Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I withhold that for a moment. While we are waiting on that matter--I am surely going to make the request again--we have my amendment with the yeas and nays on it. And I understand that the leader would prefer that votes begin in the morning. I have no objection to the leader stacking that with other votes to occur in the morning. We have the yeas and nays on it. I urge, however, that those who have germane amendments on our side come to the floor and offer them, seek the yeas and nays, if they wish, and speak on them tonight. There is no reason why we cannot finish this bill sometime during the day tomorrow. Mr. President, there appears to be some difficulty. I was of the understanding that Senator Hatch wanted this modified. I was going to offer that modification as a courtesy to Senator Hatch. I will not offer the modification and am perfectly happy to have them go ahead and vote on my original amendment. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 20 on behalf of myself and Mr. Hatch. I send the modification to the desk.

Mr. LEAHY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at this point to ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 20, as modified.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. Mr. President, the Senator from Utah and I have been working together on a managers' package. We might be able to move that forward. We are not right at that spot yet. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Alaska wishes to speak on his time. I am going to yield to him in just a second. Is my understanding from the Senator from Iowa correct that it is now in order--I realize we are not about to vote right now--to get the yeas and nays on this amendment?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the managers' package is brought forward, and it is agreed on by the Senator from Utah and the Senator from Vermont, the items in it be considered germane.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I further ask of the Senator from Utah, if they are unable to complete the ones we have agreed on--the paperwork-- it would fall, if cloture was voted, on the basis of germaneness.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered on amendment No. 19?

Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that I be able to continue for 1 minute, with the same amount of time for the Senator from Utah, before we go to a vote.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Vermont represent, population-wise, two of the smallest States in the Union. There are differences, of course, as the Senator from Alaska represents a State greater than much of the continental United States. I have always thought the genius of the founders of this country, as the Senator from West Virginia has pointed out on many occasions, was when they set up the Senate and they said every State will have equal representation. Vermont has two Senators--not determined by landmass, because if Alaska had two Senators based on landmass no other State would have any Senators. California, larger than many countries, has two Senators. The Senate is one place where States are equal. Frankly, I have never heard the Senator from Alaska--I have served with him for 26 years, and I served with him on the Appropriations Committee during that time--ask for something for himself, never. I have heard him fight for his own State, the same way I hope I fight for my State, or the Senator from West Virginia fights for his State, or the Senator from Nevada for his. I point out to those who may be critical of the Senator from Alaska fighting for Alaska that never has the senior Senator from Alaska gone in there and sought anything for himself. But he has fought for the needs of his State. Those needs are great. Nobody--I visited Alaska on several occasions--can possibly conceive of the enormous needs of a State such as Alaska because of its size and diversity. I think of the horrendous winters we sometimes get in Vermont. They cannot begin to match what they have in Alaska. Frankly, I have always been proud to serve with the Senator from Alaska. We are of different parties. We are in many areas of different political philosophies. But I consider him one of the closest friends I have in the Senate. I have been proud to serve with him on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to congratulate Elizabeth Robert, a graduate of Middlebury College and the University of Vermont, for her success in transforming the struggling Vermont Teddy Bear Company into a highly profitable e-business. Ms. Robert joined the Vermont Teddy Bear Company as its Chief Financial Officer in 1995 and only two years later rose to the position of Chief Executive Officer. In 1997, profits at Vermont Teddy Bear Company were way down and the future was bleak. Now, only three years later, sales are up 50 percent and the company boasts more than $22 million in annual sales. This spectacular turnaround was spearheaded by Elizabeth Robert, who harnessed the power of the Internet to transform the Teddy Bear Company into a successful Bear-Gram gift delivery service. The company's website is http://store.yahoo.com/vtbear/. Recently, The Rutland Herald and The Times Argus, featured Ms. Robert as a ``captain of industry.'' I ask that the full text of the Rutland Herald/Times Argus article of March 11, 2001, titled ``Elizabeth Robert: A `captain of industry' bears watching'' be printed in the Record. Liz's success is a shining example for all Vermonter business leaders to follow. By taking advantage of the new markets offered by the Internet and developing a sharply focused business plan, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company has doubled its sales and significantly expanded its customer base. Last year, I invited Liz Robert to be the keynote speaker at my annual Women's Economic Opportunity Conference in Vermont. Ms. Robert shared her personal story with hundreds of women who attended the conference and encouraged each of them to follow their dreams. As an incredibly successful businesswoman and the mother of two teen-aged daughters, she is an inspiration for all of us. My wife, Marcelle, and I were proud to be there with her. Elizabeth Robert: A ``Captain of Industry'' Bears Watching (By Sally West Johnson) Elizabeth Robert is nothing like her product. This woman, who took over the floundering Vermont Teddy Bear Co. and returned it to solvency, exudes a cool, angular self- confidence that is not a bit like the warm and cuddly personae of her stuffed bears. A wiry, athletic 45-year-old, Robert has been with Vermont Teddy Bear since 1995, when she signed on as chief financial officer in what was already a financially troubled time. The charm of founder John Sortino's bear-peddling pushcart operation on Church Street in Burlington had long since worn thin; his successor, Patrick Burns, ``took us on a trip down teddy-bear lane,'' says Robert, explaining that Burns had a vision of turning the company into a Disney-like conglomerate that sold all things ursine. But that idea tanked, and when Burns left town, Robert took over as chief executive officer in October 1997. In truth, taking on a top job had been in her game plan for a long time. It's part of who she is, and she knew it. She comes from several generations of highly accomplished women. Her grandmother emigrated from Armenia to Paris, where she worked in the laboratory of Mme. Marie Curie and later, according to Robert, became the first female pediatrician in Geneva. In the early 1940s, Robert's mother was working as a photo editor at Time-Life Inc. ``I grew up in a household where everything was possible,'' she says. A Middlebury College alumna, class of 1978, she married English professor Bob Hill in 1980, then had her first child 10 days before entering graduate school at the University of Vermont. They have since divorced. With an MBA in hand, she worked at all sorts of jobs for the next few years: at Vermont Gas Systems, as a financial consultant, and as campaign manager for Louise McCarren's 1990 run for lieutenant governor. It was McCarren, now president of Verizon in Vermont, who pointed out the obvious to her. ``She told me that I wanted to be a captain of industry . . . and she was exactly right,'' says Robert of her mentor. ``I had been learning, accumulating a skill set with undefined purpose. Now I knew what the purpose was.'' She leapt into her future by signing on as chief financial officer with a high-tech start-up in Williston, Air Mouse Remote Controls. ``We were constantly groveling for money, constantly short of cash,'' she recalls. If it didn't seem to be a blessing at the time, ``all that experience would be relevant to me when I got to Vermont Teddy Bear.'' Robert's success at VTB has made her much in demand as a speaker, especially when the subject is business strategizing. Invited to address a UVM graduate class last fall, she immediately turns the tables on her students. ``What business is Vermont Teddy Bear in?'' she asks them. (Hint: The correct answer is not ``selling teddy bears.'') ``We are in the Bear-Gram gift delivery service,'' she informs them after a few proffer hesitant guesses. ``We are delivering a highly personalized message, and one that can be changed right up to the last minute.'' Are Vermont Teddy Bears expensive? Yes, partly because they are exclusively made in America, which costs more than making them overseas. But then VTB isn't selling toys for kids. ``You can't sell the Lover Boy bear off the retail shelf for $65 or $75 even on Madison Avenue,'' explains Robert, ``but you can sell them for $85 if you guarantee delivery the next day and sell them with an embroidered shirt and a personal message transcribed by a bear counselor.'' She settles into the story of VTB's decline into--and resurrection from--bankruptcy with the confidence born of success. It is a classic tale of a company getting too big, too fast. ``We went from revenues of $300,000 in 1990 to $20 million in 1994,'' she recounts. But after an IPO in late 1993, ``the company hit the wall. We were spending huge amounts of money: We were advertising on Rush Limbaugh for $1 million a year; we spent $8.1 million on the new building (in Shelburne).'' In some ways, the financial crisis was relatively easy to manage: ``When there is no money,'' she notes, ``the answer is always `no.' '' With Robert's modified, and sharply focused, sales strategies, the company began to come back. A hugely successful Valentine's Day in 1998 liquidated the old inventory and brought in a huge pile of cash. The company picked up corporate-gift clients such as Seagrams, Nabisco and Triaminic, the cold-medicine people. It also focused on direct marketing of Bear-Grams through radio advertising to a clientele Robert calls generically ``Late Jack''--a guy between 18 and 54 years old who has forgotten the holiday, whatever it is. They can bail him out at the last minute with a gift that costs about the same as a nice bouquet of flowers but lasts a lot longer and is more personal. In fiscal 1998, VTB reported a net loss of $2 million. Thanks to ``Late Jack,'' in fiscal 2000 company books showed sales of $33 million, with a profit of $3.7 million. At the moment, Elizabeth Robert is pretty much where she wanted to be. ``I am now a captain of industry,'' she says. The remark is candid, not boastful. ``I'm not at the end of my career by any means, but I don't see the need to move on at this point.''

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I yield without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object, I am not going to object to my friend from Utah making a statement under normal comity in this body. If I could have the attention of the Senator from Utah for a moment, I am obviously not going to object to his making a statement, nor would he object to my doing the same. I keep reading statements from some of the leadership that we should hurry up this bill so that we would be allowed to vote. The Senator from New York had his amendment here on Thursday of last week and hasn't been able to get a vote. We began the bankruptcy bill and it was pulled down at the request of the Republican leadership to bring up ergonomics. I hope that the Republican leadership will allow us to start having some votes on some of these amendments and not just wait until such time as we have a cloture vote.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, so everybody understands where we are, the Senator from New York brought up an amendment on Thursday. He was promised on the Record by the manager of the bill that he would get a vote. The Senator from New York is within his rights to ask for that vote. It seems to me to be a concern that everybody is holding things up so we cannot have votes. Is there any reason why we cannot set up a situation here--and both my friend from Connecticut and my friend from New York are on the floor--that we could have some kind of agreement that says, within the next 45 to 50 minutes, we could have at least two stacked votes, that of the Senator from New York and that of the Senator from Connecticut, with the understanding we can have one or two others after that; otherwise, we can spend as much time making unanimous consent requests to vote. Why would that not be sensible? It is not just enough to say the Senator from Connecticut will bring up his, and after his vote on it we will have somebody else, if the vote turns out to be tomorrow afternoon at 5. I want to get a few votes today.

