Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Did the Senator say omnibus or ominous?

Mr. LEAHY. I appreciate the comments of my friend from Nevada. I can't think of any person who has worked harder to help get legislation through. The senior Senator from Nevada has a good reputation of working with both Republicans and Democrats. There are two primary reasons. One is the fact that he knows legislation better than anybody else around here. Secondly, he is totally honest and truthful to everybody. It is frustrating because, again, there is legislation for highways in Iraq, but not in the United States, all these other things. We passed a transportation bill. That would mean 90,000 jobs right there that we could put Americans back to work. I thank him for saying that. I don't care if people want to spend time on this bill. It is a terrible bill. If they want to spend time on it, let's at least get the appropriations bills done. Let's answer the questions of our veterans, whether the benefits will be there or not; answer the questions police officers have about benefits; answer the questions those in education have, whether the money will be there. I see my good friend, the senior Senator from Illinois. I yield the floor.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have heard discussion of the so-called Class Action Fairness Act. I oppose the Class Action Fairness Act for the simple reason that it is not fair. Actually, the legislation makes it more difficult for citizens to protect themselves against violations of State civil rights, consumer, health, and environmental protection laws. The way it would hurt them is it would force these cases out of convenient State courts, which have experience with the legal facts and issues involved in such cases; instead, it would push them into Federal courts with new barriers to lawsuits, with new burdens on plaintiffs. For the many Americans who are watching this debate, we have to at least mention the first, basic question that scheduling this debate right now raises. Here we are, 3 weeks beyond October 1. October 1, of course, is the beginning of the new fiscal year. It is a deadline for passing the appropriations bills that fund the basic work of the Federal Government. It is the law that the House and the Senate must pass the 14 appropriations bills that fund our Nation and do it by October 1. We have not done that. The Congress has not lived up to the responsibility the law mandates. We are in the final few weeks, if not days, of this congressional session, but here we are, 3 weeks past the legal deadline to do what we are required to do, and what we are paid to do, and instead we are devoting these precious days not to acting on the people's priorities, but we will spend several days debating a bill which is a priority of some special interests. Over the past several weeks, I have received call after call from Vermonters who are more and more anxious over Congress's ability--in fact, Congress's willingness--to finish appropriations for fiscal year 2004. I know other Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, are getting similar calls. I have told those Vermonters who call me to hang in there. I assure them that Congress will eventually get around to doing its work. Then the Republican leadership decides to have us consider controversial special interest legislation such as this bill. Apparently the special interests can go to the front of the line. The people's interests go to the back of the line. I suggest we have it the wrong way around. Do the people's legislation first; do the appropriations bills first; do the things we are required to do by law. Do the work that we go back home and tell everybody we are going to do, and if there is time left over for the special interests, let them come up then; don't put them ahead of the people. My colleagues and I who serve on the Appropriations Committee worked long and hard to get the fiscal year 2004 bills voted out of our committee. We got them all out. They could go anytime they wanted. The Republican leadership has decided not to. The House has passed all 13 of the regular appropriations bills. They are waiting for the Senate to act. We are not acting. Instead, we are bringing up special interest legislation. The new fiscal year began 3 weeks ago, but the Senate has not even bothered to take up the appropriations bills that fund Agriculture or Commerce, Justice, State, and, our Federal law enforcement, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the actions we take to counter terrorism. As for Commerce, we might do that, so we might actually get us some jobs in this country at a time when we are losing a million a year. Foreign operations? That hasn't been brought up. Transportation? We all know our roads and bridges and rail system are falling apart. We ought at least to be voting. We may vote not to give any money to fix any of the problems of the Nation. We did vote, incidentally, to send $87 billion to Iraq and we will fix their roads; we will fix their electrical system; we will fix their communication system; we will fix their postal system; we will even give them a new ZIP Code. But maybe we could take a few minutes and bring up those things that might actually pay for roads and transportation and electrical grids and ZIP Codes in the United States. Veterans Affairs is in there. The administration is cutting veterans benefits all over the country. They are cutting our veterans hospitals. They are cutting out what is available to our veterans. At the same time we are asking our men and women to serve in Iraq, we are cutting out their money. We ought at least to bring that up. Let's vote on it. We voted to send money to the veterans of the Iraqi army. We voted to send money there. We ought to spend some time here voting on veterans in the United States. We have the Housing and Urban Development appropriations bills. We have a great housing shortage in this country. We just spent billions. We had plenty of time to vote billions of dollars to build houses in Iraq. We can't even bring up the housing bill for the United States, but this special interest legislation we do make time to address. What I would say is: OK, we voted to do all these things now for the Iraqi people. Can we at least spend a day or two voting on the same bills that might help the American people at the national, State, and local levels? Let me tell you about a few of these programs that are being pushed aside so we can take up this special interest legislation. In the area of agriculture, there is more than $1 billion in conservation assistance for farmers to help them improve water quality and stop sprawling development. Last year, the aid was delayed by more than 4 months. Each month is critical. The men and women who farm in this country are just barely getting by. They stalled the Justice spending bill so we could get money as quickly as we possibly could to the police forces of Iraq. But because we stalled it, there is no money for the Bulletproof Vests Partnership Program which helps State and local police agencies buy armored vests to protect the lives of their officers. This is a good bipartisan program that Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and I put together. I have had police officers come up to me all over the country, people I have never met, who want to shake hands and say, We really want to thank you and Senator Campbell and those who joined you to help us get this money. Now I am going to have to tell them it is stalled. We had to wait to get the money for Iraq, that is fine, but now we have to stall again because we have special interest legislation that comes up. Take the COPS Program; this puts new police officers on the community streets and in our schools; the Violence Against Women Act programs that provide services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. Those were all set aside so we could bring up this special interest legislation. All funding for transportation and critical infrastructure projects was bottled up. In fact, the Senate has failed to pass the transportation reauthorization bill. We don't have time to bring that up. We can bring up special interest legislation, we can bring up highways in Iraq, but we can't bring up the highway transportation bill here in the United States. And what is the cost to us? It is 90,000 jobs here in America. All foreign assistance to nations other than Iraq and Afghanistan are on hold. In fact, all the funding to combat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases is also on hold. We have another group of Americans awaiting action by Congress. Those are our veterans. They need Congress to make basic decisions about their medical care and benefits, decisions that are being held in limbo, and they have no idea where we are going to go. These are priorities. American priorities are being set aside, and we will take care of Iraq. We will take care of the special interest legislation. In fact, the special interest legislation is going to do more harm than help. I think the American people are entitled to ask why we are bogged down considering this controversial and unfair class action bill when the Senate has yet to take up and debate five important appropriations bills amounting to $301 billion. I hope the Senate gets down to the business of the people and carries out the responsibilities given to us by the Constitution: taking up, debating, and passing the remaining appropriations bills. And we can pass them. There will be a bipartisan majority of both Republicans and Democrats working together to pass them, if we are even allowed to vote on them. We were allowed to vote on Iraq and special interest legislation. Can we take a little bit of time to vote on legislation that actually helps the people of America? The American people and the people around the world depend upon the funds and services supplied through the spending measures that are now held hostage. Let us do our job. Let us move these bills. Let us spend a couple of weeks on the floor of the Senate legislating for the people of America. It would be a nice refreshing time. We could pass these bills. Earlier this year, I joined with Senators Kennedy, Biden, Feingold, Durbin, and Edwards in requesting a hearing on class action litigation in order to help the Judiciary Committee develop consensus reforms-- something that we could have done. Republicans and Democrats could have joined on it. But our request was ignored. Actually, our letter went unanswered. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I had hoped that the Judiciary Committee would undertake a deliberate and careful review of information from parties actually involved in class action litigation to provide a realistic picture of the benefits and problems with class actions. But instead of doing the work for America, we are proceeding with a special interest piece of legislation which has repeatedly failed to pass the Senate in recent years. Our Judiciary Committee did not carry out the kind of thorough and thoughtful legal analysis of this difficult issue it should have. The committee did not provide our fellow Senators with the assistance that they may want and need in this complex area. I acknowledge the hard work and dedication of my friend, the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, who took on an enormous task, attempting with her amendment to rectify some of the harms created by this bill. I appreciate the sincerity of her concern. I appreciate the genuine effort she made. But her amendment touches on only a sliver of the class action cases which this bill would affect--only when plaintiffs and primary defendants are from the same State--and even then it could cause harm. At its core, this bill deprives citizens of the right to sue on State law claims in their own State courts if the principal defendant is a citizen of another State, even if that defendant has a substantial presence in the plaintiff's home State, and even if the harm done was in the plaintiff's home State. The amendment does not remedy that problem. It burdens the plaintiff even more. I also want to recognize the sincere efforts made by my friend from Wisconsin, Senator Kohl. I may disagree with him about the nature of the problem. I may disagree with the appropriate solution in this area. But I do so respectfully. He has worked very hard, and I appreciate his efforts. I would like to note the significant changes in the bill since it passed out of committee. As originally drafted, this bill included mass tort claims along with class actions. It actually treated them like they were class actions. One improvement the Judiciary Committee did manage to make to the bill was to strike that provision. We struck it. We voted on that, and we struck it. But somehow, mysteriously, after the bill left the committee with nobody voting, that was reversed. Now mass tort actions are again included in this bill. Just in case anybody says this is what we voted out of committee, it is not. We changed that. Now we find out how we actually get things changed in the committee because, apparently, our friends on the other side of the aisle could care less about what we actually did in committee. They just change it in the draft on the way over here. It is fascinating. I have never seen that in 29 years here. But I guess we live under new rules. In the old days, we just lived under the Senator rules. But now we have rules outside the Senate rules. In fact, this bill is not the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee, S. 274. It is another bill--S. 1751--which was introduced last week. We didn't have hearings on that. We didn't have votes on that. I guess the special interest says, OK, as soon as you finish with the roads in Iraq, as soon as you finish the schools in Iraq, as soon as you finish giving the power grid to Iraq, as soon as you finish paying for the police officers in Iraq, as soon as you are finished with veterans' benefits for Iraq, before you do anything for American citizens, give us our special interest legislation, and we can just drop it in and go forward. The special interest legislation will be subjected to the same shunting to a Federal court, and plaintiffs will endure the same unnecessary difficulties in making their claims and pursuing their remedies. But these mass tort cases are not class actions. They have not been analyzed under rule 23 standards or State law. Mass tort actions have entirely different procedural vehicles to reach justice than class actions. They shouldn't be lumped in with class actions in any kind of class action bill, either this misguided attempt or a better wrought piece of legislation. Some special interest groups are distorting the state of class action litigation by relying on a few anecdotes and an ends-oriented attempt to impede plaintiffs bringing class action cases. If we really want to correct things, we can and should take necessary steps to correct the problems in class action litigation. But simply shoving most suits into Federal court with the new one-sided rules isn't going to correct the real problems faced by plaintiffs and defendants. It will clog up the Federal courts, but it won't accomplish anything. We forget that our State-based tort system remains one of the greatest and post powerful vehicles for justice anywhere in the world-- no doubt around the world--as a vehicle for justice. It lets ordinary people ban together to take on powerful corporations--sometimes even their own government. Defrauded investors, deceived consumers, victims of defective products, and environmental torts, and thousands of other ordinary people have been able to rely on class action lawsuits in their State court systems to seek and receive justice. I remember when the Soviet Union broke up. A group of legislators from the Duma came in to see me, as they did several other Senators. One of them asked a question. They said: We have heard it is actually possible that citizens in your country can ban together and sue the government. I said that is true. They said: We have heard further that not only do they sometimes sue the government, but there are times the government loses. They win. I said: Oh, yes. They said: You mean you don't fire the judge and make him do it over again? I said: You don't understand our system. It is not the Soviet Union. Here in the United States, we are able to ban together to take on the government. If the government is wrong, the government is going to lose. It was an eye-opener to them. Actually, it was a bit of an eye-opener to me because I realized those things we take for granted other countries haven't had the opportunity to have. I am old enough to remember the civil rights battles of the 1950s and the 1960s and the impact of class actions in vindicating basic rights through our courts. When Congress sat back and did nothing, when Presidents sat back and did nothing, it was class action lawsuits that won. The landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education was a culmination of appeals from four class action cases, three from Federal court decisions in Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia, and one from a decision of the Supreme Court of Delaware. Only the Supreme Court of Delaware, the State court, got the case right by deciding for the African-American plaintiffs. The State court justices understood they were constrained by the existing Supreme Court law but nonetheless held that the segregated schools of Delaware violated the 14th amendment. The Federal courts did not get it right; before any Federal court did so, a State court rejected separate and unequal schools. The U.S. Supreme Court, to their credit, joined in a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education and closed down the highly discredited separate but equal idea, Plessie v. Ferguson. There was no separate but equal in the schools and they knew it--separate and unequal. The State courts realized that first in a class action suit and then the U.S. Supreme Court followed. Many civil rights advocates, including the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Leadership Council on Civil Rights, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education, and the National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium have written to Senators in opposition to this legislation. The civil rights advocates conclude this legislation ``would discourage civil rights class actions, impose substantial barriers to settling class actions and render federal courts unable to provide swift and effective administration of justice.'' I ask their letter, dated September 16, 2003, be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY. We all know without consolidating procedures, such as class action lawsuits, it might be impossible for plaintiffs to receive effective legal representation. Lawyers tend to be paid by the hour. They are well paid. But lawyers usually hope they get a portion of the proceedings to take on either the governmental or culprit defendants. They have to do so on a case-by-case individual basis. Sometimes that is what cheaters count on. That is how the cheaters get by on their schemes. If you cheat thousands of people just a little bit, you still cheat; if you only cheat them by $3 or $4, nobody will sue them. But if you are cheating a million people of $3 or $4 each, it adds up. Class actions allow the little guys to band together and get a competent lawyer and address wrongdoing. The best class action made it possible for individual tobacco victims to take on the powerful tobacco conglomerates in ways individuals could not. It allows stockholders and small investors to join together and go after investment scams. Another example of a class action litigation serving the public interest is the Firestone tire debacle. The national tire recall was started in part by the disclosure of internal corporate documents on consumer complaints of tire defects and design errors that were discovered in the litigation against Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. Then the plaintiff's attorneys turned this information over to the National Highway Safety Administration. That started a Government investigation. Months later, because some people had banded together, Bridgestone/ Firestone finally did what they should have done right from the beginning: They recalled 6.5 million tires--but not until after there were 101 fatalities, 400 injuries, and 2,026 consumer complaints. As reported by Time magazine at the time, it is doubtful that the internal corporate consumer complaint information would have ever seen the light of day absent the civil rights justice discovery process. The bill before the Senate creates unique risks and obstacles to plaintiffs that are not in the current system. A particularly troubling aspect of S. 1751 is it allows the removal of a case at any time. Anybody who has ever practiced law, anybody who has ever litigated cases--and I, as many other Senators, have--knows the possibilities for abusing this provision are obvious. As more than 100 legal experts, law professors, noted in a letter to the distinguished Republican leader and the distinguished Democratic leader, Senators Frist and Daschle, they said: This would give a defendant the power to yank a case away from a state-court judge who has properly issued pretrial rulings the defendant does not like, and would encourage a level of forum-shopping never before seen in this country. Moreover, this provision would allow an unscrupulous defendant, anxious to put off the day of judgment so that more assets could be hidden, to remove a case on the eve of a state-court trial, resulting in automatic delay of months or even years before the case would be tried in Federal courts. I ask unanimous consent that the letter of the 100 law professors be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY. Of course, I yield to my friend from Nevada.