Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Pryor to introduce the ``Effective Corruption Prosecutions Act of 2007,'' a bill to strengthen the tools available to Federal prosecutors in combating public corruption. This bill gives investigators and prosecutors the statutory tools and the resources they need to ensure that serious and insidious public corruption is detected and punished. In November, voters sent a strong message that they were tired of the culture of corruption. From war profiteers and corrupt officials in Iraq to convicted Administration officials to influence-peddling lobbyists and, regrettably, even Members of Congress, too many supposed public servants were serving their own interests, rather than the public interest. The American people staged an intervention and made it clear that they would not stand for it any longer. They expect the Congress to take action. We need to restore the people's trust by acting to clean up the people's government. The Senate's new leadership is introducing important lobbying reform and ethics legislation. Similar legislation passed the Senate last year, but stalled in the House. This is a vital first step. But the most serious corruption cannot be prevented only by changing our own rules. Bribery and extortion are committed by people bent on getting around the rules and banking that they won't get caught. These offenses are very difficult to detect and even harder to prove. Because they attack the core of our democracy, these offenses must be found out and punished. Congress must send a signal that it will not tolerate this corruption by providing better tools for federal prosecutors to combat it. This bill will do exactly that. First, the bill extends the statute of limitations for the most serious public corruption offenses. Specifically, it extends the statute of limitations from five years to eight years for bribery, deprivation of honest services, and extortion by a public official. This is an important step because public corruption cases are among the most difficult and time-consuming cases to investigate and prosecute. They often require use of informants and electronic monitoring, as well as review of extensive financial and electronic records, techniques which take time to develop and implement. Bank fraud, arson, and passport fraud, among other offenses, all have 10-year statutes of limitations. Since public corruption offenses are so important to our democracy and these cases are so difficult to investigate and prove, a more modest extended statute of limitations for these offenses is a reasonable step to help our corruption investigators and prosecutors do their jobs. Corrupt officials should not be able to get away with their ill gotten gains just by waiting out the investigators. This bill also facilitates the investigation and prosecution of an important offense known as Federal program bribery, Title 18, United States Code, section 666. Federal program bribery is the key Federal statute for prosecuting bribery involving state and local officials, as well as officials of the many organizations that receive substantial Federal money. This bill would allow agents and prosecutors investigating this important offense to request authority to conduct wiretaps and to use Federal program bribery as a basis for a racketeering charge. Wiretaps, when appropriately requested and authorized, are an important method for agents and prosecutors to gain evidence of corrupt activities, which can otherwise be next to impossible to prove without an informant. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute is also an important tool which helps prosecutors target organized crime and corruption. Agents and prosecutors may currently request authority to conduct wiretaps to investigate many serious offenses, including bribery of federal officials and even sports bribery, and may predicate RICO charges on these offenses, as well. It is only reasonable that these important tools also be available for investigating the similar and equally important offense of federal program bribery. Lastly, my bill authorizes $25 million in additional Federal funds over each of the next four years to give federal investigators and prosecutors needed resources to go after public corruption. Last month, FBI Director Mueller in written testimony to the Judiciary Committee called public corruption the FBI's top criminal investigative priority. However, a September 2005 Report by Department of Justice Inspector General Fine found that, from 2000 to 2004, there was an overall reduction in public corruption matters handled by the FBI. The report also found declines in resources dedicated to investigating public corruption, in corruption cases initiated, and in cases forwarded to US Attorney's Offices. I am heartened by Director Mueller's assertion that there has recently been an increase in the number of agents investigating public corruption cases and the number of cases investigated, but I remain concerned by the Inspector General's findings. I am concerned because the FBI in recent years has diverted resources away from criminal law priorities, including corruption, into counterterrorism. The FBI may need to divert further resources to cover the growing costs of Sentinel, their data management system. The Department of Justice has similarly diverted resources, particularly from United States Attorney's Offices. Additional funding is important to compensate for this diversion of resources and to ensure that corruption offenses are aggressively pursued. My bill will give the FBI, the United States Attorney's Offices, and the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice new resources to hire additional public corruption investigators and prosecutors. They can finally have the manpower they need to track down and make these difficult cases, and to root out the corruption. If we are serious about addressing the egregious misconduct that we have recently witnessed, Congress must enact meaningful legislation to give investigators and prosecutors the resources they need to enforce our public corruption laws. I strongly urge Congress to do more to restore the public's trust in their government. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, might I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Michigan. He and I have been dear friends for years and years. I thank him for those words. I am also happy to see the gavel of the Armed Services Committee go into his hands.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President I will speak briefly. One of the things I am going to do today is join the distinguished Presiding Officer, Senator Salazar--in fact, I should note that this is the first time I have seen the distinguished Presiding Officer in the chair. He looks as though he was born to preside here, and he does it well. I am going to join him in introducing a bill to include Cesar Chavez among the names of the great civil rights leaders we honored in the title of last year's Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. When we were considering this legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Salazar made a compelling argument why that name, an American hero's name, should be added to the bill: because he devoted and sacrificed his life to empower the most vulnerable in America, as did Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King. Cesar Chavez's name should be added to the law as an important recognition of the broad landscape of political inclusion made possible by the Voting Rights Act. This bill would not alter the act's vital remedies to address continuing discrimination in voting, but rather it is overdue recognition of the importance of the Voting Rights Act to Hispanic-Americans. I offered Senator Salazar's amendment in the Judiciary Committee. The moral weight of what he wanted to do was so compelling that in a committee often fractured, it passed unanimously. It was included. It was not included in the final bill because as we were nearing the ending time, we did not want to have to have the bill go back and forth to the other body again because we wanted to get it on the President's desk in time. I committed to the distinguished Senator from Colorado that I would join him again this year, and I say with virtual certainty that the Senate Judiciary Committee will move very rapidly with that issue this year. I have the commitment of the new chairman backing that up, as does he have mine. And so I urge the Senate to quickly take up and pass this measure as we convene the new Congress and commit ourselves once again to ensuring that the great promises of the 14th and 15th Amendments are kept for all Americans. Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mr. President, as this new Congress begins, we have a tremendous opportunity before us to enact fair, comprehensive immigration reform. It is time for bipartisan action. So I join with Senators from both sides of the aisle to call for comprehensive immigration reform, and I will work to enact it. We have to put aside the mean-spiritedness and shortsighted policies driven by fear and recognize the dignity of those whose work contributes to reinvigorating America. Consistent with our heritage as a nation of immigrants, we need to bring people out of the shadows. My maternal grandparents were immigrants to this country. My wife's parents came as immigrants to this country. We are a nation of immigrants. And those of us who are here now should not think that somehow we got here differently, and that we should close the doors to the rest. That is not the American way. Through comprehensive immigration reform, we can increase the opportunities for American businesses to obtain the workers they need while ensuring that priority is given to willing workers already in this country, from dairy farms in Vermont to multinational corporations. We have been told of the plight of the American farmers from New York to California. We have seen the pictures of the piles of rotting fruit that have gone unharvested. We hear American technology companies lamenting lost opportunities and the loss of skilled innovators to other countries. Dairy farmers are yearning for more available legal workers in my own State of Vermont. But worse yet, others have watched families in their employ be torn apart through piecemeal, inconsistent, sometimes heavyhanded enforcement efforts. I have met some of those families. I have talked to people who were fifth, sixth, seventh generation Vermonters who say how unfair it is to see these good families torn apart by seemingly arbitrary immigration enforcement efforts. No American farmer, no business, should be put in the position of having to choose between obeying the law or losing their livelihood. Where American workers can fill available jobs, of course they should be given priority. But where these jobs are available but unclaimed by American citizens, it makes no sense to deny willing foreign workers the opportunity to work. We can strike a balance if we work together. We must streamline and reform our visa system for low-skilled workers so we can help reduce the crippling backlogs that affect American businesses. And we must increase the number of low-skilled work visas issued each year to keep up with the needs of our economy. We should enact stronger, consistent employer verification procedures. We should impose penalties for those employers who flout the law and exploit those who have no voice. We can do this by working together and enacting comprehensive reform. Through comprehensive and smart reforms we can increase our security. Let us work to focus enforcement efforts and protect our citizens from those who seek to do us harm. Let us put an end to the enforcement conditions that end in too many needless deaths in the deserts of the Southwest, families--spouses and children--who die needlessly trying to seek the promise of America. We also have to take a smart approach in dealing with the millions of people already here, one that does not divide families and make instant criminals out of millions of people but rather honors our Nation's best traditions. When we enact reforms to bring the millions of undocumented people of this country out of the shadows, greater accountability will follow. When we provide incentives for undocumented people to enter a path to citizenship, we will encourage them to live up to our traditions of citizenship and civic responsibility. When we endow those who seek to better their lives and the lives of their families with the tools to do so legally, we help instill in them a sense of belonging, of patriotism, of opportunity. Those who decry this aspect of immigration reform must carefully consider the alternative path. By driving more people underground, we foster a culture of lawlessness and mistrust. We can't wall ourselves off from the world. A 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border is not the answer. Last fall, the Republican Congress rushed through a bill to build 700 miles of fencing and did so against the advice of the Department of Homeland Security. That fence bill was neither fair nor comprehensive. I share the disappointment of tens of millions of Americans who had hoped President Bush would have exercised his constitutional authority to veto that costly, cobbled-together and mean-spirited law. Instead, the President seemed to have abandoned his principles