, the more income and wealth the people have, the more they tend to give charity. William Randolph, an economist for the Congressional Budget Office, concluded from his research that charitable giving responds much less to changes in tax rates than permanent changes in income. It is quite specious to argue that we have to have this tax for charitable giving in this country. Eight percent of the gifts come as bequeaths; the rest does not. I also think the story today by the Los Angeles Times about the petition signed by all of these billionaires is very interesting. They say it was signed by men whose foundations ``rely heavily on charitable donations.'' This is laid bare. Basically, this is a special interest group. People who have these foundations need to have money constantly pouring in so they can force taxes from people in order to play that game. Again, I am sure that in their hands very good things come to pass. But in someone else's hands, this same charitable giving could do just as much good. I find it offensive that these people--basically special interests in this country--would use the U.S. Government to extract taxpayer dollars from people and have the threat of that kind of 5-percent rate forcing people to give in their wills to these charitable foundations. If they can't persuade people to do it on the merits from the goodness of their heart, they ought not be in the business. That is the way I look at it. There is another myth that the wealthy don't need another tax break. Of course, a lot of wealthy don't need a tax break. Of course, these are people who invest, which is exactly what our economy needs at this time. But I would say something else; that is, we are not talking about just these billionaires. Sure, they don't need it. I stipulate that. But there are a lot of small businesspeople and farmers and others who do need to be able to maintain what they are doing. They don't want to have to sell the family farm. They don't want to have to sell the small business that I talked about a moment ago. They would like to be able to continue the operation generation after generation. The point here about these very wealthy people is that the way we passed the bill last year they are going to be taxed anyway. They are not going to be taxed 55 percent when they die, but they are going to be taxed on the capital gains if and when the asset is sold. Eventually all assets are disposed of. Their heirs are not going to have to pay 55 percent of the estate in taxes. But when their heirs turn around and sell those assets under the bill that we passed last year--and I suspect the bill we will put forward this year--they are going to have to pay a capital gains tax on the sale. Importantly, they are going to have to pay that without a step-up in basis, except for an exemption which is equal to a little bit larger than the exemption we provide today--about a $5 million exemption. So nobody who is exempt today would have to pay under this legislation. Except for that exemption, we do away with the step-up in basis so just as Mr. Gates, Sr., would have to pay a capital gains tax on the original cost of his investment if he sells that asset when he eventually dies and leaves that estate to his heirs, when they sell it they are going to have to pay a tax on the gain going back to his original basis. That means their tax is much less expensive, if you are interested in that. It is going to cost the Treasury a lot less money than some people think it will, but it doesn't let these people off the hook. They will be taxed under this proposal, but at least they have the choice of when they are taxed. Instead of having to figure out how to pay this tax right after the breadwinner in the family dies and being faced with the possibility of perhaps having to dispose of the assets right then, they can wait until they want to make the economic decision to do so knowing full well they are going to pay a tax but they can understand the economics of paying the tax at that time. I think this is the beauty of the approach of what we passed last year, which President Clinton vetoed and which I hope President Bush will include in his estate tax repeal. Remember there is another benefit to this. I will close with this notion: It is very difficult to try to come up with an amount of exemption that is fair around the country. Some people said: Let's not repeal the tax; let's just create a much larger exemption. I was talking to one of my colleagues from California yesterday who said the problem with that is that property values in California are now so high, and getting so much larger, that what is a taxable estate in California wouldn't even begin to qualify as a taxable estate in another State--let's say in a Midwest or Southern State. But in California, just because of the value of the property, even if that is all you own, you could easily be kicked up into the bracket where you have to pay a capital gains tax. There is another problem that people are finding more and more. Again, this is happening in California. There is an environmental problem there. As people find they have to sell their property in order to pay the estate taxes, we are talking about environmentally sensitive land that could be held but is now having to be sold for development. And there are always plenty of developers hanging around ready to buy this good land and develop it. What we are finding is that more and more native habitats are being destroyed as a result. With that in mind, Michael Bean of the Nature Conservancy, observed that the death tax ``is highly regressive in the sense that it encourages the destruction of ecologically important land.'' It represents a real and present threat to endangered and threatened species and habitats. And because it tends to encourage development and sprawl, a lot of environmental organizations have joined in urging this repeal. Among those are the Izaak Walton League, the Wildlife Society, Quail Unlimited, the Wildlife Management Institute, and the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. We see there are a lot of myths about the estate tax. That is exactly what they are, myths. Second, we see that many Americans won't benefit directly from its repeal. There is very strong support for its repeal because Americans are fair people. They understand what will help our economy, and they understand what is fair to working families. I think there are two motivations for retaining the tax. One of them is envy--that nobody should have more than I have. But it turns out that very few Americans support that. The other is this special interest notion that having the death tax is the only way we can make people contribute to a charity. They are going to force them to be charitable. Apart from whether or not that is a moral point of view, it certainly isn't or ought not to be the function of Government. As I said, if we want to use the power of Government to encourage charitable giving, there are much better ways to provide a deduction for charitable giving for both those who itemize and those who don't. There are other things we can do as well. At the bottom of the day, it is not surprising that these billionaires would say: Let's keep the death tax. To them it doesn't matter. I renew my challenge. Are you willing to pay 100 percent of the death tax you owe or have you spent a lot of money to try to do estate planning to get around this? I think that would be a very interesting thing to find out. Most Americans cannot afford to do that. That is why this tax needs to be repealed. I join President Bush in urging my colleagues to ensure that when his tax package passes, that it has the repeal of the death tax as one of its key components.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to turn my attention this afternoon to something a little bit more immediate in terms of the Senate's actions. We all saw the news yesterday of the President's visit to Fort Stewart in Georgia. In fact, I spoke with a colleague of ours who had been with the President on that trip. She talked about the rather sorry state of the military barracks she visited, and the need for improvements to the military quality of life all around the country, exemplified by the President's visit to Fort Stewart. As a result of his visit, the President has made some very forward- leaning announcements about improvement of the quality of life, including $5.7 billion in new spending--$1.4 billion for military pay increases, $400 million to improve military housing, $3.9 billion to improve military health benefits, $5.7 billion on new spending for the people in our military. I am certain that part of that will have to come through a so-called supplemental appropriations bill. For those who are not totally familiar with the work of the Senate, ordinarily at about this time of the year, the Senate has to provide some infusion of cash to the military because of unforeseen expenditures and some that really were not so unforeseen but which were not budgeted for. For example, we know we will have to be in Bosnia and Kosovo and some other places in the world. Unfortunately, the previous administration never budgeted for those operations in advance, so the military had to pay for those operations out of hide. They had to not buy certain spare parts, not sail ships during certain hours, not provide for maintenance of facilities and installations, deferring that for a later day, and use the money instead to support these operations abroad. Each year, we have had, therefore, a supplemental appropriations bill. Basically, the bill comes due. It has to be paid one way or another, sooner or later. We will have to do that same thing this year. The President has decided to wait a little bit to make sure he knows exactly how much is needed. By the way, I hope President Bush will say to the Congress: I found out that we need exactly--and then give us the number. Let's assume it is $5 billion, for the sake of argument--I would like the Congress to provide $5 billion in supplemental appropriations to get our military through the end of the fiscal year. That is how much we need, and I will veto a bill that is a dollar less or a dollar more. In other words, this should not become a Christmas tree for everyone's favorite project. I urge the President to give us an exact figure and tell us it is on our shoulders to pass that supplemental appropriations bill for him, for the military, and to reject any change we may make, therefore, removing the temptation some of our colleagues have to load those bills up with things that don't really pertain to necessities for the military. I also want to suggest that we are going to need that supplemental appropriations bill not just for the quality of life of our military but for readiness. Certainly, the Presiding Officer knows this better than almost anybody in this body. Readiness has suffered during the last several years through a combination of two primary circumstances. One, we are deploying troops far more frequently and far-flung around the world than in the past. Two, we have cut the spending year after year, so we don't have the equipment in top shape to send where we need to send it, when we need to send it. Our troops are overstressed. The net result is readiness has suffered. We would not be able to go tomorrow where we need to in the world with the same degree of confidence we were able to muster, say, a decade ago when we went to the Persian Gulf. I think a few statistics are interesting. The lack of spare parts forced our military to cannibalize systems to keep things working. GAO found in 1999, ``cannibalization was so widespread in the Air Force that maintenance personnel spent 178,000 hours over 2 years removing parts from bombers and fighters and transports to put into other planes.'' I was at Luke Air Force Base in the western part of the Phoenix area not long ago and was told of the 100-plus planes they had there-- roughly 10 percent were F-16s, by the way, the top of our fighter line--were being used for cannibalization. That has gotten some better. That illustrates we are cannibalizing our equipment, and we know that is the beginning of the end, in terms of readiness. The Navy, the same thing. We could go through all the different services. I won't take the time to do that. These cannibalization rates, not only in the Navy, have doubled in the last 4 years, but the problem is most acute among the jet aircraft that are most in demand. I think there is a broad consensus that we need to be improving our readiness and that those are bills that need to be paid now, equipment that needs to be purchased now. We can't wait until the beginning of the next fiscal year, which is not until October, this fall sometime. I hope when the President sends his supplemental appropriations request to us, it will include both the personnel quality of life needs he has already announced, which I think all of us will support very strongly, and in addition to that some immediate needs to improve our readiness. I was going to say ``ensure'' our readiness, but the fact is, we can't do enough in supplemental appropriations to ensure readiness. We can just begin to get to the point where we have the state of readiness we really desire. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congressional Budget Office, and various independent analysts from groups such as Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment and former Secretaries of Defense, such as Harold Brown and Jim Slessinger--all of these groups and individuals, and many more, have come to the conclusion that we are going to need to increase defense spending over the next several years, and we are going to have to do it fairly dramatically. I applaud the administration's efforts to examine what we really need, what we can do without, and how we are going to structure our forces to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. It is time to get out of the old thinking and keep putting money into the same old weapons projects. That said--and we all understand the need for this review--it is also true that at the same time we are doing that review, we can and should be doing things to improve our military, things we know need to be done; and whatever we are going to be doing in 5, 8, 10 years, we know we will need additional funding to support the troops during the next 5, 6, 8, 10 years. So it is not a matter of either/or, or first we do a review and then decide how much to spend. We know we need to spend some money now and we also need to reevaluate our long-term strategy so we can better fix our spending for the future. For those who say we can't do anything until all of that is done, I say listen to those who are expert, who have testified to this in the past, the Joint Chiefs and staff and others, who understand our military requirements right this minute. We are not talking about buying new weapons systems that have to be reevaluated. Let me make it clear that I support President Bush's desire to reevaluate every one of these weapons systems. I have severe doubts about whether some of the most expensive systems we have on the drawing board really need to go forward. But we also know, in the meantime, we do have needs, unmet needs, which can only be satisfied through an increase in defense spending. That is why I think it is important for us not only to pass the supplemental appropriation at the time the President sends it to us but also to put together very soon a budget for the Department of Defense which meets some of these short-term needs. Essentially, my bottom line here is the military, the armed services don't have the luxury of waiting until the end of a review to meet some of the needs of today. That is my primary point. I talked about a dual problem. One problem is the degree of deployment, the number of overseas missions assigned to our military, increased by just under 300 percent during the previous administration, with President Clinton deploying our forces on such missions 40 times compared to 14 times under former President Bush, and 16 times under Reagan. The readiness problems have resulted from that, plus spending not keeping up with the needs. Just a couple of further illustrations of the problem. A recent article in Defense Week quotes at length from an internal Navy audit into the readiness of F-14 squadrons, which are suffering from this combination of high operational tempos and insufficient funding. One of the quotations from that audit is that, ``more and more, forward forces are short on planes, munitions, spare parts, and training time. This could result in F-14 squadrons being at high risk while engaging the enemy, an unnecessary loss of life and property, and failure to achieve U.S. policy goals.'' That is pretty serious. When that degree of risk is upon us today, we can't wait until tomorrow to put the funding into the military budget to make up for the shortfall in the short run. We have not budgeted for expenses such as our efforts in the Balkans, as I pointed out before. That ought to be budgeted in the general budget and not have to come to us each year in a supplemental appropriation. Unless we are able to infuse this kind of money into the defense budget very quickly, then the Navy is going to be forced to cut its flying hours; the Air Force is going to have to make adjustments that will erode its readiness, including flying hours, maintenance, air crew proficiency, aircraft maintenance and repair, not to mention that spare parts and fuel shortages are going to be required to be rectified if we are going to have a high state of readiness during the interim period between now and the time the new force the Bush administration is talking about comes into play. Mr. President, there is something else we are going to have to do, and that is to begin doing the kind of research that will be necessary to effectuate President Bush's new plans. He asked for a review of these military programs by experts in the Pentagon and outside who will come to him with some very bold ideas, I predict; and they are going to call for modernization of the force, the use of the most recent technology, the application of that technology in ways that we haven't even dreamed of up until now. But unless we are willing to put money back into research and development, as we used to do, we are not going to be able to effectuate these plans. They are going to look great on paper, but we are not going to have the ability to do it. Why? It takes skilled people