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of this amendment, which I strongly support. I will be brief. Senator Byrd has already described in detail what the amendment does. It has only been a few weeks since the White House sent us a bill for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. This amendment deals with the $21 billion that the President wants for reconstruction activities in these countries. Of that amount, only $799 million--less than \1/20\th--is for reconstruction in Afghanistan, a country where the standard of living for most people is reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It is also a country whose former Taliban government harbored Osama bin Laden, and in doing so enabled al-Qaida to plan the attacks of September 11. But for whatever reason, and despite the difficulties and dangers that our troops and our aid workers are facing in Afghanistan, the White House has only asked for a tiny fraction of these supplemental funds to be provided to Afghanistan. I have looked at what the administration wants this $21 billion for. Much of it makes sense. But there are expenses here unlike any I have seen before in a foreign aid bill. Let me be clear. We all want to help Iraq. But we also have a duty to protect the taxpayers' money, and this request is extravagant. Let's look at just a few examples. These are some of the amounts we are being asked to spend for these items, for Iraq, compared to how much it would cost if they were purchased right here in the United States: $33,000 pickup trucks; $6,000 satellite telephones; $400 million to build two prisons; and, studies costing tens of millions of dollars. What is going on here? Who is profiting from these unnecessary expenses? We know who isn't--U.S. taxpayers. We have never, in my 29 years here, given foreign aid on such a scale to a country that in a few years could be the second largest oil producing nation in the world. Help Iraq, yes. But $20 billion? All at once? Out the door, with no real strings attached? And for things like this? There are communities in our own country that don't have internet access, whose citizens can't get free computer training, that need new garbage trucks, or police cars, or prisons. The list goes on and on. This amendment attempts to make the best use of the funds in this bill, by cutting $1.6 billion of the Iraq reconstruction funds and shifting them to other needs, including for urgent humanitarian needs in Afghanistan, Liberia and Sudan. Frankly, I think we should cut more than $1.6 billion. From what I have seen in the meager justification materials we got from OMB, there is a lot of money here that is going to be spent on consultants and for things that the Iraqis could do themselves for a fraction of the cost. But at least this amendment would get at some of the unnecessary things, and use the funds for things that are necessary. Senator Byrd has spoken about the use of $600 million to locate and destroy ammunition caches in Iraq, that are the source of weapons being used to kill and maim our troops. It is beyond comprehension why the Pentagon has not acted sooner to deal with this problem. This amendment would finally address it. But I want to speak briefly on the $386 million that would be transferred to programs in Afghanistan, because I don't think there is anyone here who would not agree that we need to do more to prevent the situation in Afghanistan from unraveling. My friend from Kentucky, the chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Senator McConnell, just returned from Afghanistan. I am sure he saw how urgent the needs are. The Karzai government is fragile, at best. Warlords continue to rule vast areas of the country. Our troops are in a continuing fight with al-Qaida and remnants of the Taliban, who strike from their sanctuaries in Pakistan. Many Afghans remain displaced, living in squalor. They have too little to eat, not enough fuel for the winter, and many tens of thousands remain homeless. Women and girls continue to face great hardships. Girls schools are being destroyed. Health care remains a dream for millions of rural Afghans. The crop of opium poppy is the largest in years. The list of needs is long, but a little money can make a big difference in Afghanistan if it is spent wisely--not for internet access, but to build primary schools and irrigation systems. The $386 million that would be transferred to Afghanistan in this amendment mirrors what the House Appropriations Committee did last week. Both Democrats and Republicans in the House agreed that these funds were better spent in Afghanistan. For health clinics, to train and equip the army, for anti-drug programs, for irrigation, to support elections and governance. The amendment also provides $45 million for programs that specifically help women, and $25 million for Afghans who are internally displaced and need emergency aid. This amendment would bring the total in this bill for reconstruction in Afghanistan, a country of 22 million impoverished people, a country that could easily revert to a terrorist haven, to slightly over $1 billion. That compares to $20 billion for Iraq, a country of 25 million people with a standard of living that already far exceeds what most Afghans could dream of. Let's inject a little common sense into this process. Both Iraq and Afghanistan need help. Both are security issues for the United States. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his amendment.

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object, to make sure we are clear on this, on the Leahy amendment, am I correct, Mr. President, the yeas and nays have already been ordered?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I agree with Senator Byrd that the more that one reads the fine print of this legislation, the worse it gets. The budget document submitted by the Coalition Provisional Authority, CPA, leaves one with the distinct impression that money will be spent on specific items. For example, $9 million will be spent on projects for ZIP Codes, $100 million will be spent on the witness protection program, $75 will be spent on irrigation pumps. And so on and so forth. But, after a little digging, one uncovers a provision on page 27 of the supplemental appropriations bill that the Senate is now considering. This is a provision that the administration requested. It says ``Provided further, That the President may reallocate funds provided under this heading.'' What does this means? It means that you can take the CPA's 53 page budget justification and throw it in the garbage can. Its just for show saying how much money is appropriated for any item in this bill. What the Senate is doing is giving the President all of the money for Iraq reconstruction, and saying ``do what ever you want with it.'' If you want to doubled the amount of money for pickup trucks and pay $66,000 a truck instead of $33,000 a truck, go ahead. If you want to buy even more satellite phones, go ahead. If you want to spend more money on wireless internet, which many American communities don't have, go ahead. If you want to slash money for refugees or police training, go ahead. If you want to spend every dollar to pay consultants, go ahead, because, Mr. President, it is up to you. It is certainly true that the President can spend the money the way it is spelled out in the CPA's budget justification. But, nothing, absolutely nothing, in this legislation requires the President to even come close to meeting the amounts that are justified to Congress. This is not some inside-the-beltway, policy-wonk issue. This issue is about the Constitution. This issue is about our duty as Senators. The Constitution unequivocally gives the Congress the power of the purse. And this provision all but hands over the power of the purse to the President with respect to Iraq reconstruction. It essentially says ``you decide, because we won't''. It sets a dangerous precedent. And, we all know that once we give away authority to the executive branch, it is almost impossible to get that genie back in the bottle. Moreover, this new authority is completely unnecessary. We didn't include this provision in the previous Iraq supplemental. The administration never complained that we did not give them enough flexibility before. Why should we do this now? Like last time, we can easily come up with an approach that gives the administration the flexibility it needs, but maintains important protections to ensure the money is accounted for. This provision is not unlike the use of force resolution that we passed last fall. Congress has the sole responsibility to declare war. Instead of having a vote on that, we passed a resolution that said, ``Mr. President, you decide.'' Let's not go down that road again. This is not some partisan issue. I would be saying the same thing if a Democrat was in the White House. This is about our responsibility. This is about watching out for the taxpayers' money. This is about making sure the Senate does not become a rubberstamp for blank checks. We should not give this power to this administration or any other administration. I urge my colleagues to support the Byrd amendment.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, let me take a very short time to summarize what amendment No. 1807 does. This is a very important amendment offered by myself and the Senator from Rhode Island. The Chafee-Leahy amendment is supported by the Archbishop of Monrovia. A man, who for years, stood up to the brutal regime of Charles Taylor. It provides $200 million to address basic needs--food, water, shelter--of the people of Liberia. There is a humanitarian emergency in that country, as 74% of Liberians lack access to safe drinking water, 60 percent lack access to acceptable sanitation, and 75 percent live in poverty. The administration's own number for Liberia is $200 million. In testimony before the House, the top Africa official at the State Department said the U.S. needed $200 million to address this crisis. The amendment is extremely flexible. It allows the administration to spend these funds virtually any way it wants, including humanitarian, reconstruction, long-term development, or security assistance. The amendment is fully offset. It does not add a dime to the Iraq supplemental. Relief groups with operations in Liberia strongly support this amendment. Catholic Relief Services, Amnesty International and a range of other NGOs strongly support this amendment. Mr. President, I want to thank the cosponsors of this amendment Senators Coleman, Biden, Lieberman, Dashle, Reid, Feingold, Reed, Lautenberg, Landrieu, and Jeffords. I especially want to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for working with me on this amendment. This amendment will be adopted, and I will not insist on a rollcall vote. This is a very important amendment and I am glad that the Senate has acted decisively to approve it.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer, my friend and neighbor from across the Connecticut River.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will withhold with the understanding that I be recognized after my colleague speaks.