in signing the Secure Fence Act: legislation that will cost between $2 billion and $9 billion and fail to perform as advertised to seal our southern border. Scarring our southwestern landscape with a symbol of fear, pandering, and intolerance offends the great heritage of our Nation by sending the wrong message to our neighbors and to the world about American values. It was a pricey bumper sticker law passed to curry favor in certain quarters before the elections. Instead, by focusing on technology, innovation, and personnel rather than partisan politics and divisive walls, we can do a better job of securing our border. The President has said many times that in order for the United States to achieve real security, we must have comprehensive immigration reform which must include a realistic solution to bring out of the shadows the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country and at the same time meet the pressing needs of employers who are looking for willing workers. In numerous statements, including a speech in Mission, TX, in August 2006, he recognized that without all components of comprehensive reform working together, immigration reform will not work. So I will continue working to enact legislation to secure our borders and strengthen our economy and bring about a realistic solution for the millions of people who want to work and live legally in our country. I will continue to support fair and comprehensive immigration reform that will respect the dignity of those who seek to join mainstream American society and better their lives in the United States. Let's hope that common sense and bipartisanship will prevail and that the promises of America, those promises of America that encouraged my grandparents to come to this country and my wife's parents to come to this country, are still there. Let us not enact laws that are beneath the dignity of a great and noble and welcoming Nation. Let us pass legislation that reflects what is the best of America and reflects the America that is a diverse country made up of people of diverse backgrounds. We will be stronger and better for it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, it is with great sadness that I rise today to bid a final goodbye to one of Vermont's most distinguished public servants. On Saturday, December 23, just before Christmas, former Senator Bob Stafford from Vermont passed away at the venerable age of 93. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy of which he and his family and fellow Vermonters and all Americans should be exceptionally proud. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Robert Stafford, an extraordinary Vermonter, and especially a very dear and close friend. He will be greatly missed by me, my wife Marcelle, and by so many other Americans all across our country. We send our condolences to his wife Helen and his family. Born in Rutland in 1913, Senator Stafford attended his hometown's public schools. He completed his undergraduate work at one of our Nation's finest undergraduate institutions, Middlebury College. He briefly attended the University of Michigan Law School but ultimately earned his law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1938. Bob was a remarkable person not only because of his service as a statesman but also for his service in the military. He is a prime example of what has been so aptly named the ``greatest generation.'' Senator Stafford courageously stepped forward to serve our Nation during not one but two foreign wars. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on active duty from 1942 to 1946. Again, when the Korean war began, he served from 1951 to 1953 as an officer in the Navy. Bob later became the first commander of the Navy Reserve Center in Burlington, VT. The center later moved to White River Junction in 1995, and I was pleased to recommend to the Navy that the new facility be named the Robert T. Stafford Naval Reserve Center. They happily obliged. Throughout his life, Bob remained extremely proud of his Navy career. I still remember that beautiful day when we opened the new Naval Reserve facility named in honor of his leadership. Indeed, the recently completed Lake Champlain Navy Memorial was dedicated in his honor by the unanimous recommendation of its founding committee, made up of Navy veterans, retirees, and reservists. Bob Stafford was an absolute giant in Vermont politics. He spent almost 30 years representing our great State, first in the U.S. House of Representatives, and then in the U.S. Senate. Prior to his arrival in Washington in the early 1960s, he served his fellow Vermonters closer to home, holding a number of prominent State positions. He served as Rutland County State's attorney and deputy State attorney general, and finally as our State attorney general. From 1957 to 1959, Bob Stafford held the post of Lieutenant Governor. In 1959, he went on to become Governor. In 1960, Bob Stafford was elected to Vermont's sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He won five successive reelections. In September of 1971, he resigned his House seat to accept an appointment to the U.S. Senate following the death of Senator Winston Prouty. After he won a special election in January 1972, Bob proceeded to represent Vermont in the Senate during the next 17 years. I had the distinct privilege of serving with him during all but 2 of those years. He also had serving with him from the time he was Governor through the House and the U.S. Senate a most remarkable Chief of Staff, Neal Houston. He and Neal Houston were like brothers. They could almost complete each other's sentences. When I spoke to Neal and heard the sad news about Senator Stafford's passing, I knew he felt that he had lost a member of his own family. When I first came to Washington as a young man in 1974, I was a 34- year-old junior Senator from Vermont. We didn't have any kind of orientation for new Senators at that time. Bob Stafford was an indispensable mentor to me. I will never forget the leadership and friendship he offered me during that challenging time. Interestingly enough, Senator Stafford was sort of the epitome of a Vermont Republican in the proudest tradition. I was the only Democrat ever elected. He took me under his wing during those early years. He was enormously helpful to me, his younger, far less experienced junior colleague. I will never forget that he even allowed me the use of his office before I was assigned a space of my own, where we could interview people for positions in my office and where telephone calls could be answered. He brought me around and introduced me to both Republicans and Democrats and basically vouched for me. But Bob and his wife Helen's kindness extended far beyond the confines of the Senate office buildings. Helen was kind enough even to offer to babysit our children when Marcelle and I were so new in town that we had nowhere to turn for childcare while we were house-hunting. This is a remarkable couple. To this day, Marcelle and I hold enormous gratitude for the friendship the Staffords offered during our early years in Washington. That friendship has continued throughout the years, and we have many fond memories of visiting their home on Sugar Hill Road. Even after Bob left the Senate, we would drop by and visit. We had some most remarkable conversations--some political, some family, and after all of them I would leave with a smile on my face. Bob was an extremely well liked member of the Republican Party. He served at one time in the Republican leadership, but he also formed many close friendships with Senators on the Democratic side. Always respectful, always polite, Bob Stafford consistently recognized the importance of moderation and compromise. He, better than most, knew how to form bipartisan alliances. In his quiet and unassuming manner, Bob Stafford fought hard for the issues that mattered most to him. He believed passionately that higher education should be more accessible to all Americans, regardless of their socioeconomic status, and he was instrumental in creating the student loan program which today bears his name. The Stafford Student Loan Program has made higher education more accessible for millions of Americans, even for some who work in my office today. Bob was a champion of vocational education. Today the Stafford Technical Center, located in his hometown of Rutland, serves the needs of hundreds of students in Rutland County. Bob showed tremendous leadership in blocking President Reagan's attempts to slash health and education funding. Thanks to Bob Stafford's hard work, programs for disabled Americans and legal aid were left largely intact during much of the 1980s when other programs were starkly scaled back. His chairmanship made sure they were protected. Bob Stafford also played an important role in another issue of enormous relevance today, Federal emergency assistance. In 1988, President Reagan signed into law the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, a bill which provides the statutory authority for Federal disaster response activities pertaining to FEMA programs. While his achievements in the areas of education and Federal disaster relief were certainly superb, I believe his most enduring legacy will be for the work he did in protecting the environment and public health. He helped shape and strengthen some of our Nation's most critical environmental laws for over two decades. As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee from 1981 to 1986, Bob Stafford was instrumental in persuading Congress to expand and strengthen the Superfund toxic waste cleanup law in the mid-1980s. It was in large part due to Robert Stafford's unwavering commitment to this bill in 1980 that the Superfund Act became law at all. As many of us know, this law has been indispensable in forcing industry polluters to contribute money to finance cleanup and restoration of contaminated wastesites. Bob Stafford believed passionately in the Federal Government's commitment to improving the quality of our Nation's air. This was never more evident than in his steadfast work to uphold the Clean Air Act when it was under attack during the 1980s. He did not shirk from taking on his friend President Reagan as well as auto manufacturers and other industry groups in refusing to roll back this critical air pollution law. In fact, I remember talking to him once. They were so anxious to get him to change and let these rollbacks go through that they invited him down to the White House, to spend some one-on-one time with President Reagan. The Reagan administration amazed many of their members afterward that Bob didn't back off at all. He came back and kept on protecting the environment. I said to him: Bob, what happened when you went down there to talk with President Regan? He said: Well, the President had notes of what he was supposed to say and he said it. Then he looked at me and he said: Bob, you're probably not going to give in, are you? Bob said: No, no, I'm not, Mr. President, but I certainly appreciate the time to be with you. I said then: What did you talk about the rest of the time? Oh, we talked about our kids, we talked about sports, we talked about a lot of other things. He said: I had a wonderful conversation with President Reagan. But he did not budge on the environment, something no Vermonter would do. His concern about the contamination of our air was truly remarkable. The consistent and clear manner in which he spoke about the danger of ozone depletion, acid rain, and the release of greenhouse gases related to global warming, during a very difficult period, was a source of inspiration to so many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. It certainly was an inspiration to me. As EPW chairman, Senator Stafford also led the fight to improve the quality of our water. Working closely with Senator John Chafee and others on both sides of the aisle, his leadership was critical in reauthorizing the Clean Water Act in 1987. Bob cited the passage of this act as the culmination of one of the greatest bipartisan efforts in protecting our Nation's environment. It really was. Republicans and Democrats came together. It gave me enormous pride to see him appear 3 years ago before the Senate in celebrating the act's 30-year anniversary. Thanks to Bob's leadership during those difficult years of deregulation, our Nation was able to make great strides in reducing the levels of pollutants and contaminants in our water. Even after he retired from Congress, he served Vermont in many ways. He was a member of the University of Vermont's School of Natural Resources Advisory Committee and attended the day-long hearings with his wife Helen up to just a few years ago. He also lectured at UVM, Norwich University, and Castleton State College. In 2003, his old alma mater, Middlebury College, honored both Bob and his wife Helen, also a Middlebury graduate, by inaugurating the Robert and Helen Stafford Professorship in Public Policy. Two people who had been together almost all their lives are together in this professorship. Also in retirement, Bob continued to fight for clean air. In 1995, he joined forces with his friend and former colleague, Senator Edmund Muskie, in incorporating the Clean Air Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to upholding and enforcing clean air legislation. He leaves so many impressive achievements for his lifelong work in public service. But outside these public