in place. Unless these people believe they have a future, they don't sign up for these particular kinds of jobs. The contractors themselves can't wrap up with a group of people and facilities to do something for which there is no contract and no hope of a contract. You cannot just make this appear out of thin air. That is why we have to begin planning today for the defense budget for this coming fiscal year to begin to reestablish a robust research and development program that will be able to service the budgetary requirements that are going to come from the administration in the creation of its new technological military for the 21st century. We have been eating our seed corn in this regard over the last several years. Again, the Presiding Officer knows better than most in this body that we have cut research and development way back in order to put some money into quality of life and to keep our forces as ready as we can possibly keep them. The result of that has been to reduce drastically the amount of money available for our research and development. That is an area where we are going to have to add to the budget that comes before the Congress this year, and if the administration, frankly, is unwilling to do that, then the Congress has to put that money in the budget so when the President needs those people and those facilities to begin developing these new high-tech products, we will be able to respond to that call. There are some other areas in which we are going to have to add money to the budget. I spoke this morning with respect to missile defense. It is very clear we are going to be making some decisions early on in this administration to proceed with the development of missile defense. I applaud the administration's desire to reevaluate the exact components and structure of that defense because, frankly, I do not think the way the Clinton administration was thinking about doing it was the best. It was rudimentary; it was vulnerable; it was effective only in an extraordinarily limited sense. As a first step, it might just be fine, but we are going to have to reevaluate how to put this together and undoubtedly expend funds for research and development, as well as deployment of these systems. That is not going to happen without money in the budget. When opponents of missile defense say it is going to cost a lot of money, they exaggerate about how much, but they are right about one thing: We are going to have to put more money in the budget for it, more money than has been in the budget in the past. As a result, the budget we put together and send to the President--and I hope the budget the President puts together for our review--will include additional support for ballistic missile defense, especially in an area which has been robbed in the past, and that is the sea-based missile defense. Mr. President, you may have been one of our colleagues--I believe you were--who supported a lawsuit that I filed against the Secretary of Defense several years ago for refusing to spend money that the Congress authorized and appropriated for specific missile defense programs, specifically, the sea-based systems of the Navy and the THAAD Program of the Army. The Secretary of Defense at that time said: I understand that you have appropriated and authorized this funding, but I am not going to spend the money. Subsequently, he began to spend a little bit of it. That, plus the fact that money that which had been in those programs was taken from those programs and applied to other programs, has instead resulted in a severe underfunding of these missile defense programs. These are theater missile defense programs, and the Navy program especially has been robbed and shortchanged. Unless we are willing to put money into the budget to ramp those programs back up to where they should be, we are not going to be able to deploy the Navy portion of the missile defense system as we should. The irony is that if we put the money into the budget--and it takes a relatively small amount; my guess is over 4 years about $1.5 billion as an add-on will do the trick--if we were to put that kind of money into the budget, we could actually deploy a Navy missile defense system sooner and more effectively than a land-based system. In any event, we have the two to complement each other. The bottom line is we are going to have to put more money into the missile defense part of the budget. Finally, there has been a suggestion the Department of Energy's defense weapons component of the budget is going to have to take a big hit. That, too, is a big mistake because when the proponents of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty said we really have a substitute for testing, it is called the Stockpile Stewardship Program, I raised several questions. First, we are not going to know for more than a decade whether it is going to produce results. Second, I predicted Congress' desire to continue funding for this program would wane over time. I have been the second staunchest supporter, by the way, of funding after our colleague, Pete Domenici from New Mexico. Sure enough, now there is a suggestion that the Stockpile Stewardship Program should be shorted some funding. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot argue on the one hand we do not need to do any testing and on the other hand we need to change the Stockpile Stewardship Program. These are three specific areas I mentioned: the need for research and development, the need for proceeding with the sea-based missile defense system, and the need for stockpile stewardship, all of which are going to require more, not less, funding of the defense budget. That is why at the end of the day, we are going to have to be willing to add money to the defense budget, and if that means it is prior to the administration's determination that funding is necessary, I say so be it; it is going to be necessary. Then we are going to have to get behind the President and support his long-term projects, which I know will, in the end, provide a very robust defense for the United States but which, in the meantime, we are going to have to be very watchful of with respect to the readiness both today and the preparation for that day that the new force of the 21st century has been developed. These are all matters we will discuss further in the future, but I think they are an important element in discussing this week the President's plan to strengthen our national security to ensure that our military remains the strongest in the world, capable of doing everything we ask of it. I know the President would demand no less. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his comments about the need for deployment of a national missile defense. I spoke to that subject this morning, when I talked about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's remarks in Munich that were very well received by our allies. They had some concerns about the deployment of a national missile defense by the United States. But after his comments to them, they were very much reassured. While there still isn't the degree of support that we need and that we would like to have among our allies, I believe the consultations now occurring, and those that will occur in the future, primarily led by the Secretary of Defense, will bring our allies to the same conclusions that we have reached; namely, that we need to get on with it and that they can participate in this kind of assistance to the extent they want to as well. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from New Hampshire. I spoke to that issue this morning.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his comments about the need for deployment of a national missile defense. I spoke to that subject this morning, when I talked about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's remarks in Munich that were very well received by our allies. They had some concerns about the deployment of a national missile defense by the United States. But after his comments to them, they were very much reassured. While there still isn't the degree of support that we need and that we would like to have among our allies, I believe the consultations now occurring, and those that will occur in the future, primarily led by the Secretary of Defense, will bring our allies to the same conclusions that we have reached; namely, that we need to get on with it and that they can participate in this kind of assistance to the extent they want to as well. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from New Hampshire. I spoke to that issue this morning.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his interest in the subject of national defense. As he noted, this is a week in which the President is announcing several initiatives in that regard. One of his primary objectives, he said, is to strengthen the military so we can meet the challenges of this new century. He is beginning, naturally, with the support for the troops, which is the right place to begin, but he has also noted there are a lot of other challenges. We in the Congress who have been working with this over the years appreciate the warnings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the immediate past Secretary of Defense who have noted we are going to have to spend a lot more on defense in order to bring our defense capabilities up to the level where they need to be to deter threats around the world. One of the threats that has received a lot of attention in recent weeks on which I want to focus today is the threat of an attack by an adversary delivering a weapon of mass destruction via missile. Of course, there are other ways of creating problems for the United States. We try to deal with each of these different threats. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism of the Judiciary Committee, for example, I have worked hard to ensure we can both detect and deter terrorism, whether in the form of delivery of a weapon in a suitcase that people like to talk about or in the case of an attack directly against an installation or U.S. assets, such as the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. In all of those situations, we have plans and we have made some progress in meeting that threat of terrorism. Where we have been lacking is in a commitment to deal with the other equally ominous threat of weapons of mass destruction delivery, and that is via the intercontinental ballistic missile or a medium-range missile. Why would countries all over the globe that mean us no good be spending so much money on the development of their missile capability and weapons of mass destruction warheads that could be delivered by the missiles? And by that, the WMD--the weapons of mass destruction--we are speaking of would be biological warheads, chemical warheads, or nuclear warheads. Why would they be spending so much money if they did not intend to either use those missiles against us or threaten to use them? Why do we focus on threats? As Secretary Rumsfeld has pointed out several times recently, one of the advantages of a missile over some other kinds of terrorist acts is that they can threaten other countries, for example, to stay out of their way as they take aggression against another country, threatening that if they bother them, if they try to intercede in what they are trying to do, they will launch a missile against them. An example is the Saddam Hussein situation in which he goes into Kuwait. Had he had missiles with longer range capability and warheads that could have delivered weapons of mass destruction, he could have easily threatened cities in Europe and made it much more difficult for the United States to have put together the coalition that we eventually put together to stop him from further aggression and eventually repel him from Kuwait. It is the threat of the use of these weapons, as much as the weapons themselves, that is an instrument of policy. Another case that nobody likes to talk about because we do not consider China as an enemy of the United States--and it is not--is the situation in which, however, China would potentially, with leaders who decide they have to take aggressive action against Taiwan, begin initiating some form of military threat or action against that island and force the United States to choose whether or not to defend Taiwan. One of the elements of whether we might do so is whether we would be subject to attack by the Chinese if we sought to inhibit their aggressive intentions. At least some in the military in China have already made it perfectly plain that they have missiles that can reach the United States and perhaps we would want to think twice before coming to the aid of Taiwan. Again, this is not something I project or suspect is going to happen anytime soon, but the fact is intercontinental or medium-range missiles that can deliver weapons of mass destruction can be used to stop countries such as the United States from interfering in hostile actions. That is one of the reasons we have to be concerned. The other reason, of course, is these weapons can actually be used. It is not just the threat of use but the actual use. We know from past experience that countries that see no hope in their situation flail out, launching these kinds of missiles against their enemies in a last desperate attempt to at least prove their point, if not to win the war. We know there are some who have indicated they might do this again in the future. For example, a defeated Nazi Germany fired over 2,400 V-1 and 500 V-2 rockets at London, causing over 67,000 casualties, including 7,600 deaths. During the Yom Kippur war, Egypt launched Scud missiles at Israel. The so-called ``War of the Cities'' during the 8-year Iran-Iraq war saw almost 300 Scud missiles exchanged between combatants, with little or no anticipation that such actions would facilitate victory. In 1986, Libya, in response to U.S. air strikes that were in themselves a response to Libyan-sponsored terrorist acts, launched two Scud missiles at a U.S. facility in Italy. That they landed harmlessly in the Mediterranean Sea does not diminish the significance of the event in the context of the use of hostile regimes. While we try to deter countries from launching these kinds of missiles, we know that sometimes deterrence fails and these missiles will be launched. In that case, there is only one thing that is sensible, which is to try to have some kind of defense in place to protect our citizens or our troops deployed abroad or our allies. The sad truth is, unfortunately, the United States today cannot defend itself from a hostile missile attack. In fact, we have a very hard time defending against even the kinds of missiles launched a decade ago in the Persian Gulf war. Remember the single largest number of casualties in that war: 28 American soldiers died because of a Scud missile attack at our base in Saudi Arabia that we could not stop. Yet in the interim, between that event and today, we have made precious little progress in fielding a system which can defend against that kind of threat. I just returned from a trip the weekend before last to Munich, Germany, the so-called Veracunda, a conference of primarily NATO defense ministers, the Secretary General of NATO, as well as representatives of the U.S. Senate and other parliamentarians-- primarily of the NATO countries--to talk about the future of NATO and the United States-allies cooperation, among other things, in the development of ballistic missile defenses. The U.S. delegation was led by my colleagues John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. All of us, including Secretary Rumsfeld who was in attendance, made the point to our allies that the United States had no option but to move forward with missile defense, that our interests were threatened around the world, and that we would have to move forward, but that we wanted to consult with our allies so, first of all, they would understand what we are doing, why we are doing it, and perhaps they would have some participation in how it would evolve, at least as to how it impacts them. We wanted to make what we did applicable to them as well, to provide protection to them if they wanted it. From a previous position of some hostility to the idea, because of their concerns about what Russia and China might do, I believe our allies are moving more to an acceptance of the fact that we are going to proceed and a willingness to confer with us on how that system evolves, even in some cases to talk to us about how we might integrate it with their own defense to provide protection to them as well. I believe that momentum, in other words, for acceptance of our missile defense system from our allies has definitely picked up. It is important that the Senate and House support the President in his determination to move forward with our missile defense. In this regard, it will be very important for the administration to move very quickly to make it clear that the momentum has not slowed, that we do intend to move forward, and we are not going to let another season go by without beginning the deployment of assets that we can deploy. There are very promising technologies. I will be taking the floor at later times to talk about how these might evolve. I start with the sea- based systems. It was clear that the Clinton administration wanted to have only one system. That system, built in Alaska, would have been very vulnerable. The radar that would have been constructed at Chiniak Island could be useful to us with respect to future systems that we deploy. I think it would be a mistake to assume that is the be all and end all of our national missile defense system. Much more productive would be the use of existing assets, the standard missiles we have aboard Aegis cruisers and use the radars we would have constructed at Chiniak Island and the onboard radars, to take literally anywhere in the world to provide defense in theater, both against threats that are medium- range threats today and in the not-too-distant future, to be able to actually provide some strategic defense to protect the United States, or most of it. As I say, this technology is probably the most advanced but it will be up to the Congress to add money to the defense budget and up to the administration to do the planning to integrate that funding into the testing program, the development program, and the fairly early deployment of that limited kind of missile defense program. At the same time, we should be pursuing the existing plans with respect to