Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on the leader's time? I wanted to have a rollcall on this one, and do the other two at whatever time the leader prefers by voice vote.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the nomination.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm three more nominations for lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. The first nomination we consider is that of Mark Davis of Virginia to fill a vacancy in the Eastern District of Virginia, and I commend the Virginia Senators on this nomination. After years of controversial nominations, Senators Warner and Webb have worked successfully with the White House on a series of recent nominations for district and circuit court seats, including that of Judge G. Steven Agee of Virginia, who was confirmed to a seat on the Fourth Circuit last month. I was pleased to accommodate Senator Bond's request that we proceed promptly in committee to consider the nominations of David Kays and Stephen Limbaugh to vacancies in the Western and Eastern Districts of Missouri. Both nominees have the support of Senator McCaskill. I wish Justice Ronnie White, who went on to become Missouri's first African- American chief justice, had received similar consideration when President Clinton nominated him to the Eastern District of Missouri. Instead, more than 2 years after he was nominated, and 2\1/2\ months after he was reported out of the Judiciary Committee for a second time, his nomination was voted down on a party line vote, not a single Republican Senator voting to confirm him. I also recall many of President Clinton's judicial nominees who were stalled because of anonymous Republican objections to their politics or their practice area. One of the two nominees from Missouri that we consider today is Rush Limbaugh's cousin. A similar lineage would have resulted in a pocket filibuster when the Senate was controlled by a Republican majority during the Clinton administration. So today, in contrast to the treatment of President Clinton's nominees, we proceed to consider these two nominations. I noted last week the sudden concern of the minority leader for district court nominations. Perhaps he did not have a chance to see my statement from earlier in the week in which I noted that with Republican cooperation, we have the opportunity this work period confirm five nominees already reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee? Of course, today we would have more than those five nominations on the Senate's Executive Calendar had Republicans not stalled this President's nominations of Judge Helene White and Ray Kethledge to the Sixth Circuit, and the nomination of Stephen Murphy to the Eastern District of Michigan. As I said last week, with cooperation from across the aisle, the Senate is poised to have confirmed four circuit court judges and 11 district court judges before the Fourth of July recess, confirming a total of 15 lifetime appointments. I recall Senator Specter's frustration when he was chairman with a Republican majority at the end of the last Congress, and Republican holds prevented the confirmation of 14 district court nominations. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had worked hard to expedite the nominations at the end of the last Congress. Many of them were for vacancies deemed judicial emergencies, including three in one Federal district in Michigan where several judges of senior status--one over 90 years old--continued to carry heavy caseloads to ensure that justice was administered in that district. Now, after the successful efforts of the Senators from Michigan in conjunction with the White House, I hope Republicans will not object to filling three more judicial emergency vacancies in Michigan. The complaints by the minority leader and his party about district court nominations ring as hollow as their complaints that Senate Democrats did not make best efforts to meet the goal he and the majority leader set of moving three circuit court nominations by Memorial Day. As at the end of the last Congress with those 14 district court nominations, Republicans resisted expediting the committee's consideration of the Michigan nominations before Memorial Day. They badgered the nominees, and sent scores of written follow up questions. At the May 7 hearing, the Republicans chose to complain that the committee was moving too fast, before the committee had received updated ABA ratings on the nominations. They pressed Judge White with scores of questions, failing to pose those same questions to Mr. Kethledge, a candidate for the same circuit. They demanded an extremely rare closed hearing to further question Judge White. Given their actions and their resistance to the White House's package of nominations--nominations made by this President--they made it impossible for the Committee to consider and report the Michigan nominations before the Memorial Day recess. We have now received the updated ABA rating for Judge White's nomination. She received a well qualified rating. That did not come as any surprise. She has served ably on the Michigan state appellate courts and acquired additional experience in the decade since she was nominated by President Clinton and the Republican Senate majority refused to consider her nomination. Ultimately, the Republican-led Senate left open five vacancies on the Fourth Circuit and four on the Sixth Circuit. With the Agee confirmation last month, we have already reduced vacancies on the Fourth Circuit to less than there were at the end of the Clinton administration, when a Republican-controlled Senate had refused to consider any nominees to that circuit during the last 2 years of the Clinton Presidency. If Republicans cooperate in considering the Michigan nominees, we will have filled every vacancy in the Sixth Circuit. Overall, when Republicans ran the Senate and were stalling consideration of President Clinton's nominees, circuit vacancies rose from 11 to 26, and it reached 32 during the transition to President Bush. We are in position to reduce circuit vacancies by three-quarters, to an historic low. In contrast to the Republican Senate majority that used the Clinton years to more than double circuit court vacancies around the country, the Senate has already reduced circuit court vacancies by almost two- thirds, We are poised to complete Senate consideration of the two Sixth Circuit nominations. If the Republican minority allows that progress, yet another circuit will be without any vacancies. In fact, we would reduce the total number of circuit court vacancies across the Nation to single digits for the first time in decades. If instead we focus on the controversial nominations as the Republicans want, we run the risk of embroiling the committee and the Senate in months of debate, foreclosing the opportunity to make progress where we can. We saw what happened with our last contentious nomination--that of Leslie Southwick. It took 5\1/2\ months from the time of the hearing to his confirmation. The minority leader and the Wall Street Journal continue to point to the confirmation of 15 circuit judges in 1999 and 2000. Sometimes, the number is 17. Of course, their mythical ``statistical average'' of selected years ignores the crises the Republicans had created by not considering circuit nominees in 1996, 1997 and 1998, the fact that they refused to confirm a single circuit nominee during the entire 1996 session, the fact that they returned 17 circuit court nominees without action to the White House in 2000, the public criticism of Chief Justice Rehnquist that helped moderate their stalling and the fact that they more than doubled circuit court vacancies while pocket filibustering Clinton nominees. The minority leader only reaches this mythical statistical by taking advantage of the high confirmation numbers of Democratic-led Senates confirming the nominees of President Reagan and the first President Bush. They ignore their own record of doubling vacancies during the Clinton administration. They do not like to recall that during the 1996 session, when a Republican majority controlled the Senate during a Presidential election year, they refused to confirm any circuit court judges at all--not one. Their practice of pocket filibustering President Clinton's judicial nominees led Chief Justice Rehnquist, hardly a Democratic partisan, to criticize them publicly. Even he was appalled by the actions of the Republican Senate majority. In his 1996 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, he wrote: Because the number of judges confirmed in 1996 was low in comparison to the number confirmed in preceding years, the vacancy rate is beginning to climb. When the 104th Congress adjourned in 1996, 17 new judges had been appointed and 28 nominations had not been acted upon. Fortunately, a dependable corps of senior judges contributes significantly to easing the impact of unfilled judgeships. It is hoped that the Administration and Congress will continue to recognize that filling judicial vacancies is crucial to the fair and effective administration of justice. When that shot across the bow did not lead the Republican Senate majority to reverse course, Chief Justice Rehnquist spoke up, again, in his 1997 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary. It was a salvo from a Republican Chief Justice critical of the Republican Senate leadership: Currently, 82 of the 846 Article III judicial offices in the Federal Judiciary--almost one out of every ten--are vacant. Twenty-six