accomplishments, Senator Stafford was also a man of many personal hobbies and interests. It kind of reflects who he is. On weekends, he liked to slip out of Washington with his wife Helen and enjoy time on his boat, a full Moon, cruising down the Chesapeake Bay. Marcelle and I were fortunate enough to join them on occasion. He loved the water. He loved everything about sailing. You can tell why the Navy holds him in such high regard back home. He took flying lessons as a young man. He eventually got his pilot's license in the early sixties. In fact, he would pilot a leased Cessna back and forth between Washington and Vermont. It was a mark of this unique Senator that he welcomed and helped the first Senator of the other party to be elected in Vermont. I will always remember and cherish the walks we took down the halls and the times we would sit and talk at lunch. People thought we were talking so much about politics. We were talking about Vermont. We were talking about whether the foliage season was going to start early or late, and we would make a determined judgment when it would be. Heck, we had not the foggiest idea but, boy, we had fun determining when it would start. No Senator could have learned as much from his fellow Senator as I did, nor could a senior Senator be so patient and understanding with his junior. Throughout our time together, when I had been inclined to move impulsively, it would be Bob Stafford who would help me decide what was truly in the best interest of the country and Vermont. He was the most unflappable person I have ever known. I remember flying to Vermont with him once on a commercial airline. The plane hit a tremendous amount of turbulence. We suddenly dropped thousands of feet. At least one person was airborne in the cabin, and things were flying around. I know my pulse raced ever so fast. When the pilot finally got control of the plane with a shuddering, banging maneuver, I sat there stunned. I had sweat soaking through my shirt. Bob simply folded his paper--which he never stopped reading--turned to me and in a quiet voice said: Patrick, just think if this plane had gone down. Tomorrow morning there would have been a long line outside the Governor's office. Everybody would be saying what a terrible tragedy that we have lost our Senators, but, Governor, I am willing to be appointed to either one of the seats. I found that I was not so frightened, and I was able to laugh until it hurt, and I did laugh. Bob Stafford was a man who dedicated his entire adult life to public service because he deeply believed in the value of public service. And no matter where life took him, Bob stayed close to his Vermont roots. He never forgot the people he served. While many younger Vermonters and Americans may not know much about Bob Stafford, his public service and leadership are examples for all of us. Our country would do well to stop and take notice of his life and reflect on how we should all serve our Nation better with his bipartisan leadership style. It is with tremendous sadness that I say goodbye to this truly distinguished American, more importantly to an exceptionally dear friend. To honor Robert Stafford's legacy, Senator Sanders and I, along with Congressman Peter Welch from Vermont, introduced a bill to rename the White Rocks National Recreation Area. This is an area Senator Stafford created in 1984. We are naming it after him. White Rocks was among his most beloved natural areas in our State. We know that he and Helen could actually see the towering white cliff face of White Rocks Mountain from their home. This will remind generations of future Vermonters of Senator Stafford's towering achievements and the humanity of his spirits. I hope all my colleagues will support this legislation.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as someone who has been concerned about the problem of landmines for nearly two decades, I was heartened when every nation in this hemisphere, except, regrettably, the United States and Cuba, joined the Ottawa Treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. Many of them had experienced the human misery and economic hardship that landmines cause. Today most people in Central and South America can walk in safety thanks to the treaty and thanks to the efforts of the Organization of American States, with assistance from the U.S. Government, to remove the mines in those countries. Today Colombia is the only country in Latin America where landmines are still being used. They are a persistent problem in almost every department, including some of Colombia's richest coffee-growing areas. According to the 2006 Landmine Monitor report, landmines in Colombia claim an average of three new victims a day. Colombia has the third highest incidence of mine victims in the world, behind only Cambodia and Afghanistan. In Colombia the mines are used by rebel and paramilitary groups, and they are rudimentary in design. They kill or maim whoever comes into contact with them, whether it is a soldier or a young child. Many of the victims live in remote areas, hours or days from any medical services, so there is a high risk of bleeding to death. Several initiatives are under way to help Colombia's mine victims with artificial limbs and rehabilitation and vocational services. Among them are the Polus Center for Social and Economic Development, the Colombian Coffee Federation, the OAS, Centro Integral de Rehabilitacion de Colombia, the Observatorio de Minas Antipersonnel, and the Colombian organization TECNOVO. In addition, the Colombian organization United for Colombia has been working on a shoestring budget, and recently with assistance from the U.S. Government, to bring Colombian soldiers who have been grievously injured from landmines to the United States for reconstructive surgery. I applaud the efforts of organizations that are working to assist victims of landmines in Colombia. It is tragic that any of this is necessary. Landmines are inhumane, inherently indiscriminate weapons which should be relegated to the dustbin of history. The FARC rebels and AUC paramilitaries who use mines should be condemned. The use of these weapons is a gross violation of human rights and a crime against humanity. On December 3, 2007, the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Ottawa Treaty. Great progress has been made during the past decade in ridding the world of landmines. Let us hope that those who continue to insist on their right to use these indiscriminate weapons--in Colombia and in other parts of the world including the United States--will finally recognize that too often their victims are innocent people and that this cannot be justified.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I support reauthorization ONDCP and passage of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006. This bill recognizes and strengthens the Office of National Drug Control Policy as the lead agency in the fight against illegal drug use. It also includes important modifications and clarifications that will improve the lives of all Americans by reducing the presence of drugs in our society. I am very pleased that five of my recommendations to improve the bill are included in this legislation. I commend Senator Biden, who has long been a leader in the fight against illegal drugs, and Chairman Specter, the lead sponsor of this legislation. The authorization for ONDCP expired 3 years ago, and it is long passed time for Congress to act. Illegal drug abuse, drug addiction, and drug-related violence continue to exact an enormous toll on our society. Nationwide, drug abuse kills 52,000 Americans each year, and more than 20,000 Americans will die as a direct consequence of illegal drug use this year alone. Drug abuse costs our society nearly $116 billion annually. It has strained the capacity of our criminal justice system and our medical facilities and brought violence and tragedy to families, schools, and communities throughout the country. This bipartisan legislation will reauthorize ONDCP for 5 years and provide ONDCP with the necessary tools and resources to develop a national drug control policy and coordinate and oversee the implementation of that policy. This legislation includes a number of reforms that provide clarification concerning the most significant objectives and duties of ONDCP. It allows Congress to be vigilant in our oversight by requiring the President to submit to Congress a yearly national drug control strategy, expanding ONDCP's reporting requirements to Congress on numerous areas of ONDCP responsibility; requiring ONDCP to give a full accounting of the budget; and requiring ONDCP to develop a new performance measurement system that includes 2-year and 5-year targets for each of the strategy's objectives. In addition, this legislation improves essential information sharing by requiring that various Government agencies, including the Attorney General, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Departments of Agriculture and Defense, submit to ONDCP and Congress reports relating to their agencies' drug control efforts. I want to take a moment and address several specific provisions. First, as a strong supporter of the National Guard, I am pleased that this legislation authorizes $30 million a year for the Chief of the National Guard to establish five National Guard Counterdrug Schools to train personnel from Federal agencies, State, and local law enforcement agencies, community- based organizations, and other groups in drug interdiction and demand reduction activities. I am pleased that this legislation will require greater diligence on methamphetamine. The bill calls for the creation of a National Methamphetamine Information Clearinghouse, an idea which I have long supported, including cosponsoring legislation to set up the clearinghouse. This toll-free number and Web-based source of information will promote sharing of ``best practices'' regarding law enforcement, prevention, treatment, environmental, social services, and other programs related to combating the scourge of methamphetamine. I am pleased that this legislation embraces a comprehensive policy that reduces the demand, as well as supply, of drugs. It reduces the demand for drugs by ensuring that programs to expand access to drug treatment are adequately supported in the Federal drug control budget and by providing greater uniformity and accountability in assessing ONDCP's effectiveness in drug treatment programs. On the supply side, the bill takes steps to disrupt markets at home and abroad. It requires ONDCP to develop comprehensive strategies to address the severe threats posed by South American heroine and drug smuggling across the southwest border. This legislation also includes a good provision by Senators Levin and Hatch that amends the Controlled Substances Act to raise the number of opioid addicted patients a physician may accept from 30 to 100. In the last 5 years, the number of heroin-related arrests and the number of people seeking treatment for heroin use in Vermont has more than doubled. This provision will expand treatment options for thousands of patients who have been denied access to critical addiction treatments in Vermont and across the country. I am also pleased that the bill includes several of my recommended improvements. I continue to support the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, but I want to make sure that the campaign is run in a way that uses funds efficiently and gets out its antidrug message effectively. I therefore recommended inclusion of comprehensive standards for evaluating what type of media campaigns and information are effective, as well as a prohibition on the expenditure of antidrug media campaign funds for political purposes. The campaign will be better for these changes, as well as the legislation's additional step of creating an independent agency to conduct annual evaluations of effectiveness. The bill also adopted my recommendation to eliminate two unnecessary provisions which could also hinder international diplomacy and drug control efforts. I continue to have concerns about the safety and predictability of mycoherbicides against drug crops. While this bill only calls for a scientific study on the use of mycoherbicides, I am pleased that the bill includes my recommendation to prohibit testing in any foreign countries. I believe this provision will prevent souring diplomatic relations between the United States and countries around the world. I am disappointed that my recommendations to remedy a few weaknesses in the bill were not adopted. Among other issues, I am concerned by provisions that prohibit the expenditure of more than 5 percent of the Federal funds appropriated for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Programs for drug prevention programs and that prohibit the use of any Federal HIDTA funds to establish new or expand existing drug treatment programs. The State, local, and Federal law enforcement officials in the HIDTA Program should have the discretion to use the programs that work best in their areas. I am also troubled that the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have not sufficiently addressed the international drug trade, particularly the rising instability in opium production in Afghanistan. Three months ago, the United Nations released a report concluding that opium cultivation is surging in the southern region of Afghanistan and warned that the southern region was verging on collapse. Just this past weekend, the Washington Post also reported that opium production in Afghanistan reached a historic high in 2006, despite ongoing eradication efforts. These reports are particularly troubling considering that this administration has increasingly described the drug trade as a problem that rivals the Taliban and threatens to derail the stability and reconstruction of Afghanistan. While I applaud this bill's inclusion of a provision that requires the ONDCP to submit to Congress a comprehensive strategy that addresses the increased threat from Afghan heroin, I fear that this provision may not go far enough. Afghanistan provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin. Without seeking accountability from the President, the State Department, and the Attorney General on the rise of Afghan heroin, we cannot sufficiently discharge our duty to address the international supply of heroin. Nevertheless, I am confident that this legislation will strengthen ONDCP, its component programs, and our national comprehensive antidrug effort. This legislation balances the goals of drug enforcement and prevention, while providing Congress with additional oversight tools. I support its passage.