Mr. LEAHY. Sure.

Mr. LEAHY. I tell my friend from North Dakota it is in the Congressional Record that the majority side gave a commitment to the Senator from New York to have a vote. I would like to know when that vote will occur. I am a man of great and deep abiding faith, and I even believe in miracles, but I would feel a little more comfortable if, instead of dealing with a miracle, we had a precise time. I suggest we have a vote at 4:45, 5, 5:15 or something like that on the amendment of the Senator from New York, and following that, a vote on the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, followed by votes on other amendments.

Mr. LEAHY. It is a possibility that the Chair may rule it is not germane and he would not get a vote, contrary to the commitment given by the Senate majority.

Mr. LEAHY. The federal judiciary is grappling with the issue of how to put additional court filings online while providing appropriate levels of privacy protection and security for the information in those records. Bankruptcy records, for example, contain all kinds of highly sensitive personal and financial information, including social security, bank and credit card account numbers; medical history; and child support and alimony information. This information may pertain to the debtor but also to many other people who are creditors or simply associated or employed by the debtor. These records have traditionally been available to the public for perusal by individuals who went to the court house, requested the records, and physically reviewed the hard copies. This was an open process, but it was cumbersome. The inefficiency of obtaining data provided its own protective shield. For the most part, only those with a legitimate interest in bankruptcy court data took the trouble to collect it. As courts increasingly go online, however, personal information such as that contained in court filings may be posted on the Internet available for some legitimate uses but also vulnerable to misuse or objectionable re-use. In some cases, personal information of parties with only limited interest in a bankruptcy case can be widely distributed and posted online. Last August, for example, employees of an Internet retailer were shocked to learn that their salaries, bonuses, stock-option information, and home addresses were posted on the Web. Their employer, Living.com, had filed for bankruptcy and submitted all corporate financial data to the courts. Then, at the request of the company's creditors, the trustee in the case posted this highly personal data, information about employees, not about debtors, on the Web. In an unusual twist, the home addresses of 1,000 of Living.com's creditors were also posted on the Internet. The Living.com case demonstrates the risks of automatic electronic disclosure of data, threats that can befall not just debtors, but employees and even creditors. Federal agencies could also do a better job of protecting the privacy of those who do business with or seek help or information from the government. A recent GAO study reports that while most major federal agency sites post privacy notices, many do not do so on pages that collect personal information and few satisfy the principles of notice, choice, security and access that the Federal Trade Commission believe should be met by commercial sites. Moreover, the Privacy Act has not been seriously examined or updated for over twenty years. It is not doing the job it was originally intended to do of protecting the privacy of personal information provided to and held by the government. I look forward to working with the Chairman on addressing these and other important privacy issues in this Congress.

Mr. LEAHY. While much attention has been focused on online privacy and the use of personally identifiable information by commercial web sites, the Federal Government is a huge repository of personal information in both paper and electronic form. Balancing the important interests of public access to government records with privacy protection for personal information is not always easy to do.

Mr. LEAHY. Without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I planned to offer an amendment to this bankruptcy bill to protect financial privacy and prevent identity theft in electronic bankruptcy court records. I thank Senators Sarbanes, Harkin, Schumer, and Rockefeller for agreeing to cosponsor this amendment. This amendment addressed just a single area where the Federal Government, here, the Bankruptcy Courts, holds significant amounts of highly personal information, which is freely available for any person for any reason to access and use. The manner in which all three branches of the Federal Government, the Federal agencies, the Congress and the Judiciary, protect the privacy of personal information that Americans are required to divulge to the government, is an important area that needs our attention. I thank the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for agreeing to work with me on addressing the problem in a more comprehensive manner.

Mr. LEAHY. I don't know. We have several pending amendments that could all be voted on. I have one or two. We have the yeas and nays ordered, and I am willing to have a 2- or 3-minute time agreement. I suggest to those who keep complaining about why this is taking so long, the amendments we know are going to require rollcall votes, we could dispose of more than half of them by 7 o'clock this evening.

Mr. LEAHY. I yield without losing the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Missouri for the amendment she has offered. As does the Senator from Missouri, I come from a State that has some very cold winters and a lot of snow. I know how important this issue is. Any of us who live, basically, in the frost belt know how an unusually severe winter, sometimes even an enormously severe winter, can push somebody over the brink into bankruptcy. I think the distinguished Senator from Missouri--I assume we will vote on her amendment tomorrow--has raised an extremely good point. I hope all Senators, whether they come from the northern-tier States or from more temperate States, will look at her amendment and support it. I applaud her for proposing it. I yield the floor. Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.