land-based systems because I suspect that at the end of the day we are going to want to have layered systems where we have sea- based components and land-based components and the radars that facilitate the effectiveness of each. These will be details of plans emerging through the administration review, recommendations of the Department of Defense, and the funding that will be required to come from the Congress. Again, I will get into more detail on that later. The point I make this morning is we are beginning the conversations with our allies that should have taken place years ago. This administration is committed to that. I am convinced, because of the fine statement that Secretary Rumsfeld made at the Munich conference, that our allies are now going to be willing to work with us and will be supportive of us at the end of the day. It will be up to us to follow through with the support that only the Congress can provide. Let me conclude by going back to the point with which I started. There are basically two reasons to have defense. The first is to deter action by would-be aggressors, and you deter not only the use of missiles but also the threat of their use, because the threat of their use is frequently the foreign policy tool of these rogue nations, to keep you out of their way while they engage in their nefarious activities. So you deter the threat and you also deter the actual use. But the second reason is in the event deterrence fails to actually defend yourself--in some cases we know that, especially with regard to these rogue nations which can have very irrational leaders, deterrence does not work--and the missiles do get launched. If you don't have a way of defending yourself, you will suffer extraordinarily large casualties. It would be immoral for leaders of the United States today --and this is a point Secretary Rumsfeld made over and over--it would be immoral for the President, for the Secretary of Defense, and those in the Congress not to do everything we can to facilitate the deployment of these defenses on our watch. If American citizens are killed because we failed in that duty, we have no one to blame but ourselves because the technology is at hand, we have the financial capability of doing it, there is no longer any question about the threat, and we can work with our allies. All that is left is the will to move forward to do this. The final point I wish to make is this: There are those who say we already have a deterrence; it is our nuclear deterrence; and no one would dare mess with the United States because of that. There are two problems with that. The first is that we need an option to annihilating millions of people on the globe. If our only reaction to an attack against us is to respond in kind--in fact, more than in kind--and annihilate, incinerate, literally, millions of people, most of whom are totally innocent and are simply in a country led by some kind of irrational rogue dictator--if that is our only response, it is an immoral response when we have an alternative, and that is a defense that can protect the United States and deter that aggression in the first place. Secondly, it is much more effective to have this additional response, because at the end of the day there gets to be a point where people wonder whether that nuclear deterrent is even credible. It is certainly credible against a massive nuclear attack against the United States, but is it credible against a limited attack by some irrational dictator, against the United States or our allies, that we would, then, in turn, annihilate all of the citizens of his country? That is something we have never been able to answer and we don't want to answer because we want to leave out there the notion that we might respond with that kind of nuclear deterrent, but it becomes less and less likely as time goes on. That is why we need this alternative--another option, a moral option, the option of defense--not just the option of massive nuclear retaliation. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to address the Senate today on the threat to the United States from the proliferation of ballistic missile technology and the debate on deployment of a national missile defense system. I recently had the pleasure, Mr. President, of attending the annual Conference on Security Policy in Munich, Germany. This conference, for those unfamiliar with it, is a gathering of U.S., European and Asian foreign and defense ministers, miscellaneous civilian defense experts, and prominent members of the media. Senators McCain and Lieberman led the U.S. delegation. Of particular note, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld utilized the conference to make his first major address in his capacity as head of the nation's military establishment. The main topic of Secretary Rumsfeld's address, not surprisingly, was the Bush Administration's intention to proceed with deployment of a National Missile Defense system, in consultation with our NATO allies. The Munich Conference, as has been evident in the plethora of news stories that have appeared since, illustrated the scale of opposition among our allies as well as among countries like Russia and China. Fears of precipitating an arms race with Russia and China while driving an irreparable wedge between the United States and Europe were palpable. They were, however, equally misplaced. Few issues within the realm of national security affairs have been as divisive and prone to alarmist hyperbole than the development of ballistic missile defenses. It really is, in a sense, almost surrealistic to contemplate a country that will spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on national defense while conceding to its adversaries the freedom to destroy our cities if only they develop long-range ballistic missiles. And in anticipating the usual rejoinder that our military superiority will surely deter such adversaries from launching nuclear-armed missiles in our direction, let us focus a minute to two on the history of warfare in the missile age. It really is quite illuminating. Deterrence, Mr. President, is a concept. An adversary or potential adversary will refrain from taking an action or actions detrimental to our national interest if it fears a debilitating retaliatory attack. The history of man, however, is the history of war, and the history of war is the history of deterrence--and diplomacy--failing. A nation at war will rarely refrain from employing those means at its disposal, especially when regime survival is at stake. Moreover, and of particular relevance to discussions of missile defenses, is the tendency of defeated regimes to strike out irrationally. A defeated Nazi German fired over 2,400 V-1 and 500 V-2 rockets at London, causing over 67,000 casualties, including 7,600 deaths. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt launched Scud missiles at Israel. The so-called ``War of the Cities'' during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War saw almost 300 Scud missiles exchanged between combatants with little or no anticipation that such actions would facilitate victory. In April 1986, Libya, in response to U.S. air strikes that were in themselves a response to Libyan-sponsored terrorist acts, launched two Scud missiles at a U.S. facility in Italy. That they landed harmlessly in the Mediterranean does not diminish the significance of the event in the context of the use of missiles by hostile regimes. While deterrence should remain a fundamental tenet of our national security strategy, it is not enough. Clearly, we cannot assume, nor base the security of our population, on our own estimations of the calculations occurring in the minds of hostile dictators, especially during periods of heightened tensions. The historical record should be sufficient to convince all of us that missile proliferation is a serious problem--certainly, on that, we all agree--and that those missiles can and may be used, either in the throes of defeat or as the result of a failed attempt to deter the United States from acting in defense of our vital national interests in regions like the Middle and Far East. The recent publication of the book ``Saddam's Bombmaker,'' written by the former chief engineer of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, includes a passage suggesting, based upon the author's personal observations of Saddam Hussein, that the Iraqi dictator fully intends to launch nuclear-armed missiles against Israel in the event he becomes convinced that his personal demise is inevitable. Should he attain the capability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile, I think it is no stretch of the imagination to add the United States to that list. The case of Iran is equally worrisome. Last Fall, we undertook a rather impromptu debate on the nature of Russian-Iranian relations when the New York Times ran a series of articles detailing possible violations of the Iran-Iraq Nonproliferation Act and the subsequent 1996 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which sought clearly to sanction foreign entities determined to be transferring destabilizing military equipment and technology to Iran and Iraq. The debate that emerged focused, of course, given the text of the law, on conventional arms transfers from Russia to Iran. Something of a given, as far as the Clinton administration's posture was concerned, with that the Russian-Iranian military relationship had been largely contained courtesy of the former vice president's diplomatic skills. Putting aside the subsequent abrogation of the secret Gore- Chernomyrdin Pact and the emergence of a more open and vibrant conventional arms trade between Russia and Iran, the issue of missile and nuclear-technology transfers was clearly presumed to be under control. But all available information points to the contrary. More disturbing, the relationship is unquestionably at the government-to- government level. The Clinton administration's arguments that individual Russian entities were circumventing good-faith Russian efforts at stemming the flow of nuclear and missile technology to Iran, the basis of its veto of the Iran Nonproliferation Act, were wholly without merit. In defense of this relationship, Russia's most prominent defense analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, was recently quoted as stating, ``We are brothers-in-arms, and have long-term interests together.'' And Defense Minister Sergeyev's December 2000 visit to Iran to conclude the new arms agreement was trumpeted by Sergeyev as ushering in a ``new phase of military and technical cooperation.'' A recent CIA report act on foreign assistance to Iran's weapons of mass destruction, missile and advanced conventional weapons programs, submitted pursuant to the requirements of the fiscal year 2001 intelligence authorization act, includes the following: Cooperation between Iran's ballistic missile program and Russian aerospace entities has been a matter of increasing proliferation concern through the second half of the 1900s. Iran continues to acquire Russian technology which could significantly accelerate the pace of Iran's ballistic missile development program. Assistance by Russian entities has helped Iran save years in its development of the Shahab-3, a 1,300-kilometer-range MRBM * * * Russian assistance is playing a crucial role in Iran's ability to develop more sophisticated and longer-range missiles. Russian entities have helped the Iranian missile effort in areas ranging from training, to testing, to components. Similarly, Iran's missile program has acquired a broad range of assistance from an array of Russian entities of many sizes and many areas of specialization. Similarly, the Department of Defense's January 2001 report, Proliferation: Threat and Response, states with respect to Russian-Iran nuclear cooperation, that Although [the Iranian nuclear complex] Bushehr [which is receiving substantial Russian assistance] will fall under IAEA safeguards, Iran is using this project to seek access to more sensitive nuclear technologies from Russia and to develop expertise in related nuclear technologies. Any such projects will help Iran augment its nuclear technology infrastructure, which in turn would be useful in supporting nuclear weapons research and development. Finally, and not to belabor the point, the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet recently testified before the Intelligence Committee that Russian entities ``last year continued to supply a variety of ballistic missile-related goods and technical know-how to countries such as Iran, India, China, and Libya.'' Indeed, Director Tenet emphasized this point several times in his testimony, stating, ``the transfer of ballistic missile technology from Russia to Iran was substantial last year, and in our judgment will continue to accelerate Iranian efforts to develop new missiles and to become self-sufficient in production.'' The significance of this relationship is considerable. Opponents of missile defenses have argued both during and after the cold war that the dynamics of warning and response have changed; that we will have sufficient strategic warning of serious threats to our national security to take the necessary measures in response. The entire basis of the Rumsfeld Commission report, and of much of DCI Tenet's testimony, on the threat from foreign missile programs, however, is that strategic--and, indeed, tactical--warning can be severely diminished in the event suspect countries succeed in attaining large- scale technical assistance or complete ballistic missiles, which Saudi Arabia accomplished by its purchase of Chinese CSS-2 medium-range ballistic missiles and Pakistan did in the case of the Chinese M-11 missile transfer. That is clearly the case with Iran. The impact on U.S. national security policy of the proliferation of ballistic and cruise missile technology, as well as of so-called weapons of mass destruction, should not be underestimated. Presidents of either party and their military commanders will undergo a fundamental transformation in their approach to foreign policy commitments and the requirement to project military power in defense of our allies and vital interests if they possess the knowledge that American forces and cities are vulnerable to missile strikes. We have pondered the scenario wherein our response to an invasion of Kuwait by a nuclear-armed Iraq would have been met with the response the 1990 invasion precipitated. Similarly, the oft-cited threat against the United States by Chinese officials in the event we come to the defense of Taiwan should be cause for sober reflection--although the commitment to Taiwan's security should be equally absolute. The point, Mr. President, is that the development or acquisition by rogue regimes of long-range ballistic missiles will alter our response to crises in an adverse manner. Secretary Rumsfeld summed up the situation well in his speech in Munich when he stated, ``Terror weapons don't need to be fired. They just need to be in the hands of people who would threaten their use.'' The need for continued development and deployment of systems to defend against ballistic missile attack is real. We lost eight precious years during which the previous administration stood steadfast in opposition to its most fundamental requirement to provide for the common defense. No where in the Constitution is there a qualification from that responsibility for certain types of threats to the American population, and I doubt one would have been contemplated. The Founding Fathers were unlikely, I believe, to have supported a policy wherein the United States would defend itself against most threats, but deliberately leave itself vulnerable to the most dangerous. We can research missile defenses in perpetuity and not attain the level of perfection some demand. We can, however, deploy viable systems to the field intent on improving them over time as new technologies are developed. We do it with ships, tanks, and fighter aircraft. The value of having fielded systems both as testbeds and for that measure of protection they will provide, while incorporating improvements as they emerge, is the only path available to us if we are serious about defending our cities against ballistic missile attack. Yes, I know that a multibillion dollar missile defense system will not protect against the suitcase bomb smuggled in via cargo ship. But let us not pretend that we are not talking actions to defend against that contingency as well. Arguments that posit one threat against another in that manner are entirely specious. As I've noted, the history of the missile age is not of static displays developed at great expense for the purpose of idol worship. It is of weaponry intended to deter other countries from acting, and to be used when militarily necessary or psychologically expedient. We can't wish them away, and the fact of proliferation is indisputable. The deployment of a National Missile Defense system is the most important step we can take to protect the people we are here to represent. They expect nothing less.