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, earlier this year, the widely read, widely respected Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly launched his Nothing But Nets campaign after learning that thousands of Africans--including about 3000 children--die each day from malaria and that simple mosquito netting could save many of these lives. When I saw recently that his readers had kicked in more than $1.2 million for this effort--enough to buy 150,000 nets--I had to give that dollar total a double-take before it sunk in. His campaign has collected enough to buy thousands and thousands of nets, enough to save thousands and thousands of lives. Those nets, distributed by the United Nations Foundation and the World Health Organization, already are accomplishing that. What Rick Reilly's crusade shows is that if you give Americans a clear and worthy goal, just about anything is possible. Government and private relief agencies should be taking notes--and a lesson--from Rick Reilly. There are so many other devastating diseases that we could control or even conquer, if we summon the will. I ask unanimous consent that Rick Reilly's column about this project be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record. [Sports Illustrated, Nov. 28, 2006] Nothing But Thanks (By Rick Reilly) Seven months ago you and I found out that each day 3,000 African children die of malaria for the very sad reason that they can't afford mosquito nets over their beds. Didn't seem right to us. Sports is nothing but nets--lacrosse nets, cutting down the nets, New Jersey Nets. So SI started the Nothing But Nets campaign. Doctors guaranteed that if you sent in $20, you'd save at least one kid's life, probably two. It was the alltime no-brainer. Skip lunch; save a life. Buy the Top-Flites instead of the Titleists; save a life. Don't bet on the Redskins; save a life. Nothing to research. No government to topple. No warlords to fight. Bless your little hearts, all 17,000-plus of you who chipped in more than $1.2 million--enough to buy 150,000 nets, which the United Nations Foundation and the World Health Organization started hanging all over Nigeria, where kids younger than five are getting murdered by mosquitoes that come out only at night. I know, because I saw the nets. Just got back. Feel a little bad about going without you. After all, it was your money. So let's pretend it was you who made the trip, not me. Remember? Everywhere you went, people mistook you for King Tut. Women got down on their knees and kissed your hand. Whole towns threw festivals. The king in every ward summoned you to his one-room, one-lightbulb palace. One pointed his horsehair scepter at you and pronounced, ``Thank you for dee nets. All my wives use dem!'' Turns out he has four wives and 23 kids, and they're all under the nets, which is a good thing because the open sewer that runs right outside his shack is a kind of one-stop malaria center. Everywhere you went, 40 people followed: doctors and nurses and random government suits and guards with AK-47s and vice- kings. You rode in an eight-truck caravan past unimaginable squalor, vans on fire and guys selling caskets on the street--a very good business in Nigeria, where the average life span is 47. And every time you opened your car door, two drummers beat a skull-busting welcome. You'd pull into a school, and the principal would hang a ribbon around your neck and say something you couldn't hear. ``What?'' you'd holler over the drums. "We humbly fumalk apoplia!'' And you'd shrug, and he'd gesture to the 200 kids behind him, who were chanting something over and over, their faces beaming. Later you'd find out it was, ``Thank you, white person!'' And they'd play a soccer game in your honor that featured nine-year-olds who played like 14-year-olds in the U.S., on fields full of weeds and trash, with goals made of tree branches. In three games the closest thing you saw to a boy with shoes was a set of brothers who wore one sock each. And they'd hand you the mike, and you'd try to say how blown away you were and how you wished you could raise 100 times more in donations, because already one hospital in Nigeria is saying that since the nets went up, outpatient cases of malaria have dropped from 80 a month to 50. But they'd all put their hands to their ears and go, ``What?'' When you bribed the drummers into taking a union break, you finally met the people you'll never forget: the mothers. Turns out they're nothing but nuts about the nets. In fact, so many mothers want the nets that to get one, the World Health Organization requires them to bring their kids in for a measles vaccination. How often do you get two for one on diseases? You met a mother who walked half a day to get a net. You met a woman who sleeps with her four kids under her net, maybe because she knows that three out of every 10 child deaths in Nigeria are from malaria. In the fetid slums of Lagos you met a woman named Shifawu Abbas who's had malaria twice. ``Everybody wants the nets here, everybody!'' she said, beaming. ``My sister visited from the country and tried to steal it from me!'' Still, as you were climbing back into your air-conditioned SUV, she yanked back your hand and begged, ``Please? Can I come with you?'' Sorry, you said. On the last day you met Noimot Bakare, a mother whose youngest child died of malaria. She was so grateful that she trembled as she spoke. ``Malaria is killing our children,'' she said, holding her toddler. ``There is so much need here. God will bless you for the work you are doing.'' Please go to NothingButNets.net and keep it up. For that, we humbly fumalk apoplia.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to commend GEN James L. Jones and to congratulate him on his retirement. General Jones has served this country through landmark events, including the Cold War and September 11, with consistent skill and with dedication, energy and intelligence. The country has greatly benefited from his service, and his clear-eyed counsel will be greatly missed. I have known Jim Jones for almost 30 years. I was immediately impressed with his calm manner and obvious intellect when I first encountered him as a major in the Senate's Marine Corps liaison office. I had heard of his distinguished background to that point, which included service in Vietnam, where he earned a Silver Star, and years as a company commander, motivating his marines with his steadfastness. Over the years, I, along with all of my colleagues in the Senate, have watched Jim Jones grow into a stellar leader. There are two sides to military service--the field operations and the administrative side. While each presents its own challenges, both are absolutely essential to a strong Marine Corps. Jim Jones has been simply superb in both roles. I remember encountering then Colonel Jones in northern Iraq after the first gulf war during Operation Provide Comfort, which sought to provide food and supplies to the Kurds. At one point, I accompanied him into the town of Zaku. While you would think that this would be one of the more dangerous places, with multitudes of refugees and harassing Iraqi forces, I must admit I have never felt safer as Marine helicopter gunships, Air Force A-10s, and well-orchestrated groups of marines provided cover. General Jones was utterly comfortable, and completely confident, in that environment. Yet he was just as at home in the conference rooms at Corps Headquarters, at the Pentagon, and walking the historic Halls of Congress. Serving as the 32nd Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, General Jones provided remarkable leadership to the Corps before and after the September 11 attacks. The marines under his command took on critical counterterrorist activities, forging strong ties with our special operations forces. General Jones' leadership led to the Marine Corps' successful operations in southern Afghanistan. Always a persuasive advocate for adequate resources for the Corps, he was an equally outstanding contributor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he could only ``partly'' wear his service hat. For someone with such multifaceted talent, skill and experience, it is little surprise that General Jones performed in equally spectacular fashion in his last, two-pronged position as Commander of U.S. European Command and as the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. The 14th Supreme Allied Commander, he has encouraged our NATO allies to take on greater military responsibilities outside of Europe, including more leadership in ongoing operations in Afghanistan. His clear, well-spoken manner and obvious credibility have made General Jones an invaluable asset. Through it all, General Jones has had no greater partner, confidant, and friend than his wife Diane. The commitment that they have shown in the good and bad times, to their children and to all who know them, is simply remarkable, and it is inspiring. I join with my wife Marcelle, my fellow Vermonters, and all Americans in expressing our deep thanks to General Jones and his family. We owe this outstanding American, great marine, and dedicated representative of the very best aspects of our Nation, a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to my good friend and colleague, the senior Senator from the great State of Maryland, who will be leaving this body at the end of this Congress. Paul Sarbanes and I have shared the past 30 years in this body together, and I can say that the Nation will be losing one of its most talented, well respected, and principled public servants when he steps away from the office he has held with such honor and integrity. Paul's career is one that I believe still to this day reflects the values instilled upon him by his parents, Greek immigrants to this country, who infused in him a strong work ethic and a sense of service to others. He worked his way through school while growing up on Maryland's beautiful Eastern Shore and earned a scholarship to Princeton University, where he excelled academically, and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. If that weren't enough, Paul also went to Harvard Law School. With all his abilities, with his clear leadership potential and promising future, Paul chose to dedicate himself to the service of others. From his years in the Maryland House of Delegates, to his time across the Capitol in the House of Representatives, through his years here in the Senate, Paul has always used his unique abilities and vast knowledge, tirelessly working towards finding solutions to the country's most pressing issues. That is why I was so honored to be able to work closely with him in drafting portions of the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, more commonly known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Paul's leadership as Chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee was needed more than ever as the America people learned of the deception that corporate leaders had perpetrated. In a business culture that seemed to reward greed and devalue honesty and accountability, Paul was able to create a bipartisan piece of legislation that mirrored his values and took a stand for countless ordinary Americans who were victims of the prevailing culture of corporate excess. It was my distinct pleasure to work with him in such a noble effort, and I believe it is fitting that such important legislation bears his name and will serve as a testament to his character for many years to come. I will miss Paul Sarbanes, although I take comfort knowing that he won't be far away. His career is a lesson to us all in what the Senate is all about. It is with a heavy heart that I bid my friend farewell, and thank him for setting such a wonderful example for us all to follow. I know he will stay a clear voice for America--but now he and Christine can also have the time together they so deserve.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, if the Senator would amend that to add the Senator from Delaware. The judge is from Delaware. I ask that Senator Carper be recognized for up to 10 minutes following that.

Mr. LEAHY. I will do anything to accommodate my neighbor from New Hampshire, as he knows.