Mr. LEAHY. We would need, am I further correct, Mr. President, a further unanimous consent request to vitiate the yeas and nays on the Leahy amendment?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I speak today about the Senate's vote on the President's request for an additional $87 billion in emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, of which $65 billion is for military operations and $21 billion is for relief and reconstruction. The lion's share of the funds are for Iraq. I attended the three hearings in the Appropriations Committee, when Ambassador Bremer, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, General Pace, and several other witnesses testified. Unfortunately, there was not nearly enough time in those hearings to discuss the details of a budget request of such enormous size and complexity. I was also disappointed that the hearings provided a one-sided perspective, as there were no witnesses from the U.S. Agency for International Development or the State Department, and no witnesses from outside the government. I also reviewed the materials provided by the Office of Management and Budget in support of the request, which are useful but devoid of detail. For example, a request for $800 million for police training in Iraq is justified with only three vague sentences. It is also one thing to ask for $400 million to build two new prisons. It is another to fail to explain why on Earth it costs so much, when the price of labor in Iraq is half what it is in the United States. This is one of many examples--$33,000 pickup trucks that cost $14,000 in the U.S. and $6,000 satellite phones that sell in neighboring Jordan for $500, are others--that have been cited in the press and in speeches by Senators. Of course there are things that need to be done in Iraq. But some of these costs are shocking and inexplicable. The administration is cutting food aid for poor children in Nicaragua; a million children die of measles each year because they can't get the vaccine which costs pennies; a third of the world's people live in conditions most Americans would find appalling. Yet we are going to build wireless internet access on the Euphrates. It makes no sense. And then we saw in last Thursday's New York Times that although this is a 1-year, emergency appropriation, only $6 billion, not $20 billion, can be effectively spent in Iraq next year. Could it be that the reason the White House wants this $20 billion now, and not a penny less, is because they do not want to have to defend this increasingly unpopular policy again next year before the November elections? I think the answer is obvious. I cast my vote against this supplemental. This decision did not come easily. There are strong arguments pro and con. I know that I will be among a small minority. But for me, this is a matter of principle, and after a great deal of thought I have concluded that I can not support this proposal. I did not support the policy that got us into war alone. I do not support the tactics the White House has used to get this supplemental passed. And I do not support appropriating so much money, at one time, for an oil rich nation when the responsible thing would be to approve a portion of the money today and to revisit this again next year. Before I explain how I reached this decision, I want to make three points. First, I want to mention the issue of support for our troops. We all support our troops, who have endured great hardship and fought bravely. We worry about their safety. We have spoken to the grieving families of soldiers who have died. I and other Senators have worked to get them better protective equipment, after we learned that some were sent into battle in Iraq without bulletproof vests or the latest available armor for their vehicles. But supporting the troops is not simply a matter of spending billions of dollars so they can remain in Iraq indefinitely, with no exit plan, targets in a guerrilla war that is likely to drag on for years. The President's policy that caused them to be sent there, and that will require them to remain there, must also be a policy that each of us who has to vote on this supplemental can support. And if we are to make good use of the taxpayers money, there must be an effective plan to implement that policy. Second, it is beyond dispute that Iraq is infinitely better off without Saddam Hussein, whose rein of terror was a disaster for the Iraqi people and a blight on the civilized world. The Iraqi people have a chance to build the foundations of a more open, tolerant, peaceful and prosperous society. Whether they will succeed in that endeavor may not be know for many years, but I credit President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, our troops, and the Iraqi people themselves, for giving them this chance. Third, I am voting against this proposal. If, instead, I thought the administration was being honest with the American people about its motives and its policy in Iraq and the Middle East; if this supplemental were designed to implement a credible plan to internationalize our policy rather than to continue a unilateral approach; and if this had not been a one-time only, take-it-or-leave- it, partisan approach in which almost every amendment offered by Democrats was defeated along party lines, my vote today might be different. I want to be clear. Since 1989, I have served as either chairman or ranking member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee. I am a strong believer in foreign aid. Spent wisely, foreign aid is in our national interests. I am not opposed to helping Iraq rebuild. In fact, I supported the supplemental, passed in April, which contained billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq and to support our military operations there. I also voted for several amendments, which were defeated along party lines, which I believe would have improved this supplemental in important ways. For example, the Byrd-Kennedy-Leahy amendment would have allowed $10 billion of the Iraq reconstruction funds to be spent immediately. The balance of $10 billion would be withheld pending a certification by the President that the U.N. Security Council has authorized a multinational force under U.S. command in Iraq and a central role for the U.N. in the political and economic development of Iraq, and a second vote by Congress. I am convinced that if we do not truly internationalize our policy in Iraq our troops will continue to face daily attacks, our efforts to rebuild will be in jeopardy, and U.S. taxpayers, virtually alone, will pay the skyrocketing costs. The Biden amendment would have paid for the $87 billion by repealing a tiny fraction of the President's huge tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. I have no doubt that if the American people had been able to vote on the Biden amendment it would have passed overwhelmingly. The Dorgan amendment would have paid for the reconstruction with revenues from future Iraqi oil sales. Yearly revenues from Iraqi oil are expected to reach $100 billion in less than a decade. This amendment, had it passed, would have lifted a portion of the staggering financial burden of this war off the backs of American taxpayers. I offered an amendment, with Senator Daschle, to shift responsibility for rebuilding Iraq from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of State. The Pentagon's role is fighting wars, which they do superbly. It is not nation building. That is the role of the State Department. It is ironic that President Bush, who ridiculed the Clinton administration for nation building in the former Yugoslavia, is today defending the Pentagon's role in the biggest nation-building effort in half a century. These are only four of the amendments that I supported, each of which was voted down because the White House and the Republican leadership opposed them. Mr. President, in the weeks and days leading up to this vote, I have been guided by several things. First is the importance of multilateralism. There is no realistic alternative in the 21st century to working collectively with other nations to combat terrorism and other grave threats to our security which extend far beyond our borders. Iraq, perhaps more than any foreign policy adventure in recent memory, illustrates the costs we pay for unilateralist thinking--the cost to our soldiers, to our relations with allies and the Muslim world, to our influence with other nations on so many critical issues, and to American taxpayers. Second, I did not vote for the resolution that President Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq. I felt it gave the President sweeping authority that the Constitution reserves for the Congress. I was also convinced that the White House, despite its protestations to the contrary, was determined to short circuit the U.N. inspectors and go to war alone. This administration's policy has been driven by lofty, unrealistic ambitions; White House and Pentagon officials who were so convinced of their own version of reality that they felt no need to ask questions, not to mention listen to the answers; a presumption that other nations would follow us simply because of who we are; and a naive assumption that we would be embraced as liberators and that the Pentagon's chosen exiles, unknown to most Iraqis, would be quickly enthroned in the seat of power. Detractors were silenced. Other nations were bullied. Members of Congress who did not fall into line were called unpatriotic. The administration's justification for a preemptive war, carried out not in self defense, not in response to 9/11, and without United Nations support, has changed from month to month, depending, it seems, on what the White House's polls say the American people will believe. And third is my concern that in the 2 years since the tragedy of September 11th, President Bush has squandered the support of the rest of the world and has largely failed to build an effective global response to terrorism. Mr. President, I am not among those who feel that everything we have done in Iraq has been a failure. To the contrary, thanks to the heroics of our soldiers--many hundreds of whom have paid with their lives and limbs--the Iraqi people have a chance to build a government they can be proud of. But the issues before us are far more complex than whether or not we should help Iraq. We should help in ways that are right for the Iraqi people, and right for the American people. The question each of us must answer, for ourselves and our constituents, is whether this $87 billion, for the purposes for which the Administration has requested it, is the right way to do that. Thinking back, as I have often done since President