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, first, I commend the Senator from Missouri for a fine statement. I certainly associate myself with those comments. In particular, his reference to the effective tax cuts on the small businesses in our country, something he has worked on literally all of his career. I appreciate very much his emphasis on that. The President, of course, sends us his bill today. The essential feature, as the Senator from Missouri said, is the reduction in marginal rates. Reducing the marginal rates is the best thing we can do for all taxpayers, as well as for strengthening the economy itself. I note that the low- and middle-class taxpayers are the biggest winners under this plan. For example, a family of four making $50,000 a year would receive a 50-percent cut, a $1,600 reduction average on their tax bill. If that is not considered important by people, just think about how much that would do for the average family. It pays the entire average home mortgage for that family of four, a year of tuition at a lot of community colleges, and so on. The size of the cut is also modest by any standard. I know some of our colleagues on the left have said it is too big. Frankly, it is not nearly enough, in my view. I subscribe to the view of those in the House of Representatives yesterday who said it could be much larger, and it should be larger. I support at least this modest effort and urge my colleagues who say it is too much to recognize that it is only half the size of the tax cuts of the John F. Kennedy administration and one- third the size of the tax cuts of the Ronald Reagan administration. So I don't think one could say that this tax cut is too large, when all economists agree that the tax cuts of the Kennedy and Reagan eras were the primary cause of the great economic growths that occurred during those periods of time. Moreover, for those who contend that we don't have enough money to accommodate this tax, I say, first of all, that is very much the wrong standard to apply. This is not a Government expenditure. This has to do with taking money from American workers. Recall that during the Reagan era we had huge Federal debt and very large annual deficits, yet we reduced taxes. As I said, this tax cut being proposed by President Bush is only a third the size of those Reagan tax cuts. The goal, first of all, should be to relieve the burden on American taxpayers, enabling them to contribute to the great economic engine of this country. We do not need to be worried about how much money is going to be left over for this Congress to spend. Everyone here knows that if we leave it on the table in the Congress, it will get spent. That is why we believe there is another reason to support this tax cut, not just to improve the economy and help American families but so the money will not be spent by the Congress inappropriately. Surpluses are proof of the fact that taxpayers are being overcharged. They deserve some of their money back. The fact that the economy is weakening at this point simply makes the point that this tax cut and the case for this tax cut is undeniable. I will focus my remaining comments on one specific feature of the President's proposal; that is, the repeal of the estate tax, the so- called death tax. Yesterday, I introduced legislation similar to that introduced last year. Senators Breaux, Gramm, and Lincoln are cosponsors. We all serve on the Finance Committee. It is balanced between Democrats and Republicans. This is the bipartisan approach that passed both the House and the Senate last year, only to be vetoed by President Clinton. The essence of the bill is to replace the Federal estate tax with a tax on capital gains earned from inherited assets due when those assets are sold. As I said, this is the approach that passed both Houses of Congress, and it rests on the notion that death should be taken entirely out of the equation. Death should not be a taxable event. If people want to sell assets at some point, they make an economic calculation knowing, among other things, what kind of tax would pertain. They can make that decision on their own. That is the only time there should be any kind of a tax. At that point, it should be a capital gains tax, not a tax that is more than twice the capital gains rate, which is what the death tax is. As I said, the beauty of this approach is it removes death as a trigger for a tax. Death neither confers a benefit nor results in a punitive, confiscatory state. Small estates would be unaffected by the basic changes we are making. For them, the estate tax would be eliminated and a limited step-up in basis would be preserved. Each person under our proposal has a $2.8 million automatic step-up in basis. So for a couple, there is no chance that an estate that is not taxed under the estate tax today would be taxed under our proposal. This measure would not allow unrealized appreciation on inherited assets, however. I know that is a concern for some of our friends on the other side. Beyond this limited step-up in basis, all assets would be taxed as in any other situation if and when they are ever sold. Friends who own small businesses who never want to sell the small business or farm, that is fine. You never pay a tax. The tax only pertains if and when the business is sold. This is a very fair proposal. In fact, the American people, even though most of them realize they are not liable for an estate tax, understand the fairness of this and support it. A Gallup poll not too long ago found that 60 percent of the American people support repeal of the death tax, even though about three-fourths of them do not think they will ever have to pay the death tax themselves. They are right, although many Americans have to go through the expense of paying for insurance or estate planning. As a matter of fact, about 3 years ago, coincidentally, the Government collected about the same amount in estate tax--I think it was around $23 billion--that other Americans paid to avoid paying the estate tax. So it is actually a double tax. A lot of people who do not actually pay it end up paying as much through the estate tax lawyers' fees, accountants' fees, insurance, and so on. So I think most American people understand it is not a good tax to have, even though they themselves may not be liable for it. Also this last year, in the last election, voters in two States approved referenda to repeal their own estate tax: South Dakota, by a vote of 79-21, and Montana, 68 to 32 percent. Clearly, repeal of this confiscatory tax is an idea whose time has come, both in the State and at the Federal level. I conclude by reiterating the significant majorities in the House and Senate who voted for repeal last year means we have finally found the formula for taxing inherited assets in a fair and commonsense way. I hope, as this process unfolds and the tax legislation comes before the Senate and the House, our colleagues will recognize the validity of this approach, the fairness, the place in which the death tax repeal fits into the overall tax program, and that we can pass tax relief for hard-working American families. It is the most sure way not only to do right by them but to ensure a strong economy for the United States of America.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today, Senators Breaux, Gramm, Lincoln, and Bayh and I are introducing the Estate Tax Elimination Act, a bill to replace the federal estate tax with a tax on capital gains earned from inherited assets due when those assets are sold. This is the approach that won the support of bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress last year. Instead of levying an estate tax at death, Congress agreed that a tax should be imposed when income is actually realized from inherited property--that is, when it is sold. The bipartisan consensus that already exists in support of this plan means that Congress and President Bush--who, unlike his predecessor, supports repeal of the death tax--can come together and quickly dispose of the issue this year. Mr. President, the beauty of this approach is that it removes death as the trigger for any tax. Whether an asset is sold by the decedent during his or her lifetime, or by someone who later inherits the property, the gain is taxed the same. Death neither confers a benefit, nor results in a punitive, confiscatory tax. Senators on both sides of the aisle accepted this arrangement last year, and should support it again this year. Mr. President, we know that many Americans are troubled by the estate tax's complexity and high rates, and by the mere fact that it is triggered by a person's death rather than the realization of income. For a long time, I have advocated repeal, because I believe death should not be a taxable event. Others agree that the tax is problematic, but are concerned that the unrealized appreciation in certain assets might escape taxation forever if the death tax were repealed while the step-up in basis allowed by under current law remained in effect. That is a legitimate concern. We address this by recommending the elimination of both the death tax and the step-up in basis, and attributing a carryover basis to inherited property so that all gains are taxed at the time the property is sold and income is realized. The concept of a carryover basis is not new. It exists in current law with respect to gifts, property transferred in cases of divorce, and in connection with involuntary conversions of property relating to theft, destruction, seizure, requisition, or condemnation. In the latter case, when an owner receives compensation for involuntarily converted property, a taxable gain normally results to the extent that the value of the compensation exceeds the basis of the converted property. However, Section 1033 of the Internal Revenue Code allows the taxpayer to defer the recognition of the gain until the property is sold. The concept recommended in this amendment would treat the transfer of property at death--perhaps the most involuntary conversion of all--the same way, deferring recognition of any gain until the inherited property is sold. Small estates, which currently pay no estate tax by virtue of the unified credit, and no capital-gains tax by virtue of the step up, would be unaffected by the basis changes being proposed here. The estate tax would be eliminated for them, and a limited step-up in basis would be preserved. Each person could still step up the basis in his or her assets by up to $2.8 million. Beyond that, a carryover basis would apply. I want to stress to colleagues, particularly colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle, that this measure would not allow unrealized appreciation in inherited assets--beyond the limited step-up amount--to go untaxed, as other death-tax repeal proposals would do. We are merely saying that if a tax is imposed, it should be imposed when income is realized. Mr. President, some people may ask whether the American people want this kind of tax relief. I will answer that question. Although most Americans will probably never pay a death tax, most still sense that there is something terribly wrong with a system that allows Washington to seize more than half of whatever is left after someone dies--a system that prevents hard-working Americans from passing the bulk of their nest eggs to their children or grandchildren. Fairness, Mr. President. That is what the effort to repeal the death tax is all about. A June 22-25, 2000 Gallup poll found that 60 percent of the people support repeal, even though about three-quarters of those supporters do not think they will ever have to pay a death tax themselves. A poll conducted by Zogby International on July 6, 2000, found that, given a choice between a candidate who believes that a large estate left to heirs should be taxed at a rate of 50 percent for anything over $2 million, and a candidate who believes that the estate tax is unfair to heirs and should be eliminated, 75 percent of the people prefer the person supporting death-tax repeal. Other polls similarly put support for repeal at between 70 and 80 percent. Voters in two states approved referenda last November to repeal their state death tax: South Dakota by a vote of 79 to 21 percent, and Montana by a vote of 68 to 32 percent. Many other states have already done the same. Mr. President, the significant majorities in the House and Senate that voted for repeal last year means that we have finally found a formula for taxing inherited assets in a fair and commonsense way. Appreciated value will be taxed, but only when income is actually realized--that is, when the assets are sold. And then, the gains would be treated by the Tax Code no better, and no worse, than the gains from the sale of any other kind of asset. I invite our Senate colleagues to join in support of this bipartisan initiative again this year.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today, Senators Breaux, Gramm, Lincoln, and Bayh and I are introducing the Estate Tax Elimination Act, a bill to replace the federal estate tax with a tax on capital gains earned from inherited assets due when those assets are sold. This is the approach that won the support of bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress last year. Instead of levying an estate tax at death, Congress agreed that a tax should be imposed when income is actually realized from inherited property--that is, when it is sold. The bipartisan consensus that already exists in support of this plan means that Congress and President Bush--who, unlike his predecessor, supports repeal of the death tax--can come together and quickly dispose of the issue this year. Mr. President, the beauty of this approach is that it removes death as the trigger for any tax. Whether an asset is sold by the decedent during his or her lifetime, or by someone who later inherits the property, the gain is taxed the same. Death neither confers a benefit, nor results in a punitive, confiscatory tax. Senators on both sides of the aisle accepted this arrangement last year, and should support it again this year. Mr. President, we know that many Americans are troubled by the estate tax's complexity and high rates, and by the mere fact that it is triggered by a person's death rather than the realization of income. For a long time, I have advocated repeal, because I believe death should not be a taxable event. Others agree that the tax is problematic, but are concerned that the unrealized appreciation in certain assets might escape taxation forever if the death tax were repealed while the step-up in basis allowed by under current law remained in effect. That is a legitimate concern. We address this by recommending the elimination of both the death tax and the step-up in basis, and attributing a carryover basis to inherited property so that all gains are taxed at the time the property is sold and income is realized. The concept of a carryover basis is not new. It exists in current law with respect to gifts, property transferred in cases of divorce, and in connection with involuntary conversions of property relating to theft, destruction, seizure, requisition, or condemnation. In the latter case, when an owner receives compensation for involuntarily converted property, a taxable gain normally results to the extent that the value of the compensation exceeds the basis of the converted property. However, Section 1033 of the Internal Revenue Code allows the taxpayer to defer the recognition of the gain until the property is sold. The concept recommended in this amendment would treat the transfer of property at death--perhaps the most involuntary conversion of all--the same way, deferring recognition of any gain until the inherited property is sold. Small estates, which currently pay no estate tax by virtue of the unified credit, and no capital-gains tax by virtue of the step up, would be unaffected by the basis changes being proposed here. The estate tax would be eliminated for them, and a limited step-up in basis would be preserved. Each person could still step up the basis in his or her assets by up to $2.8 million. Beyond that, a carryover basis would apply. I want to stress to colleagues, particularly colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle, that this measure would not allow unrealized appreciation in inherited assets--beyond the limited step-up amount--to go untaxed, as other death-tax repeal proposals would do. We are merely saying that if a tax is imposed, it should be imposed when income is realized. Mr. President, some people may ask whether the American people want this kind of tax relief. I will answer that question. Although most Americans will probably never pay a death tax, most still sense that there is something terribly wrong with a system that allows Washington to seize more than half of whatever is left after someone dies--a system that prevents hard-working Americans from passing the bulk of their nest eggs to their children or grandchildren. Fairness, Mr. President. That is what the effort to repeal the death tax is all about. A June 22-25, 2000 Gallup poll found that 60 percent of the people support repeal, even though about three-quarters of those supporters do not think they will ever have to pay a death tax themselves. A poll conducted by Zogby International on July 6, 2000, found that, given a choice between a candidate who believes that a large estate left to heirs should be taxed at a rate of 50 percent for anything over $2 million, and a candidate who believes that the estate tax is unfair to heirs and should be eliminated, 75 percent of the people prefer the person supporting death-tax repeal. Other polls similarly put support for repeal at between 70 and 80 percent. Voters in two states approved referenda last November to repeal their state death tax: South Dakota by a vote of 79 to 21 percent, and Montana by a vote of 68 to 32 percent. Many other states have already done the same. Mr. President, the significant majorities in the House and Senate that voted for repeal last year means that we have finally found a formula for taxing inherited assets in a fair and commonsense way. Appreciated value will be taxed, but only when income is actually realized--that is, when the assets are sold. And then, the gains would be treated by the Tax Code no better, and no worse, than the gains from the sale of any other kind of asset. I invite our Senate colleagues to join in support of this bipartisan initiative again this year.