Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to commend our two leaders. I have been working with Senator Daschle for months, as well as with the White House, to find a way out of the impasse in judicial confirmations. Senator Frist and I have spoken at length about this, and he has been working on it, as well. I was delighted to see the meeting that Senator Daschle, Senator Frist, and Mr. Card had today in which the White House agreed to no more recess appointments of judges. I think we have demonstrated our good faith. In the 17 months that the Democrats were in charge of the Senate, we confirmed 100 of President Bush's nominees to lifetime positions on the Federal bench. And the Republicans, during the 23 months that they have been in charge of the Senate, they have confirmed another 73 plus one today. With this agreement, I think we should be in a position to confirm another two dozen judicial nominees and achieve a total this is outstanding for a Presidential term. So I commend my friend from Tennessee. I commend my friend from South Dakota. And I appreciate their work in helping achieve this arrangement. I am pleased that the Senate has now received assurances from the White House that the President will not further abuse the recess appointment power by making judicial recess appointments this presidential term. It was the White House's refusal to reach a reasonable accommodation of the concerns of many Senators about the unilateral approach of the President regarding his recess appointments to the federal courts that complicated our efforts to reach agreement regarding votes on less controversial judicial nominees. Thanks to the work of the Democratic leader and the Republican leader, we have now received a firm commitment from the White House in that regard. I supported the nomination of Marcia Cooke. The Florida Senators supported the nomination of Marcia Cooke. All Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee supported the nomination of Marcia Cooke. I am pleased to vote today to confirm the nomination of Marcia Cooke. The selection of Ms. Cooke to be a judicial nominee for the Southern District of Florida serves as an example of how the judicial nominations process should work. She was interviewed and recommended by Florida's bipartisan judicial selection commission. This selection commission was created by Senators Graham and Nelson in a negotiated agreement with the White House and it has produced talented and well- respected attorneys for the lifetime appointments on the district courts in Florida. Ms. Cooke currently serves as an assistant county attorney in Miami- Dade County. She previously worked for 3 years as Governor Jeb Bush's Inspector General in Florida with oversight responsibilities regarding Florida administrative agencies. Ms. Cooke also was selected as a Federal Magistrate Judge in Detroit, after serving as a Federal prosecutor and also as a public defender. I acted to report her nomination unanimously from the Judiciary Committee and welcome her confirmation today. Marcia Cooke is highly regarded. I congratulate Ms. Cooke and her family on her unanimous confirmation vote today. I note that President Bush has nominated only 16 African Americans to the Federal courts, only about a quarter of the number of African Americans nominated by President Clinton to the federal bench. In fact, this President has put more people actively involved in the Federalist Society on the bench than African Americans, Hispanics and members of other minority groups combined. With today's confirmation vote on Marcia Cooke to the U.S. District Court in Florida, the Senate has already confirmed 174 judicial nominees of President George W. Bush in 3\1/2\ years and blocked only a handful of the most extreme. Due to Democratic cooperation and bipartisanship, the Senate has confirmed more judges for this President than in President Ronald Reagan's entire first 4 years in office--and it was President Reagan who ultimately appointed more judges than any other President in U.S. history. In fact, we have cooperated in reducing the 110 vacancies we inherited from Republican obstruction of President Clinton's judicial nomination to near 40 and attained the lowest vacancy level in 14 years. Today, the Senate and the White House reached an agreement regarding 25 of this President's judicial nominations pending on the floor, including Judge Cooke. Not all of these nominees are uncontroversial and some may require significant debate before their confirmation vote. With this agreement, the Senate is poised to confirm 198 judicial nominees of President Bush for lifetime positions on the Federal courts, including 35 circuit court nominees. We have already confirmed 30 circuit court nominees of President Bush. More of his circuit nominees have been confirmed than President Reagan had confirmed by this point in his first term. Recall that from the time Republicans assumed majority control of the Senate in 1995 until Democratic control in the summer of 2001, circuit court vacancies more than doubled from 16 to 33. We have worked to cut those vacancies in half by confirming 30 of President Bush's circuit court nominees. With five additional circuit court nominees part of the agreement, President Bush will exceed the number of circuit court appointments during President Reagan's first term, as well. Republicans rarely acknowledge that 100 of President Bush's judicial nominees to the bench were confirmed under Democratic Senate leadership during 17 months. During the 23 months I have not served as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Republicans have been in control, the Senate has confirmed 74 additional judges. So in 30 percent more time, Senate Republicans have confirmed 26 percent fewer judges. With the agreement reached today, the Senate will confirm a total of 29 judicial nominees of President Bush this year, including five circuit court nominees. With the progress we have already made this year and under the action agreed to today, the Senate will reach this mark before the July 4th recess. This is 29 times more judicial nominees than were allowed to be confirmed by Republicans before July during 1996, the last time an incumbent President was seeking reelection. During that session, Senate Republicans did not allow a single judicial nominee of President Clinton's to be confirmed before July. During that entire session Republicans allowed only 17 judicial nominees to be confirmed, none of them for the circuit courts. During that session when Republicans were in control of the Senate, they made sure that none of President Clinton's circuit court nominees were confirmed all session, not a single one. With our fifth judicial confirmation this year, we are well ahead of 1996. Republicans have made no apology for the way in which they acted in 1996 but seek to employ a double standard now that a Republican occupies the White House. All told, Republicans blocked more than 60 of President Clinton's judicial nominees. Yet Republicans Senators now routinely claim that every judicial nominee of President Bush is entitled to a confirmation vote. Suddenly, without regard to history, including their own very recent history, they claim that the Constitution requires a confirmation vote, at least for Republican nominees. The Constitution certainly does not say that. Republicans seem to have ``confirmation amnesia'' when they complain that Senate Democrats have filibustered six judicial nominees of President Bush after Republicans defeated by delay 10 times more judicial nominees of President Clinton through anonymous holds and without accountability. Republicans know that they filibustered Justice Abe Fortas' Supreme Court nomination and several Clinton nominees. Republicans cannot erase their history, try as they might. Republicans defeated more than 60 Clinton judicial nominees and more than 200 of his executive branch nominees through delay. One judicial nomination was defeated when the Republican caucus took the unprecedented action of voting lockstep along party lines against confirmation of Judge Ronnie White. With the agreement reached today, we are likely to adjourn with fewer vacancies than at any time in nearly a quarter of a century, since President Reagan's first term and well below the level of vacancies tolerated by Republicans during President Clinton's two terms. Having defeated more than 60 of President Clinton's nominees, including almost two dozen circuit court nominees, through concerted inaction, Senate Republicans have no standing to complain about the way in which the Senate is acting on President Bush's nominees. We have acted more fairly, more quickly and on more nominees than Republicans would allow when President Clinton was making much more moderate nominations. I am pleased that the White House has promised to refrain from any more abuses of the recess appointment power. With that commitment, we have agreed to vote on two dozen judicial nominees this year. Even with the historically low vacancy levels we will reach as a result, I have no doubt that some partisan Republicans will still complain that they did not get 100 percent of their judicial nominees confirmed. Something no President in memory has achieved. This Congress we reached the lowest level of vacancies since 1990. There are more federal judges on the bench now than at any time in U.S. history. Unfortunately, we are faced with continued White House defiance of the Senate's role as part of the checks and balances established by our Constitution. President Bush defied the Senate by recess appointing William Pryor and Charles Pickering, who were widely opposed due to their records of activism and poor ethics. No American President has ever abused the recess appointment power to put judges on the bench whose nominations were debated at length by the Senate and on which it had withheld its consent. The President's appointment of Charles Pickering was unprecedented, yet we noted our objection, turned the other cheek and continued to cooperate in the confirmation of judicial nominees. When the President abused his power a second time and appointed William Pryor, we had no alternative but to make our objection meaningful by seeking assurances from the White House that such abuse would not happen again. Over the past several weeks, I have shared with the Senate information about a number of divisive developments regarding judicial nominations including the Pickering recess appointment during the weekend for commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In spite of all the affronts, Senate Democrats cooperated in confirming four additional judicial nominees this year and continued to participate in hearings for judicial nominees. The President's recess appointment of William Pryor was the last straw. It was properly termed an abuse of power by the Senate Democratic Leader. It was an abuse of the constitutional authority of the Executive to make necessary recess appointments during the unavailability of the Senate. The judicial recess appointments of nominees debated at length by the Senate was unprecedented. Actions like this showed the American people that this White House was determined to try to turn the independent federal judiciary into an arm of the Republican Party. Doing this further erodes the White House's credibility as well as the respect and confidence that the American people have for the courts. This is an administration that promised to unite the American people but that has chosen time and again to act in ways that divide us, to disrespect the Senate and our representative democracy. This is an administration that squandered the good will and good faith that Democrats showed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. This is an administration that refused to acknowledge the strides we made in filling 100 judicial vacancies under Democratic Senate leadership during 17 difficult months in 2001 and 2002, while overcoming the September 11 attacks, the subsequent anthrax attacks and in spite of Republican mistreatment of scores of qualified, moderate judicial nominees of President Clinton. This is an administration that has time and time again demonstrated its unilateralism, arrogance and intention to divide the American people and the Senate with its controversial judicial nominations. With its recess appointments, the President acted--as he has in so many areas over the past 3\1/2\ years--unilaterally, overextending and expanding his power, with disregard for past practice and tradition, and the rule of law. The recess appointment of Mr. Pryor threatens both the independence of the judiciary and the constitutional balance of power between the legislative and executive branches. We entrust to the stewardship of lifetime judges in our independent Federal judiciary the rights that all of us are guaranteed by our Constitution and laws. That is an awesome responsibility. Accordingly, the Constitution was designed so that it would only be extended after the President and the Senate agreed on the suitability of the nomination. The President chose for the second time in as many months to circumvent this constitutional design and impose his will unilaterally. I have sought in good faith to work with this administration for the last 3\1/2\ years in filling judicial vacancies, including so many left open by Republican