of the vacancies have been in existence for 18 months or longer and on that basis constitute what are called ``judicial emergencies.'' In the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the percentage of vacancies is particularly troubling, with over one-third of its seats empty. Judicial vacancies can contribute to a backlog of cases, undue delays in civil cases, and stopgap measures to shift judicial personnel where they are most needed. Vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely without eroding the quality of justice that traditionally has been associated with the Federal Judiciary. Fortunately for the Judiciary, a dependable corps of senior judges has contributed significantly to easing the impact of unfilled judgeships. It was only after the scorching criticism by a Republican Chief Justice that the Republican Senate majority modified its approach in order to allow some of the nominations that had been held back for years to finally proceed. Having built up scores of vacancies, some were allowed to be filled while the Republican Senate majority carefully kept vacant circuit court positions to be filled by President Clinton's successor. It is in that context that Republican claims of magnanimity must be seen for what it was. It is in that context that the eight circuit confirmations in 2000 must be evaluated while the Republican Senate majority returned 17 circuit nominations to President Clinton at the end of that session without action. In stark contrast, the Democratic Senate majority has worked steadily and steadfastly to lower vacancies and make progress, and we have. I have placed the two Michigan Sixth Circuit nominations on the agenda for the committee's business meeting this week. With cooperation from the Republicans, we can consider and vote on these nominations at that time. That should provide the Senate with the opportunity to consider them before the Fourth of July recess, bringing to four the number of circuit court nominees confirmed this year. Four would meet the Republican average for 1996 and 2000, and beat their total in the 1996 session by four. The history is clear. On June 1, 2000, when a Republican Senate majority was considering the judicial nominees of a Democratic President in a Presidential election year, there were 66 judicial vacancies. Twenty were circuit court vacancies, and 46 were district court vacancies. Those vacancies were the result of years of Republican pocket filibusters of judicial nominations. This year, by comparison there are just 47 total vacancies with only 11 circuit vacancies and 36 district court vacancies. After today, there will be just 44 total vacancies. If we can continue to make progress this month, the current vacancies could be reduced to fewer than 40, with only 9 circuit court vacancies and 30 district court vacancies. When Republicans were busy pocket filibustering Clinton nominees, Federal judicial vacancies grew to more than 100, with more than 30 circuit vacancies. When I became Chairman in the summer of 2001, we quickly--and dramatically--lowered vacancies. The 100 nominations we confirmed in only 17 months, while working with a most uncooperative White House, reduced vacancies by 45 percent. After the four intervening years of a Republican Senate majority, vacancies remained about level. It is the Democratic Senate majority that has again worked hard to lower them in this Congress. We have gone from more than 110 vacancies to less than 50 and are heading to less than 40. With respect to Federal circuit court vacancies, we have reversed course from the days during which the Republican Senate majority more than doubled circuit vacancies. It bears repeating--circuit vacancies have been reduced by almost two-thirds and have not been this low since 1996, when the Republican tactics to slow judicial confirmations began in earnest. Consider for a moment the numbers: After another productive month, just 9 of the 178 authorized circuit court judgeships will remain vacant--just 9--a vacancy rate down from 18 percent to just 5 percent. With 168 active appellate judges and 104 senior status judges serving on the Federal Courts of Appeals, there are 272 circuit court judges. I expect that is the most in our history. The President has not nominated anyone to 16 of the current judicial vacancies. He has refused since 2004 to work with the California Senators on a successor to Judge Trott on the Ninth Circuit. The district court vacancies without nominees span from those that arose in Mississippi and Michigan in 2006, to several from 2007 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana and the District of Columbia, to others that arose earlier this year in Kansas, Virginia, Washington, and several in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Disputes over a handful of controversial judicial nominations have wasted valuable time that could be spent on the real priorities of every American. I have sought, instead, to make progress where we can. The result is the significant reduction in judicial vacancies. In fact, our work has led to a reduction in vacancies in nearly ever circuit. Both the Second and Fifth Circuits had circuit-wide emergencies due to the multiple simultaneous vacancies during the Clinton years with Republicans in control of the Senate. Both the Second Circuit and the Fifth Circuit now are without a single vacancy. We have already succeeded in lowering vacancies in the Second Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, the Sixth Circuit, the Eighth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, the Eleventh Circuit, the DC Circuit, and the Federal Circuit. Circuits with no current vacancies include the Seventh Circuit, the Eighth Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, the Eleventh Circuit and the Federal Circuit. When we are allowed to proceed with President Bush's nominations of Judge White and Ray Kethledge to the Sixth Circuit, it will join that list of Federal circuits without a single vacancy. My approach has been consistent throughout my chairmanships during the Bush Presidency. The results have been positive. Last year, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported 40 judicial nominations to the Senate and all 40 were confirmed. That was more than had been confirmed in any of the three preceding years when a Republican chairman and Republican Senate majority managed the process. Despite this progress, of course, some partisans seem determined to provoke an election year fight over nominations. The press accounts are filled with threats of Republican reprisals. The May 14 issue of Roll Call boasted the following headline: ``GOP Itching for Fight Over Judges; Reid's Pledge to Move Three Before Recess Fails to Appease Minority.'' Then in a recent article in The Washington Times, we read that the Republican fixation on judges is part of an effort to bolster Senator McCain's standing among conservatives. There seem to be no steps we could take to satisfy Senate Republicans on nominations, because they are using it as a partisan issue to rev up their partisan political base. The Republican effort to create an issue over judicial confirmations is sorely misplaced. Last month we experienced the greatest rise in unemployment in a single month in over two decades, bringing the total job losses for the first 5 consecutive months of this year to over 325,000. Americans are now facing increasing burdens from the soaring price of gas, high food prices, rising unemployment and a home mortgage foreclosure and credit crisis. This year we have seen the worst plunge in new homes sales in two decades. The press reported that new home sales fell 8.5 percent in March, the slowest sales pace since October 1991, and the median price of a home sold dropped 13.3 percent compared to the previous year. That was the biggest year-over-year price decline in four decades. You would have to go back to July 1970 to find a larger decline. Unfortunately, this bad economic news for hard-working Americans is nothing new under the Bush administration. During the Bush administration, unemployment is up more than 20 percent and trillions of dollars in budget surplus have been turned into trillions of dollars of debt, with an annual budget deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. Last week, the price of oil soared to nearly $139 a barrel, nearly twice what it was at this time last year. When President Bush took office, the price of gas was $1.42 a gallon. Today, it is at an all-time high of over $4.00 a gallon. According to a recent poll, 81 percent of Americans today believe that our country is headed in the wrong direction. It costs more than $1 billion a day--$1 billion a day--just to pay down the interest on the national debt and the massive costs generated by the disastrous war in Iraq. That's $365 billion this year that would be better spent on priorities like health care for all Americans, better schools, fighting crime, and treating diseases at home and abroad. In contrast, one of the few numbers actually going down as the President winds down his tenure is that of judicial vacancies. Senate Democrats have worked hard to make progress on judicial nominations, lowering circuit court vacancies by almost two-thirds from the level to which the Republican Senate majority had built them. Any effort to turn attention from the real issues facing Americans to win political points with judicial nominations is neither prudent, nor productive. Today we confirm three nominations for lifetime appointments. The first, Mark S. Davis, currently serves as Chief Judge of the Portsmouth Circuit Court, Third Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Prior to his appointment to the bench in 2003, Judge Davis worked in private practice at several Virginia law firms. David Gregory Kays currently serves as the presiding circuit court judge for the Twenty-Sixth Judicial Circuit for the State of Missouri, where he has served since his first election in 2005. Previously, Judge Kays served as an associate circuit judge for Laclede County Circuit Court in Missouri and as chief assistant prosecuting attorney in Laclede County. Stephen N. Limbaugh is a supreme court judge and former chief justice on the Supreme Court of Missouri. Previously, Judge Limbaugh was appointed and then elected Circuit Judge for the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri. Before his career on the State bench, Judge Limbaugh was an elected prosecuting attorney and also worked in private practice. So today we make progress, and the Senate is likely to confirm three additional lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. I congratulate the nominees and their families on their confirmation today. Mr. President, how much time remains on either side?