Bush launched an essentially unilateral, preemptive war against Iraq, I believe the President got off on the wrong foot from the moment he made that famous, or infamous, remark ``if you are not with us, you are against us.'' That statement was made shortly after September 11th, when the American people were feeling the brunt of that national tragedy, and it may have been reassuring to hear the President express his world view in such bold terms. But I, like many Vermonters, was uneasy about what the President said, and in retrospect I believe it represented a fundamentally flawed approach to the threat our Nation faced then, and will continue to face for years to come. What the President's challenge has come to mean is that regardless of who you are, including our oldest, closest allies, if you do not agree with us we will ignore what you say, we will dismiss you as irrelevant, we will punish you if we can, and we will go our own way in spite of you. That, I believe, is a recipe for failure. It is beneath the United States. It weakens the United States. Not only has the White House done grave damage to our foreign relations, it has squandered its credibility with the Congress and the American people. After handily defeating Saddam Hussein's army, virtually everything this administration predicted about Iraq has turned out to be wrong. Yet one would hardly know that from listening to senior administration officials on television or in testimony before Congress. Rather than give an honest assessment of the pros and cons, they have preferred to make personal attacks against those of us who ask legitimate questions. Since jamming through a Gulf of Tonkin-like resolution last year, top administration officials have continually ridiculed those opposed to the war in Iraq, calling them pro-Saddam Hussein or pro-Osama bin Laden. Only weeks ago, Secretary Rumsfeld accused those who were asking questions about the deteriorating security situation in Iraq of giving comfort to our enemies. That is baloney. Every one of us wanted Saddam Hussein gone. But it is the duty of each Senator to ask questions when young Americans are dying overseas. The administration said, over and over, that the reason we had to invade Iraq was because of weapons of mass destruction. The Vice President said, ``We believe he [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,'' although there was apparently virtually no evidence to support that. But after blaming the United Nations inspectors for being duped, and after months of searching without any interference, the administration has yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. And now, as reported in the press, they want to spend another $600 million to continue the search. Not long ago, the Secretary of State said the weapons were the chemical weapons used against the Kurds in 1988, before the first gulf war. The gassing of the Kurds was a horrific war crime, but as much as I respect the Secretary, it is absurd, and contrary to everything we were told a year ago, to use an atrocity of 15 years ago to justify a pre-emptive war. In fact, when Saddam Hussein used mustard gas against the Kurds, the Reagan-Bush administration did little about it. And they continued to sell weapons to Saddam Hussein for years after. The Secretary of State was a member of that administration. This Administration apparently has no idea what happened to the weapons of mass destruction, did next to nothing to secure the sites where it believed them to be after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, and now seems to want to forget about them altogether. This time last year, there were daily warnings about mushroom clouds. Yet in his speech to the Nation on September 7, the President barely mentioned the issue. This is not, as some have suggested, a partisan issue. It is an American issue. These are questions that get to the heart of U.S. security and credibility. Where are these weapons? Were they destroyed? Are they in the hands of terrorists, like the Islamic extremists who are flooding into Iraq to attack our troops? Are they in Syria or Iran? Was this a massive intelligence failure? The administration's handling of this issue has severely undermined the credibility of our intelligence and of the President's justification for rushing into war. The White House's other major justification for the invasion of Iraq was to fight al-Qaida and combat international terrorism. Over and over again, hardliners in this administration tried to make this connection. They created a special unit in the Pentagon. They worked hard to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11, even if the facts did not support it. Only recently, after misleading a majority of the American people, did the President publically concede that there is no evidence of a link. Yet, Vice President Cheney continues to suggest there is. It would be helpful if the Vice President would agree with the President on this point. Mr. President, I want as much as any person to mount an effective campaign to deter, prevent, and combat terrorism. But what we have been given is a partisan, ``take it or leave it,'' rushed approach costing scores of billions of dollars that is not backed up with a credible plan. And by a plan I mean a detailed strategy that shows us a way to internationalize this policy and bring our troops home within a reasonable time. Many in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, warned of the costs and pitfalls of fighting a war to enforce U.N. resolutions without the support of the U.N. Security Council, and of rebuilding Iraq without the support of other nations. Iraq is a complex country with a long history of ethnic and religious conflict, and it was crucial to have a sound postwar plan and a viable exit strategy. But the administration did not want to hear those warnings. I think my good friend Senator Hagel spoke for many of us, when he said the administration ``did a miserable job of planning the post-Saddam Iraq'' and ``treated many in the Congress, most of the Congress like a nuisance.'' We also know that the White House ignored concerns expressed by some in the administration, especially in the CIA and the State Department, about the difficulties and dangers involved. Instead, a small, secretive group in the Pentagon dominated postwar planning, and miscalculated. Vice President Cheney said ``[t]here's no question [that the people of Iraq] want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.'' Many Iraqis are grateful. But the Vice President says almost nothing about the fact that our soldiers, who have performed so bravely, are under constant attack or threat of attack from terrorists and remnants of the Baathist regime. He and others in the White House don't talk about the hundreds of Americans who have died, or the nearly 2,000 wounded. And many of these injuries are not just a broken bone or scrapes. They are lost limbs. Lost eyesight. Lifetime disabilities. The Secretary of Defense does not talk about the billions of dollars in this supplemental to repair damage caused by the catastrophic looting of government buildings, electric generating equipment, hospitals, oil refineries, railroads, and communications infrastructure, because the Pentagon did not plan for the war's end and did not have enough troops in place to keep order after the fall of Saddam's government. This $87 billion request is made by the President of the party that just a few years ago gave great speeches in support of a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. In fact, it was the Clinton administration that actually had the fiscal discipline to achieve a balanced budget, which President Bush inherited. President Bush and Vice President Cheney say they are deficit hawks. Yet today we are on the road to putting a $1 trillion deficit squarely on the backs of our children and grandchildren. This is also a President who says we cannot spend another $1 billion in emergency funds to combat AIDS this year, a disease that kills 8,000 people every day. This Administration's AIDS initiative, which has such promise, is starting looking like more talk than action. Others here have recounted the statements of former chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who estimated that it would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion to rebuild Iraq. He was right, but his analysis was disputed again and again by administration officials who wanted to paint a much rosier picture. For telling the truth, he was forced out of the administration. Former OMB Director Daniels said between $50 billion and $60 billion. Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said ``We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon. The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years.'' Andrew Natsios, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that $1.7 billion was all that America's taxpayers would have to pay. $1.7 billion. That is incredible. These estimates were wildly off the mark. After so many misstatements, misjudgments, and distortions, I have no idea who to believe. This Administration has been wrong, wrong, and wrong. As Senator Byrd has pointed out, this $87 billion brings to $194 billion the amount the United States is spending in Iraq and Afghanistan--more than twice what the administration had led the public to believe just a few months ago. The 1991 gulf war, by contrast, cost $61 billion, of which the United States paid only $7 billion. That is $7 billion spent in 1991 compared to $194 billion today--almost 28 times higher, and this is only the beginning. The $20 billion that the President wants for rebuilding Iraq is more than we are spending this year on foreign aid for the entire rest of the world. The $87 billion is one and a half times the amount we spend on education in the United States. It is larger than the total economies of almost half the states of the Union. The administration hopes that it will receive an additional $55 billion for Iraqi reconstruction from other countries and Iraqi oil revenues over the next 2 years. But that, again, may be wildly optimistic. We are going to rebuild Iraq and put the Iraqis back to work. The President says there is money for that--$87 billion. But there is no supplemental to help the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs here at home. There is no money to fix our broken public schools. There is no money for health care for 44 million Americans who are without insurance. None for affordable housing for the growing number of Americans living in poverty. Instead of a plan, we get more rhetoric about winning the war on terrorism. Instead of specifics, we