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the nomination of John Ashcroft to be the U.S. Attorney General. Senator Ashcroft has superb legal qualifications. He was educated at Yale and the prestigious University of Chicago law school. While in the U.S. Senate, he served on the Judiciary Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on the Constitution. Senator Ashcroft is also the most experienced nominee for U.S. Attorney General in American history. He served as Missouri's attorney general, its governor, and, of course, one of its U.S. Senators. Since the founding of the nation, none of the previous 66 Attorneys General had his level of experience. Opponents have offered a number of reasons for their opposition. I would like to take this opportunity to respond. First, what should the standard for confirmation be? The general rule for confirmation of Justice Department nominees was well-stated by Senator Leahy in connection with President Clinton's nomination of Walter Dellinger to be head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice: The Senate has a responsibility to advise and consent on Department of Justice and other executive branch nominations. And we must always take our advice and consent responsibilities seriously because they are among the most sacred. But I think most Senators will agree that the standard we apply in the case of executive branch appointments is not as stringent as that for judicial nominees. The President should get to pick his own team. Unless the nominee is incompetent or some other major ethical or investigative problem arises in the course of our carrying out our duties, then the President gets the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt about this nominee's qualifications or integrity. This is not a lifetime appointment to the judicial branch of government. President Clinton should be given latitude in naming executive branch appointees, people to whom he will turn for advice. I should also note that his nomination went through the Judiciary Committee--by no means a rubberstamp--unanimously. The recent debate over Walter Dellinger is another instance of people putting politics over substance. Yes, he has advised and spoken out about high-profile constitutional issues of the day. I would hope that an accomplished legal scholar would not shrink away from public positions on controversial issues, as it appears his opponents would prefer. One can question Professor Dellinger's positions and beliefs, but not his competence and legal abilities. This is the standard that is traditionally applied and it is the proper standard. While acknowledging that presidents are ordinarily entitled to deference in the selections for their cabinet, in the nomination of John Ashcroft critics argue that they are justified in applying a tougher standard for confirmation because of the standard that Senator Ashcroft allegedly used in evaluating Bill Lann Lee to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. In considering Bill Lann Lee, Senator Ashcroft had said that Lee was ``an advocate who is willing to pursue an objective and to carry it with the kind of intensity that belongs to advocacy, but not with the kind of balance that belongs to administration . . . his pursuit of specific objectives that are important to him limit his capacity to have the balanced view of making the judgments that will be necessary for the person who runs [the Civil Rights] Division.'' Some Democrats say that because John Ashcroft applied this ``standard'' to Bill Lann Lee, they are justified in applying the same standard to John Ashcroft. First, this is not a standard, but a conclusion about Lee based upon his record and testimony. Second, what Senator Ashcroft did on the Lee nomination was justified. Senator Ashcroft's concerns with Bill Lann Lee were based on Lee's long record of activism as a public interest lawyer. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee opposed Lee's nomination because they were justly concerned about his willingness to enforce the law as stated in Justice O'Connor's opinion for the Supreme Court in Adarand. In Adarand, the Supreme Court held that all governmental racial classifications were subject to strict scrutiny--that is, they must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. Mr. Lee repeatedly stated the standard for racial preferences in less strict terms. He also found that only one of the 150 current federal programs involving racial classifications would be invalid under Adarand. Senator Ashcroft explained why he opposed Bill Lann Lee's nomination--he was concerned that Mr. Lee would not enforce the law. Senator Ashcroft testified: ``I joined with eight other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposing Bill Lee's nomination to be assistant attorney general because I had serious concerns about his willingness to enforce the Adarand decision . . . [Mr. Lee] was an excellent litigant, but I had concerns that he viewed the Adarand decision as an obstacle rather than as a way in which the law was defined. Adarand held that government programs that establish racial preferences based on race are subject to strict scrutiny, that is the highest level of scrutiny under the Supreme Court's equal protection clause. Adarand was a landmark decision, it was substantial, it was important. Mr. Lee did not indicate a clear willingness to enforce the law based on that decision.'' Senator Ashcroft's concerns about Bill Lann Lee proved to be well- founded. For example, in 1998, a federal judge, a Carter-appointee, assessed an unprecedented $1.8 million attorney fee award against the Civil Rights Division for a lawsuit against the City of Torrance, California. The judge found the suit ``frivolous, unreasonable and without foundation.'' The Division then turned around and filed a similar suit in Texas defending the constitutionality of contracting preferences on the basis of race and sex. Mr. Lee also continued to unlawfully coerce state and local governments to adopt race and sex preferences by threatening costly lawsuits based on dubious employment statistics. Moreover, under Mr. Lee, the Civil Rights Division continued the legal challenge to Proposition 209, a measure that prohibited government discrimination of Californians on the basis of race, gender, or national origin. These suits continued despite the fact that Proposition 209 has repeatedly been upheld by federal courts. It is also important to note that Bill Lann Lee had never held an executive position--or any position--in the government, whereas Senator Ashcroft served as attorney general of Missouri for eight years and as governor for eight years. He had distinguished tenures in both offices. In fact, he served as President of the National Association of Attorneys General and as Chairman of the National Governors Association and Chairman of the Education Commission of the States. In sum, Senator Ashcroft had serious reasons for concern with the Lee nomination, and his concern was borne out. In contrast, Senator Ashcroft has not waffled, redefined, or otherwise given reason to believe that he would not apply the law as it is. While Lee continued to aggressively litigate, John Ashcroft has shown no sign that he will continue to legislate. He did not do so as Missouri Attorney General, and he would not do so as U.S. Attorney General. In fact, John Ashcroft has repeatedly stated that he will enforce the law--yet this reassurance has failed to satisfy his critics. It's a Catch-22. He has, like every nominee, said he will uphold the law; and no one has ever questioned his integrity. But when John Ashcroft pledges to uphold the law, critics say that this is a ``new'' John Ashcroft, that he has flipped and is not credible. What they are saying is that he cannot satisfy them whatever he says. John Ashcroft knows the difference between being a legislator and being an executive. He is a man of integrity. He should be taken at his word. He cannot prove a negative-- that he won't fail to do his job. To hold him to that standard is to ask of him the impossible. Senators have the right to vote on any grounds they like; but they should not shroud their vote in a sham standard. An example of setting up an impossible standard is the view by some that, because Senator Ashcroft opposes abortion he cannot by definition enforce laws such as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law--the federal criminal statute that punishes those who commit acts of criminal intimidation or violence at abortion clinics. There is no logic to this position. Senator Ashcroft's opposition to abortion does not mean that he supports violations of the law prohibiting violence at clinics. Indeed, Senator Ashcroft supports the freedom of access to clinic entrances law and stated in his written answers that he ``will fully enforce FACE.'' This reinforces the view that he has previously expressed. For example, long before he had any idea he would ever be nominated for attorney general, Senator Ashcroft wrote that, regardless of his personal views on abortion, people should be able to enter abortion clinics safely: ``I believe people should be able to enter legal abortion clinics safely. I oppose unlawfully barricading or otherwise curtailing access to legal abortion clinics. I condemn violence regarding this issue by individuals either in favor of or against abortion.'' Quoted from a May 15, 1996 letter to George Sorenson of St. Clair Shores, MI. Senator Ashcroft opposes criminal violence at abortion clinics and believes people who commit these acts of violence and intimidation should be punished. As Attorney General he'll do just that. It is irrational for critics to vote against him in the belief that merely because he opposes abortion the won't enforce the freedom of access to clinic entrances law. While he cannot prove a negative, he can point to past situations that belie the assertion that he won't properly apply the law. As Missouri Attorney General, John Ashcroft did not let his personal opinion on abortion cloud his legal analysis. For example, in Attorney General Opinion No. 5, issued on October 22, 1982, 1981 WL 154492, Mo. A.G., John Ashcroft opined that the Missouri Division of Health should not release to the public information from reports it maintains on the number of abortions performed by particular hospitals. He stated that the legislature made clear its intent that such reports ``shall be confidential and shall be used only for statistical purposes'' and even made failure to maintain confidentiality a misdemeanor. John Ashcroft opined that, for these reasons, and to protect the patient-physician privilege as recognized by Missouri law, access to the health data maintained by the Division was subject to review only by local, state or national public health officers. Additionally, in Attorney General Opinion No. 127, issued on September 23, 1980, 1980 WL 115450 Mo. A.G., John Ashcroft was asked to opine on whether a death certificate was required for all abortions, regardless of the age of the fetus. Despite his personal view that life begins at conception, he stated that Missouri statutes did not require any type of certificate if the fetus was 20 weeks or less. After 20 weeks Missouri statutes specifically require a ``certificate of stillbirth'' regardless of whether death was by natural causes such as a miscarriage or an intentional act such as an abortion. It is also worth noting that Senator Ashcroft voted for Senator Schumer's amendment to the bankruptcy bill that made debts incurred as a result of abortion clinic violence non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Finally, it is important to note that Senator Ashcroft has a strong record on women's issues, contrary to what some have charged. As governor, he signed a rape shield law that made inadmissible evidence of the victim's past sexual conduct. He also signed a law recognizing battered woman's syndrome as a defense in criminal cases. As Missouri attorney general, he took a broad view on allowing domestic violence funds to be used by non-profits to establish a network of ``safe homes.'' As Senator, John Ashcroft co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act. Third, opponents express concern that Senator Ashcroft does not favor stricter gun control and previously opposed some measures that are now law. As a result, they conclude he will not enforce the gun control laws. Some people may be so pinched in their opinions that they could not distinguish between these two circumstances. Not John Ashcroft. As a former state attorney general and president of the National Association of Attorneys General, Senator Ashcroft knows how important it is to enforce gun laws vigorously. Unfortunately, the Clinton Justice Department has failed to make gun prosecutions a priority. Between 1992 and 1998, prosecutions of criminals who use a gun to commit a felony dropped nearly 50 percent from 7,045 to 3,765. Senator Ashcroft was one of the leaders in the Senate in directing the Justice Department to increase the prosecution of gun crimes. He sponsored legislation to authorize $50 million to hire additional federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers to increase the federal prosecution of criminals who use guns. Additionally, Senator Ashcroft sponsored legislation to require a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for federal gun crimes and for legislation to encourage schools to expel students who bring guns to school. Moreover, in the Senate, John Ashcroft had a strong record in fighting gun crimes. Last Congress, for example, Senator Ashcroft authored legislation to prohibit juveniles from possessing assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the Ashcroft legislation in May 1999. Senator Ashcroft voted for legislation that prohibits any person convicted of even misdemeanor acts of domestic violence from possessing a firearm, for legislation to extend the Brady Act to prohibit persons who commit violent crimes as juveniles from possessing firearms, for the ``Gun-Free Schools Zone Act'' that prohibits the possession of a firearm in a school zone, and for legislation to require gun dealers to offer child safety locks and other gun safety devices for sale. Senator Ashcroft also voted for legislation to close the so-called ``gun show loophole.'' This bill required mandatory instant background checks for all firearm purchases at gun shows. Senator Ashcroft will uphold the nation's laws on firearms. Fourth, critics question Senator Ashcroft's record or civil rights. They often begin by raising the issue of desegregation litigation in Missouri. Senator Ashcroft did defend the state of Missouri as state attorney general in a long-running school-desegregation case. Every Missouri attorney general since 1980, including Jay Nixon, John Ashcroft's Democratic successor, backed the state's (and Ashcroft's) position. According to an article in National Review, the attorneys general in Missouri, fought the orders because they were unjust, saddling innocent parties with exorbitant costs. They fought the orders because they were unpopular, not only with their victims, but with their beneficiaries. A leitmotif of the desegregation was the persistent splintering of minority groups from the ``class action'' litigants, whose one-size- fits-all remedies ran roughshod over the aspirations of parents for their children. . . . In Missouri, 400 other public-school districts suffered cutbacks so that a handful of attorneys for civil-rights groups and teachers unions could run uncontrolled clinical trials on a generation of urban school kids, Indeed, non-urban school officials were among the most persistent and vociferous foes of the desegregation orders. The article continues: ``Twenty years of forced bussing, which Ashcroft opposed, left the Kansas City school district slightly less integrated than it was before. Twenty years of forced bussing, plus $3 billion, left Kansas City and St. Louis with schools that consistently rate among the poorest in the nation in reading and math skills.'' To oppose a particular court order is not, as some critics have said, to ``relentlessly oppose school desegregation.'' That characterization is unfair, even slanderous. Another point that critics often raise is the fact that Senator Ashcroft spoke at Bob Jones University. The controversy over the Bob Jones University speech has been put to rest. At his confirmation hearings, Senator Ashcroft made it clear that he ``reject[s] any racial intolerance or religious intolerance that has been associated with[,] or is associated with[,]'' Bob Jones University. Senator Ashcroft explained that ``[he] want[s] to make it very clear that [he] reject[s] racial and religious intolerance.'' He said he does not endorse any bigoted views by virtue of ``having made an appearance in any faith or any congregation.'' He said, for example, that he has visited churches which do not ``allow women in certain roles,'' and that he does not endorse that view, either. In the matter of the role faith plays in our public life, there appears to be a double standard. Senator Lieberman made numerous speeches connecting God to American government when he was running for Vice President last year. In fact, during a campaign speech in a church in Detroit, he said he hoped his candidacy ``will enable all people . . . to talk about their faith and about their religion, and I hope it will reinforce a belief that I feel as strongly as anything else--that there must be a place for faith in American public life.'' [Newsweek 9/ 11/00] I share in that hope. Sadly, critics of John Ashcroft, who almost universally supported Senator Lieberman, apply a different standard on this issue to John Ashcroft. During his career, Senator Ashcroft has compiled an outstanding record of protecting the rights of all people. As governor, Fortune named him one of the top 10 education governors in the nation. John Ashcroft was an inclusive governor, signing into law Missouri's first hate-crimes statute and state holiday that recognizes Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. He nominated the first woman to the Missouri Supreme Court. John Ashcroft's work on behalf of minorities earned him a commendation from the Mound City Association, an African-American Bar Association of St. Louis, and a campaign endorsement from the Limelight Newspaper, the largest African-American newspaper in St. Louis. In the U.S. Senate, John Ashcroft convened the first and only Senate hearing on racial profiling. He secured more funding to combat violence against women, voted to prohibit those who have been convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun, and supported the crime victims' rights amendment and Violence Against Women Act. John Ashcroft has been deeply committed to promoting equal access to government positions during his tenure as both Attorney General and Governor of Missouri. Witnesses testifying at the hearing made this commitment clear. Mr. Jerry Hunter, former labor secretary of Missouri, testified that, ``Like President-elect George W. Bush, Senator Ashcroft followed a policy of affirmative access and inclusiveness during his service to the state of Missouri as attorney general, his two terms as governor, and his one term in the United States Senate. During the eight years that Senator Ashcroft was attorney general for the state of Missouri, he recruited and hired minority lawyers. During his tenure as governor, he appointed blacks to numerous boards and commissions . . . [B]ut I would say to you on a personal note, Senator Ashcroft went out of his way to find African-Americans to consider for appointments.'' Mr. Hunter further elaborated that, When Governor Ashcroft's term ended in January of 1993, he had appointed more African-Americans to state court judgeships than any previous governor in the history of the state of Missouri. Governor Ashcroft was also bipartisan in his appointment of state