Mr. LEAHY. I yield to Senator Webb on my time, Mr. President.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would commend one more time the two Senators from Virginia, both dear friends of mine, for the fact we worked as one Democrat, one Republican with the White House to get us past this impasse. And I commend President Bush for withdrawing controversial nominees and working toward consensus nominees. That is why this nominee will go through, I suspect unanimously, in this body. I also commend the two Senators from Missouri, Senators Bond and McCaskill, for working together. Has all time been yielded back?

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am happy to join with Senators Cornyn, Kohl, and Whitehouse as we introduce the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act Amendments of 2008. An earlier version of this small but important piece of legislation was passed unanimously by both the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate last year. The updated version of the bill that we offer today reflects conversations we have had recently with the Navy and gives the Department of Defense full assurance that Government and defense designs will not be subject to unwarranted restrictions. Congress passed the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act in 1998 to recognize the significant time, effort, and innovation involved in ship design. Litigation under the bill, however, has made it clear that in order to be effective, this law needs to be clarified and refined. Our bill does exactly this, and no more, by clarifying the definition of ``hull'' and ``deck.'' This ensures that the intellectual property rights of vessel hull designers will be protected. I hope the Senate will move quickly to pass this revised, bipartisan legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am happy to join with Senators Cornyn, Kohl, and Whitehouse as we introduce the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act Amendments of 2008. An earlier version of this small but important piece of legislation was passed unanimously by both the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate last year. The updated version of the bill that we offer today reflects conversations we have had recently with the Navy and gives the Department of Defense full assurance that Government and defense designs will not be subject to unwarranted restrictions. Congress passed the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act in 1998 to recognize the significant time, effort, and innovation involved in ship design. Litigation under the bill, however, has made it clear that in order to be effective, this law needs to be clarified and refined. Our bill does exactly this, and no more, by clarifying the definition of ``hull'' and ``deck.'' This ensures that the intellectual property rights of vessel hull designers will be protected. I hope the Senate will move quickly to pass this revised, bipartisan legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this week the Senate has undertaken the beginning of a historic debate on global warming. For the past week we have attempted to pass this important legislation that will reduce the carbon dioxide pollution that causes global warming, while using market incentives to create American jobs. Unfortunately it appears the other side of aisle has no interest in enacting this important global warming legislation. I am disappointed a minority in the Senate are blocking our efforts to move forward on this important bill. The time for debate about the existence of global warming has ended. We are staring down the barrel of global crisis if we do not aggressively address this problem now, and not 5 years from now or when the oil companies decide the time is right. The most recent assessment of global climate change published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, in November found that the Earth's climate indisputably has warmed over the past century. Most of this increase is very likely due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations created by humans--primarily from the use of fossil fuels. As we look around us every day and see all of the exhaust gases emanating from factories, buildings, and vehicles, it only stands to reason that human activity now, and for much of the last century, increasingly has become a factor in the quality of the air we breathe and in the natural processes of our environment. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program, CCSP, recently released the first of several climate change reports, and their assessment was stark. They report that even under the most optimistic carbon dioxide emission scenarios, we can expect a host of profound impacts that range from changes in sea level and regional and super-regional temperature hikes, to increased incidence of disturbances such as forest fires, insect outbreaks, severe storms, and drought. If we do not take aggressive action now to curb emissions, our environmental and economic future is bleak. Even as we speak, our world is experiencing alarming and detrimental changes from manmade greenhouse gases. The Arctic Sea ice melted in 2007 to the smallest coverage since satellite measurements began in 1979--perhaps 50 percent below sea ice levels of the 1950s. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado projects that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as early as 2030. As if to highlight the urgency, while the EPA was recently delaying a decision over whether to add polar bears to the threatened species list due to a decrease in their habitat, more than 160 square miles of arctic ice collapsed away from the Wilkins Ice Shelf. If we needed any clearer signal that now is the time to address this problem, the partial collapse of an arctic shelf formed more than 1500 years ago should leave no doubt. How do we responsibly and aggressively address this problem? According to the Bush administration, we should talk about curbing global climate change on the one hand, while quietly eroding the safety net that had been designed to better protect our environment with the other. We need only to look at the recent unprecedented intervention by this administration in the EPA's decision to override the institutional advice of the EPA's own experts--not to mention the Clean Air Act--and stop California, Vermont, and 15 other States from setting their own tailpipe emission standards. Even the release of CCSP research on climate change last week had to be mandated by court order--and during the course of this research, scientists left the CCSP alleging the administration was rewriting the science for political purposes. Add to all of this the auctioning of environmentally sensitive public lands for oil development, the weakening of air quality regulations for corporate polluters, and the billions of dollars of handouts in the form of subsidies to oil companies at the expense of renewable energy, and it adds up to 8 years of an administration that cares more about corporate profits than the public's health and our environment's protection. This legislation is not a perfect solution, but its goals are positive and its solutions are constructive. The annual reductions in emissions, funding for renewable energy technologies, and a cap-and- trade system designed to reward companies that invest in cleaner energy are innovative solutions to a problem that won't just go away on its own. Failure to address global warming is a failure to address weather catastrophes that can destroy entire Nations, a failure to address the loss of species that will never return, and a failure to pass along to future generations--our children, our grandchildren, and beyond--the kind of world we want for them.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, just one other point, if I might. Was the majority leader aware that on at least a couple of occasions, for circuit court of appeals judges, when I came back from Vermont during a recess to hold a hearing at the request of Republicans because they were anxious to get these court of appeals judges through, that the Republicans then criticized me for coming back and holding the hearings and getting them confirmed? Is the leader aware of that?