obstruction of President Clinton's qualified nominees. When Chairman, I made sure that President Bush's nominees were not treated the way his predecessor's had been. They were treated far more fairly, as I had promised. Republicans had averaged only 37 confirmations a year while vacancies rose from 65 to 110 and circuit vacancies more than doubled from 16 to 33. Under Democratic leadership, we reversed those trends and opened the system to public accountability and debate by making home-State Senators' objections public for the first time. We openly debated and voted on nominations. We were able to confirm 100 judges in just 17 months and virtually doubled the Republican annual average of 37 with 72 confirmations in 2002, alone. I have urged that we work together, that we cooperate, and that the President live up to the promise he made to the American people during the last campaign when he said he would act as a uniter and not a divider. I have offered to consult and made sure we explained privately and in the public record why this President's most extreme and controversial nominations were unacceptable. Both his recess appointments are troubling. The President says that he wants judges who will ``follow the law'' and complains about what he calls ``judicial activism.'' Yet, he has acted--with disregard for the constitutional balance of powers and the Senate's advice and consent authority--unilaterally to install on the Federal bench two nominees from whom the Senate withheld its consent precisely because they are seen by so many as likely to be judicial activists, who will insert their personal views in decisions and will not follow the law. In the case of Mr. Pryor, he is among the most extreme and ideologically committed and opinionated nominees ever sent to the Senate. Mr. Pryor's nomination to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench was opposed by every Democratic member on the Senate Judiciary Committee after hearings and debate. It was opposed on the Senate floor because he appears to have extreme--some might say ``radical''--ideas about what the Constitution should provide with regard to federalism, criminal justice and the death penalty, violence against women, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Government's ability to protect the environment on behalf of the American people. He has been a crusader for the ``federalist'' revolution. He has urged that Federal laws on behalf of the disabled, the aged, women, minorities, and the environment all be limited. His comments have revealed insensitivity to the barriers that disadvantaged persons and members of minority groups and women continue to face in the criminal justice system. He has testified before Congress in support of dropping a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act and has repeatedly described the Supreme Court and certain justices in overtly political terms. He received the lowest possible qualified rating from the American Bar Association--a partial rating of ``Not Qualified''--underscoring his unfitness for the bench. In sum, Mr. Pryor demonstrated that he is committed to an ideological agenda that puts corporate interests over the public's interests and that he would roll back the hard-won rights of consumers, minorities, women, and others. Mr. Pryor's nomination was considered in committee and on the Senate floor. The Senate debated his nomination, and had enough concerns about his fitness for a lifetime appointment that two motions to end debate on his nomination failed. That is the constitutional right of the Senate. But President Bush decided to use the recess appointment clause of the Constitution to end-run the Senate. As far as I know, this power has never been used this way before this President. Of course this is the first President in our Nation's history to renominate someone rejected after hearings, debate and a fair vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee. He did that twice. He has now twice overridden the Senate's withholding of its consent after hearings and debate on judicial nominees. This demonstrates contempt for the Constitution and the Senate. The New York Times editorialized about ``President Bush . . . stacking the courts with right-wing judges of dubious judicial qualifications'' and even the Washington Post observed that recess appointments of judges ``should never be used to mint judges who cannot be confirmed on their merits.'' The recess appointments clause of the Constitution was not intended to change the balance of power between the Senate and the President that is established as part of the fundamental set of checks and balances in our Government. Indeed, the appointments clause in the Constitution requires the consent of the Senate as just such a fundamental check on the Executive. This was meant to protect against the ``aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other.'' The clause was debated at the Constitutional Convention, and the final language--with shared power--is intended to be a check upon favoritism of the President and prevent the appointment of unfit characters. The President's claimed power to make a unilateral appointment of a nominee the Senate considered and effectively rejected, slights the Framers' deliberate and considered decision to share the appointing power equally between the President and the Senate. This President's appointment of Mr. Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit--after he was considered by the full Senate seems irreconcilable with the original purpose of the appointments and recess appointment clauses in the Constitution. Perhaps that explains why the Pryor and Pickering recess appointments by this President are the first times in our centuries- long history that the recess appointment power has been so abused. No other President has engaged in this manner. No other President sought such unilateral authority without balance from the Senate. The President chose to sully the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with his unilateral appointment of Judge Pickering. Sadly, he chose the Presidents' Day congressional break unilaterally to appoint Mr. Pryor. After the Presidents' Day weekend, we resumed our proceedings in the Senate with the traditional reading of President's George Washington's Farewell Address. The Senate proceeds in this way every year. I urge this President and those in his administration to recall the wisdom of our first President. George Washington instructs us on the importance of not abusing the power each branch is given by the Constitution. He urges the three branches of our Government to ``confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.'' He said more than 200 years ago words that ring true to this day: The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism . . . The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern. . . To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. The current occupant of the White House might do well to take this wisdom to heart and respect the constitutional allocations of shared authority that have protected our nation and our rights for more than 200 years so brilliantly and effectively. The recess appointments power was intended as a means to fill vacancies when the Senate was not available to give its consent; it was intended to ensure effective functioning of the government when the Senate adjourned for months at a time. It was never intended as an alternative means of appointment by the Executive when the President chose to serve some partisan short-term goal by simply overriding the will of the Senate to employ his own--especially with respect to our third branch of Government, the Federal judiciary. This administration and its partisan enablers have demonstrated their disdain for the constitutional system of checks and balances and for shared power among the three branches of our Federal Government. By such actions, this Administration shows that it seeks all power consolidated in the Executive and that it wants a Judiciary that will serve its narrow ideological purposes. Such overreaching by this administration hurts the courts and the country. President Bush and his partisans have disrespected the Senate, its constitutional role of advice and consent on lifetime appointments to the Federal courts, the Federal courts, and the representative democracy that is so important to the American people. It is indicative of the confrontational and ``by any means necessary'' attitude that underlies so many actions by this administration and that created a climate on the Judiciary Committee in which Republican staff felt justified in spying upon their counterparts and stealing computer files. After 8 years in office in which more than 60 judicial nominees had been stalled from consideration by Republican partisans, President Clinton made his one and only recess appointment of a judge. Contrast that appointment with the actions of the current President: President Clinton acted to bring diversity to the Fourth Circuit, the last federal circuit court not to have had an African-American member. Judge Roger Gregory was subsequently approved by the Senate for a lifetime appointment under Democratic Senate leadership in the summer of 2001. This was made possible by the steadfast support of Senator John Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, and I have commended my friend for his actions in this regard. When Judge Gregory's nomination was finally considered by the Senate, it passed by consensus and with only one negative vote. Senator Lott explained his vote as a protest vote against President Clinton's use of the recess appointment power. How ironic then that Judge Pickering now serves based on President Bush's abuse of that power. Judge Gregory was one of scores of highly qualified judicial nominations stalled under Republican Senate leadership. Indeed, Judge Gregory and so many others were prevented from having a hearing, from ever being considered by the Judiciary Committee and from ever being considered by the Senate. Sadly, others, such as the nominations of Bonnie Campbell, Christine Arguello, Allen Snyder, Kent Markus, Kathleen McCree Lewis, Jorge Rangel, Carlos Moreno, and so many more, have not been reinstated and considered. But President Clinton did not abuse his recess appointment power. Instead, his appointment of Judge Gregory was in keeping with traditional practices and his use of that power with respect to judicial appointments was limited to that one occasion. By contrast, the current President made two circuit recess appointments in 2 months and his White House had threatened that more were on the way. These appointments are from among the most controversial and contentious nominations this administration has sent the Senate. After reviewing their records and debating at length, the Senate withheld its consent. The reasons for opposing these nominations were discussed in hearings and open debate during which the case was made that these nominees were among the handful that a significant number of Senators determined had not demonstrated their fairness and impartiality to serve of judges. Contrast Roger Gregory's recess appointment, which fit squarely in the tradition of President's exercising such authority in order to expand civil rights and to bring diversity to the courts, with that of Mr. Pryor. Four of the five first African American appellate judges were recess-appointed to their first Article III position, including Judge William Hastie in 1949, Judge Thurgood Marshall in 1961, Judge Spottswood Robinson in 1961, and Judge Leon Higginbotham in 1964. The recent appoints of Judge Pickering and Mr. Pryor stand in sharp contrast to these outstanding nominees and the public purposes served by their appointments. The nominations of Judge Pickering and Mr. Pryor were opposed by individuals, organizations and editorial pages across the Nation. Organizations and individuals concerned about justice before the Federal courts, such as Log Cabin Republicans, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and many others opposed the Pryor nomination. The opposition extended to include organizations that rarely take positions on nominations but felt so strongly about Mr. Pryor that they were compelled to lodge their opposition in the record, such as the National Senior Citizens Law Center, Anti-Defamation League, and Sierra Club. Rather than bring people together and move the country forward, this President's recess appointments are more examples of unnecessarily divisive action. Further, the legality of this President's use of the recess appointments power, without precedent and during such a short Senate break, is itself now a source of division and dispute. Recent Attorneys General have all opined that a recess of 10 days or less does not justify the President's use of the recess appointments power and would be considered unconstitutional. Starting in 1921, Attorney General Daugherty advised the President that he could make recess appointments during a mid-session adjournment of approximately four weeks but two days was not sufficient ``nor do I think an adjournment for five or even 10 days can be said to constitute the recess intended by the Constitution.'' More recently, a memo from the Reagan administration Justice Department concluded: ``Under no circumstances should the President