court judges. He appointed Republicans, Democrats and independents. One of Governor Ashcroft's black appointees in St. Louis was appointed, notwithstanding the fact that he was not a Republican and that he was on a panel with a well-known white Republican. Of the nine panels of nominees for state court judgeships, which included at least one African-American, Governor Ashcroft appointed eight black judges from those panels. Congressman J.C. Watts testified: I've worked with [John Ashcroft] on legislation concerning poor communities, under-served communities. I have always found John Ashcroft to have nothing but the utmost respect and dignity for one's skin color. I heard John say yesterday in some of his testimony that his faith requires him to respect one's skin color. And I think that's the way it should be . . . [I]n my dealings with John, I have had nothing but the utmost respect for him when it comes to his dealings with people of different skin color. Judge David Mason, who worked with Ashcroft in the Missouri Attorney General's office stated, As time went on, I begin to get a real feel for this man and where his heart is. When the subject of Martin Luther King Day came up, I was there. And I recall that he issued the executive order to establish the first King Day, rather than wait for the legislature to do it. Because, as you may recall, some of you, when Congress passed the holiday, they passed it at a time when the Missouri legislature may not have been able to have the first holiday contemporaneously with it. So he passed a King holiday by executive order. He said, in doing so, he wanted his children to grow up in a state that observed someone like Martin Luther King. Bob Woodson of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise uses faith-based organizations to help troubled young people turn their lives around. Mr. Woodson testified: Senator John Ashcroft is the only person who, from the time he came into this body, reached out to us. He's on the board of Teen Challenge. He's raised money for them. He sponsored a charitable choice legislation that will stop the government from trying to close them down because they don't have trained professionals as drug counselors. We have an 80 percent success rate of these faith-based organizations with a $60-a-day cost, when the conventional, therapeutically secular program cost $600 a day with a 6 to 10 percent success rate. Senator Ashcroft has gone with us. He has fought with us. And this legislation would help us. As a consequence, day before yesterday, 150 black and Hispanic transformed drug addicts got on buses from all over this nation and came here to support him. Fifty of them came from Victory Temple throughout the state of Texas, spent two days on a Greyhound bus at their own expense to come here to voice strong support for Senator Ashcroft. Kay James of the Heritage Foundation testified: The system our founders designed, of course, is famous for its many checks and balances from which no public official is immune. Nevertheless, the charge is still made that these are insufficient to deal with a man of religious conviction. As such, a person cannot be trusted to faithfully execute the laws, especially those which may conflict with his deeply held belief. I reject such religious profiling. On this matter, let me attempt to reassure John Ashcroft's opponents by enlisting the very thing they profess to fear most: his religious faith. Fifth, opponents claim that Senator Ashcroft has a poor record on the nominations of President Clinton's nominations to the federal bench. This somehow justifies voting against Ashcroft under a standard of ``what's good for the goose is good for the gander.'' Apart from the intellectual contradiction in such a position, Senator Ashcroft's record contradicts this assertion. He supported 218 out of 230 Clinton judicial nominees, or, put another way, Senator Ashcroft supported more than 94 percent of President Clinton's nominees, many of whom were women and minorities. This is hardly a record of obstruction. Indeed, Senator Ashcroft supported 26 of the 27 African-American judges nominated by President Clinton and considered by the Senate. All other Republican senators also opposed the only one Ashcroft opposed. That nominee was Ronnie White--nominated to the federal district court bench. Senator Ashcroft, along with the majority of the U.S. Senate, had grave concerns about White's record in Missouri death- penalty cases. White wasn't just the state's leading dissenter in death-penalty cases, he even went so far as to try (unsuccessfully) to overturn the conviction of a man who confessed to brutally murdering four people. White was the only dissenter in that case, which caused his nomination to be opposed by numerous law-enforcement groups and officers, including the National Sheriff's Association, the Missouri Federation of Police Chiefs, the Mercer County Prosecuting Attorney's office, and numerous individual Missouri sheriffs and police departments. Senator Ashcroft took very seriously his duty to evaluate Judge White's record. He reluctantly concluded White had a propensity to work against the imposition of the death penalty even when called for by law. As Senator Ashcroft testified, Judges at the federal level are appointed for life. They frequently have power that literally would allow them to overrule the entire Supreme Court of the state of Missouri. If a person has been convicted in the state of Missouri, but on habeas corpus files a petition with a U.S. district court, it's within the power of that single U.S. district court judge to set aside the judgment of the entire Supreme Court of the State of Missouri. So that my seriousness with which I addressed these issues is substantial. I did characterize Judge White's record as being pro-criminal. I did not derogate his background. Judge White argued in dissent in the Johnson case, where the defendant was convicted of killing three law enforcement officers and the wife of a sheriff, that the defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel. Congressman Hulshof, the prosecutor in that case, rebutted that argument quite effectively. Congressman Hulshof testified, ``The points I'd like to raise briefly about the quality of James Johnson's representation is this: He hired counsel of his own choosing. He picked from our area in mid-Missouri what we've referred to as--as I referred to as a dream team.'' And the court later ruled that the counsel was effective. Sheriff Kenny Jones, whose wife and colleagues were killed by Johnson, testified, Be assured that Senator Ashcroft had no other reason that I know about to oppose Judge White except that I asked him to. I opposed Judge White's nomination to the federal bench, and I asked Senator Ashcroft to join me because of Judge White's opinion on a death penalty case . . . . In his opinion, Judge White urged that Johnson be given a second chance at freedom. I cannot understand his reasoning. I know that the four people Johnson killed were not given a second chance. Some Democrats claim that Ronnie White was treated shabbily. They say the treatment was shabby because it was embarrassing for White to be suffer defeat on the Senate floor and because of alleged misstatements by Senator Ashcroft about White's record. In response to the first point, it must be said that throughout the last Congress, Democrats constantly stressed that they wanted their nominees brought to the floor for a vote. In fact, on June 29, 1999, more than three months before the nomination came to the floor, Senator Leahy took to the floor to say that Ronnie White ``should be allowed a vote, up or down.'' He continued: ``Senators can stand up and say they will vote for or against him, but let this man have a vote.'' Well, this is what can happen when a nominee is brought to the floor--the nomination can be defeated. If Democrats are concerned that a nominee will be embarrassed if the nominee loses, then Democrats must be careful when they clamor for a vote. I personally expressed to Judge White my regret that his nomination was considered by the full Senate in a way that ended in defeat. A second point: when Democrats complain that there were misstatements about Ronnie White's record, why didn't they correct the record? Every senator, of course, has the right to set the record straight if there is an error. Further, on this matter there have been misstatements not by Senator Ashcroft but about Senator Ashcroft's floor statement. I want to make one point very clear: Senator Ashcroft did not accuse Ronnie White of being pro-criminal, rather he said that ``Judge White's opinions have been, and, if confirmed, his opinions on the Federal bench will continue to be pro-criminal and activist, with a slant toward criminals and defendants against prosecutors and the culture in terms of maintaining order . . .'' This statement is in no way a smear of Ronnie White. It is a reasonable conclusion after reviewing Ronnie White's dissents in a number of cases, most notably the Johnson case in which, as the lone dissenter, Ronnie White would have let a confessed murderer go free for three reasons. First, Judge White's dissent concluded that, as noted above, the defendant had ineffective assistance of counsel--yet the case was so overwhelming that Clarence Darrow could not have saved the defendant. Second, White's dissent displayed a pro-criminal bent in stating that the defendant's ``previously law-abiding life'' could warrant reducing the sentence of this quadruple murderer to life imprisonment. Third, White's dissent demonstrated a willingness to disregard the law, specifically, as the definition of legal insanity. White wrote: ``While Mr. Johnson may not, as the jury found, have met the legal definition of insanity, whatever drove Mr. Johnson to go from being a law-abiding citizen to being a multiple killer was certainly something akin to madness.'' A judge must enforce the law, not make new law by the seat of his pants. As I stated above--and it merits repeating because Senator Ashcroft's critics have distorted his record--Senator Ashcroft supported 218 out of 230 Clinton judicial nominees. Put another way, Senator Ashcroft supported more than 94 percent of President Clinton's nominees, many of whom were women and minorities. Indeed, Senator Ashcroft supported 26 of the 27 African-American judges nominated by President Clinton and considered by the Senate. This is hardly a record of obstruction. Like many people who watched the recent confirmation hearings of John Ashcroft for U.S. Attorney General, I too failed to recognize the man as characterized by his opponents. I've known John Ashcroft for six years in the Senate. As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, Senator John Ashcroft is a man who knows the law. He was educated at Yale and the prestigious University of Chicago law school. While in the U.S. Senate, he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on the Constitution. Furthermore, Senator Ashcroft is the most experienced candidate for U.S. Attorney General in American history. He served as Missouri's attorney general, its governor, and one of its U.S. senators. During his career, Senator Ashcroft has compiled an outstanding record of protecting the rights of all people. He will continue to do so as the United States Attorney General. I strongly support his nomination and encourage all my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments that both Chairman Hatch and Senator Leahy have just made with respect to this nomination. We began when I referred to Senator Leahy as Mr. Chairman, and now we are nearing the conclusion of this during the time that Senator Hatch will be referred to as Mr. Chairman. I agree, it is time to bring the confirmation proceedings for Senator Ashcroft to a close. I hope my colleagues will consider the long-range implications of their votes with respect to Senator Ashcroft. I have, I think, never regretted voting for a nominee for office, but I have regretted some of the votes I have cast against nominees. I hope my colleagues judge how their votes will be considered a year from now, 4 years from now, perhaps 20 years from now, in thinking about how they will cast their votes. Most of the points Senator Leahy made have been made before and have been fairly thoroughly rehashed during the committee process and in other forums. I would really like to only respond to three points Senator Leahy just made. First, he made this comment in the Judiciary Committee meeting yesterday, as well. Senator Leahy said it is not liberal or left-wing groups that have influenced this nomination but, rather, groups on the far right. And it is possible, of course, for anybody to brag about what they may or may not have done. President Bush is fully capable of deciding whom he is going to nominate for Attorney General. I was one of the people who recommended John Ashcroft to him. So I do not think we can ascribe John Ashcroft's nomination to the fact that some people who are very conservative brag about the fact that they stopped somebody else and recommended his nomination. He was recommended by other people as well, including myself. In any event, I think it is rather odd to suggest that liberal groups have not been actively involved in this debate. Immediately after it began, I received a copy of a special report from the People for the American Way--clearly a liberal, left leaning group--making the case against the confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General. And page after page after page of it, in effect, is opposition research opposing the nomination. I also will note just one story from the Washington Times of January 17 of this year. I will quote this at length because I think it makes the point rather clearly. Senate Democrats are under enormous pressure from liberal interest groups to defeat Mr. Ashcroft, whom they accuse of insensitivity to minorities and of harboring a stealth agenda to undermine abortion rights. Yesterday, Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said his organization will ``fund major information campaigns for the next 4 years'' in States whose senators vote in favor of Mr. Ashcroft. This is continuing the quotation from Mr. Mfume: Senators who vote for Ashcroft will not be able to run away from this and assume people will forget, said Mr. Mfume. For Democratic senators, in particular, this vote comes as close to a litmus test as one can get on the issue of civil rights and equal justice under law from the party's most loyal constituency. Mr. President, I do not think it really matters much. It is very clear that both liberal and conservative interest groups have weighed in on this nomination. It is totally appropriate for them to do so. Therefore, I am not quite clear why one would make the point that it is only conservative groups who have weighed in. Clearly, liberal groups have weighed in as well. That is their right. I, in fact, admire those Democratic Senators who will vote to confirm Senator Ashcroft because I appreciate the intense pressure they are under. We all have pressures, but it takes courage sometimes to go against what they may perceive as going against the grain in their own State. The second point made was that this was a divisive nominee. It is a little hard for me to understand how a nomination can be divisive until somebody objects. President Bush laid out his potential Cabinet, and immediately all attention focused on three of those nominees. They were said to be divisive. They were divisive because somebody objected to them. Third--and this relates to it--this business about enforcing the law has really put Senator Ashcroft in a difficult position. It is a catch- 22 for him; he cannot win, literally. If he says he will enforce the law, which, of course, every nominee has said, then he is subject to the criticism that this is a change, a new Ashcroft, and we can't believe that he will, in fact, enforce the law. What is he to do? He can't prove a negative. He can't prove he will not fail to enforce the law. We can look to his experience. We can look to his service in the Senate. One of our colleagues who will be voting on him made this statement. This is from West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd: I'm going to vote for him. He was a legislator. His opinions at that time were the opinions of someone who writes the laws. He is now going to be an officer who enforces the laws. He will put his hand on the Bible. He will swear to uphold the law, that he will enforce the law. He has said so, and I take him at his word. I believe Ashcroft means what he says. Of course, some have noted that John Ashcroft is a very religious man. Yet it seems paradoxical to me that after referring to his faith, they would somehow doubt that he would be firm in his commitment to uphold the laws. I agree with Senator Byrd. We can trust this man, that he will do what he says he will do. I will submit for the Record just one of the many examples that one can point to about the immediate past Attorney General not enforcing the law; in this case, a situation in which Attorney General Reno specifically refused to enforce the Controlled Substances Act when it dealt with the matter of assisted suicide. Yet I heard nobody who is a critic of John Ashcroft criticize Attorney General Reno for her refusal to enforce existing law. These are matters of judgment, and reasonable people will differ. That is why it is especially perplexing to me to note the vehemence with which some have expressed opposition to Senator Ashcroft on the grounds that they know he won't enforce the law. That is perplexing to me. A final point on this--it has been made over and over, but I think it bears a little bit of discussion right now--Bill Lann Lee was a nominee of Bill Clinton for a very important job in the Justice Department, head of the Civil Rights Division. There were many who opposed his nomination, including myself. Senator Leahy and others have been very critical of our opposition. In effect, they have said we should not have opposed him for that position. We applied too tough a standard; we should have believed him when he said he would enforce the law. Not getting into all of the reasons why we didn't think he would enforce the law and why, as it turns out, we were correct. Nonetheless, people such as Senator Leahy have been very critical of us for the stance we took. Yet they are now saying they are going to apply the same test they say we applied in the