Mr. LEAHY. If the Senator will yield without losing his right to the floor, nobody has. In fact, as I listen to this colloquy, I was wondering what was going on until I read in the Washington Times the Republican fixation on judges is part of an effort to bolster Senator John McCain's standing among conservatives--which is unfortunate; to bring in the judiciary, the independent Federal judiciary, and make them a political tool. I was reminded once when my children were young, one of them asked me, they said: Dad, what is the expression ``crocodile tears''? I tried to explain to them what crocodile tears are, and I couldn't help but think tonight, listening to our good friends on the other side--if my children were still young, I would say: There, now you understand what crocodile tears are. We had, last year--and the distinguished leader has referred to this; the Democrats were in charge, me as chairman, Senator Reid as majority leader--we reported 40 judicial nominations to the Senate, and all 40 were confirmed each of the 3 years prior, with a Republican majority, Republican chairman. That is more than they did. It is interesting, in fact, since President Bush has been in office this is the third time we have been in the majority--one of those times very briefly. Republicans have been in the majority three times. Guess who moved----

Mr. LEAHY. If I can answer my question----

Mr. LEAHY. To further answer the question.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will not ask how the distinguished Senator from Kentucky would define crocodile tears, but I ask this question of the distinguished majority leader: Was he aware that during the time when Democrats have been in charge, during President Bush's tenure, we have confirmed judges at a faster pace than when the Republicans were in charge? Was the distinguished majority leader aware of that?

Mr. LEAHY. Will the distinguished majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. LEAHY. Is the leader aware this is the first I heard that anybody wanted to? Not a single member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Republican side even raised to me that they wanted to move forward with them. Is the distinguished majority leader aware that when the Republicans were in the majority, when they had judges they wanted moved they usually waited to put them on until after the request had come from our side to put them on? Was the leader aware of that? Was the leader aware of the fact that nobody--nobody--has raised this? In fact, the first I heard about it was an hour ago.

Mr. LEAHY. As I said, at least I would like to discuss them with the ranking member.

Mr. LEAHY. Well, Mr. President, to answer the distinguished leader, as I always assume the Republican leader to do because this has been the practice, certainly as long as he has been in the Senate--perhaps he has forgotten--is that the chairman of these committees sets a time for a vote, and it is almost always, as a matter of courtesy, at least, discussed with the ranking minority member. I realize the hour is late and the Republican leader may have forgotten that. But it has been my practice to always discuss the time of the vote with the ranking member, as he did with me when he was chairman. To answer the majority leader's question, of course I will be happy to talk with the distinguished ranking member of the committee and find time when they might be scheduled. I might point out, each one of those was expedited. I would ask two brief questions--and then I will leave--of the distinguished majority leader. Was he aware that, when talking statistics, I committed not to follow the precedent of the Republicans when President Clinton was the President, their precedent of pocket filibustering over 60 of President Clinton's nominees? Was the distinguished majority leader aware that I will not follow that precedent and we will not pocket filibuster 60 or anywhere near that?

Mr. LEAHY. He is right. I ask the leader one last question on why I mentioned the Washington Times story about the motivation for this. Was he aware that one of the circuit court nominees whom we held up for a number of appropriate reasons--that even after that nominee was convicted of criminal fraud that occurred while his nomination was pending, we were still criticized for holding up that nominee? It is kind of you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Carris Reels of Rutland, VT, for receiving the 2008 ESOP Association's ``Company of the Year'' award. Founded in 1951 by Henry Carris, and bought by his son, Bill Carris, in 1980, Carris Reels sells a full line of manufactured reel products for a wide variety of industries. Today, Carris Reels has about 550 employee owners and eight locations nationwide. The company became 100-percent employee owned in January 2008. One of the unique characteristics of Carris Reels is the company's steering committee, which goes beyond the basic functions of most ESOP committees and takes responsibility for allocations of benefits, quality of work-life issues, communications, training, and governance. Made up of both management and corporate employees, the Committee keeps alive the vision of former owner Bill Carris who moved the company toward employee ownership in 1995. Bill has said that organizations consist of three dimensions: spiritual, emotional, and physical. The strong business his family built and the employees now own is proof positive that these dimensions will remain a legacy at Carris Reels. Carris Reels also is a strong supporter of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center, VEOC, a statewide nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to provide information and resources to owners interested in selling their business to their employees, employee groups interested in purchasing a business, and entrepreneurs who wish to start up a company with broadly shared ownership. To date, the VEOC has given direct assistance to over 60 Vermont businesses, employing over 1,700 Vermonters. I applaud the VEOC for holding its Sixth Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Burlington later this week. Once again, I congratulate all of the employees at Carris Reels for this well-deserved recognition. They make great reels; they do business well; and they treat their employees right--all of these accomplishments, I believe, are related. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of an article about the award from the June 2, 2008, Rutland Herald be printed in the Record so that all Senators can read about the success and admirable business practices of this visionary Vermont company.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my friend from California, Senator Feinstein, in sponsoring this joint resolution calling on the administration to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions when it is open for signature in December. This treaty is the product of a year of negotiations among many of our closest allies and other nations that came together to prohibit the use of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. I regret that the United States did not participate in the negotiations. The Pentagon continues to insist that cluster munitions are necessary, but the country with the world's most powerful military should not be on the sidelines while others are trying to protect the lives and limbs of civilians in war. Any weapon, whether cluster munitions, landmines or even poison gas, has some military utility. But anyone who has seen the indiscriminate devastation cluster munitions cause over a wide area understands the unacceptable threat they pose for civilians. These are not the laser guided weapons that were shown destroying their targets during the invasion of Baghdad. And there is the insidious problem of cluster munitions that do not explode as designed, and remain as active duds, like landmines, until they are triggered by whoever comes into contact with them. Often it is an unsuspecting child, or a farmer. This resolution follows an amendment I sponsored which prohibits U.S. sales and exports of cluster munitions that do not meet strict criteria, which became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008. These criteria are no different from what the Pentagon set for itself 7 years ago for new procurements of cluster munitions, applied also to those in existing U.S. stockpiles. Senator Feinstein and I have also introduced legislation that would apply these same criteria to the use of cluster munitions. That legislation now has 20 cosponsors. I