attempt to make recess appointment during intrasession recess of less than 10 days.'' This year, a Federalist Society paper noted the dubious constitutionality of appointments during short intrasession breaks. We will not resolve the question of legality of these recess appointments here today, but we can all anticipate challenges to rulings in which Mr. Pryor participates. Thus, we can expect this audacious action by the administration will serve to spawn litigation and uncertainty for months and years to come. I thank the Democratic leader for the statements he made and the actions that he took in connection with the abuse of the recess appointment power by this President. I remind the Senate that a few years ago when President Clinton used his recess appointment power with regard to a short-term Executive appointment of James Hormel to serve as Ambassador to Luxembourg, Senator Inhofe responded by saying that President Clinton had ``shown contempt for Congress and the Constitution'' and declared that he would place ``holds on every single Presidential nomination.'' Republicans continued to block nominations until President Clinton agreed to make recess appointments only after Congress was notified in advance. On November 10, 1999, 17 Republican Senators sent a letter to President Clinton telling him that if he violated the agreement, they would ``put holds for the remaining of the term of your Presidency on all of the judicial nominees.'' In November 1999, President Clinton sent a list of 13 positions to the Senate that he planned to fill through recess appointments. In response, Senator Inhofe denounced 5 of the 13 civilian nominees with a threat that if they went forward, he would personally place a hold on every one of President Clinton's judicial nominees for the remainder of his term. That led to more delays and to the need for a floor vote on a motion to proceed to consider the next judicial nomination, in order to override Republican objections. When President Clinton appointed Judge Gregory at the end of 2000, Senator Inhofe called it ``outrageously inappropriate for any president to fill a federal judgeship through a recess appointment in a deliberate way to bypass the Senate.'' When the Gregory nomination was confirmed with near unanimity under Senate Democratic leadership in 2001, Senator Lott's spokesperson indicated that Senator Lott's solitary opposition was to underscore his position that ``any appointment of federal judges during a recess should be opposed.'' Democrats have been measured in our response. Indeed, we continued our work after the unprecedented recess appointment of Judge Pickering. It was only with the repeated abuse of the recess appointment power to place Mr. Pryor on the Federal bench and the threat of additional recess appointments that we acted. I urged the White House to renounce this abuse of the recess appointment power so that we could resume Senate consideration of judicial nominations and increase our record number of confirmations before the end of the year. I am glad that the White House has finally decided to make a firm commitment against any additional judicial recess appointments. We are defending fair courts. We have acted to protect the Senate's role as a check on excessive White House power grabs and to block the lifetime appointments of a handful of nominees for lifetime seats, nominees who have records of extremism. The American people deserve a Federal judiciary with fair judges who will enforce their rights and uphold the law. Rather than work with all Senators, the White House has fixated on forcing through the most divisive people for these lifetime jobs. This White House has the wrong priorities and is taking the country in the wrong direction. President Bush ran as a ``uniter'' but has consciously chosen to send divisive nominees to the Senate. As a Presidential candidate, Bush promised the American people he would have ``no litmus test'' for Federal judges on reproductive rights ``or any other issue'' and that he would choose ``competent judges'' who would ``not use the bench for writing social policy.'' As President, he has broken these and other promises repeatedly. President Bush's choices for the only lifetime jobs in our system of Government show that he views the Federal courts as a spoils system for partisan activists, including some whose records prove that they will not be fair and impartial judges, but would use the Federal bench to write social policies they prefer into the law. Under our Constitution, the power to make lifetime appointments to the courts is shared: the President has the power to nominate or propose judges, but only the Senate has the power to confirm or reject those nominations. Throughout American history, the Senate has rejected judicial nominees. Not even President Washington saw all of his nominees confirmed. Senate Democrats have opposed only the most troubling judicial nominees of President Bush. In his judicial appointments, President Bush has sought out judicial activists, often quite young, with the hope that these judges will rule for decades to come in ways that advance the Republican Party's narrow and partisan political and social agenda. President Bush has proposed many nominees to the federal courts, especially the appellate courts, who have records of extreme partisanship, activism or just plain poor ethics. For example, President Bush nominated 41-year-old William Pryor for the appeals court after Mr. Pryor led the effort to undermine protections against age, sex and disability discrimination, to limit the reach of the Clean Water Act, to repeal the Voting Rights Act, to overturn Roe v. Wade, and to oppose lawsuits for tobacco-related deaths and illnesses. Mr. Pryor himself believes that President Bush should not appoint moderate judges to the federal courts, stating: ``I'm probably the only one who wanted [Bush v. Gore] 5-4.'' He said, ``I wanted Governor Bush to have a full appreciation of the judiciary and judicial selection so we can have no more appointments like Justice Souter.'' Justice Souter's apparent ``offense'' was to be more faithful to the Constitution than to the partisan politics of the party of the President who nominated him to the highest court. Mr. Pryor was rejected under the Senate's longstanding Rules after extensive debate. But President Bush put him on the bench anyway. He is now sitting on the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit temporarily. President Bush also appointed Judge Charles Pickering to the appeals court even though the Senate refused consent to his nomination. Judge Pickering was opposed due to the low quality of his judging, his habit of inserting his personal views into his decisions, and his questionable ethics. Judge Pickering willfully violated judicial ethics by his extraordinary campaign to get around a mandatory prison sentence for a man convicted by a jury of his peers of burning a cross on an interracial couple's lawn. His record was criticized by civil rights leaders and organizations. Numerous African Americans in Mississippi and from across the country wrote in opposition to his nomination. President Bush recess appointed him to the Fifth Circuit on the weekend designated to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. President Bush also nominated to the D.C. Circuit Justice Janice Rogers Brown of California who has a reputation for injecting her political views into her judicial opinions. In speeches and decisions, she literally advocated turning back the clock 100 years to the era when worker protections were declared unconstitutional by activist judges. Justice Brown has even described the year 1937--when her brand of judicial activism was repudiated--as ``the triumph of our own socialist revolution.'' Her views are so extreme and rigid she has suggested: ``There are so few true conservatives left in America that we probably should be included on the endangered species list.'' The Senate refused to grant consent to her nomination at the end of the 40- hour talkathon Republicans engineered to shut down the Senate last year. President Bush also selected State Judge Carolyn Kuhl for an appellate judgeship after she spearheaded a failed effort to give tax- exempt status to racially discriminatory schools like Bob Jones University, led the effort to get the Reagan Justice Department to seek the reversal of Roe v. Wade, sought to curtail discrimination laws, and tried to limit protections for whistleblowers. Before she was nominated to the Federal bench, Judge Kuhl also ruled in a case that a breast cancer patient had no privacy claims against a doctor who allowed a drug salesman to watch her breast examination without her permission. Both California Senators opposed Judge Kuhl's nomination and the Senate withheld its consent. Additionally, President Bush chose Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen for the federal bench after statements by her fellow judges in a wide range of cases--from environmental regulation to personal injury law to privacy to discrimination--that she was injecting her personal views into her opinions. Her opinions were called, among other things, ``nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric'' and an approach that ``defies the Legislature's clear and express limits on our jurisdiction.'' One opinion in which she tried to write her preferred social policies into law was called ``an unconscionable act of judicial activism'' by then Justice Alberto Gonzales, who is now President Bush's White House Counsel. The Senate withheld its consent from her nomination after extensive debate. The nomination of Miguel Estrada, who was 39 when nominated to the nation's second highest court, is another example of President Bush's practice of dividing instead of uniting Americans. Despite concerns that were raised whether Mr. Estrada could keep his personal views out of his legal work at the Justice Department and the ample precedent for the Senate's request for legal memos in nominations. President Bush decided to stonewall the Senate. This stonewalling, combined with Mr. Estrada's refusal to answer numerous questions about his views prompted the extended debate that led to his withdrawal. Currently pending are William James Haynes, II and Brett Kavanaugh. Mr. Haynes has been less than forthcoming about his actions as the general counsel at the Department of Defense and his role in subverting legal protections in ways that may have contributed to the breakdown of compliance with the Geneva Conventions, our treaties against torture and the Constitution. Mr. Kavanaugh is another youthful nominee whose background as an aide to Kenneth Starr and in the White House is among the more partisan we have seen, even among this President's very partisan nominees. For doing their job and upholding their constitutional responsibilities, Democratic Senators have been wrongly attacked as anti-woman, anti-Hispanic, anti-Christian and anti-Catholic. Those charges are reprehensible, ad hominem attacks without basis. This is partisan sniping at its worst. Republican Senators have been all too willing to fuel such baseless claims and the President has shown his willingness to play partisan politics with judicial nominations. Some of this President's appointments have already started using their seat on the Federal bench to write their political, social or cultural views into law, despite promises that they would not do so. We are now seeing the impact of the Bush judges the Senate has confirmed in courts all over the country where a radically narrow view of the power of Congress, informed by a Federalist Society philosophy, is beginning to take hold. Let me give you a few examples of the ways in which these judges are attempting to remake the legal landscape in their own reactionary ideological image. Judge Jeffrey Sutton has written a dissent in a federal arson case putting forward a distressingly narrow interpretation of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. Judge Sutton was an extremely controversial Bush nominee who promised the Senate that he would not have an agenda on the bench to narrow congressional power and he was confirmed by one of the smallest number and proportion of positive votes in history, 52-41. Judge John Roberts, another controversial nominee of President Bush, has questioned the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act under a similar theory, showing his willingness to curtail Congress's ability to protect the environment. He has also ruled for the administration in the ongoing case seeking more transparency and accountability from Vice President Cheney and his Energy Task Force. Judge Edith Clement of the Fifth Circuit, another Bush circuit court nominee, has also showed her Federalist bent by voting to limit the Hobbs Act, also under the reasoning that Congress' ability to legislate under the Commerce Clause is more narrow than legal precedent actually shows. Other Bush judges have taken extreme positions and been criticized by their peers, often other conservatives, for overstepping bounds or substituting their views for the trial court's. Their tenure on the federal bench has so far been short, but even these few examples show that as it lengthens, the number of ideological opinions will grow. While Democrats have not imposed ideological litmus tests on the Bush nominees, it