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

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased the Senate finally has an opportunity to consider the nomination of Kent Jordan of Delaware for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Judge Jordan is a well-qualified nominee with the support of both home State Democratic Senators, as well as that of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, whose State is within the Third Circuit. I support this nomination, and I will vote to confirm him. I regret that the Republican leadership chose to eschew bipartisan discussion of nominations and unilaterally filed an unnecessary cloture vote on Judge Jordan's nomination, especially after we worked so hard to expedite it in September. We could very easily have voted on this in September instead of having this folderol of urgency now. Most of us wanted to vote on this weeks ago, and I am not sure what political last gasp is involved in saying we have to have cloture. That was never necessary. I wish, instead, the leadership had followed the customary practice in the Senate of the Republican and Democratic leaders to have sat down with the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and worked out a process to conclude the consideration of judicial nominations for this session. Had they done so, we could have capitalized on the hard work done by the chairman and the Judiciary Democrats to report consensus nominations. Instead--and I mention this to those from States such as Georgia and elsewhere--this is the only judicial nomination the Republican leadership has scheduled for consideration in months. I mention this for my colleagues who might be from States that have some of these judicial nominees--apparently those from those States do not particularly care. I mention it in case anybody is reading the Record later on. I was going to suggest a way to get some of them, but there does not seem to be an interest in it, so I will not. What they have left unexplained is why they refuse to go forward with the President's nomination of Judge Janet Neff from Michigan. The Federal court serving the Western District of Michigan has three Federal trial court vacancies that are judicial emergency vacancies three in one district. The Senators from Michigan have worked with the White House on the President's nomination of three nominees to fill these emergency vacancies. The Judiciary Committee has proceeded unanimously on all three. Working with Chairman Specter, the Democratic members of the committee cooperated to expedite their consideration. On September 16 we held a confirmation hearing for those three nominees on an expedited basis. Regrettably, the President waited until July to make these nominations. Had he acted sooner, as some of us suggested earlier this year, we would not be in this situation. From the beginning I have urged the President to work with us on consensus nominations, and I have worked hard to proceed. I continue to do so even at this late date in the session, in spite of the pocket filibusters employed by Republicans to stall and block more than 60 of President Clinton's qualified judicial nominees. Democrats cooperated to expedite consideration of a number of matters and reported the three judicial nominees to fill the emergency vacancies in the Western District of Michigan on September 29. Regrettably the White House, Republican leadership, and objections by Republican Senators continued to undermine this process. Instead of focusing on consensus nominees, the President sent back to the Senate in September and, again, following the November election, highly controversial nominees who had been returned to the White House in the hope that the President would work with us on a bipartisan basis. We have been accommodating, and we will continue to be. I urge all Democrats to vote for confirmation of Judge Jordan, as I will. But neither the Judiciary Committee nor the Senate should be a rubberstamp for this President or any President. We should be taking our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent seriously. These are the only lifetime appointments in the Federal Government, and they will have an enormous impact on the lives, the rights, and future of Americans. We were accommodating when Judge Jordan was pending before the Judiciary Committee. I knew this nomination was from Chairman Specter's circuit, and I cooperated with his request for a special executive business meeting. We came to the meeting and made sure we had a quorum, even though the meeting was out of the normal course. The chairman said that the meeting would be held to expedite consideration of noncontroversial nominees. I agreed to let the majority meet to hold over the nomination of Judge Jordan in order to expedite its consideration at our next meeting. In order to be more accommodating, I went further and continued to meet so that nominees of interest to Senator Grassley and Senator DeWine could be moved forward in the process as well. The Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee and our staffs worked especially hard as time ran down in this Congress to be accommodating on judicial nominations. The chairman held four nomination hearings in September. Three of these hearings were for four nominees, an extraordinary number in one hearing, and the fourth was an unprecedented hearing for two nominees who had received ``not qualified'' ratings from the American Bar Association. This was a faster pace than is traditional for the committee so late in the session, particularly in an election year. It was a much faster pace than is ideal for careful consideration of lifetime appointments to the Nation's courts. But we nonetheless cleared nominees at this pace to be accommodating and to keep the nominations moving forward. Sadly, rather than meet to work out a process to conclude the consideration of judicial nominations for this session, the Republican leadership has apparently made the unilateral decision to stall certain of these nominations, including those for the judicial emergencies in the Western District of Michigan, and particularly the President's nomination of Judge Janet Neff. This fall, an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch entitled ``No Vacancies,'' highlighted the administration's counterproductive approach to judicial nominations. The editorial criticized the administration before the November elections and before the President renominated those controversial choices, for failing to turn vacancies into judges and instead pursuing political fights. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch: The president erred by renominating . . . [Haynes] and may be squandering his opportunity to fill numerous other vacancies with judges of right reason. The Richmond Times-Dispatch focused on the renomination of William James Haynes II to the Fourth Circuit. Of course Mr. Haynes has yet to fulfill the pledge he made to me under oath at his hearing to supply the materials he discussed in his opening statement regarding his role in developing the legal justifications and policies having to do with torture, detention and other matters. The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial could just as easily have been written about Judge Terrence Boyle, whom the President also renominated again to a seat on the Fourth Circuit. He did so despite the fact that as a sitting U.S. district judge and while a circuit court nominee, the President's nominee, Judge Boyle, ruled on multiple cases involving corporations in which he held investments. The President should have heeded the call of the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association or the North Carolina Troopers Association or the Police Benevolent Associations themselves from South Carolina and Virginia or the National Association of Police Organizations or the Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of North Carolina, as well as the advice of our former colleague, Senator John Edwards, to withdraw this ill- advised nomination and not renominate him. Law enforcement officers from North Carolina and across the country oppose the nomination. Civil rights groups oppose the nomination. Those knowledgeable and respectful of judicial ethics oppose this nomination. This nomination has been pending on the floor calendar in a Republican-controlled Senate for more than a year after being forced out of the committee on a solid party-line vote. The Senate actually did the President a favor by returning this nomination to the White House before the summer recess and again before the election. Republican Senators tell me they don't want to vote on this nomination, but the White House keeps sending it back up. The President also squandered an opportunity to fill Idaho's vacancy in the Ninth Circuit by renominating William Gerry Myers III for that seat again in September and again after the November elections. This is another administration insider and lobbyist whose record has raised very serious questions about his ability to be a fair and impartial judge. I opposed this nomination when it was before the Judiciary Committee in March 2005. Actually, this was a nomination which the so- called Gang of 14 expressly listed as someone for whom they made no commitment to vote for cloture, and with good reason. Mr. Myers' record as Solicitor General for the Department of the Interior suggests that he was part of a culture of corruption documented in the testimony of the Interior Department's inspector general, Earl Devaney, at a hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Energy. Listen to what the Inspector General in the Bush administration says about this Bush nominee. Mr. Devaney testified about a ``culture of managerial irresponsibility and lack of accountability'' at the upper levels of the Interior Department in which, ``[s]imply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.'' He also testified, ``I have observed one instance after another when the good work of my office has been disregarded by the Department. Ethics failures on the part of senior Department officials--taking the form of the appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias--have been routinely dismissed with a promise `not to do it again.''' Apparently, reading this record, it was done again and again. While Mr. Myers' anti-environmental record is reason enough to oppose his confirmation, his connection to the ``culture of managerial irresponsibility and lack of accountability'' raises further concerns. But these are the kinds of judges who keep getting sent back to the White House when even a Republican-controlled Senate won't bring them up for a vote. You would think somebody at the White House would be listening when they say: We are trying to send you a signal. Don't keep sending them back. In particular, questions remain about his role in authorizing a lawyer who worked for him, Bob Comer, to arrange a sweetheart settlement agreement for a politically well-connected rancher, Frank Robbins. Mr. Comer was found, in an investigation by the Department of the Interior's inspector general, to have been responsible for arranging the deal. Documents have come to light recently showing that Mr. Myers had been given materials about the deal, which certainly undermine his assertions made under oath that he was merely misled by Mr. Comer. If anyone sought to proceed to this nomination, then we would want to know a lot more about these new documents, and we would need to explore any connections to the lobbying scandals associated with the Interior Department and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Recent reports in the Denver Post raise additional questions about the thoroughness of what Mr. Myers told us since the report that Mr. Myers and Mr. Abramoff attended at least one party together has gone unrefuted and unexplained. So it is particularly troubling to see Mr. Myers be nominated because the President squandered yet another opportunity to fill a vacancy. I had suggested he renominate Norman Randy Smith, a Republican nominee, for the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Thomas Nelson from Idaho. Instead, the President has again nominated Judge Smith, but not to this seat. He has nominated him to a California seat of the Ninth Circuit, effectively stealing California's seat. That is wrong. I support the California Senators in their opposition to this. I had urged President Bush to resolve this impasse and turn Idaho's vacancy into a judge by withdrawing the controversial and tainted Myers nomination--tainted Myers nomination--and instead nominate Judge Smith for the Idaho vacancy to which he could be easily confirmed. Alternatively, he could have renominated them both but merely switched the vacancies for which they were nominated, thereby allowing the Smith nomination an opportunity to proceed. In addition, the President has renominated, again, Michael Wallace to the vacant seat on the Fifth Circuit even though he received the first ABA rating of unanimously ``not qualified'' that I have seen for a circuit court nominee in a quarter of a century, from Republican and Democratic administrations. That in itself should have been enough of an embarrassment not to send the name back, especially when a Republican-controlled Senate did not bring it forth. Committee proceedings on this nomination detailed the significant concern raised by numerous jurists around the country regarding Mr. Wallace's judicial temperament, his lack of commitment to equal