case of Bill Lann Lee. Either we were wrong in that case and that test should not be applied or we were right and it is a test that can be applied. And they then apply it and perhaps reach a different conclusion than we. We should discuss this honestly. I don't think you can say on the one hand that test was wrong for Republicans to apply in the case of Bill Lann Lee but it is right for Democrats to apply it in the case of John Ashcroft. Which is it? If it is wrong for us to say we just didn't believe that Bill Lann Lee could do what he said he would do, then the Democrats have a very tough argument to make that they should be able to say precisely that with respect to John Ashcroft. The bottom line is, it doesn't matter what John Ashcroft says to some Senators. They have reached a conclusion--I will suggest in good faith; I will never question the motives of my colleagues even if they vehemently disagree with me--that he is not suitable to be the Attorney General of the United States. That is their right. I don't think John Ashcroft can ever satisfy them. He can say: I promise you I will uphold the law, as he did over and over and over again in the hearing. We know he is a man of integrity and no one has questioned that. Yet they still apply this test which, in their minds, requires them to vote against his confirmation. So be it. We have to be honest about the application of these tests. If it is fair to do it in the case of John Ashcroft, then it was fair for Republicans to do it in the case of Bill Lann Lee. We simply reached different conclusions. If it was unfair in the case of Bill Lann Lee, then it certainly can be argued to be unfair in the case of John Ashcroft. People who argue about this ``rule of law'' point would be much more credible if over the course of the last 8 years they would have been more outspoken about the repeated problems of the immediate past administration with respect to the rule of law. They were defending their administration. They were defending their Attorney General and their President. They didn't speak out about these matters. The rule of law is really at the bottom the most important thing that those of us on the Judiciary Committee can focus on and that we do need to consider when the President has nominees pending on the floor. That is why I am happy to conclude these brief remarks with my view that there is no one whom I believe in more with respect to fulfilling the responsibility to support the rule of law than John Ashcroft, a man of great integrity, a man of unquestioned intelligence and experience--in fact, the most experienced nominee ever for the position of Attorney General--a man who repeatedly was elected by his constituents in Missouri, who had every opportunity to view him as an extremist, if that in fact had been the case, but it was not; and a man who served in this body for 6 years. During that time, he was a friend of virtually everybody in the body because they knew him, they liked him, they trusted him, and they worked with him. Therefore, it is perplexing and hurtful to me to hear some of the things that have been said about him in connection with his confirmation. Oppose him if you will; that is your right. Reasonable people can reach different conclusions about whether he should be confirmed. But we need to do it in a civil way so that there is not lasting harm done either to the confirmation process, to the legitimacy of the Senate's actions with respect to confirmation, or to the legitimacy of President Bush and his Department of Justice under the leadership of John Ashcroft. I urge my colleagues to consider whether in 4 or 5 or 6 years they will be happy with and glad to defend a negative vote on this confirmation. I urge them to consider that carefully. I am very proud to express my strong support for the nomination of John Ashcroft. He will, in the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, make a superb U.S. Attorney General.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent to have an op-ed piece, which responds to one of the points that Senator Boxer was raising, be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I was an original cosponsor of the Teacher Support Act of 2001. Working together last year, Senator Collins and I, with invaluable assistance from our departed colleague Paul Coverdell, persuaded the Senate to pass almost identical legislation by a vote of 98-0. Like the amendment approved by the Senate last year, the Teacher Support Act would provide an annual tax credit of up to $100 for teachers' un-reimbursed classroom expenditures that are qualified under the Internal Revenue Code. For amounts over $100, teachers would continue to use the deductions allowed for such expenses under current law. We know the need this legislation addresses is real. According to a recent study by the NEA, the average K-12 teacher spent $408 every year on classroom materials needed for education but not supplied by the schools. These materials include everything from books, workbooks, erasers, paper, pens, equipment related to classroom instruction, and professional enrichment programs. In my discussions with teachers--public and private--I have been amazed to learn that many use their own money to cover the cost of classroom materials that are not supplied by their school or school district. I have attended intense meetings in which Arizona teachers have related to me, in confidence, that they have used money from the family budget, without telling their spouses, for needed classroom supplies, and that though they feel wracked with guilt, they would do it again for their students. The Teacher Support Act stands for the idea that teachers should not feel compelled to make such sacrifices. Though there is no absolute linkage between personal contributions for school supplies and the quality of the teaching, there likely is some correlation, given the degree of commitment evidenced by these teachers who are spending their own money. To the extent this is true, the proposal will have the effect of encouraging instruction of the highest quality. I am pleased that President Bush campaigned on a similar proposal last year, and that he has included it in the education package he announced last week. This legislation, sends a much-needed message to the hard-working teachers of this country that they have our support, and that, working together, we can improve education for America's children.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I was an original cosponsor of the Teacher Support Act of 2001. Working together last year, Senator Collins and I, with invaluable assistance from our departed colleague Paul Coverdell, persuaded the Senate to pass almost identical legislation by a vote of 98-0. Like the amendment approved by the Senate last year, the Teacher Support Act would provide an annual tax credit of up to $100 for teachers' un-reimbursed classroom expenditures that are qualified under the Internal Revenue Code. For amounts over $100, teachers would continue to use the deductions allowed for such expenses under current law. We know the need this legislation addresses is real. According to a recent study by the NEA, the average K-12 teacher spent $408 every year on classroom materials needed for education but not supplied by the schools. These materials include everything from books, workbooks, erasers, paper, pens, equipment related to classroom instruction, and professional enrichment programs. In my discussions with teachers--public and private--I have been amazed to learn that many use their own money to cover the cost of classroom materials that are not supplied by their school or school district. I have attended intense meetings in which Arizona teachers have related to me, in confidence, that they have used money from the family budget, without telling their spouses, for needed classroom supplies, and that though they feel wracked with guilt, they would do it again for their students. The Teacher Support Act stands for the idea that teachers should not feel compelled to make such sacrifices. Though there is no absolute linkage between personal contributions for school supplies and the quality of the teaching, there likely is some correlation, given the degree of commitment evidenced by these teachers who are spending their own money. To the extent this is true, the proposal will have the effect of encouraging instruction of the highest quality. I am pleased that President Bush campaigned on a similar proposal last year, and that he has included it in the education package he announced last week. This legislation, sends a much-needed message to the hard-working teachers of this country that they have our support, and that, working together, we can improve education for America's children.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise briefly to discuss the nomination of another Cabinet official, the Attorney General, John Ashcroft. Hopefully, we will be able, on the Judiciary Committee, to have the vote on Attorney General designate Ashcroft tomorrow. We hope to have that meeting on Tuesday, at the very latest Wednesday. We are hoping to consider his nomination on the floor of the Senate and get that done by Thursday afternoon prior to the time that the Senate recesses for the week. It is important that this nomination be confirmed. There are a lot of things pending. The Attorney General is one of the officers of the Cabinet who is always on watch. There are all of the assistant attorneys general, U.S. attorneys around the country who are looking for guidance from Washington on a wide variety of matters. We have more terrorist issues that demand the attention of the Attorney General. My colleagues on both the Democratic and Republican side are interested in commencing the process of judicial nominations to fill so many vacancies that exist. All of these and many more issues require an Attorney General who is active and in place. The sooner we can get the President's nominee for Attorney General confirmed, the better for the Nation. I will comment briefly on some comments that have been made. One of my colleagues this morning spoke, as a matter of fact. The charges are pretty much the same. Let me summarize three or four things that have been said with regard to John Ashcroft and try to put them in proper context. One of my colleagues this morning commented on the floor that there is a new John Ashcroft. I would have thought that since they didn't particularly like the old John Ashcroft, this would be good news, but it turns out not to be. What they are basically saying is, they don't know which one to trust. You have the old John Ashcroft who, as a Member of the Senate, was pushing legislation to do this and legislation to do that. Now as Attorney General, he says he will abide by the law. Well, which is it? The fact is, John Ashcroft has served in different capacities in his life, and they are not always the same. As Members of the Senate, we put ideas forth. They are partisan ideas, they are philosophical ideas, and we debate them. In the crucible of this institution, those ideas are put to tests. They are molded, and they are amended. And consensus develops around solutions that we eventually will pass. None of us get our way on any of this legislation, but we all put it forth. We have our debates and then we move on. That is a very different position than the position of a judge or Attorney General. There you have to take the law as it is, and you have to apply it. You have to interpret it. You have to argue it to the court and so on. I, for the life me, cannot understand why some of my colleagues are not able to make this distinction. Perhaps they are able to and choose not to because it is an unfair criticism of John Ashcroft that he will not apply the law as he is required to do as Attorney General simply because, as a Member of the Senate, he argued for other positions. We can all walk and chew gum. We can all do different things at different times. There is nothing to suggest that John Ashcroft won't do exactly what he swears he will do when he puts his hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution and the laws. He did that as attorney general of the State of Missouri. One should not expect that it would change if he is Attorney General of the United States. Secondly, there is this question of whether he would enforce laws with which he disagrees. Two thoughts about that: First, everyone is assuming he disagrees with certain laws that he doesn't disagree with. The so-called FACE law, the freedom of access to clinics entrances law, he supports that law. He opposes abortion. Some of his opponents say if he opposes abortion, he therefore must oppose that law, and therefore he probably won't enforce it. Wrong on two counts. You can oppose abortion and still support the law, as I do, as Senator Ashcroft does, which says that people should not be harassed when they want to lawfully go into a place which is a lawful place of business. There is nothing inconsistent with opposing what goes on inside that office but upholding the law that says people have a right to enter. He has said he would do that. That is the second point. I don't know why people don't believe that. There is nothing in his record to suggest he would not uphold that law. He supports the law. He says he will uphold it. I don't understand why people, therefore, in effect question his motivation or his commitment to abide by the oath he will take. That bothers me because it suggests they don't trust John Ashcroft. Yet there isn't a single Senator who has served with John Ashcroft who hasn't, when asked to remark upon this, confirmed that, no, they understand his integrity and it is not that they don't trust John Ashcroft. There is something else. I think it has to do with the fact that there are so many liberal special interest groups that have a reason to oppose John Ashcroft because his views are not the same as theirs that it is forcing our colleagues then to say things that are inappropriate. Because to suggest that John Ashcroft is not a man of integrity and that he won't keep his commitments is quite unfair to this fine and decent man. That finally brings me to the third point. My colleague, Senator Leahy, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee on which I sit, made a very important point this morning with which I agree. He said the office of Attorney General is a little different than the other Cabinet positions in that there is a special kind of responsibility there. With most of the other Cabinet positions, there are policy issues and administration involved, but there is not the necessity of upholding the rule of law. In that, Senator Leahy was absolutely correct. One could argue that there are a couple other Cabinet positions that also have a unique responsibility. The Secretary of Defense, I am sure, would fall into that, protecting the American people, not just being interested in policy. But certainly he is right that the office of Attorney General is something special. We expect the Attorney General to care first and foremost about the rule of law and to represent all Americans as well as the President in upholding that rule of law. As a matter of fact, Senator Leahy said-- paraphrasing here--no position in the Cabinet is as important for evenhanded justice. I didn't do him justice in paraphrasing, but I agree with that sentiment. It seems to me that people who focus on that issue now with respect to John Ashcroft would have a lot more credibility in making their case against John Ashcroft if they had demonstrated an equal concern for the rule of law in a whole variety of issues that involved the Clinton administration for the last 8 years. On this, many of his opponents have been relatively silent. Every single one of the Democrats in this body voted against the punishment that the House of Representatives offered forth with respect to the impeachment of President Clinton. That was all about the rule of law. As it has transpired, the President has admitted to making knowingly false statements to officers of the court. This is not something which enhances the rule of law. Yet I heard all manner of excuses about the President's conduct at that time. Nor have we heard much about the rule of law as to the current Attorney General's refusal time after time after time to appoint special counsel or otherwise look into what were clear violations of the law and very questionable conduct with respect to campaign contributions, among other things. When her special counsel Charles LaBella recommended the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into this, when Louis Freeh, head of the FBI recommended the same, time after time Attorney General Reno said no. When we talk about politicizing the office of Attorney General, I think it is important for our Democratic friends to understand that Republicans have been concerned about the rule of law and the politicization of the Department of Justice for a long time. We are anxious for an Attorney General to go into that office and, frankly, clean it up so that there isn't the politics that has characterized it for the last 8 years. It is hard for me to give much credence to those on the outside who question whether John Ashcroft can do this and who question his commitment to the rule of law when, for 8 years, they have been silent about repeated matters involving very strong charges that the rule of law is violated by various people and an unwillingness on the part of the Attorney General to do very much, if anything, about it. Even the last act of President Clinton in pardoning a whole group of people has drawn very little criticism from our friends who are critical of John Ashcroft and are now very concerned about the rule of law. One of these was the pardoning of Marc Rich. A few of my Democratic Senate colleagues have been coached to come out with mild statements, or expressions of concern, about that pardon. I think that is appropriate. There ought to be expressions of concern about it. My point is that if we are going to talk about concern over the rule of law and how John Ashcroft as Attorney General will protect and preserve the rule of law in this country, then I think it behooves us to be consistent in our concern for the rule of law and apply it equally in the situation of the immediate past Attorney General. This is an example where I suspect many Americans look at this and say, well, I guess where you stand depends on where you sit. It is easy to criticize somebody on the other side. You don't want to criticize somebody on your own side. That is a natural characteristic of politics. But when we are talking about actually voting against John Ashcroft to be Attorney General of the United States, it seems to me that at last my colleagues who will have an opportunity to vote on that--and I now separate them from the special interest groups about which I have been speaking--need to look at this carefully, look at what they have said about the rule of law over the last 8 years, before they raise concerns about John Ashcroft and the rule of law. There has never been a more qualified nominee for Attorney General than John Ashcroft and I doubt many with greater integrity. I know many Attorneys General have served with great integrity. Neither his integrity nor qualifications has been questioned. All it boils down to is that some people object to his conservative ideology. The President of the United States is elected, and I believe he has an opportunity to serve the American people and ability to do so in following through on his campaign commitments, following through on his ideas of how we ought to proceed with public policymaking. The Attorney General will have something to say about that. But mostly, as Senator Leahy said today, the Attorney General's job is to administer the law. About that, there is no question where the President stands and where John Ashcroft stands. I urge my colleagues to think very carefully how a ``no'' vote on John Ashcroft would look perhaps 2 years from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now. Will it look like a good call or will it look petty? Will it look like an act of statesmanship or will it look like an act of partisanship? I urge my colleagues to think very carefully about this vote before they cast it.