is clear that President Bush has. President Bush has named to the bench many who have been leaders in the right-to-life movement and none who have been leaders on the other side of that social issue. The President has sought out people he hopes share his social agenda for our Federal courts. President Bush has also used federal judgeships to reward lawyers who worked closely with Ken Starr or on the Florida recount, including some for lifetime seats who were as young as 34 years old. Many of his nominees have been drawn from a select group of neoconservatives whose views are surprisingly rigid given their youth. Indeed, more than half of President Bush's circuit court nominees have been involved with the Federalist Society and overall almost a quarter of all of his judicial nominees have been associated with this organization whose mission is to ``reorder the legal priorities'' along ideological lines. In fact, President Bush has chosen more judicial nominees involved in the Federalist Society than nominees who are Hispanic, African American or Asian Pacific combined. No one is entitled to a lifetime job as a judge, entrusted with making decisions that affect the lives, liberties and property of millions of Americans. I will continue to oppose judicial nominees who I do not think will be fair, independent Federal judges. We are committed to defending the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and to ensuring that our Federal courts have fair judges who will be faithful to the Constitution and its precedents, not loyal to the partisan political agenda of President Bush. The fairness of the Federal judiciary is indivisible from our American ideal of justice for all. Whether Congress may regulate lead in our water, whether we can provide leave for families during medical crises, and whether fundamental protections for our liberty, equality and privacy will be preserved, all these matters will be reviewed and decided by Federal judges. Our freedoms are the fruit of too much sacrifice to confirm those who will not fully enforce Federal protections. It is imperative that there be fair judges for all people--poor or rich, Republican or Democrat, of any race or religion. A number of President Bush's nominees have records that do not demonstrate that they will be impartial. Democrats have refused to rubber-stamp judicial activists. We know that the Federal courts should not be an arm of the Republican Party. There are any number of issues and bills that the Senate could and should be addressing instead of arguing over cloture petitions for judicial nominees. Judicial vacancies is about the only number going in the right direction. With the deficit up, the debt up, the numbers of uninsured, unemployed and impoverished Americans up, but the number of Federal court vacancies going down, the Senate has much more to do. Of course, April 15 was the legal deadline for adoption of a Federal budget. Even though Republicans have excluded congressional Democrats from the discussion, they have not been able to agree even among themselves on the Federal budget resolution. That statutory requirement is being violated daily. The transportation bill is long overdue. Again, it is Republicans who cannot agree on a transportation bill that will fix our roads, bridges and provide for public transportation. That bill would mean hundreds of billions of dollars to our local communities and States all across the country. A supposed priority this year was going to be welfare legislation. Republicans have not agreed on a welfare reform extension. We have no legislation to confront the soaring gas prices that affect all Americans, nor will the Republican leadership schedule action on the bipartisan NOPEC bill that was unanimously reported by the Judiciary Committee to clarify that OPEC cannot act collusively with impunity from the law. This week we mark the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court. It offered African-Americans throughout our Nation hope that the Government of the United States was prepared to make real Jefferson's declaration that ``all men are created equal.'' It made good on Justice Harlan's famous words of dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson: ``In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here.'' Of course, the decision in Brown was not universally celebrated at the time. It was condemned from some quarters and sparked defiance in many parts of this nation. It was the beginning, not the end, of a long process of desegregation that was fought vigorously in many communities. Even today, 50 years later, there is still significant work to be done to ensure equal educational opportunity for all of our children. Schools in our cities are all too often in disrepair, both physically and in the quality of education they can offer to the most vulnerable children among us. As we commemorate Brown, we must also note that the Republican Congress has funded Title I--the Federal program most directly targeted toward those schools and toward reducing educational inequality--at $6.3 billion below its authorized level for the current year. We should celebrate the brave families who desegregated our schools, and the accomplished lawyers, including Thurgood Marshall, who led the fight. We should commemorate the nine Justices who were unanimous in their dedication to the constitutional principle of equality. And we should remember the many leaders who have continued the battle for justice in the decades since. This anniversary should not be the cause of complacency or self- congratulation--our work is not done. There is much else we could be doing--but are not--in the area of civil rights. The Voting Rights Act is slated to expire in 2007, and the Majority Leader and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee have said they want to make its key provisions permanent. I have said that I support this goal and want to make sure we achieve it in the way most likely to survive an inevitable constitutional challenge before a Supreme Court that shows little deference to Acts of Congress. Senator Kennedy and I have both said we want to work with Senators Frist and Hatch to begin committee consideration of the Voting Rights Act and build the legislative history that would justify making it permanent to the judicial branch. Up until now, we have received no response. We have been fighting now for many years to pass hate crimes legislation that would both improve our existing hate crimes laws and apply them against criminals who target gay and lesbian Americans. I am one of 49 cosponsors of S. 966, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act. This bill has passed the Senate before, only to be blocked by the Republican leadership in the House. In recent years, however, we have been unable to get the Senate to adopt it. In the last Congress, almost every Republican Senator voted against cloture on the hate crimes bill, dooming it to failure. In the current Congress, we have not considered the bill. Meanwhile, the bipartisan Employment Non-Discrimination Act (``ENDA'') of 2003 (S. 1705) is bottled up in the HELP Committee. This bill has 43 cosponsors. It would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. One might think that opposing firing people simply because they are gay is a rather commonplace position in 2004. In the Senate, however, we cannot get a vote on ENDA. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (``DREAM Act'') S. 1545, continues to languish on the Senate calendar. This is a bill that the Judiciary Committee approved last November. It has 46 cosponsors, including a dozen Republicans. Its lead sponsors are Senator Hatch and Senator Durbin. It would restore to States the right to provide in-state tuition to undocumented aliens who graduate from U.S. high schools. The beneficiaries would be young people who came here as children, not of their own volition. They would be people like Jazmin Segura, a Los Angeles high school senior from a high-crime neighborhood with a 3.88 GPA. Ms. Segura, who came to the United States from Mexico when she was nine years old, was featured in a Wall Street Journal article last month. She had been accepted at the University of California at Berkeley and at UCLA, but did not know whether she would be able to afford to go. We have legislation at the ready that could help Ms. Segura and many others like her. If we held a vote on this bill right now, it would undoubtedly pass by a wide margin. But the Republican leadership--eager to reach out only rhetorically to the Hispanic community--has refused to bring it up for a vote. I came to the floor nearly two weeks ago to decry the Senate's failure to consider legislation to respond to a crisis affecting industries throughout the economy that depend on temporary labor. More than 2 months ago the Department of Homeland Security announced that for the first time ever the annual cap for H-2B visas had been met. These visas are used by a wide range of industries throughout the nation to fill temporary labor needs. In my home State of Vermont, they are used primarily by the tourist industry. In response to this announcement, I joined with a substantial bipartisan coalition in introducing S. 2252, the Save Summer Act of 2004. Senator Kennedy is the lead sponsor of this bipartisan bill, which has 18 cosponsors, including 8 Republicans. Our bill would add 40,000 visas for the current fiscal year, providing relief to those summer-oriented businesses that had never even had the opportunity to apply for visas. Senator Hatch introduced a competing bill sponsored only by Republicans, S. 2258. I do not think that bill is as good as our bipartisan bill, but it is certainly better than nothing. Unfortunately, a small minority of the Republican caucus has demanded we do nothing, and the Republican leadership has acceded to that demand. Either the Save Summer Act of Senator Hatch's bill would command the support of an overwhelming majority of Senators, but the majority leader has brought neither forward for a vote. When it comes to immigration, the Republican leadership has ignored not only the concerns of the tourism industry and other businesses that depend on temporary summer workers, but even to the needs of farmers. Senators Craig and Kennedy joined together in introducing S. 1645, the Agricultural Job, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act. This bill has 62 cosponsors, including 25 Republicans. It would solve problems in the H-2A program that have plagued American farmers for years, while also providing a path to legalization for farm workers who have been working here illegally for years. It has the vociferous support of both farmers and farm workers; it is indeed an example of the sort of compromise legislation that used to be a hallmark of this body. But we cannot get a vote on this bill. So while the Republican leadership has devoted time last week and this to an impasse over judicial nominees caused by the President's abuse of the recess appointment power, we have seen little effort to work on matters of significance that can and should be considered and acted upon by the Senate to make bipartisan progress for all Americans. While we celebrate progress today on judicial nomination, I hope that we will also soon see progress on these legislative matters. Through bipartisan action we can do much to serve the American people.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce ``The Missing Child Cold Case Review Act of 2004,'' which will allow an Inspector General to authorize his or her staff to provide assistance on and conduct reviews of the inactive case files, or ``cold cases,'' involving children stored at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to develop recommendations for further investigations. I am pleased that Senator Grassley joins me as the lead cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation. I thank him for his leadership in this area. Speed is everything in homicide investigations. As a former prosecutor in Vermont, I know firsthand that speed is of the essence when trying to solve a homicide. This focus on speed, however, has led the law enforcement community to generally believe that any case not solved within the first 72 hours or lacking significant leads and witness participation has little likelihood of being solved, regardless of the expertise and resources deployed. With time, such unsolved cases become ``cold,'' and these are among the most difficult and frustrating cases detectives face because they are, in effect, cases that other investigators, for whatever reason, failed to solve. Our Nation's law enforcement agencies, regardless of size, are not immune to rising crime rates, staff shortages and budget restrictions. Such obstacles have strained the investigative and administrative resources of all agencies. More crime often means that fewer cases are vigorously pursued, fewer opportunities arise for follow-up and individual caseloads increase for already overworked detectives. All the obstacles that hamper homicide investigations in their early phases contribute to cold cases. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children--our Nation's top resource center for child protection--presently retains a backlog of cold cases involving children that law enforcement departments nationwide have stopped investigating primarily due to all these obstacles. NCMEC serves as a clearinghouse for all cold cases in which a child has not been found and/or the suspect has not been identified. The bill that Senator Grassley and I introduce today would allow an Inspector General to provide staff support to NCMEC for the purpose of conducting reviews of inactive case files to develop recommendations for further investigation and similar activities. The Inspector General community has one of the most diverse and talented criminal investigative cadres in the Federal government. A vast majority of these special agents have come from traditional law enforcement agencies, and are highly-trained and extremely capable of dealing with complex, criminal cases. Under current law, an Inspector General's duties are limited to activities related to the programs and operations of an agency. Our bill would allow an Inspector General to permit criminal investigators under his or her supervision to review cold case files, so long as doing so would not interfere with normal duties. An Inspector General would not conduct actual investigations, and any Inspector General would only commit staff when the office's mission-related workloads permitted. At no time would these activities be allowed to conflict with or delay the stated missions of an Inspector General. From time to time a criminal investigator employed by an Inspector General may be between investigations or otherwise available for brief periods of time. This act would also allow those resources to be provided to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Commitment of resources would be at a minimum and would not materially affect the budget of any office. We have before us the type of bipartisan legislation that should be moved easily through the Senate and House. It is supported by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. I applaud the ongoing work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and hope both the Senate and the House will promptly pass this bill to provide NCMEC with the resources it requires to solve cold cases involving missing children. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act of 2004 be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce ``The Missing Child Cold Case Review Act of 2004,'' which will allow an Inspector General to authorize his or her staff to provide assistance on and conduct reviews of the inactive case files, or ``cold cases,'' involving children stored at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to develop recommendations for further investigations. I am pleased that Senator Grassley joins me as the lead cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation. I thank him for his leadership in this area. Speed is everything in homicide investigations. As a former prosecutor in Vermont, I know firsthand that speed is of the essence when trying to solve a homicide. This focus on speed, however, has led the law enforcement community to generally believe that any case not solved within the first 72 hours or lacking significant leads and witness participation has little likelihood of being solved, regardless of the expertise and resources deployed. With time, such unsolved cases become ``cold,'' and these are among the most difficult and frustrating cases detectives face because they are, in effect, cases that other investigators, for whatever reason, failed to solve. Our Nation's law enforcement agencies, regardless of size, are not immune to rising crime rates, staff shortages and budget restrictions. Such obstacles have strained the investigative and administrative resources of all agencies. More crime often means that fewer cases are vigorously pursued, fewer opportunities arise for follow-up and individual caseloads increase for already overworked detectives. All the obstacles that hamper homicide investigations in their early phases contribute to cold cases. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children--our Nation's top resource center for child protection--presently retains a backlog of cold cases involving children that law enforcement departments nationwide have stopped investigating primarily due to all these obstacles. NCMEC serves as a clearinghouse for all cold cases in which a child has not been found and/or the suspect has not been identified. The bill that Senator Grassley and I introduce today would allow an Inspector General to provide staff support to NCMEC for the purpose of conducting reviews of inactive case files to develop recommendations for further investigation and similar activities. The Inspector General community has one of the most diverse and talented criminal investigative cadres in the Federal government. A vast majority of these special agents have come from traditional law enforcement agencies, and are highly-trained and extremely capable of dealing with complex, criminal cases. Under current law, an Inspector General's duties are limited to activities related to the programs and operations of an agency. Our bill would allow an Inspector General to permit criminal investigators under his or her supervision to review cold case files, so long as doing so would not interfere with normal duties. An Inspector General would not conduct actual investigations, and any Inspector General would only commit staff when the office's mission-related workloads permitted. At no time would these activities be allowed to conflict with or delay the stated missions of an Inspector General. From time to time a criminal investigator employed by an Inspector General may be between investigations or otherwise available for brief periods of time. This act would also allow those resources to be provided to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Commitment of resources would be at a minimum and would not materially affect the budget of any office. We have before us the type of bipartisan legislation that should be moved easily through the Senate and House. It is supported by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. I applaud the ongoing work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and hope both the Senate and the House will promptly pass this bill to provide NCMEC with the resources it requires to solve cold cases involving missing children. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act of 2004 be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, government transparency is fundamental to democracy. This well-known truism is a staple of every sermon about democracy. We sometimes take it for granted, but we shouldn't-- especially today. For one thing, the world is watching if and how we practice what we preach. For another, during this most partisan of political times, it is essential that citizens be able to judge us not only on what we say, but on what we do. Therefore, I am particularly pleased to join today with Senators Corzine, Cornyn, Feingold, Bingaman and Lieberman to submit a resolution that will provide citizens with expanded and more easily accessible information about legislation and the legislative process. In particular, we are calling on the Library of Congress to improve its public website, called ``THOMAS,'' in order to provide as much legislative information as is reasonably practical. In addition, because Internet technology continues to advance so rapidly, we are asking the Library to maintain THOMAS in a manner that reflects current standards of accessibility and usability. In December of 2003, together with Senator Corzine and others, I wrote to Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and asked him to redesign THOMAS to provide, as much as possible, information to the general public that is already available to congressional staff through the congressional Legislative Information System. Dr. Billington and his staff agreed to work with us to improve THOMAS, and the resolution we introduce today is a result of this constructive process. I would like to thank Dr. Billington and his staff for their cooperation and their appreciation of the importance of this effort. The Library of Congress has a well-known and well-deserved reputation as a source of reliable, unbiased, and comprehensive information. Our resolution will harness the power of the Information Age to allow citizens to see more public records of the Senate in their official form, in context, and without editorial comment. The taxpayers of this country, who pay millions of dollars a year to fund the Library of Congress, as well as to fund Congress itself, deserve speedy access to this public information. They have a right to see that their money is being spent well. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, ``Information is the currency of democracy.''

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today I express my extreme disappointment with the administration's recent announcement on Fiscal Year 2004 Section 8 voucher renewals that threatens to end a long standing commitment to fully fund all Section 8 vouchers in use. Coupled with its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2005 that would slash funding for Section 8, the Bush administration has given the Nation's communities ample reason to be concerned about the future of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The Section 8 voucher program has been the cornerstone of Federal housing policy for nearly 30 years. The program provides the Nation's most vulnerable families with vouchers to help them cover the cost of modest apartments and homes in the private market. It serves more than 2 million families nationwide who are trying to make ends meet. In my home State of Vermont it helps nearly 6,000 households--more than 60 percent of them are elderly or disabled members and 24 percent of them are working families. Unfortunately the administration has chosen to shortchange the program in a way that will almost guarantee that the poorest of families lose their support. They recently announced the intention to move from a funding formula based on the actual cost of vouchers to a model that calculates voucher costs based on last year's costs, pegged to a regional rent inflation index--which may or may not reflect local market conditions--and despite the fact that they may have access to more recent and accurate data on voucher costs. The new formula does not take into consideration potential changes in personal incomes, and it does not provide definitive safeguards for public housing authorities--PHAs--that have seen rising voucher costs over the last year or that will be unable to meet their obligations to voucher holders once this policy is enacted. What I find even more troubling is that HUD will apply this formula retroactively, leaving many public housing authorities shortchanged by millions of anticipated dollars. Without the necessary funds to support all vouchers they have issued, many PHAs are either going to have to scale back subsidies or revoke vouchers completely. Already we are seeing the effects. PHAs are starting to realize massive gaps in their budgets. They are considering course corrections to plug these holes and in some cases have stopped accepting additional applicants for the Section 8 waiting list. If the administration's policy is carried out, it will be the first time since 1974 that the Federal Government walks away from our commitment to honor all authorized voucher contracts. This new policy goes against the intent and will of Congress. We made it clear in the Fiscal Year 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Bill that the Department of Housing and Urban Development--HUD--should do everything in their power to ensure that all vouchers were fully funded, and we gave HUD the resources and tools they needed to do so. The Appropriations Committee added more than $1 billion dollars to the administration's request for Section 8 vouchers, we gave HUD access to a central reserve fund to supplement voucher payments in the event that costs exceeded expectations, and the Senate passed sense of the Senate language reaffirming our commitment to the voucher program and to those that it serves. The intention of Congress could not have been clearer. As a member of the VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee, I am not without concern for the rising cost of the Section 8 program, and I understand the need to look for creative solutions to contain those costs. But this new funding formula is irresponsible and shortsighted. Simply serving fewer people, or people with higher incomes--the almost certain outcome of this approach--is the wrong response to the rising cost of Section 8. Instead, we should be looking at measures to reduce the cost of housing and to raise the average wage. We should look at policies which will enable families to afford a place to live without Federal assistance. This new ruling is contrary to the administration's own goal to eliminate chronic homelessness in 10 years and will put a strain on other support services such as homeless care providers who are already stretched beyond their means. If it is not reevaluated, it will leave thousands of families nationwide at risk of losing their housing. It lacks specificity needed for PHAs to accurately predict how they are going to be affected and leaves considerable discretion to the department of how to interpret renewals. This announcement fell on a