want to express my appreciation to the Government of Norway for its leadership in initiating the process that led to the agreement on the treaty in Dublin, and to the Cluster Munitions Coalition, a group of some 200 nongovernmental organizations that worked diligently in support of the treaty. I traveled to Dublin last week to meet with delegates to the negotiations, including the president of the Conference Daithi O'Ceallaigh. He did a masterful job of guiding the discussions to a successful conclusion. There are some who have dismissed this effort as a ``feel good'' exercise, since it does not have the support of the United States and other major powers such as Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Israel. These are the same critics of the Ottawa treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, which the U.S. and the other countries I named have also refused to sign. But that treaty has dramatically reduced the number of landmines produced, used, sold and stockpiled, and the number of mine victims has fallen sharply. Any government that contemplates using landmines today does so knowing that it will be condemned by the international community. I suspect it is only a matter of time before the same is true for cluster munitions. The administration insists that the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, known as the CCW, is the right place to negotiate limits on cluster munitions because all countries are represented. I don't doubt their intentions, but it is what they said about landmines, and nothing happened because Russia and China were opposed. The same is likely for cluster munitions. It is a way to make it appear as if you are doing something, when you are not. It is important to note that the U.S. today has the technological ability to produce cluster munitions that would not be prohibited by the treaty. What is lacking is the political will to expend the necessary resources. There is no other excuse for continuing to use cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. Finally, I want to thank Senator Feinstein who has shown a real passion for this issue and has sought every opportunity to protect civilians from these weapons.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, if I could respond to something the Senator from California said, I commend Senator Feinstein for her efforts. She has worked very hard on this privacy matter. I realize there are some who want to block it. If you are a person who has had your identity stolen, if you have had your computer hacked, and somebody has gone into your bank account or somebody has ruined the chances of your children getting into a college, all from identity theft, you would be rushing down here to vote for this bill. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle, Republican Senators, will stop objecting. I hope we can pass this legislation.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, before the last recess, the Senate confirmed Judge G. Steven Agee of Virginia to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His confirmation lowered the remaining vacancies on that circuit to less than there were at the end of the Clinton administration, when a Republican-controlled Senate had refused to consider any nominees to the Fourth Circuit during the last 2 years of the Clinton Presidency. The Republican Senate majority used the Clinton years to more than double circuit court vacancies around the country. By contrast, we have already reduced circuit court vacancies by almost two-thirds, in the process reducing them to zero or only a single vacancy in nearly every circuit. We have already reduced vacancies among the 13 Federal circuit courts throughout the country from 32--which is what it was when I became chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the summer of 2001--to 11, the lowest number of vacancies in more than a decade. When Republican Senators are ready to allow us to consider and confirm the President's nominations to fill the last two remaining vacancies on the Sixth Circuit, yet another circuit will be without any vacancies. We will reduce the total number of circuit court vacancies to single digits for the first time in decades. Lost in all the agitating from the other side of the aisle is the fact that we have succeeded in reducing circuit court vacancies to historically low levels. In addition, this work period we have the opportunity to complete Senate consideration of five additional nominees for lifetime appointment to Federal courts, which are pending on the Senate's Executive Calendar. The Judiciary Committee has favorably reported the nominations of Mark Davis of Virginia to fill a vacancy in the Eastern District of Virginia, David Kays of Missouri to fill a vacancy in the Western District of Missouri, Stephen Limbaugh of Missouri to fill a vacancy in the Eastern District of Missouri, William Lawrence of Indiana to fill a vacancy in the Southern District of Indiana and Murray Snow of Arizona to fill a vacancy there. In addition, when the Judiciary Committee considers the nominations of Judge Helene White and Ray Kethledge to the Sixth Circuit, we will also consider the nomination of Stephen Murphy to the Eastern District of Michigan. Thus, with cooperation from across the aisle, the Senate should be in position to have confirmed four circuit court judges and 11 district court judges before the Fourth of July recess, for a total of 15 additional Federal judges. By comparison, during the 1996 session when a Republican Senate majority was considering the judicial nominees of a Democratic President in a Presidential election year, not a single judge was confirmed before the Fourth of July recess--not even one. That was the same session in which they failed to confirm a single circuit court nominee. Another stark comparison is that on June 1, 2000, when a Republican Senate majority was considering the judicial nominees of a Democratic President in a Presidential election year, there were 66 judicial vacancies. Twenty were circuit court vacancies, and 46 were district court vacancies. Those vacancies were the result of years of Republican pocket filibusters of judicial nominations. This year, by comparison there are just 47 total vacancies with only 11 circuit vacancies and 36 district court vacancies. If we can continue to make progress this month, the current vacancies could be reduced to fewer than 40, with only 9 circuit court vacancies and 30 district court vacancies. The history is clear. When Republicans were busy pocket filibustering Clinton nominees, Federal judicial vacancies grew to more than 100, and circuit vacancies to more than 30. When I became chairman for the first time in the summer of 2001, we quickly--and dramatically--lowered vacancies. The 100 nominations we confirmed in only 17 months, while working with a most uncooperative White House, reduced vacancies by 45 percent. After the 4 intervening years of a Republican Senate majority, vacancies remained about level. It is the Democratic Senate majority that has again worked hard to lower them in this Congress. We have gone from more than 110 vacancies to less than 50. With respect to Federal circuit court vacancies, we have reversed course from the days during which the Republican Senate majority more than doubled circuit vacancies. Circuit vacancies have been reduced by almost two-thirds and have not been this low since 1996, when the Republican tactics of slowing judicial confirmations began in earnest. Consider for a moment the numbers: After another productive month, just 9 of the 178 authorized circuit court judgeships will remain vacant--just 9--a vacancy rate down from 18 percent to just 5 percent. With 168 active appellate judges and 104 senior status judges serving on the Federal Courts of Appeals, there are 272 circuit court judges. I expect that is the most in our history. I regret to report that when I tried to expedite consideration of President Bush's two Sixth Circuit nominations last month, I encountered only criticism from the Republican side of the aisle, as did one of the nominees. Senator Brownback publicly apologized for his actions at the hearing, and I commended him for doing so. We have now received the updated ABA rating for President Bush's nomination of Judge Helene White to the Sixth Circuit. She received a well qualified rating. That did not come as any surprise. She has served ably on the Michigan state appellate courts and acquired additional experience in the decade since when she was nominated by President Clinton