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I join my colleague, Senator Thomas, in supporting the nomination of Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior. She will, indeed, provide the kind of consultation that has been lacking in this past administration on important issues such as the designation of lands for conservation areas, or monuments, and some of the other issues on which there has been little consultation with the stakeholders, the people who are really most affected by the decisions of the Department of the Interior. Because so much of that Department's role recently has been the recommendation to the President of unilateral executive decisions on his part, that kind of consultation is going to be critical. Gale Norton is the kind of person who throughout her public career has brought people together and has reached solutions to problems that were primarily acceptable to all sides. I have known Gale Norton for over 20 years. First of all, she is one of the smartest people I know. She actually scored 100 percent on her law school admissions test, the so-called LSAT. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Denver. She attended the University of Denver Law School, where she was a member of the school's honor society. She has held a variety of positions in her career, including chairing the Republican National Lawyers Association. She served under the previous President Bush on the Western Water Policy Commission. She served as chair of the Environmental Committee for the National Association of Attorneys General when she was attorney general of the State of Colorado. As a matter of fact, when she was at the Department of the Interior, in her earlier career, serving as Associate Solicitor for Conservation and Wildlife, she was the primary legal adviser for the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. She also played a key role in something--the Presiding Officer has, I think, perhaps been to my office. There is a very large painting in my office of the Vermilion Cliffs in northern Arizona, which is the area where the California condors were brought--this endangered species--to try to rejuvenate the species. This is an area where they thought the condor could survive. They are having a fairly tough time of it, but we hope they will survive. In any event, she was instrumental in protecting the condor. She was instrumental in negotiating an agreement to deal with the noise from overflights over the Grand Canyon. There are a whole variety of things that Gale Norton did while at the Department of the Interior, and then as the attorney general of Colorado. For example, she was successful in persuading the Federal Government to accelerate the cleanup of a hazardous waste area near Rocky Flats in Colorado, which is the former nuclear weapons production site there, and at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical weapons manufacturing site. There are a whole variety of things that one could mention in her record. I think most of them have been pretty well discussed in connection with her confirmation hearings. But the point is to illustrate, first of all, the fact that she is an extraordinarily capable person, a lawyer with great experience in this Department of the Interior, as well as an attorney general, and other positions, all of which qualify her now to become the Secretary of the Interior. She has experience in a wide variety of areas with which she will have to deal, including environmental protection--as I mentioned, hazardous waste cleanup, and other things. As the Presiding Officer is well aware, one of the things the Department of the Interior, of course, has to deal with is giving great care and commitment to be the primary trustee for our Native Americans. Because the United States has that trust responsibility and it reposes primarily in the Secretary of Interior, it is a critical position. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from Kelsey Begaye, President of the Navajo Nation, in support of Gale Norton for the position of Secretary of Interior.

Mr. KYL. In this letter he notes that Gale Norton has in the past exhibited an understanding of the needs of Native Americans. She worked on one of the settlements when she was attorney general of Colorado that involved water and other issues relating to the Colorado Ute tribe. On other areas as well, President Begaye notes that she has an understanding of Indian issues which will make her a fine trustee. In all of these regards, it is clear that Gale Norton is well positioned to be a fine Secretary of Interior. I conclude with what I began--namely, she is the kind of person who is able to bring people together to work on solutions to problems that have been somewhat contentious. Because we are dealing with so many different needs and different groups of people with our western lands and resources, it is important to bring these groups together. She will do that and will make a strong Secretary of Interior.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program II and Local Medical Emergency Reimbursement Act. Senators McCain, Hutchison, Gramm, Domenici, Bingaman, Feinstein, and Boxer join me. This bill, which is identical to the bill I introduced in the 106th Congress, will be of great importance to Arizona's future fiscal soundness and that of the other southwest border states. The bill will reimburse states and localities for the costs they incur to process criminal illegal aliens through their criminal justice systems. It will also provide reimbursement for the uncompensated care that states, localities, and hospitals provide, as required by federal law, to undocumented aliens for medical emergencies. It is unclear what the true expense for providing these services is, but it is believed to be even greater than the level of reimbursement provided for in the bill we introduce today. Title I of our bill will provide $200 million each year for four years for the criminal justice costs associated with processing criminal illegal aliens. Title II will provide $200 million each year for four years for the costs that states, localities, and hospitals incur to provide emergency medical treatment to undocumented aliens. We will soon have a better idea of what these overwhelming costs are to those jurisdictions clearly affected, the local border communities in Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico. Last year I successfully secured funding for a study which should be completed this week and will detail the expenses that border communities in all four southwest states incur to process criminal aliens. The Arizona portion is already complete. In the four border counties of Arizona, $18 million in unreimbursed costs are incurred to process criminal illegal aliens. Preventing illegal immigration is the responsibility of the Federal Government. When it fails to protect our borders from illegal immigration, it has a responsibility to reimburse jurisdictions that provide federally-mandated services that (1) protect citizens and legal residents from criminal illegal aliens, or (2) provide emergency medical attention to undocumented immigrants. These two services have a tremendous effect on the budgets of these relatively small jurisdictions. When illegal immigrants commit crimes and are then caught, they drain the budgets of a locality's sheriff, detention facilities, justice court, county attorney, clerk of the court, superior and juvenile court, and juvenile detention departments, as well as the county's indigent defense budget. States and local jurisdictions all along the southwestern border have incurred 100 percent of these processing-related costs to date. Our bill will change that. Another study I was able to secure funding for in the 106th Congress will soon begin. That study will detail the overwhelming, and again unreimbursed, costs that certain localities and hospitals are incurring to treat illegal immigrants for medical emergencies. The federal government is obligated to fully reimburse states, localities, and hospitals for the emergency medical treatment of illegal immigrants. According to a preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate provided two years ago, the total annual cost to treat illegal immigrants for medical emergencies is roughly $2.8 billion a year. It is roughly estimated that the federal government reimburses states for approximately half of that amount. That means states must pay the remaining $1.4 billion. The state of Arizona estimates that it incurs unreimbursed costs of $30 million annually to treat undocumented immigrants on an emergency basis. The bill we introduce today will provide states, localities, and hospitals an additional $200 million per year to help absorb the costs of adhering to Federal law, which mandates that all individuals, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay, must be provided with medical treatment in a medical emergency. Mr. President, I hope we can address these very pressing issues in the coming months, and that Members will consider joining my cosponsors and me in support of this bill.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program II and Local Medical Emergency Reimbursement Act. Senators McCain, Hutchison, Gramm, Domenici, Bingaman, Feinstein, and Boxer join me. This bill, which is identical to the bill I introduced in the 106th Congress, will be of great importance to Arizona's future fiscal soundness and that of the other southwest border states. The bill will reimburse states and localities for the costs they incur to process criminal illegal aliens through their criminal justice systems. It will also provide reimbursement for the uncompensated care that states, localities, and hospitals provide, as required by federal law, to undocumented aliens for medical emergencies. It is unclear what the true expense for providing these services is, but it is believed to be even greater than the level of reimbursement provided for in the bill we introduce today. Title I of our bill will provide $200 million each year for four years for the criminal justice costs associated with processing criminal illegal aliens. Title II will provide $200 million each year for four years for the costs that states, localities, and hospitals incur to provide emergency medical treatment to undocumented aliens. We will soon have a better idea of what these overwhelming costs are to those jurisdictions clearly affected, the local border communities in Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico. Last year I successfully secured funding for a study which should be completed this week and will detail the expenses that border communities in all four southwest states incur to process criminal aliens. The Arizona portion is already complete. In the four border counties of Arizona, $18 million in unreimbursed costs are incurred to process criminal illegal aliens. Preventing illegal immigration is the responsibility of the Federal Government. When it fails to protect our borders from illegal immigration, it has a responsibility to reimburse jurisdictions that provide federally-mandated services that (1) protect citizens and legal residents from criminal illegal aliens, or (2) provide emergency medical attention to undocumented immigrants. These two services have a tremendous effect on the budgets of these relatively small jurisdictions. When illegal immigrants commit crimes and are then caught, they drain the budgets of a locality's sheriff, detention facilities, justice court, county attorney, clerk of the court, superior and juvenile court, and juvenile detention departments, as well as the county's indigent defense budget. States and local jurisdictions all along the southwestern border have incurred 100 percent of these processing-related costs to date. Our bill will change that. Another study I was able to secure funding for in the 106th Congress will soon begin. That study will detail the overwhelming, and again unreimbursed, costs that certain localities and hospitals are incurring to treat illegal immigrants for medical emergencies. The federal government is obligated to fully reimburse states, localities, and hospitals for the emergency medical treatment of illegal immigrants. According to a preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate provided two years ago, the total annual cost to treat illegal immigrants for medical emergencies is roughly $2.8 billion a year. It is roughly estimated that the federal government reimburses states for approximately half of that amount. That means states must pay the remaining $1.4 billion. The state of Arizona estimates that it incurs unreimbursed costs of $30 million annually to treat undocumented immigrants on an emergency basis. The bill we introduce today will provide states, localities, and hospitals an additional $200 million per year to help absorb the costs of adhering to Federal law, which mandates that all individuals, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay, must be provided with medical treatment in a medical emergency. Mr. President, I hope we can address these very pressing issues in the coming months, and that Members will consider joining my cosponsors and me in support of this bill.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Feinstein's bill to add judgeships to the states along U.S.-Mexico border. I agree with Senator Feinstein that, due to the growing population and caseload, additional judgeships are solely needed. This bill seeks to enact a recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States. The bill would authorize nine permanent and nine temporary judgeships. I favor a different approach. I believe that all the judgeships in the bill should be permanent judgeships because the growth in population and resulting caseload is expected to continue. I have agreed to cosponsor the bill because I agree that additional judgeships are needed and I believe that the bill provides a sound basis for discussions. I look forward to working with Senator Feinstein and the other Senators along the southwest border, as well as Senators Hatch and Leahy and the chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Oversight.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the hour of 12:30 p.m. the Senate stand in recess until the hour of 2:15 p.m. in order for the weekly party caucuses to meet.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to H.J. Res. 126, the continuing resolution; further, that no amendments or motions be in order, and that there be 15 minutes equally divided between the chairman and the ranking member; that following that time the resolution be immediately read the third time, and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the resolution, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about the wonderful work that my colleague, John Ashcroft, has done in the Senate during the last 6 years. Our colleague from Missouri has racked up an enviable list of accomplishments in his time in the Senate. As you know, he was responsible for the ``charitable choice'' provision in the landmark 1996 welfare reform law, a provision that allows faith-based organizations to compete for Government resources to help poor families. These organizations had previously been shut out of the process. The Ashcroft provision gained such strong, bipartisan support that he has expanded it so that faith-based groups can now participate in Federal substance abuse treatment programs. Senator Ashcroft has truly helped America find better ways to attack the problems we face in our communities. He also led the way on another major public policy improvement in the area of Social Security. Social Security, as we know, has had surpluses routinely raided to finance deficit spending of the Federal Government. John was a key Member of Congress who drew attention to, and halted, this practice so that these moneys are now used to pay benefits and only to pay benefits. He introduced the first lockbox proposal in the Senate. And, at his urging, budget procedures were changed so that the objectionable practice of diverting Social Security funds to pay for other Government operations could literally be ruled out of order. I want to conclude by saying what an honor it has been to serve with a man of such intellect, compassion, and notable integrity as John Ashcroft. He has distinguished himself as a Missouri Senator, its Governor, its auditor, and its attorney general. One thing is certain: we have not seen the last of John Ashcroft. I trust that what lies ahead for someone of his caliber is further and even greater service to his State and to his country. Thank you, Mr. President.