housing community already reeling from the news that the administration wants to cut $1.6 billion dollars from the program in the next Fiscal Year and convert Section 8 into a block grant program. If this proposal goes through, an additional 250,000 people could be faced with the loss of their housing assistance. My home State of Vermont would lose more than $4 million in anticipated funds and could be forced to cut nearly 740 low-income, elderly and disabled families out of the program. This is the wrong time to walk away from some of our Nation's most vulnerable populations. I find it outrageous that the President can stand behind policies that threaten the safety and wellbeing of thousands of American families while continuing to advocate for corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. There is a fiscal crisis in this county, of that I am sure. Our Federal debt continues to rise and the Federal treasury continues to shrink, but it is not caused by the modest assistance we give families on Section 8. This program has proven itself to be one of the most cost-effective housing programs. This was confirmed by two separate reports in 2002-- one by the General Accounting Office, and reinforced by the Millennial Housing Commission. It has been shown to have positive effects on families and children, many of whom are able to move out of high poverty areas to areas of lower poverty and lower crime rats and better schools. Studies have shown that it helps promote success in the workplace performance--by providing reliable housing while families are trying to get established, many of whom have moved off welfare. We cannot expect low-income families to improve their situations, hold steady jobs and move out of poverty if they do not have access to reliable, safe and affordable housing. We cannot expect the elderly and the disabled who are on meager fixed incomes to fend for themselves in rental markets that have spiraled out of the reach of even moderate- income families. Section 8 provides temporary assistance to those who need it. It helps families avoid the choice between a roof over their heads or food on the table. Congress gave the HUD the resources they needed to fully fund all vouchers under contract, and I would expect them to use those resources. This is not the place to try and reap meager savings to make up for a Federal deficit caused by questionable tax cuts and irresponsible fiscal policies. I urge the administration to reevaluate this policy and to restore our commitment to the Section 8 program.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3114

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this is a troubling time in America. Yesterday I spoke on this Senate floor about the despicable abuses perpetrated against Iraqi prisoners. The damage done to every American and to the reputation of our great Nation as a whole as a result of these barbaric acts is incalculable. It has severely tarnished our image as a nation of laws, a nation that for more than two centuries has been a beacon of hope for oppressed people around the world. Every day, quite rightly, we pride ourselves on our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. After all, they were the template for the universal declaration of human rights. We often criticize other nations for violating those rights, for engaging in torture and other crimes, and it is right that we do. We should speak out when human rights and liberties are violated whenever and wherever it occurs. But today we see our own faces in the mirror. Until recently, it was beyond our ability to contemplate that we would become the subject of such universal ridicule and scorn for the actions of a handful. The reputation of our Armed Forces, certainly since the First World War, has deservedly been the finest in the world. As the father of a former marine, I can attest that the training of our troops and the outstanding performance of the vast majority of them should make every American proud. They conduct themselves professionally. They treat others with respect. They perform bravely. And 138,000 men and women are courageously wearing America's uniform in Iraq today. Now they are endangered there and around the world. At the heart of this problem is a failure of leadership, not ``followship.'' We have heard from the Secretary of Defense. He was appalled by what happened, so appalled that he did not bother to read the report that described the horrific conditions at Abu Ghraib prison even though he had been aware of the concerns for months; so appalled he forgot that it was he who decided, apparently on his own, that the U.S. military would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions, an astounding decision when one considers its implication; so appalled that his Department has treated those of us who have asked questions and sought information about the interrogation practices at U.S. military detention facilities after reports of torture and even homicide as a nuisance; so appalled that for days he treated this whole episode as though he could not quite grasp what all the fuss was about. After all, these are terrorists, and we are fighting a war. I have known Secretary Rumsfeld for 30 years. I like him. He is highly intelligent. He has served his country with great devotion. But I believe that he and the Deputy Secretary bear ultimate responsibility for this catastrophe. The post-war chaos in Iraq that has resulted from such miserably poor planning--and so many people warned them that it was miserably poor planning--has claimed the lives and limbs of hundreds of America's troops and civilians and thousands of Iraqis, including many civilians. It has caused deep divisions between ourselves and the Iraqi people and Muslims around the world. It has so damaged our image as a nation that stands for respect for human rights. This represents a colossal failure of leadership. For 2 years, we have heard that if you are not with us, you are against us. Who is with us now? And who was ever with us? The coalition the President speaks of is a mirage. It is Americans who are dying. It is Americans who are paying the price--another $25 billion, according to the President today, and that is only for the next few months. Another $50 billion at least will be necessary next year just for Iraq. That is $75 billion we do not have to pay teachers and police and firefighters and other needs in America. We have heard how the Secretary of Defense waited for months to tell the Congress about what was happening in that prison. When the photographs appeared in the press, he and the National Security Adviser, the President, everybody else said they were stunned and shocked and said these were isolated incidents. The only thing they could have been shocked by was that the facts became public because they had known about them for a very long time. That is the real question that should trouble each one of us: Why we thought it was OK to behave this way. It represents a serious flaw of character, of morality, of decency, of professionalism, of training. It does not reflect the great military of our country. It certainly does not reflect the values of America, and we have to ask the leaders: Why did you allow this shame to happen? Why did you allow America--America--to be shamed this way throughout the world? I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I applaud both the Senator from Wisconsin and the Senator from Massachusetts for what they have said. Obviously, I agree completely.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my friends, the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Nevada, for their courtesy.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I regret the need to once again call attention to the fact that the Senate continues to neglect our obligation to respond to a crisis, caused by Federal policy, that is disrupting the operations of small and large businesses throughout the United States. Two months ago the Department of Homeland Security announced that for the first time ever the annual cap for H-2B visas had been met. These visas are used by a wide range of industries throughout the Nation to fill temporary labor needs. In my home State of Vermont, they are used primarily by the tourist industry. Across the country, businesses in a wide range of industries had developed plans that relied on the foreign employees who had always before been available to them. For years, these employers had applied in the spring for the employees they needed for the summer, filling positions for which they were unable to find American workers. The cap had never been reached, and they had no reason to believe this year would be different. I know that the March announcement came as a shock to many employers in my State, and dozens of them contacted my office to see what could be done. This setback fell equally hard on employers in other States. In response to these requests, I joined with a substantial bipartisan coalition in introducing S. 2252, the Save Summer Act of 2004. Senator Kennedy is the lead sponsor of the bill, which has 18 cosponsors, including eight Republicans. Our bill would add 40,000 visas for the current fiscal year, providing relief to those summer-oriented businesses that had never even had the opportunity to apply for visas. The following day, Senator Hatch introduced S. 2258, the Summer Operations and Services Relief and Reform Act. I do not believe that this bill, cosponsored exclusively by Republicans, is as effective a bill as S. 2252, but I would support it if it came before the Senate. Despite its sponsorship by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and by the chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, S. 2258 has now been held hostage in the Republican cloakroom for 5 weeks. Obtaining these visas takes weeks, if not months, because the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security must both sign off on them. I and others have repeatedly warned that we needed to pass legislation by May 1 if we were going to provide meaningful relief. That date has come and gone, and now it is too late to help many, if not all, of the businesses that had relied upon the availability of H-2B visas. It is beyond disappointing that at the Republican leadership in this body ignored my pleas and the pleas of so many Senators. And it is inexcusable that the Republican leadership ignored the pleas of business owners across the country asking for this emergency relief. And so it is that a tiny minority of the Republican caucus has managed to frustrate the will of a substantial bipartisan coalition of Senators who have sought to raise the H-2B cap, thereby needlessly harming businesses throughout the Nation. Meanwhile, the Republican leadership has failed to make solving this problem a priority. Perhaps if the majority leader chose to devote floor time to issues that had substantial bipartisan support, instead of using the floor to set up symbolic votes whose results are known well in advance, we would not be in this position. These businesses contribute much to the economies of our States. They deserve better treatment than they have received at the hands of the Republican leadership of the Senate.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it saddens me to rise today to speak about the situation in Burma. Burma is a beautiful country with a rich history. Regrettably, this great nation, with so much potential, is being destroyed by the despotic junta, the State Peace and Development Council, SPDC. Natural resources are pillaged, ethnic minorities are brutally repressed, and most notably, Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest--denying her the right to help lead her nation. For more than a decade, the brutal and autocratic regime, the SPDC has played an outrageous ``game'' with Aung San Suu Kyi. It goes something like this: pretend to allow Aung San Suu Kyi freedom to move around the country; when her movements become too threatening, put her under house arrest; keep her there until international pressure becomes too intense; eventually let her out, starting it all over again. In other words, isolate Aung San Suu Kyi and stall for time, while looting the country of its resources. Once again, we find ourselves in this situation. About a year ago, the SPDC launched a vicious, pre-meditated attack against Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the NLDF. The SPDC then placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, using the absurd justification that it is for her own safety. Virtually nothing has changed since that time. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and the outrageous activities of the SPDC continue unabated. It is for this reason that I join Senators McConnell and Feinstein today in introducing the joint resolution to extend the sanctions provided for in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. The senior Senators from Kentucky and California have already discussed the situation in Burma and made the case why this legislation is so important. I want to associate myself with their remarks and will be brief here today. The message that we are sending to the ruling junta in Burma is clear: its behavior is outrageous. Aung San Suu Kyi is the rightful leader of the democratic opposition in Burma. She and other opposition leaders must be immediately released. But, as important as U.S. leadership is on this issue, we all know it is not enough. Burma's neighbors--India, Thailand, and China--must also act. For too long, the silence of these key nations has been deafening. To obtain real change in Burma, these and other nations in the region must change course, speak out and disavow the failed policies of engagement. I know that the sponsors of the legislation recognize this. I have heard Senator McConnell speak frequently of the need for a ``full court press'' by the international community on this issue. While I am not so naive as to believe that this legislation will instantly cause a change of heart among the SPDC, I am hopeful that constant pressure U.S. pressure and others will, one day, lead to a breakthrough. Everyone in the Senate would like to see the SPDC tossed on the ash heap of history, but there is widespread recognition that this regime is well entrenched and will not go away overnight. The immediate goal should be to get Aung San Suu Kyi out of house arrest and give her and the NLDF an equal seat at the table. Considering that the NLDF was democratically elected to lead Burma, this is a modest goal indeed. Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters have been denied for too long. It is time for a change in Burma. I hope that this is the beginning of the end for the SPDC and the start of a new era in Burma, allowing that country and its people to achieve the democracy and progress they deserve.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today as a long-time supporter of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to join Senators Hatch, DeWine, Kohl, and Biden in introducing this legislation, S. 2363, to revise and extend the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Senator Hatch has been one of the best friends and supporters Boys and Girls Clubs could ever have and I have been privileged to work with him on issues that matter to the Boys & Girls Clubs. Too often the public sees Republicans and Democrats disagreeing. From time to time, even Senator Hatch and I disagree on important issues. But when it comes to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America there is no doubt that we see eye-to-eye: Today we introduce this bill to show the unified support of Republicans and Democrats for Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. Children are the future of our country, and we have a responsibility to make sure they are safe and secure. I know firthand how well Boys & Girls Clubs work and what topnotch organizations they are. When I was a prosecutor in Vermont, I was convinced of the great need for Boys & Girls Clubs because we rarely encountered children from these kinds of programs. In fact, after I became a U.S. Senator, a police chief was such a big fan that he asked me to help fund a Boys & Girls Club in his district rather than helping him get a couple more police officers. In Vermont, Boys and Girls Clubs have succeeded in preventing crime and supporting our children. The first Club was established in Burlington 62 years ago. Now we have 22 club sites operating throughout the State: seven clubs in Brattleboro, one in Springfield, two clubs in Burlington, one in Winooski, two clubs in Montpelier, five clubs in Randolph, one club in Rutland, two clubs in Vergennes and one in Bristol. There are 10 additional project sites that will be on board and serving kids by the end of 2005: one in Bennington, two in Burlington, one in Duxbury, one in St. Johnsbury, one in Hardwick, three in Randolph and one in Ludlow. These clubs will serve well over 10,000 kids statewide. As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have pushed for more Federal funding for Boys and Girls Clubs. Since 1998, Congress has increased Federal support for Boys and Girls Clubs from $20 million to $80 million in this year. Due in large part to this increase in funding, there now exist 3,300 Boys & Girls Clubs in all 50 States serving more than 3.6 million young people. Because of these successes, I was both surprised and disappointed to see that the President requested a reduction of $20 million for fiscal year 2005. That request will leave thousands of children and their Clubs behind and we cannot allow such a thing to happen. In the 107th Congress, Senator Hatch and I worked together to pass the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, which included a provision to reauthorize Justice Department grants to establish new Boys and Girls Clubs nationwide. By authorizing $80 million in Justice grants for each of the fiscal years through 2005, we sought to establish 1,200 additional Boys and Girls Clubs nationwide. This was to bring the number of Boys and Girls Clubs to 4,000, serving no less than 5 million young people. The bill we introduce today will build upon this: We authorize Justice Department grants at $80 million for fiscal year 2006, $85 million for fiscal year 2007, $90 million for fiscal year 2008, $95 million for fiscal year 2009, and $100 million for fiscal year 2010 to Boys and Girls Clubs to help establish 1,500 additional Boys and Girls Clubs across the nation with the goal of having 5,000 Boys and Girls Clubs in operation by December 31, 2010. If we have a Boys & Girls Club in every community, prosecutors in our country would have a lot less work to do because of the values that are being instilled in children from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Each time I visit a club in Vermont, I am approached by parents, educators, teachers, grandparents, and law enforcement officers who tell me ``Keep doing this! These clubs give our children the chance to grow up free of drugs, gangs, and crime.'' You cannot argue that these are just Democratic or Republican ideas, or Conservative or Liberal ideals--they are simply good sense ideas. We need safe havens where our youth--the future of our country--can learn and grow up free from the influence of drugs, gangs, and crime. That is why Boys & Girls Clubs are so important to our children. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to expand Federal support for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. We all know instinctively that our country's strength and ultimate success lies with our children. Our greatest responsibility is to help them inhabit this century the best way possible and we can help do that by supporting the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it saddens me to rise today to speak about the situation in Burma. Burma is a beautiful country with a rich history. Regrettably, this great nation, with so much potential, is being destroyed by the despotic junta, the State Peace and Development Council, SPDC. Natural resources are pillaged, ethnic minorities are brutally repressed, and most notably, Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest--denying her the right to help lead her nation. For more than a decade, the brutal and autocratic regime, the SPDC has played an outrageous ``game'' with Aung San Suu Kyi. It goes something like this: pretend to allow Aung San Suu Kyi freedom to move around the country; when her movements become too threatening, put her under house arrest; keep her there until international pressure becomes too intense; eventually let her out, starting it all over again. In other words, isolate Aung San Suu Kyi and stall for time, while looting the country of its resources. Once again, we find ourselves in this situation. About a year ago, the SPDC launched a vicious, pre-meditated attack against Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the NLDF. The SPDC then placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, using the absurd justification that it is for her own safety. Virtually nothing has changed since that time. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and the outrageous activities of the SPDC continue unabated. It is for this reason that I join Senators McConnell and Feinstein today in introducing the joint resolution to extend the sanctions provided for in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. The senior Senators from Kentucky and California have already discussed the situation in Burma and made the case why this legislation is so important. I want to associate myself with their remarks and will be brief here today. The message that we are sending to the ruling junta in Burma is clear: its behavior is outrageous. Aung San Suu Kyi is the rightful leader of the democratic opposition in Burma. She and other opposition leaders must be immediately released. But, as important as U.S. leadership is on this issue, we all know it is not enough. Burma's neighbors--India, Thailand, and China--must also act. For too long, the silence of these key nations has been deafening. To obtain real change in Burma, these and other nations in the region must change course, speak out and disavow the failed policies of engagement. I know that the sponsors of the legislation recognize this. I have heard Senator McConnell speak frequently of the need for a ``full court press'' by the international community on this issue. While I am not so naive as to believe that this legislation will instantly cause a change of heart among the SPDC, I am hopeful that constant pressure U.S. pressure and others will, one day, lead to a breakthrough. Everyone in the Senate would like to see the SPDC tossed on the ash heap of history, but there is widespread recognition that this regime is well entrenched and will not go away overnight. The immediate goal should be to get Aung San Suu Kyi out of house arrest and give her and the NLDF an equal seat at the table. Considering that the NLDF was democratically elected to lead Burma, this is a modest goal indeed. Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters have been denied for too long. It is time for a change in Burma. I hope that this is the beginning of the end for the SPDC and the start of a new era in Burma, allowing that country and its people to achieve the democracy and progress they deserve.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor and strongly support the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act, S. 150. I thank Senator Wyden, Senator Allen, Senator McCain and others for their leadership on this legislation. I also support Senator McCain's compromise amendment to extend for 4 years the moratorium on taxes on Internet access and multiple and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce. In addition, the McCain amendment would safeguard fees for universal service and 9-1-1 or e-9- 1-1 services and does not affect the emerging technology of Voice Over Internet Protocol, VOIP. I urge the Senate to support electronic commerce by keeping it free from discriminatory and multiple State and local taxes and from Internet access taxes. The Internet has changed the way we do business. Today businesses can sell their goods and services all over the world in the blink of an eye. E-commerce has created new markets, new efficiencies and new products. The growth of electronic commerce is everywhere, including my home State of Vermont. For example, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, which employs more than 300 Vermonters, sells online 60 percent of its bears during its two busiest times of the year--for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. That is 60 percent of all Vermont teddy bears sold online during this busy time. Hundreds of Vermont businesses are selling online, ranging from Al's Snowmobile Parts Warehouse to Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream. These Vermont cybersellers are of all sizes and customer bases, from Main Street merchants to boutique entrepreneurs to a couple of famous ex- hippies who make great ice cream. What Vermont online sellers have in common is that Internet commerce allows them to erase the geographic barriers that historically limited our access to major markets. With the power of the Internet, Vermonters can sell their products and services anywhere, anytime. Although electronic commerce is beginning to blossom, it is still in its infancy. Stability is the key to reaching its full potential, and creating out new tax categories for the Internet is exactly the wrong thing to do. E-commerce should not be subject to new taxes that do not apply to other commerce. Indeed, without the current moratorium, there are 30,000 different jurisdictions around the country that could levy discriminatory or multiple Internet taxes on E-commerce. Let's not allow the future of electronic commerce--with its great potential to expand the markets of Main Street businesses--to be crushed by the weight of discriminatory or multiple taxes. I also believe that extending the bar on Internet access taxes will help Vermonters end the digital divide and help Vermonters compete for better jobs. Recently, the University of Vermont released a study that found only 39 percent of Vermonters who earning less than $20,000 a year have a personal computer, while 67 percent of Vermonters who earn more than $35,000 a year own a personal computer. And 92 percent of Vermonters who do own a computer are connected to the Internet. We have to close this digital divide for Vermonters to have the skills for the good-paying jobs of the 21st century. We need to bar Internet access taxes and multiple or discriminatory taxes on goods and services sold over the Internet to provide the stability necessary for electronic commerce to flourish, and to close the digital divide for all Americans.