and the Republican Senate majority refused to consider her nomination. The White and Kethledge nominations to the Sixth Circuit break a logjam after 7 long years. In light of Republican criticism of my efforts to expedite consideration of President Bush's Sixth Circuit nominations, I have said that the nominations would be scheduled for committee consideration after we received updated ratings from the ABA. Now we have and I plan to include them on the agenda for the committee's business meeting on June 12. I trust that all Senators will be prepared to consider and vote on the nominations at that time. That should provide the Senate with the opportunity to consider them before the July 4 recess. The President has not nominated anyone to 16 current judicial vacancies. He has refused since 2004 to work with the California Senators on a successor to Judge Trott on the Ninth Circuit. The district court vacancies without nominees span from those that arose in Mississippi and Michigan in 2006, to several from 2007 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana and the District of Columbia, to others that arose earlier this year in Kansas, Virginia, Washington, and several in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Disputes over a handful of controversial judicial nominations have wasted valuable time that could be spent on the real priorities of every American. I have sought, instead, to make progress where we can. The result is the significant reduction in judicial vacancies. The alternative is to risk becoming embroiled in contentious debates for months. The most recent controversial Bush judicial nomination took 5\1/2\ months of debate after a hearing before Senate action was possible. I am sure there are some who prefer partisan fights designed to energize a political base during an election year, but I do not. I will continue in this Congress, and with a new President in the next Congress, to work with Senators from both sides of the aisle to ensure that the Federal judiciary remains independent, and able to provide justice to all Americans, without fear or favor. In fact, our work has led to a reduction in vacancies in nearly every circuit, reducing vacancies on almost every circuit to only one or none. Both the Second and Fifth Circuits had circuit-wide emergencies due to the multiple simultaneous vacancies during the Clinton years with Republicans in control of the Senate. Both the Second Circuit and the Fifth Circuit now are without a single vacancy. We have already succeeded in lowering vacancies in the Second Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, the Sixth Circuit, the Eighth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, the Eleventh Circuit, the DC Circuit, and the Federal Circuit. Circuits with no current vacancies include the Seventh Circuit, the Eighth Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, the Eleventh Circuit and the Federal Circuit. When we are allowed to proceed with President Bush's nominations of Judge White and Ray Kethledge to the Sixth Circuit, it will join that list of Federal circuits without a single vacancy. My approach has been consistent throughout my chairmanships during the Bush Presidency. The results have been positive. Last year, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported 40 judicial nominations to the Senate and all 40 were confirmed. That was more than had been confirmed in any of the three preceding years when a Republican chairman and Republican Senate majority managed the process. Still, some partisans seem determined to provoke an election year fight over nominations. The press accounts are filled with threats of Republican reprisals. The May 14 issue of Roll Call boasted the following headline: ``GOP Itching for Fight Over Judges; Reid's Pledge to Move Three Before Recess Fails to Appease Minority.'' Then in a recent article in The Washington Times, we read that the Republican fixation on judges is part of an effort to bolster Senator McCain's standing among conservatives. There seem to be no steps we could take to satisfy Senate Republicans on nominations because they are using it as a partisan issue to rev up their partisan political base. Among the reasons that Republican complaints about the Fourth Circuit ring hollow is that the emergency vacancy on the Fourth Circuit from North Carolina exists only because the Republican Senate majority refused to consider any of President Clinton's nominees to fill that vacancy. All four nominees from North Carolina to the Fourth Circuit were blocked from consideration by the Republican Senate majority. That also prevented President Clinton from integrating the Fourth Circuit through appointment of Judge Beaty or Judge Wynn. Of course, during the Clinton administration, Republican Senators argued that the Fourth Circuit vacancies did not need to be filled because the Fourth Circuit had the fastest docket time to disposition in the country. That was the period when Fourth Circuit vacancies rose to five. One of those vacancies--to a seat in North Carolina--still exists because the President insisted on nominating and renominating Terrence Boyle over the course of 6 years to fill that vacancy. That highly controversial nomination persisted for years despite the strong opposition of law enforcement officers from across the country, civil rights groups, and those knowledgeable and respectful of judicial ethics opposed the nomination. The Fourth Circuit now has fewer vacancies than it did when Republicans claimed no more judges were needed, and fewer vacancies than at the end of the Clinton administration. I have already said that once the paperwork on President Bush's nomination of Judge Glen Conrad to the Fourth Circuit is completed, if there is sufficient time, I hope to move to that nomination. This is not the first time we have heard false complaints about our progress on nominations. One of the Republicans' favorite talking points is to use a mythical ``statistical average'' of selected years to argue that the Senate must confirm 15 circuit judges in this Congress. They only achieve this inflated so-called ``historical average'' by taking advantage of the high confirmation numbers of Democratic-led Senates confirming the nominees of President Reagan and the first President Bush. They ignore their own record of doubling vacancies during the Clinton administration, including during the 1996 session when the Republican-led Senate refused to confirm a single circuit court nominee. They do not like to recall that during the 1996 session, when a Republican majority controlled the Senate during a Presidential election year, they refused to confirm any circuit court judges at all--not one. Their practice of pocket filibustering President Clinton's judicial nominees led Chief Justice Rehnquist to criticize them publicly. Chief Justice Rehnquist was hardly a Democratic partisan. Quite the contrary. Even he was appalled by the actions of the Republican Senate majority. In his 1996 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, he wrote: Because the number of judges confirmed in 1996 was low in comparison to the number confirmed in preceding years, the vacancy rate is beginning to climb. When the 104th Congress adjourned in 1996, 17 new judges had been appointed and 28 nominations had not been acted upon. Fortunately, a dependable corps of senior judges contributes significantly to easing the impact of unfilled judgeships. It is hoped that the Administration and Congress will continue to recognize that filling judicial vacancies is crucial to the fair and effective administration of justice. When that shot across the bow did not lead the Republican Senate majority to reverse course, Chief Justice Rehnquist spoke up, again, in his 1997 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary. It was a salvo from a Republican Chief Justice critical of the Republican Senate leadership: Currently, 82 of the 846 Article III judicial offices in the federal Judiciary--almost one out of every ten--are vacant. Twenty-six of the vacancies have been in existence for 18 months or longer and on that basis constitute what are called ``judicial emergencies.'' In the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the percentage of vacancies is particularly troubling, with over one-third of its seats empty. Judicial vacancies can contribute to a backlog of cases, undue delays in civil cases, and stopgap measures to shift judicial personnel where they are most needed. Vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely without eroding the quality of justice that traditionally has been associated with the federal Judiciary. Fortunately for the Judiciary, a dependable corps of senior judges has contributed significantly to easing the impact of unfilled judgeships. It was only after the scorching criticism by a Republican Chief Justice that the Republican Senate majority modified its approach in order to allow some of the nominations that had been held back for years to finally proceed. Having built up scores of vacancies, some were allowed to be filled while the Republican Senate majority carefully kept vacant circuit court positions to be filled by President Clinton's successor. It is in that context that Republican claims of magnanimity must be seen for what it was. It is in that context that the 8 circuit confirmations in 2000 must be evaluated while the Republican Senate majority returned 17 circuit nominations to President Clinton at the end of that session without action. By contrast, the Democratic Senate majority has worked steadily and steadfastly to lower vacancies and make progress, and we have. When Senate Republicans allow the Senate to confirm President Bush's Sixth circuit nominees, we will have achieved the average number of circuit confirmations the Republican Senate majority achieved in presidential election years and lowered circuit vacancies to an historically low level. Further, the Republican effort to create an issue over judicial confirmations is sorely misplaced. Americans are now facing an economic recession, massive job losses of 232,000 in the first 3 months of this year, increasing burdens from the soaring price of gas, and a home mortgage foreclosure and credit crisis. Last month, the Commerce Department reported the worst plunge in new homes sales in two decades. The press reported that new home sales fell 8.5 percent to the slowest sales pace since October 1991, and the median price of a home sold in March dropped 13.3 percent compared to the previous year. That was the biggest year-over-year price decline in four decades. You would have to go back to July 1970 to find a larger decline. Sales of existing homes also fell in March, as did employment and orders for big ticket manufactured goods, both of which fell for the third month in a row. Unfortunately, this bad economic news for hard-working Americans is nothing new under the Bush administration. During the Bush administration, unemployment is up more than 20 percent; the price of gas has more than doubled and is now at a record high national average of over $3.94; trillions of dollars in budget surplus have been turned into trillions of dollars of debt, with an annual budget deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to a recent poll, 81 percent of Americans today believe that our country is headed in the wrong direction. It costs more than $1 billion a day--$1 billion a day--just to pay down the interest on the national debt and the massive costs generated by the disastrous war in Iraq. That's $365 billion this year that would be better spent on priorities like health care for all Americans, better schools, fighting crime, and treating diseases at home and abroad. In contrast, one of the few numbers actually going down as the President winds down his tenure is that of judicial vacancies. Senate Democrats have worked hard to make progress on judicial nominations, lowering circuit court vacancies by almost two-thirds from the level to which the Republican Senate majority had build them. Any effort to turn attention from the real issues facing Americans to win political points with judicial nominations is neither prudent, nor productive.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my friend from California, Senator Feinstein, in sponsoring this joint resolution calling on the administration to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions when it is open for signature in December. This treaty is the product of a year of negotiations among many of our closest allies and other nations that came together to prohibit the use of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. I regret that the United States did not participate in the negotiations. The Pentagon continues to insist that cluster munitions are necessary, but the country with the world's most powerful military should not be on the sidelines while others are trying to protect the lives and limbs of civilians in war. Any weapon, whether cluster munitions, landmines or even poison gas, has some military utility. But anyone who has seen the indiscriminate devastation cluster munitions cause over a wide area understands the unacceptable threat they pose for civilians. These are not the laser guided weapons that were shown destroying their targets during the invasion of Baghdad. And there is the insidious problem of cluster munitions that do not explode as designed, and remain as active duds, like landmines, until they are triggered by whoever comes into contact with them. Often it is an unsuspecting child, or a farmer. This resolution follows an amendment I sponsored which prohibits U.S. sales and exports of cluster munitions that do not meet strict criteria, which became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008. These criteria are no different from what the Pentagon set for itself 7 years ago for new procurements of cluster munitions, applied also to those in existing U.S. stockpiles. Senator Feinstein and I have also introduced legislation that would apply these same criteria to the use of cluster munitions. That legislation now has 20 cosponsors. I want to express my appreciation to the Government of Norway for its leadership in initiating the process that led to the agreement on the treaty in Dublin, and to the Cluster Munitions Coalition, a group of some 200 nongovernmental organizations that worked diligently in support of the treaty. I traveled to Dublin last week to meet with delegates to the negotiations, including the president of the Conference Daithi O'Ceallaigh. He did a masterful job of guiding the discussions to a successful conclusion. There are some who have dismissed this effort as a ``feel good'' exercise, since it does not have the support of the United States and other major powers such as Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Israel. These are the same critics of the Ottawa treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, which the U.S. and the other countries I named have also refused to sign. But that treaty has dramatically reduced the number of landmines produced, used, sold and stockpiled, and the number of mine victims has fallen sharply. Any government that contemplates using landmines today does so knowing that it will be condemned by the international community. I suspect it is only a matter of time before the same is true for cluster munitions. The administration insists that the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, known as the CCW, is the right place to negotiate limits on cluster munitions because all countries are represented. I don't doubt their intentions, but it is what they said about landmines, and nothing happened because Russia and China were opposed. The same is likely for cluster munitions. It is a way to make it appear as if you are doing something, when you are not. It is important to note that the U.S. today has the technological ability to produce cluster munitions that would not be prohibited by the treaty. What is lacking is the political will to expend the necessary resources. There is no other excuse for continuing to use cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. Finally, I want to thank Senator Feinstein who has shown a real passion for this issue and has sought every opportunity to protect civilians from these weapons.