justice to the poor and minorities, his lack of tolerance, and his closemindedness. It detailed concerns from judges and lawyers that Mr. Wallace may not follow the law and is driven by his ``personal agenda.'' Of course, the troubling issues raised in the ABA's testimony echo significant concerns about Mr. Wallace's record on civil rights, his opposition to the Voting Rights Act, his support for tax exemptions for Bob Jones University, his opposition to prison safety regulations, and his attempt, as President Reagan's director of the board of the Legal Services Corporation, to undermine efforts to provide legal services to low-income clients. Don't they understand that even a rubberstamp Republican Senate which has gone along with just about everything this Bush administration has done had something in mind when they sent this nomination back to the White House? Instead, the White House sent it back. Months ago--months--ago before the last recess, I was urging Senate action on nominees such as the Michigan District Court nominees and Judge Jordan, whom we have before us now. What little progress we might have made has been undone by some on the Republican side. I have been here 32 years. I have never seen anything with either Republican leadership or Democratic leadership with a judge like this who could have been easily passed--Democrats and Republicans supported him-- months ago, and here we are stalled because nobody can figure out what to do the last few days of a session. Suddenly, it is like, My God, we have to have a cloture vote on him. We could have had 30 hours of debate afterwards, which I said let's not do, and we have a unanimous consent agreement that we would not. But to have gotten to a cloture vote on somebody who would have passed on a bed check vote months ago-- well, if this is theater, it is theater of the absurd. If this is theater, it would close after opening night on Broadway or anywhere else. This goes beyond a farce. And it is particularly ironic that after months of Republicans repeating a new mantra that every one of the President's nominees, whether qualified or not, whether engaged in conflicts of interest or not, whether found by their own peers to be not qualified or not, whether they are supported by home State senators or not, is entitled to a swift up-or-down vote, after we heard this over and over--guess what--it was Republican objections that stalled more than a dozen judicial nominees. After the last working session in October, I learned that several Republicans were objecting to Senate votes on some of President Bush's own judicial nominees. This is theater of the absurd. You had Republicans on the campaign trail saying: Oh, my, God, those Democrats are holding up President Bush's poor nominees for these highly paid lifetime appointments. They are holding them up. And guess what happened. All these nominees of President Bush, we said: Fine, let's just pass them. We were told: Oh, can't do it. Can't do it because we have Republicans who put holds on them. Talk about having it both ways. Republicans hold up the judges so they can go on the campaign trail and say: Oh these terrible Democrats. They are holding up our judges. Oh, my heart cries for them. In fact, according to press accounts, Senator Brownback had placed a hold on Judge Neff's nomination even though he raised no objection to the nomination when she was unanimously reported out of the Judiciary Committee. Later, without going through the committee, Senator Brownback sent questions to Judge Neff about her attendance at a commitment ceremony held by some family friends several years ago in Massachusetts. Senator Brownback spoke of these matters and his concerns on one of the Sunday morning talk shows. So where is the consultation about this with the leaders of the committee? Where is the cooperation? Where is the working together? Where is the attempt to be uniters and not dividers? Where is the wonderful statement by the President, after he got shellacked in the last election, saying: We are going to work together. Where is the explanation why the Republican leadership has chosen not to proceed with the Neff nomination to a judicial emergency vacancy? Can it really be that her attendance at a commitment ceremony of a family friend failed some Republican litmus test of ideological purity, that her lifetime of achievement and qualifications are to be ignored and that her nomination is to be pocket-filibustered by Republicans like the 60 they pocket-filibustered of President Clinton's? Oh, goodness gracious. The Republican approach to nominations, of using nominations to score political points rather than filling vacancies and administering justice, has led to a dire situation in the Western District of Michigan. Judge Robert Holmes Bell, Chief Judge of the Western District, wrote to me and to others about the situation in that district where several judges on senior status--one is over 90 years old--continue to carry heavy caseloads to ensure justice is administered in that district. In fact, Judge Bell is the only active judge. If it had not been for Republicans blocking President Bush's nominations, those vacancies would be filled. Of course, this is not the first time Republicans objected to an up- or-down vote on judicial nominees. They objected and stopped up-or-down votes on more than 60 of President Clinton's judicial nominees. Last year, the President's nomination of Harriet Miers to a vacancy on the Supreme Court was stalled and withdrawn, not because a single Democrat in this body objected but because Republicans objected. Republicans questioned her qualifications, demanded answers about her work in the White House and her legal philosophy and, although Democrats said go ahead and give her a hearing, they then defeated her nomination without allowing a hearing. With regard to judicial nominations, I do want to acknowledge the kind words of the majority leader, who noted before the October recess that we made ``tremendous progress'' in confirming qualified judicial nominees. By Senator Frist's count, the Senate ``has confirmed 88 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees, giving him the highest confirmation rate since President Reagan.'' He calculates that ``95 percent of all judgeships are filled, including more than 92 percent of all circuit court judgeships and more than 95 percent of all district court judgeships.'' He notes that the Senate has confirmed ``[n]early 160 nominees'' for judgeships under the 46 months of his leadership-- 160 in just 46 months. He leaves out the fact that 100 of the President's judicial nominees were confirmed during 17 months when the Democrats were in charge. Senator Daschle was leader, I was chairman of the committee, and ironically--I guess it is something that got overlooked because it doesn't fit in the campaign slogans--President Bush's judges moved much faster under Democratic leadership than they have under Republican leadership. Likewise, Chairman Specter acknowledged before the recess that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate have been extremely accommodating. I hope he doesn't get in trouble for that because his statements sharply diverged from the vitriolic attack the Republican National Committee made on me, personally. It went way beyond campaign rhetoric to flatout lies. This year we have confirmed 31 judicial nominees so far. That far surpasses the total number of judges confirmed in the 1996 Congressional session, when Republicans controlled the Senate and pocket filibustered President Clinton's nominees. In that session, Republicans would not confirm a single appellate court judge--not one-- and moved forward on only 17 district court judges all session. That was the only session of the Senate I can remember, in my 32 years, in which the Senate simply refused to consider appellate court nominations. That was part of their pocket filibuster strategy to stall and maintain vacancies so that a Republican President could pack the courts and tilt them decidedly to the right. In confirming eight circuit court judges so far this year, we have already confirmed more circuit judges than in 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000. We could have accomplished a lot more this year if the White House had sent over consensus nominations earlier in the year. Regrettably the administration concentrated on a few highly controversial nominees and delayed until recently sending other nominations and thereby prevented us from having the time to do any meaningful review. As I said before, we could have done the Jordan nomination before us now back in September instead of having this high drama. If I were at all cynical--and we Vermonters are not, by nature--I would almost think this vote had been set up to distract the people from the fact that the Senate and House leadership have failed to figure out a way to get us out of this morass, after they failed to follow the law and pass a budget this year. They broke the law, didn't follow it, to pass a budget this year, even though they control both bodies of the Congress. Then they failed to pass our appropriations bills by the end of September, even though they are required to do so. Could it be that this nomination, this high drama of something that is going to pass unanimously, was brought up so maybe the press would be fooled into thinking that this was so important it might distract them from the fiasco from the fiscal train wreck they have got us into? Even though this Republican controlled Congress has sent back a few of the most controversial nominations, the administration keeps sending them back. By contrast, there are six judicial emergencies still that have no nominee at all. Nor has President Bush fulfilled his solemn pledge to make a nomination for every vacancy within 180 days. Of the vacancies currently without a nominee, seven have been vacant for more than 180 days. An additional 14 of the pending nominees were nominated only after their vacancies had occurred for more than 180 days. I want to note, again, so nobody will think that we even had to be taking the time here now: I support the confirmation of Judge Jordan. I helped expedite his consideration by the committee so we could vote on him nearly 3 months ago, in September. But we didn't in September. Of course, we didn't in October. We didn't in November. Here we are in December. But even with his confirmation, only 32 judicial nominees will have been confirmed in the last 12 months. Contrast that to the 17 months when Democrats were in charge of this body and I was chairman when we confirmed 100 judges. In the last two years of Republican control, with a Republican President and Republican Senate, we confirmed half of that, just 53 nominees. Think how much higher it could have been with some cooperation. We have been accommodating, and we will continue to be, as we vote for confirmation of Judge Jordan today. But neither the Judiciary Committee nor the Senate should be a rubberstamp for the President. In case anybody is wondering, the Senate Judiciary Committee will not be a rubberstamp for this President or any President. Our success in this process depends on the White House sending consensus nominees, as opposed to the highly controversial nominees it sent the Senate repeatedly. I was encouraged by President Bush's pledge after the election to work with Congress in a bipartisan and cooperative way. But I was disappointed barely a week later when he broke that pledge and renominated a slate of his most controversial nominees who had failed to win confirmation, even under a Republican-controlled Senate. If they could not win confirmation when the Republicans were in control, my guess--I can't speak for other Senators--but my guess, with a Democratic chairman and Democratic-controlled Senate, they probably will not win confirmation there either. If they weren't good enough for the Republicans, they probably won't be good enough for the Democrats. I am hopeful we can find a better approach in the 110th Congress. It starts with the President. If the President would consult with us and work with us to send consensus picks instead of failed controversial nominations for important lifetime appointments, we can make good progress filling vacancies. We owe it to the American people. The American people do not want nominations to be about partisan politics but about Government responsibility to provide justice. The American people expect the Federal courts to be fair forums, where justice is dispensed without favor to anybody based on their political philosophy. These are the only lifetime appointments in our entire Government. They matter a great deal to our future. Most of them will serve long after most of us in the Senate have left office; certainly after the President who nominates them has left office. I said over and over again, the Federal judiciary should not be an arm of the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party. Otherwise we lose all faith in the independence of the judiciary. Just as I have opposed those who call for the impeachment of judges when they disagree with a particular opinion or give speeches seemingly condoning violence against judges and their families, I, also, do not want to see a Federal judiciary politicized. I will continue, in the 110th 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. I congratulate Judge Jordan and his family because I know he will be confirmed today. I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY. I have no objection.