get abstract talk about democracy in the Middle East--civilizations that predate ours by a thousand years. This administration continues to support autocratic regimes in the Middle East, Central Asia, and elsewhere, whenever it suits them. Instead of a timetable and a detailed justification of costs, we get simplistic and inaccurate comparisons with the Marshall plan. The Marshall plan, as I, Senator Daschle, and others have pointed out, bore little resemblance to what we are dealing with here. The most specific thing the President has talked about is the pricetag: $87 billion. This is staggering. It gave many Americans sticker shock and awe. Their so-called ``plan'' is a July 23rd document, totaling 8 pages of text and 19 pages of a hypothetical time line. It is not a plan of anything. It is a vague statement of objectives, which begins by saying, not a little presumptiously, that ``now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been removed, the Iraqi people have the opportunity to realize the President's vision'' for Iraq. I wonder if anyone asked the Iraqi people about their own vision for their country. This plan, which we did not receive until August 22--the day Ambassador Bremer came to testify before the Appropriations Committee-- tells us only what has become obvious to everyone--the President sent our troops into war without a postwar plan. Is everything going badly? No. Iraq is not engulfed in flames, as some press reports might suggest. The port has been rebuilt. Businesses and schools are opening. Electric power and health services are being restored. Rubble is being cleared. A new police force is being trained. There has been progress, and I commend Ambassador Bremer, USAID, and the many private voluntary organizations who are working assiduously in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions. But there is another picture that the White House prefers not to talk about. The coordinated, deadly attacks against our troops and Iraqi police are growing in frequency. Aid workers are facing daily threats and acts of sabotage. Many relief organizations are evacuating their employees, as the U.N. has done. Horrific bombings of civilian targets are becoming routine. There is growing resentment among the Iraqi people. Mr. President, we are at a crossroads, not only in Iraq, but in our relations with the rest of the world. A year ago, I listened as the President suddenly, inexplicably, changed his focus from defeating al- Qaida in Afghanistan to overthrowing Saddam Hussein. I listened to his reasons, which were unconvincing given what we knew at the time, and they are less convincing today. Like many, including some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, I urged patience. We were ignored. We waited for the evidence. It was distorted and manipulated. After a brilliant military victory, the postwar strategy and the justification for the war itself have largely evaporated. Faced with an $87 billion down payment on what is likely to be a far more costly, far longer United States involvement in Iraq, I have tried, through hearings and amendments, to promote an approach which I believe could succeed. But the White House and the Republican Majority have been inflexible. This has been a difficult process. I do not believe the United States, having destroyed Iraq's government, should walk away. But neither can I support a policy that was ill-conceived from the beginning, has seriously eroded our influence with our allies, further poisoned our already frayed relations with the Muslim world and weakened the United Nations. It is a policy which cannot succeed over the long term without a significant change of course. I have listened to some in the majority argue that ``we have no choice'' but to ``stay the course.'' We may have no choice but to stay in Iraq, but we do have a choice about the course. I believe we need to change course. We should change course in three key ways. First, as I and so many others have urged, we should internationalize our policy. The amendment I sponsored with Senator Byrd and Senator Kennedy would have helped do that, and the U.N. resolution that was adopted yesterday is a welcome and encouraging step, for which I commend Secretary of State Powell. But it is nothing more than an expression of good intentions. We have no idea if it will change anything, as this White House has steadfastly resisted meaningful input from other nations. Will the multinational force be anything more than a fig leaf for an ongoing U.S. military occupation involving over 120,000 troops? Will other nations contribute significant resources? Or will U.S. taxpayers continue to shoulder 99 percent of the costs? We need to know if the U.N. resolution represents the change in policy that is long overdue, or if it is nothing more than political cover to continue drifting along as we are today alone, with our troops under fire and U.S. taxpayers mortgaging their children's savings. Second, we must do a far better job of protecting the taxpayers' money. Today we should be voting to appropriate not a penny more than the amount of funds that can be spent wisely in Iraq and Afghanistan during the next 12 months. It should be paid for by repealing a portion of the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, as proposed by Senator Biden, not by increasing the deficit. By mid-year we should hold thorough hearings, and vote again on whether to stay the course. Third, we should get the Secretary of Defense out of the business of nation building and put the Secretary of State back in charge. My amendment would have done that. These are not radical alternatives, but the President's advisers decided that nothing was open for discussion. It has been their latest version of ``if you're not with us, you're against us.'' They have treated this supplemental as a referendum on the President's policy in Iraq, a policy which I believe is fraught with dangers for our Nation. It is no more the right way to build the peace than the pre-emptive, unilateral use of force was the right way to go to war. Mr. President, I voted for every amendment that I felt would make the best use of the taxpayer's hard earned money. I voted for every amendment that I felt would support our troops and help them do their jobs better, and come home safely. I support them by spending money wisely. And I support them by voting to change course when I believe the course we are on endangers them unnecessarily. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I will not add to what the Senator from Kansas has said other than to say I do support this amendment. I think it shows the priorities that have to be met by the United States, priorities we sometimes overlook. I commend the Senator for his support of this. I hope the Senate will pass it overwhelmingly. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with my respected colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, the Farm-to- Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003. This important bipartisan proposal will support grassroots efforts all across our Nation to bring school cafeterias and local farms together. It is amazing how many kids do not know where the food that they eat comes from. It is also amazing how far some farm products travel to get to the cafeteria table. The Farm-to-Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003 will establish a U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, grant program to help schools connect children with local farms by bringing fresh local foods to their cafeterias and by implementing hands-on nutrition education programs. Communities all across our Nation are beginning to explore the concept of linking farms and cafeterias. In my home State of Vermont, from rural towns like Jay and Westfield to the city of Burlington, schools have experimented with how they can integrate the daily service of school meals with classroom learning and local agriculture. And as more schools create these connections, more and more want to learn how they too can start a program. Oftentimes these are very small schools, which do not have the staff or money to kick off a project on their own. With just a little money and some technical assistance, these schools can create a program that teaches kids about good nutrition, shows them the importance of agriculture, and supports local farms by keeping food dollars within the community. In introducing The Farm-to- Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003, Senator Specter and I seek to provide these communities with the assistance they need to get such school and farm partnerships off the ground. I urge my colleagues to join us in support of this exciting initiative, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with my respected colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, the Farm-to- Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003. This important bipartisan proposal will support grassroots efforts all across our Nation to bring school cafeterias and local farms together. It is amazing how many kids do not know where the food that they eat comes from. It is also amazing how far some farm products travel to get to the cafeteria table. The Farm-to-Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003 will establish a U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, grant program to help schools connect children with local farms by bringing fresh local foods to their cafeterias and by implementing hands-on nutrition education programs. Communities all across our Nation are beginning to explore the concept of linking farms and cafeterias. In my home State of Vermont, from rural towns like Jay and Westfield to the city of Burlington, schools have experimented with how they can integrate the daily service of school meals with classroom learning and local agriculture. And as more schools create these connections, more and more want to learn how they too can start a program. Oftentimes these are very small schools, which do not have the staff or money to kick off a project on their own. With just a little money and some technical assistance, these schools can create a program that teaches kids about good nutrition, shows them the importance of agriculture, and supports local farms by keeping food dollars within the community. In introducing The Farm-to- Cafeteria Projects Act of 2003, Senator Specter and I seek to provide these communities with the assistance they need to get such school and farm partnerships off the ground. I urge my colleagues to join us in support of this exciting initiative, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. I withhold the quorum call.