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Illinois for his statement. I appreciate that he mentioned his grandfather and others who were helped by the GI bill of rights. There are so many people I know in Vermont who were able to get an education because of that bill. I also commend the Senator from Washington State. As always, she carries out Herculean tasks on this floor and does it in the best tradition of the Senate. I thank Chairman Byrd and Senator Cochran for their work on this supplemental bill. The Appropriations Committee has a long tradition of bipartisanship, and the two leaders, the Republican leader and the Democratic leader, have always demonstrated that, just as I have tried in the Foreign Operations subcommittee, working with Senator Gregg and his staff. We worked closely together to make difficult choices, including finding funds for urgent humanitarian needs that the President's budget overlooked. For the first time, we require the Government of Iraq, which has an oil surplus--with oil selling for over $120 a barrel--to match U.S. funds dollar for dollar. It is time for Iraq to pay a larger share of its own reconstruction. This requirement, included by Senator Gregg and myself, would lessen the burden on American taxpayers. We provide $450 million to Mexico and Central America, to help our neighbors to the south combat the drug cartels. This is the first down payment on a multi-year program. I spoke in this chamber at greater length about the Merida Initiative yesterday. We have significantly increased funding for refugees, including Iraqi refugees. I thank Senator Gregg for helping us provide $650 million for assistance for Jordan, and I thank Senator Edward Kennedy for the money included for Iraqi refugees. Thanks to Senators Biden and Lugar, the bill includes essential authority to enable the administration to help dismantle North Korea's nuclear facilities. As other Senators have mentioned, this bill also provides funds for critical domestic needs, from repairing decaying infrastructure in America to disaster relief for American victims of floods, tornadoes, and other disasters. We are helping to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are also providing funds to help the American people the President's budget left out. I wish the President had considered these needs in his supplemental request. He wants to fix roads in Afghanistan, but we also need to fix roads in America. He wants to repair infrastructure in Iraq, but we need to repair infrastructure in America. My State and the States of every Senator are waiting for help from the Federal Government. Working together, both parties, we have addressed important national security interests, but we have also addressed the urgent needs of the American people at home.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the fiscal year 2008 supplemental appropriations bill provides $450 million for the Merida Initiative, including $350 million for Mexico and $100 million for Central America, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. This is the first installment of an ongoing commitment to help our neighbors to the south respond to the growing violence and corruption of heavily armed drug cartels. It represents a tenfold increase in assistance for Mexico in a single year. The Merida Initiative is a partnership, and we recognize that achieving its goals presents an extraordinarily difficult challenge. The United States is the principal market for most of the illegal drugs coming from Mexico and Central America. We are also the source of most of the guns used by the Mexican and Central American cartels. Each country contributes to this problem, and we each have to be part of the solution. President Calderon and President Bush deserve credit for the Merida Initiative. Better and more cooperative relations between our countries are long overdue. It is unfortunate, however, that neither the Mexican or Central American legislatures, nor the U.S. Congress, nor representatives of civil society, had a role in shaping the Merida Initiative. There was no refinement through consultation. I first learned of it from the press, as did other Members of Congress. As we have come to expect from this administration, the White House reached a secret agreement with foreign governments calling for hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and then came to Congress demanding a blank check. I support the goals of the Merida Initiative, and this bill provides a very generous downpayment on what I believe will be a far longer commitment than the 3-year initiative proposed by the administration. It will take longer than 1 year just to obligate and expend the $350 million for Mexico in this supplemental bill, and the President has requested another $477 million for Mexico in fiscal year 2009. In addition to appropriating the funds, most of which may be obligated immediately, we require the Secretary of State to determine and report that procedures are in place and actions are taken by the Mexican and Central American governments to ensure that recipients of our aid are not involved in corruption or human rights violations, and that members of the military and police forces who commit violations are brought to justice. This is fundamental. For years we have trained Mexican and Central American police forces, and it is well known that some of them have ended up working for the drug cartels. It is common knowledge that corruption is rampant within their law enforcement institutions--the very entities we are about to support. It is also beyond dispute that Mexican and Central American military and police forces have a long history of human rights violations-- including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and extra-judicial killings for which they have rarely been held accountable. Examples of army and police officers who have been prosecuted and punished for these heinous crimes are few and far between. Mexican human rights defenders who criticize the military for violating human rights fear for their lives. Some, particularly the Mexican press, argue that conditioning our aid on adherence to the rule of law is somehow an ``infringement of sovereignty,'' ``subjugation'' or ``meddling,'' or that it ``sends the wrong message.'' I strongly disagree. Since when is it bad policy, or an infringement of anything, to insist that American taxpayer dollars not be given to corrupt, abusive police or military forces in a country whose justice system has serious flaws and rarely punishes official misconduct? This is a partnership, not a giveaway. As one who has criticized my own government for failing to uphold U.S. and international law, as has occurred in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, I believe it is our duty to insist on respect for fundamental principles of justice. I am confident that the Mexican and American people agree. Mr. President, like Senators Dodd, Reid, Menendez and many others here, both Democrats and Republicans, I have long urged closer relations with Mexico. We have much in common, yet throughout our history U.S. policy toward Mexico has been far more one of neglect than of mutual respect and cooperation. Whether it is trade and investment, immigration, the environment, health, science, cultural and academic exchange, human rights, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and other cross border crime and violence--our contiguous countries are linked in numerous ways. We should work to deepen and expand our relations. The Merida Initiative is one approach, and while I and many others would prefer that it encompassed broader forms of engagement, it is a start. Most of the funds are for law enforcement hardware and software, which is necessary but insufficient to support a sustainable strategy. As we have learned from successive costly counterdrug strategies in the Andean countries that have failed to effectively reduce the amount of cocaine entering the United States, we need to know what the Merida Initiative can reasonably expect to achieve, at what cost, over what period of time. Senator Gregg as ranking member, and I as chairman of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee had to make difficult choices among many competing demands within a limited budget. We had to find additional funds to help disaster victims in Burma, Central Africa, Bangladesh and elsewhere, whom the President's budget ignored. We had to find additional funds for Iraqi refugees and for crucial peacekeeping, security, and nonproliferation programs. We could not have funded virtually any program at the level requested by the President without causing disproportionate harm to others, and we sought to avoid that. Considering the amount we had to spend, the Merida Initiative received strong, bipartisan support. Again, this is not simply a 3 year program as the administration suggests. It is the beginning of a new kind of relationship, and we need to start off prudently and with solid footing. That means the direct participation of the Congress and of civil society and attention to legitimate concerns about human rights, about monitoring and oversight, about rights of privacy, due process, and accountability. How these issues are resolved is critical to future funding for this program, and we need to work together to address them.