Mr. LEAHY. Yes.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to recognize the achievements of an outstanding and accomplished young Vermonter. Last February, Hannah Teter of Belmont made her family, her friends, and her fellow Vermonters proud as she won the Olympic gold medal in the women's half pipe event in Turin, Italy. While this accomplishment alone deserves congratulations, Hannah has, perhaps more impressively, reached beyond her athletic success and used her national--and international-- recognition to forge one of the most creative charitable endeavors I have seen in quite some time. Just 19 years old, Hannah has enjoyed immense success on the international snowboarding circuit, winning nine titles and medals in the last 2 years alone. In the summer of 2005, ESPN recognized her with an ESPY Award for Excellence in Sports Performance. Realizing how blessed she was with the opportunities that gave her the chance to make her mark in snowboarding, Hannah was inspired to give something back. She has seized this opportunity to demonstrate to other young people that they have the power to make a difference. Upon her return from Turin earlier this year, Hannah enjoyed the limelight that her Olympic successes brought her. But it wasn't long before her altruism opened the door to a creative way to help others to benefit from her success. Raised in a family where maple syrup production was an annual event, Hannah drew on her childhood experiences and, together with her mother, conceived ``Hannah's Gold.'' The bottles of maple syrup, produced on a neighbor's farm, are sold to benefit World Vision, a charitable organization that provides aid to struggling people in Africa. Proceeds from each bottle of syrup will go toward alleviating hunger and the AIDS crisis in impoverished areas. Hannah's efforts are just one example of the long legacy of service and charity in which we Vermonters take so much pride. She is truly an example to the many young people who look at her achievements with dreams of their own. The Boston Globe recently published a superb account of Hannah's story, ``Teter's Syrupy Story is Worth Telling,'' profiling Hannah and her charitable venture. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on January 3, 2007, a longtime employee of the Congress and the Legislative Branch will retire from public service. After 40 years of service, Anthony J. ``Tony'' Zagami will depart as the longest serving general counsel in the history of the U.S. Government Printing Office. Tony Zagami began his career as a young Senate Page in the mid-1960s. I first met him during my first term in the Senate representing the citizens of Vermont. At that time, Tony was working in the Senate Democratic cloakroom while completing law school. He spent a total of 25 years in various positions on Capitol Hill before leaving in 1990 to become the general counsel for GPO, the agency responsible for printing and distributing the Congressional Record and almost all other Government publications. Years ago, my wife Marcelle and I invited Tony over for an evening at our house in McLean. Also joining us was Henry Chapin, who gave us a performance that showed us why he is known as a great balladeer. I will always remember that night of music, laughter, and friends fondly. Throughout his career both here on the Hill and later with GPO, Tony was known for his dedication and hard work on behalf of the American people. He leaves with a lengthy and very distinguished record of public service. I thank my friend Tony Zagami for that service, and Marcelle and I wish him well as he departs to begin a new chapter in his life.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, in fiscal year 2004 I initiated a new fund in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act entitled ``Reconciliation Programs.'' This fund is managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation. In fiscal year 2006 it was funded at $15 million, and its purpose is to support reconciliation programs and activities ``which bring together individuals of different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds from areas of civil conflict and war.'' Our intent is to support initiatives of organizations representing groups of people who have been in conflict with each other to promote better understanding and reconciliation. This is a global program, and the funds have been allocated to support activities in countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. For reasons that should be obvious, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is the focus of many organizations in that region that seek to bring representatives of both peoples together to build trust, improve understanding, and find common solutions to the roots of the conflict. There are dozens of conflicts in the world, and $15 million is too little money to support all the meritorious reconciliation proposals. This is particularly true in the Middle East. USAID has funded several organizations that bring together Israelis and Palestinians, but funding constraints make it impossible to support every deserving organization. This unmet need is the subject of a recent op-ed in the Palestine Times which poses some important questions. I ask unanimous consent that the article by Rabbi Michael Cohen, who has done extraordinary work in this area, be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to recognize an outstanding Vermont public servant who goes above and beyond to advocate for better laws and protection to keep children safe from lead poisoning--the No. 1 environmental health threat affecting young children in the United States. Ron Rupp serves as the current director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, VHCB, Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Program and has played a major role in securing more than $10 million in HUD funds for the State of Vermont for lead hazard control efforts. Having been with this program since its inception in 1994, Ron has worked to expand the availability and quality of training and assistance for landlords and homeowners in order to reduce the hazards of lead poisoning caused by lead-based paint. Under his leadership, the program has provided comprehensive technical and financial assistance to make Vermont properties lead-safe. In addition to direct intervention, Ron has worked to expand education outreach efforts for the public on lead paint hazards, including training of construction and service workers, as well as property owners, and on the importance of testing young children for lead poisoning. Ron's fight against childhood exposure to lead hazards is not limited to the State level. He has worked closely with the National Center for Healthy Housing to increase the overall body of knowledge on effective control of lead hazards and coauthored two papers on research into lead hazard control methods. Considered an expert on lead and environmental health, he has served as a reviewer for HUD's Lead Paint Safety Guide and other HUD documents. The most common cause of lead poisoning is exposure to dust from deteriorated lead-based paint, the foremost cause of childhood lead poisoning, in old homes and buildings. Children are most frequently exposed to miniscule lead dust particles from chipping, peeling or flaking paint that cling to toys, fingers and other objects, leading young children to ingest the particles. Poisoning can also come from sources such as soil containing lead from car exhaust, water pipes, lead-glazed ceramic dishware, and plastic mini-blinds. Too much lead in the body can cause damage to the brain, kidneys, nervous system and red blood cells. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 million children living in the United States between the ages of 1 and 5 years have unacceptably high levels of lead in their blood, which may result in learning disabilities, reduced intellectual ability, behavioral problems, or other health problems. Poor children are at special risk because inadequate nutrition increases lead absorption by the body. Ron's job is by no means an easy one, but he has done exceptional work advocating for better policies and practices so that Vermont's children can grow up in lead-free homes. My home State has the seventh oldest housing stock in the Nation--a real ``Lead Leader.'' In the city of Burlington alone, housing units occupied by low-income residents constitute the highest concentration of older homes in Vermont. Significant lead paint hazards are characteristic of the deteriorated condition of many of these buildings. The result is that Burlington has a childhood lead poisoning rate that is more than double the national average. Through the hard work of Ron and the VHCB Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Program, Vermont is becoming a place where our children can grow up safe from lead poisoning. The removal of lead hazards from our old homes and buildings is a slow process and success can be long in coming, but with dedicated public servants like Ron I have no doubt that success will indeed be met. Thank you, Ron, and congratulations to you for making Vermont's Lead- Based Paint Hazard Reduction Program the continuing success it is today.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, two Sundays ago, when Marcelle and I were at mass at Holy Trinity at Georgetown, we listened to a homily about the life of Angelo D'Agostino, SJ. I had been thinking about Father D'Ag, as those of us knew him called him, since I had received word from his dear friend Ben Palumbo that he had died. Ben and Madge Palumbo were wonderful friends to Father D'Ag, as they have been to Marcelle and me. As Father Kevin O'Brien noted while talking about the home Father D'Agostino began in Nyumbani, Kenya, Father D'Ag worked tirelessly to raise money, especially for abandoned HIV-positive children. His Nyumbani village was designed to hold together families, where most members had lost their normal family cohesiveness because of deaths from AIDS. So many of us, like my friend Senator Dennis DeConcini and others, always responded when the Palumbos asked us to go to fund- raisers to raise money for the work Father D'Agostino was doing throughout Africa. I told some of his fellow Jesuits that we long ago decided that we would do whatever Father D'Agostino wanted--eventually he'd make sure we would anyway, so we might as well do it graciously to begin with. Nothing fazed him when he was asking for others. He always went out of his way to remind Senator DeConcini, Ben Palumbo, and me that we shared Italian heritage. I once told him, ``Angelo, no matter who you were seeking help from, you would find something to connect you, and that would be the reason to do it.'' I remember his laugh to this day. The beauty of Father D'Agostino and the saintly nature of him was that he never asked for anything for himself--it was always for others. He gave a voice to those who had no voice, and he leaves a great gap in their lives. Even the President of Kenya and his wife attended the funeral to express his sorrow for the death of Father D'Agostino. He told the board members and others at the funeral that they must carry on Father D'Ag's work. He said, ``I am sure that is the assurance Father D'Agostino would have liked. He founded these homes and wanted to succeed in reducing the prevalence and effects of HIV/AIDS. You should take the responsibility of ensuring that Father D'Agostino's work continues.'' I ask unanimous consent that an article by Joe Holley of The Washington Post about Father D'Agostino be printed in the Record, as well as an article from the official website of the President of Kenya. For my part, I feel blessed for having known Father D'Ag and I mourn his loss.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Iraq is a dangerous and chaotic place for our brave American soldiers there, for our coalition partners, and for Iraqi families who must struggle just to make it safely through each day. It is also a perilous place for the journalists who attempt to cover the situation on the ground. They are at the front of the front lines of this conflict, and the dispatches from Iraq produced by representatives of a free and independent press are a vital conduit of information that helps the American people--and their representatives in government--to make more informed decisions. These are print reporters, television correspondents, photo journalists and the other professionals who help journalists in gathering and transmitting the news. We learned in recent days of the deaths of two more news professionals. Raad Jaafar Hamadi, a journalist with the daily Al Sabah, was shot dead in his car in the east of Baghdad on November 22. Fadhila Abdelkarim, an administrative staff worker of TV station Nainawa, was shot outside her home in Mosul on November 26. American media professionals have been among the casualties. They are as well known to us as NBC correspondent David Bloom, and those who we will never know by their bylines or on our TV screens. Director General Koichiro Matsuura of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization--UNESCO--this week noted that the number of media professionals killed in Iraq continues to grow unabated, and that ``since January more than 35 journalists have paid with their lives for their determination to fulfill their mission.'' According to Reporters without Borders--RSF--137 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, while 51 have been kidnapped. According to RSF, four of the kidnap victims are still being held hostage. Some in the administration have chosen over the years to disparage the journalists serving in Iraq--for instance, labeling them ``lazy'' or unwilling to leave their bureaus or hotels. The reality is far different. Day after day, journalists in Iraq face, and accept, incredible dangers just to do their jobs. As news professionals on one of the most challenging and important news beats on the planet, they deserve great credit for their courage and their commitment, and they deserve our appreciation.