Mr. LEAHY. Archbishop Francis is said to be the only man in Liberia that Charles Taylor feared. This is because of the archbishop's tireless criticism of Charles Taylor and his brutal regime. If we don't move decisively to help solidify the fragile peace in Liberia, fighting could easily resume and spread throughout the region. Guess who the world will look to help solve the crisis? The United States. More lives will have been lost, more time will have been wasted and it will be more difficult and expensive to act. Mr. President, this amendment gives the Senate a chance to take decisive action to address the crisis in Liberia. This amendment provides $200 million in badly needed aid, and it allows the administration to determine the best way to spend these funds. How did we arrive at this figure? Two hundred million dollars is what the Bush administration says we should spend to respond to this crisis. On October 2, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner told the House International Relations Committee that $200 million is what the U.S. should contribute to Liberia. In other words, this is the administration's own number. This amendment is fully offset--it does not add one dime to the total amount of the supplemental. It also allows the administration to use these funds for virtually any purpose: humanitarian, reconstruction, or security assistance. We have an $87 billion bill before the Senate. But there is no money in this bill designated for Liberia. We are already involved in Liberia. The United States worked to get rid of a despicable dictator who is wanted for war crimes. We sent the Marines to Liberia. The United States has deep historical ties to Liberia. We should do the job right--not just stick a band-aid on the problem and hope it goes away. Mr. President, it is up to Congress to show leadership on this issue. The House has acted. It has included $100 million of international disaster assistance for Liberia and Sudan. The Senate should build on this effort. This amendment does that. There should be no question. We should join together and pass this bipartisan amendment and help the people of Liberia. That is why I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my good friend, the senior Senator from South Dakota and Democratic leader. I thank him for his concern and his work on this issue. Two years have passed since several anthrax letters were sent to a few journalists and, obviously, to public officials, killing inadvertent victims. These are victims whose only sin, apparently, was doing their jobs, and these attacks have left several other people sick and out of work. The Senate and all who work here--the Senate family--are still adjusting to the aftermath of these attacks 2 years later. We see it in new layers of security. We see it in new mail-handling procedures in which mail to Capitol Hill now is screened and irradiated before it is delivered. The U.S. Postal Service has had to develop and implement new safety measures to protect its customers and its workers. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen of our fellow Americans who merely came into contact with these anthrax-laden letters have become the forgotten victims of terror. Some have suffered poor health, and some have not been able to return to work. I am pleased to join with Senator Daschle and my other good friends, Senators Lautenberg, Nelson of Florida, Feingold, Corzine, Mikulski, Sarbanes, and Clinton, to introduce the Anthrax Victims Fund Fairness Act of 2003. This will allow these forgotten victims of terror and their families to seek help through the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund. They need this help to pay for medical expenses and to provide for themselves and their families if they have been unable to return to work. They are our fellow citizens, and they were unwittingly on the front lines when our new, shadowy struggle against terrorism began. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, we learned that the United States was not impervious to acts of terrorism of the kinds that have rained death and destruction on other societies far away. The attacks shocked the world and left the American people with the terrible knowledge that we could once again become victims, targets of terrorists at any time. Only a few days after September 11, our worst fears were confirmed. Between September 22 and November 14, nearly two dozen Americans from five States and the District of Columbia became casualties of a sinister bioterrorism attack. Twenty-two Americans ranging in age from 7 months to 94 years were stricken in these attacks of anthrax. It is a rare disease that had only afflicted a handful of Americans in the last century. We would ultimately learn that 11 people had been infected with cutaneous or skin anthrax, and 11 contracted the more serious form of the disease called inhalation or pulmonary anthrax. Five of our fellow Americans died from these attacks. The victims of the anthrax attacks vary in gender, race, religion, age, economic status, and locale. But they all have one thing in common: Everyone suffered. The targets were members of the news media, and two Members of the Senate, myself and Senator Daschle, but the victims--not the targets, but the victims--who suffered the most were employees of the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of State, news organizations, the Senate, and the aides, the children, and the senior citizens whose mail came in contact with the anthrax-laden letters. In the fall of 2001, I worked with Speaker Hastert, Senator Daschle, Senator Lott, Congressman Gephardt, Senators Hatch, Kohl, DeWine, Schumer, and Clinton to establish the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund of 2001. This fund ensured that victims of the September 11 attacks would be eligible for compensation for the horrific losses they suffered. After extensive negotiations with the Bush administration, we established the September 11 fund to provide victims an alternative to what would have been a lengthy battle in court. Under the stewardship of Ken Feinberg, the Special Master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and with the supervision of the Department of Justice, more than 1,000 of the 3,016 families of those who died in the September 11 attacks and more than 1,000 of the unknown number who were injured have filed claims. The fund, which has no cap, had paid out $633 million by September 10, 2003, with an average award of about $1.6 million for death claims. It is a dignified way of doing it. As we reach the 2-year anniversary of the anthrax attacks, Congress should do the same for those whose lives were harmed by these acts of bioterrorism as we did for the victims of September 11. While we have taken significant steps to compensate the victims of the September 11 attacks and their families, no such action has been taken on behalf of the anthrax victims. Our legislation would remedy this. Our bill would extend the deadline for filing claims with the fund by a year and expand the eligibility to include laboratory-confirmed anthrax tests. As we reach the two-year anniversary of the anthrax attacks, Congress should do the same for those whose lives were harmed by these acts of bioterrorism as it did for the victims of September 11, 2001. While we have taken significant steps to compensate the victims of the September 11 attacks and their families, no such action has been taken on behalf of the anthrax victims. Our legislation would remedy this. Our bill would extend the deadline for filing claims with the fund by 1-year and expand the eligibility to include laboratory-confirmed anthrax cases. The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, have confirmed 18 anthrax infections, and an additional four are considered to have been confirmed through other methods. Applicants would be subject to the same criteria and restrictions as were set for the September 11 victims. Eligible individuals who choose to file claims would then be considered by the Special Master who would make a final determination on level of compensation within 120 days of receiving the claim. Compensation will be targeted to help the neediest victims and their families. Any life insurance, death benefit, or other Government payment previously received by victims and their families would be taken into account, and filing a claim would preclude other civil remedies. Yesterday marked the 2-year anniversary of the opening of the letter that spread anthrax throughout the Hart Senate Office Building, exposing 31 Senate employees to a highly potent and aerosolized form of anthrax and shutting down the Dirksen Senate Office Building for 2 weeks, the Hart Senate Office Building for 3 months and briefly closing the United States Capitol, the symbol of democracy. Our staffs were fortunate to receive excellent care and guidance from the Sergeant at Arms, the CDC, the attending physician, his dedicated staff of men and women and the Environmental Protection Agency, and none of the employees of the Senate were ultimately infected. Those days are indelibly etched in our memories. To this day--and this is the first time I have ever spoken on the floor about the anthrax attack. I have to be honest, it is something that has been on my mind, on the mind of my wife, our children, our families, ever since that day. Senator Daschle and I do not know what motivates somebody to target us and to endanger our staffs and so many others. Senator Daschle and I were the targets of the Senate letters, but we were not stricken with anthrax, and we have made very clear that we would not be covered by the terms of this legislation. We will never know why we were singled out, but we do know what happened to people who were totally innocent. The letters were not addressed to them as they were to us. Eighteen of the victims were not as fortunate as were most of us in the Senate family. While some did recover after receiving antibiotics, others have had their lives changed forever. Some are stricken with ailments, such as post-traumatic stress, depression and fatigue. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the disease. One postal worker who was infected with anthrax filed a $100 million suit against the U.S. Postal Service in January 2003. He did not want to have to take his case to court, but he says he felt he had to after repeated attempts to receive compensation and assistance in treating his illness. Last month, on September 24, the widow of the first anthrax victim in Florida filed lawsuits seeking more than $50 million and alleging that insufficient security at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, MD, and negligent actions by companies with military contracts, caused her husband's death. This bill would help these and other victims without forcing them to take their cases to the legal system. The perpetrator or perpetrators of these acts of terrorism remain at large. I have no idea who directed these letters to Senator Daschle and myself. The F.B.I. continues its search. These victims cannot wait until the search is over. They deserve help now and we owe it to them to provide it. Yesterday I joined with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, both Senators from New York, and with others in introducing separate legislation to extend and broaden the fund's coverage to cover the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, the 1998 East African embassy attacks and the 2000 U.S.S. Cole attacks. I applaud Senator Specter for his leadership in this area. All Americans who have been victimized by acts of terrorism deserve our sympathy, our respect and our support. Our hearts went out to the victims of these acts of terrorism and to their loved ones. Now they also need our help, and it is my hope that we will do the right thing by these victims of terrorism.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my good friend, the senior Senator from South Dakota and Democratic leader. I thank him for his concern and his work on this issue. Two years have passed since several anthrax letters were sent to a few journalists and, obviously, to public officials, killing inadvertent victims. These are victims whose only sin, apparently, was doing their jobs, and these attacks have left several other people sick and out of work. The Senate and all who work here--the Senate family--are still adjusting to the aftermath of these attacks 2 years later. We see it in new layers of security. We see it in new mail-handling procedures in which mail to Capitol Hill now is screened and irradiated before it is delivered. The U.S. Postal Service has had to develop and implement new safety measures to protect its customers and its workers. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen of our fellow Americans who merely came into contact with these anthrax-laden letters have become the forgotten victims of terror. Some have suffered poor health, and some have not been able to return to work. I am pleased to join with Senator Daschle and my other good friends, Senators Lautenberg, Nelson of Florida, Feingold, Corzine, Mikulski, Sarbanes, and Clinton, to introduce the Anthrax Victims Fund Fairness Act of 2003. This will allow these forgotten victims of terror and their families to seek help through the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund. They need this help to pay for medical expenses and to provide for themselves and their families if they have been unable to return to work. They are our fellow citizens, and they were unwittingly on the front lines when our new, shadowy struggle against terrorism began. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, we learned that the United States was not impervious to acts of terrorism of the kinds that have rained death and destruction on other societies far away. The attacks shocked the world and left the American people with the terrible knowledge that we could once again become victims, targets of terrorists at any time. Only a few days after September 11, our worst fears were confirmed. Between September 22 and November 14, nearly two dozen Americans from five States and the District of Columbia became casualties of a sinister bioterrorism attack. Twenty-two Americans ranging in age from 7 months to 94 years were stricken in these attacks of anthrax. It is a rare disease that had only afflicted a handful of Americans in the last century. We would ultimately learn that 11 people had been infected with cutaneous or skin anthrax, and 11 contracted the more serious form of the disease called inhalation or pulmonary anthrax. Five of our fellow Americans died from these attacks. The victims of the anthrax attacks vary in gender, race, religion, age, economic status, and locale. But they all have one thing in common: Everyone suffered. The targets were members of the news media, and two Members of the Senate, myself and Senator Daschle, but the victims--not the targets, but the victims--who suffered the most were employees of the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of State, news organizations, the Senate, and the aides, the children, and the senior citizens whose mail came in contact with the anthrax-laden letters. In the fall of 2001, I worked with Speaker Hastert, Senator Daschle, Senator Lott, Congressman Gephardt, Senators Hatch, Kohl, DeWine, Schumer, and Clinton to establish the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund of 2001. This fund ensured that victims of the September 11 attacks would be eligible for compensation for the horrific losses they suffered. After extensive negotiations with the Bush administration, we established the September 11 fund to provide victims an alternative to what would have been a lengthy battle in court. Under the stewardship of Ken Feinberg, the Special Master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and with the supervision of the Department of Justice, more than 1,000 of the 3,016 families of those who died in the September 11 attacks and more than 1,000 of the unknown number who were injured have filed claims. The fund, which has no cap, had paid out $633 million by September 10, 2003, with an average award of about $1.6 million for death claims. It is a dignified way of doing it. As we reach the 2-year anniversary of the anthrax attacks, Congress should do the same for those whose lives were harmed by these acts of bioterrorism as we did for the victims of September 11. While we have taken significant steps to compensate the victims of the September 11 attacks and their families, no such action has been taken on behalf of the anthrax victims. Our legislation would remedy this. Our bill would extend the deadline for filing claims with the fund by a year and expand the eligibility to include laboratory-confirmed anthrax tests. As we reach the two-year anniversary of the anthrax attacks, Congress should do the same for those whose lives were harmed by these acts of bioterrorism as it did for the victims of September 11, 2001. While we have taken significant steps to compensate the victims of the September 11 attacks and their families, no such action has been taken on behalf of the anthrax victims. Our legislation would remedy this. Our bill would extend the deadline for filing claims with the fund by 1-year and expand the eligibility to include laboratory-confirmed anthrax cases. The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, have confirmed 18 anthrax infections, and an additional four are considered to have been confirmed through other methods. Applicants would be subject to the same criteria and restrictions as were set for the September 11 victims. Eligible individuals who choose to file claims would then be considered by the Special Master who would make a final determination on level of compensation within 120 days of receiving the claim. Compensation will be targeted to help the neediest victims and their families. Any life insurance, death benefit, or other Government payment previously received by victims and their families would be taken into account, and filing a claim would preclude other civil remedies. Yesterday marked the 2-year anniversary of the opening of the letter that spread anthrax throughout the Hart Senate Office Building, exposing 31 Senate employees to a highly potent and aerosolized form of anthrax and shutting down the Dirksen Senate Office Building for 2 weeks, the Hart Senate Office Building for 3 months and briefly closing the United States Capitol, the symbol of democracy. Our staffs were fortunate to receive excellent care and guidance from the Sergeant at Arms, the CDC, the attending physician, his dedicated staff of men and women and the Environmental Protection Agency, and none of the employees of the Senate were ultimately infected. Those days are indelibly etched in our memories. To this day--and this is the first time I have ever spoken on the floor about the anthrax attack. I have to be honest, it is something that has been on my mind, on the mind of my wife, our children, our families, ever since that day. Senator Daschle and I do not know what motivates somebody to target us and to endanger our staffs and so many others. Senator Daschle and I were the targets of the Senate letters, but we were not stricken with anthrax, and we have made very clear that we would not be covered by the terms of this legislation. We will never know why we were singled out, but we do know what happened to people who were totally innocent. The letters were not addressed to them as they were to us. Eighteen of the victims were not as fortunate as were most of us in the Senate family. While some did recover after receiving antibiotics, others have had their lives changed forever. Some are stricken with ailments, such as post-traumatic stress, depression and fatigue. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the disease. One postal worker who was infected with anthrax filed a $100 million suit against the U.S. Postal Service in January 2003. He did not want to have to take his case to court, but he says he felt he had to after repeated attempts to receive compensation and assistance in treating his illness. Last month, on September 24, the widow of the first anthrax victim in Florida filed lawsuits seeking more than $50 million and alleging that insufficient security at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, MD, and negligent actions by companies with military contracts, caused her husband's death. This bill would help these and other victims without forcing them to take their cases to the legal system. The perpetrator or perpetrators of these acts of terrorism remain at large. I have no idea who directed these letters to Senator Daschle and myself. The F.B.I. continues its search. These victims cannot wait until the search is over. They deserve help now and we owe it to them to provide it. Yesterday I joined with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, both Senators from New York, and with others in introducing separate legislation to extend and broaden the fund's coverage to cover the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, the 1998 East African embassy attacks and the 2000 U.S.S. Cole attacks. I applaud Senator Specter for his leadership in this area. All Americans who have been victimized by acts of terrorism deserve our sympathy, our respect and our support. Our hearts went out to the victims of these acts of terrorism and to their loved ones. Now they also need our help, and it is my hope that we will do the right thing by these victims of terrorism.