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it has been a difficult struggle to pass a measure to improve court security. It should not have been. This bill should have been enacted months ago with bipartisan support. I thank the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, the Senate Judiciary chairman, Senator Specter, and the assistant Democratic leader, Senator Durbin, for their leadership and hard work in finally passing the Court Security improvement Act of 2006, to increase protections for the dedicated women and men throughout the Judiciary in this country. I hope the House of Representatives will take up and pass this measure. By so doing, they can bring to fruition before the end of this Congress our efforts to provide increased security, an effort that gained new urgency after the tragedy that befell Judge Joan Lefkow of Chicago. She is the Federal judge whose mother and husband were murdered in their home. As we heard in her courageous testimony in May 2005 before the Judiciary Committee, this tragedy provided a terrible reminder not only of the vulnerable position of our judges and their families, but of the critical importance of protecting judges both where they work and where they and their families live. The shooting last summer of a State judge in Nevada provided another terrible reminder of the vulnerable position of our Nation's State and Federal judges. We cannot tolerate or excuse or justify violence or the threat of violence against judges. It is most unfortunate that some in this country have chosen to use dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric when talking about judges, comparing judges to terrorists and threatening judges with punishment for decisions they do not like. This rhetoric can only foster unacceptable violence against judges and it must stop, for the sake of our judges and the independence of the judiciary. Judicial fairness and independence are essential if we are to maintain our freedoms. Let no one say things that might bring about further threats against our judges. We ought to be protecting them physically and institutionally. Easy rhetorical pot shots put judges in real danger. The bill that passes today is a consensus, bipartisan bill. I hope it is a model for what we can achieve with bipartisan cooperation in the 110th Congress. Its core provisions, which previously passed the Senate in June as part of the managers' package of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, S. 2766, come from S. 1968, the streamlined Court Security Improvement Act of 2005, CSIA, which Chairman Specter and I introduced last November. The bill responds to requests by the Federal judiciary for a greater voice in working with the United States Marshals Service to determine their security needs. It enacts new criminal penalties for the misuse of restricted personal information to harm or threaten to harm Federal judges, their families or other individuals performing official duties. It enacts criminal penalties for threatening Federal judges and Federal law enforcement officials by the malicious filing of false liens, and provides increased protections for witnesses. The bill also contains provisions making available to states new resources to improve security for State and local court systems as well as providing additional protections for law enforcement officers. In particular, I thank Chairman Specter for agreeing to include in the bill an extension of life insurance benefits to bankruptcy, magistrate and territorial judges. Finally, the bill contains provisions that have passed the Senate several times extending and expanding to family members the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact certain information from a Federal judge's mandatory financial disclosure. This expired redaction authority was used in circumstances in which the release of the information could endanger the filer or the filer's family. I hope that the House of Representatives finally takes up and passes this much needed extension and expansion of redaction authority. We owe it to our judges to better protect them and their families from violence and to ensure they have the peace of mind necessary to do their vital and difficult jobs.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and cosponsor the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2006. This bill would restore the great writ of habeas corpus, a cornerstone of American liberty for hundreds of years that Congress and the President rolled back in an unprecedented and unnecessary way with September's Military Commissions Act. I am also pleased to join Senator Dodd as a cosponsor of the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act of 2006. That bill would likewise restore the liberties guaranteed by the writ of habeas corpus. It would also correct many of the other very disturbing provisions of the Military Commissions Act by narrowing that act's extremely broad definition of ``unlawful enemy combatants,'' excluding evidence obtained by coercion, and allowing defendants to review evidence used against them. Habeas corpus provides a remedy against arbitrary detentions and constitutional violations. It guarantees an opportunity to go to court, with the aid of a lawyer, to prove one's innocence. As Justice Scalia stated in the Hamdi case: ``The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.'' The remedy that secures that most basic of freedoms is habeas corpus. The Military Commissions Act eliminated that right, permanently, for any non-citizen determined to be an enemy combatant, or even ``awaiting'' such a determination. That includes the approximately 12 million lawful permanent residents in the United States today, people who work for American firms, raise American kids, and pay American taxes. This new law means that any of these people can be detained, forever, without any ability to challenge their detention in federal court--or anywhere else--simply on the Government's say-so that they are awaiting determination whether they are enemy combatants. I regret that Chairman Specter and I were unsuccessful in our efforts to stop this injustice when the President and the Republican leadership insisted on rushing the Military Commissions Act through Congress in the lead-up to the elections. We supported an amendment which would have removed the habeas-stripping provision from the Military Commissions Act. It failed by just three votes. I was saddened that the bill passed even with this poisonous habeas provision. Since then, the American people have spoken against the administration's ``stay the course'' approach to national security and against a rubber stamp Congress that accommodated this administration's efforts to grab more and more power. When we debated Chairman Specter's amendment to remove the habeas- stripping provision back in September, I spelled out a nightmare scenario about a hard-working legal permanent resident who makes an innocent donation to, among other charities, a Muslim charity that the Government thinks might be funneling money to terrorists. I suggested that, on the basis of this donation and perhaps a report of ``suspicious behavior'' from an overzealous neighbor based on visits from Muslim guests, the permanent resident could be brought in for questioning, denied a lawyer, confined, and even tortured. And this lawful permanent resident would have no recourse in the courts for years, for decades, forever. Many people viewed this kind of nightmare scenario as fanciful, just the rhetoric of a politician. It was not. It is all spelled out clearly in the language of the law that this body passed. Last month, the scenario I spelled out was confirmed by the Department of Justice itself in a legal brief submitted in a Federal court in Virginia. The Justice Department, in a brief to dismiss a detainee's habeas case, said that the Military Commissions Act allows the Government to detain any noncitizen declared to be an enemy combatant without giving that person any ability to challenge his detention in court. This is true, the Justice Department said, even for someone arrested and imprisoned in the United States. The Washington Post wrote that the brief ``raises the possibility that any of the millions of immigrants living in the United States could be subject to indefinite detention if they are accused of ties to terrorist groups.'' In fact, the situation is more stark even than the Washington Post story suggested. The Justice Department's brief says that the Government can detain any noncitizen declared to be an enemy combatant. But the law this Congress passed says the Government need not even make that declaration; they can hold people indefinitely who are just awaiting determination whether or not they are enemy combatants. It gets worse. Republican leaders in the Senate followed the White House's lead and greatly expanded the definition of ``enemy combatants'' in the dark of night in the final days before the bill's passage, so that enemy combatants need not be soldiers on battlefield. They can be people who give money, or people that any group of decisionmakers selected by the President decides to call enemy combatants. The possibilities are chilling. The administration has made it clear that they intend to use every expansive definition and unchecked power given to them by the new law. Last month's Justice Department brief made clear that any of our legal immigrants could be held indefinitely without recourse in court. Earlier in November, the Justice Department went to court to say that detainees who had been held in secret CIA prisons could not even meet with lawyers because they might tell their lawyers about the cruel interrogation techniques used against them. In other words, if our Government tortures somebody, that person loses his right to a lawyer because he might tell the lawyer about having been tortured. A law professor was quoted as saying about the government's position in that case: ``Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is `Alice in Wonderland.' '' We are not talking about nightmare scenarios here. We are talking about today's reality. We have eliminated basic legal and human rights for the 12 million lawful permanent residents who live and work among us, to say nothing of the millions of other legal immigrants and visitors who we welcome to our shores each year. We have removed the check that our legal system provides against the Government arbitrarily detaining people for life without charge, and we may well have made many of our remaining limits against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment obsolete because they are unenforceable. We have removed the mechanism the Constitution provides to check Government overreaching and lawlessness. This is wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. It is designed to ensure that the Bush-Cheney administration will never again be embarrassed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision reviewing its unlawful abuses of power. The conservative Supreme Court, with seven of its nine members appointed by Republican Presidents, has been the only check on the Bush-Cheney administration's lawlessness. Certainly the outgoing rubberstamp Republican Congress has not done it, or even investigated it. With passage of the Military Commissions Act, the Republican Congress completed the job of eviscerating its role as a check and balance on the administration. Abolishing habeas corpus for anyone who the Government thinks might have assisted enemies of the United States is unnecessary and morally wrong. It is a betrayal of the most basic values of freedom for which America stands. It makes a mockery of the Bush-Cheney administration's lofty rhetoric about exporting freedom across the globe. Admiral John Hutson testified before the Judiciary Committee that stripping the courts of habeas jurisdiction was inconsistent with American history and tradition. He concluded, ``We don't need to do this. America is too strong.'' Even Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel and Solicitor General to the first President Bush, wrote that the Constitution's conditions for suspending habeas corpus have not been met, and that doing so would be problematic. Under the Constitution, a suspension of the writ may only be justified during an invasion or a rebellion, when the public safety demands it. Six weeks after the deadliest attack on American soil in our history, the Congress that passed the PATRIOT Act rightly concluded that a suspension of the writ would not be justified. Yet 6 weeks before a midterm election, the Bush-Cheney administration and the Republican Congress deemed a complete abolition of the writ their highest priority. Notwithstanding the harm the administration has done to national security with its mismanaged misadventure in Iraq, there was no new national security crisis. There was only a Republican political crisis. The people have now spoken, and it is time to reverse the dangerous choices this Congress made. Rolling back the Military Commissions Act's disastrous habeas provision will set the stage for us to approach that issue in a way consistent with our needs and our values. We should take steps to ensure that our enemies can be tried efficiently and quickly and to prevent our courts from being tied up with frivolous suits. But abolishing the writ of habeas corpus for millions of legal immigrants and others, denying their right to get into court to challenge indefinite detainment on the Government's say-so, is not the answer. I hope that others will hear the call of the American people for a new direction and work to correct these and other problems with the new law, including the gutting of the War Crimes Act, which I was proud to help spearhead with strong bipartisan support in 1997. I will keep working on these issues until we restore the checks and balances that make our country great. We can ensure our security without giving up our liberty.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Thirty-six for a 15-minute rollcall. I am just curious, for those of us who might actually have a life after dark around this place, how much longer the rest will be. I thank the Chair.