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today as a long-time supporter of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to join Senators Hatch, DeWine, Kohl, and Biden in introducing this legislation, S. 2363, to revise and extend the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Senator Hatch has been one of the best friends and supporters Boys and Girls Clubs could ever have and I have been privileged to work with him on issues that matter to the Boys & Girls Clubs. Too often the public sees Republicans and Democrats disagreeing. From time to time, even Senator Hatch and I disagree on important issues. But when it comes to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America there is no doubt that we see eye-to-eye: Today we introduce this bill to show the unified support of Republicans and Democrats for Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. Children are the future of our country, and we have a responsibility to make sure they are safe and secure. I know firthand how well Boys & Girls Clubs work and what topnotch organizations they are. When I was a prosecutor in Vermont, I was convinced of the great need for Boys & Girls Clubs because we rarely encountered children from these kinds of programs. In fact, after I became a U.S. Senator, a police chief was such a big fan that he asked me to help fund a Boys & Girls Club in his district rather than helping him get a couple more police officers. In Vermont, Boys and Girls Clubs have succeeded in preventing crime and supporting our children. The first Club was established in Burlington 62 years ago. Now we have 22 club sites operating throughout the State: seven clubs in Brattleboro, one in Springfield, two clubs in Burlington, one in Winooski, two clubs in Montpelier, five clubs in Randolph, one club in Rutland, two clubs in Vergennes and one in Bristol. There are 10 additional project sites that will be on board and serving kids by the end of 2005: one in Bennington, two in Burlington, one in Duxbury, one in St. Johnsbury, one in Hardwick, three in Randolph and one in Ludlow. These clubs will serve well over 10,000 kids statewide. As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have pushed for more Federal funding for Boys and Girls Clubs. Since 1998, Congress has increased Federal support for Boys and Girls Clubs from $20 million to $80 million in this year. Due in large part to this increase in funding, there now exist 3,300 Boys & Girls Clubs in all 50 States serving more than 3.6 million young people. Because of these successes, I was both surprised and disappointed to see that the President requested a reduction of $20 million for fiscal year 2005. That request will leave thousands of children and their Clubs behind and we cannot allow such a thing to happen. In the 107th Congress, Senator Hatch and I worked together to pass the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, which included a provision to reauthorize Justice Department grants to establish new Boys and Girls Clubs nationwide. By authorizing $80 million in Justice grants for each of the fiscal years through 2005, we sought to establish 1,200 additional Boys and Girls Clubs nationwide. This was to bring the number of Boys and Girls Clubs to 4,000, serving no less than 5 million young people. The bill we introduce today will build upon this: We authorize Justice Department grants at $80 million for fiscal year 2006, $85 million for fiscal year 2007, $90 million for fiscal year 2008, $95 million for fiscal year 2009, and $100 million for fiscal year 2010 to Boys and Girls Clubs to help establish 1,500 additional Boys and Girls Clubs across the nation with the goal of having 5,000 Boys and Girls Clubs in operation by December 31, 2010. If we have a Boys & Girls Club in every community, prosecutors in our country would have a lot less work to do because of the values that are being instilled in children from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Each time I visit a club in Vermont, I am approached by parents, educators, teachers, grandparents, and law enforcement officers who tell me ``Keep doing this! These clubs give our children the chance to grow up free of drugs, gangs, and crime.'' You cannot argue that these are just Democratic or Republican ideas, or Conservative or Liberal ideals--they are simply good sense ideas. We need safe havens where our youth--the future of our country--can learn and grow up free from the influence of drugs, gangs, and crime. That is why Boys & Girls Clubs are so important to our children. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to expand Federal support for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. We all know instinctively that our country's strength and ultimate success lies with our children. Our greatest responsibility is to help them inhabit this century the best way possible and we can help do that by supporting the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the introduction of the ANTI-Gang Act with my good friends on the Judiciary Committee, Senators Durbin, Kennedy and Feingold. The American Neighborhoods Taking the Initiative--Guarding Against Neighborhood Gangs Act of 2004 is a bill carefully crafted to target violent criminal street gangs whose activities extend beyond the neighborhood and have a substantial impact on Federal interests. As a former county prosecutor, I have long expressed concern about making Federal crimes out of every offense that comes to the attention of Congress. I know that States have competent and able police departments, county sheriffs' offices, prosecutors and judges. Gangs are, more often than not, locally-based, geographically-oriented criminal associations, and our local communities are on the front lines of the fight against gang violence. We should be supplementing the work of our State and local law enforcement officers, not usurping them. This is why this bill specifically targets only those gangs where there is a provable Federal interest. This is why this bill requires consultation with our State and local counterparts before embarking on a Federal prosecution of historically State crimes. And this is why major provisions of the bill are directed toward helping State and local law enforcement officers prevent, investigate, and prosecute gang crimes in their own neighborhoods. There are four major sections of the bill: First, the bill gives State and local prosecutors financial resources to guard against neighborhood gangs by authorizing $72.5 million for the cooperative prevention, investigation, and prosecution of gang crimes; $40 million for grants to develop gang prevention, research, and intervention services; and $60 million for the protection of witnesses and victims of gang crimes. Federal funds are also provided for hiring new Assistant U.S. Attorneys and to fund technology, equipment and training grants to increase accurate identification of gang members and violent offenders and to maintain databases with such information to facilitate state and Federal coordination. The first defense in protecting our youth against gang influence is a good offense. I have long thought that programs aimed at combating gang activity must incorporate gang prevention and education--programs that would examine why our youth choose to associate in gangs and prey on others--to be effective. When Chairman Hatch appropriately targeted gang violence as a subject for a full Committee hearing last year, all agreed that we should be doing more to deter our youth from joining gangs in the first place. This bill heeds that call. Another unifying theme of the expert witnesses at the Committee's hearing was the serious need for Federal assistance in protecting witnesses who will provide information about and testify against gangs from intimidation. Our bill not only provides funding to help protect witnesses, it also makes it a Federal crime to intimidate witnesses in certain State prosecutions involving gang activity. Second, the bill defines a Federal criminal street gang by using well-established legal principles and providing recognizable limits. Rather than create yet another cumbersome and broad-reaching Federal crime that overlaps with numerous existing Federal statutes, this bill actually targets the problem that needs to be addressed: violent criminal street gangs. It recognizes that gangs are ongoing entities whose members commit crimes more easily simply because of their association with one another. Gangs prove the old adage: there is safety in numbers. Gang members can be sheep-like in their loyalty and allegiance to the gang. In this regard, the bill also explicitly and evenhandedly addresses the evidentiary significance of gang symbolism in gang prosecutions. In addition to witness intimidation, other important crimes established by this bill include: One, participation in criminal street gangs by any act that is intended to effect the criminal activities of the gang; two, participation by committing a crime in furtherance of or for the benefit of the gang, and three, recruitment and retention of gang members. There are increased penalties for those who target minors for recruitment in a criminal street gang. Third, the bill requires a comprehensive report on the current treatment of juveniles by the States, and the capability of the Federal criminal justice system to take on these additional cases and house additional prisoners, so that Congress can make an informed decision about whether or not to expand the Federal role in prosecuting juvenile offenders. Some have suggested that the Federal Government has been unable to proceed effectively against gang crime because of Federal law's protections for juvenile offenders. I have not seen sufficient evidence to support his claim, but I think that Congressional consideration of this issue would benefit greatly from a comprehensive General Accounting Office study on this topic. We need to know both whether justice would be served by increasing the Federal role, and whether the Federal system--including both our prosecutors and the Bureau of Prisons--is prepared for such a step. Fourth, the bill promotes the recruitment and retention of highly- qualified State and local prosecutors and public defenders by establishing a student loan forgiveness program modeled after the current program for Federal employees. We have worked very hard in crafting this legislation not to further blur the lines between Federal and State law enforcement responsibilities or to add more burdens to the FBI as the primary Federal investigative agency. Federal law enforcement has been faced with a unique challenge since the September 11 attacks. The FBI is no longer just an enforcement agency, but also has a critical terrorism prevention mission. This mission is a daunting one, and our Federal law enforcement resources are not limitless. I, for one, do not want the FBI or U.S. Attorneys to focus these limited resources on cases that are best handled at the local level. Combating gang violence should not be a partisan battle. The tragedy of gang violence affects too many. No community can afford to lose a single youth to the arms of a waiting gang. No gang should be allowed to flourish without consequence in our communities. I urge your support for this important bill.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the introduction of the ANTI-Gang Act with my good friends on the Judiciary Committee, Senators Durbin, Kennedy and Feingold. The American Neighborhoods Taking the Initiative--Guarding Against Neighborhood Gangs Act of 2004 is a bill carefully crafted to target violent criminal street gangs whose activities extend beyond the neighborhood and have a substantial impact on Federal interests. As a former county prosecutor, I have long expressed concern about making Federal crimes out of every offense that comes to the attention of Congress. I know that States have competent and able police departments, county sheriffs' offices, prosecutors and judges. Gangs are, more often than not, locally-based, geographically-oriented criminal associations, and our local communities are on the front lines of the fight against gang violence. We should be supplementing the work of our State and local law enforcement officers, not usurping them. This is why this bill specifically targets only those gangs where there is a provable Federal interest. This is why this bill requires consultation with our State and local counterparts before embarking on a Federal prosecution of historically State crimes. And this is why major provisions of the bill are directed toward helping State and local law enforcement officers prevent, investigate, and prosecute gang crimes in their own neighborhoods. There are four major sections of the bill: First, the bill gives State and local prosecutors financial resources to guard against neighborhood gangs by authorizing $72.5 million for the cooperative prevention, investigation, and prosecution of gang crimes; $40 million for grants to develop gang prevention, research, and intervention services; and $60 million for the protection of witnesses and victims of gang crimes. Federal funds are also provided for hiring new Assistant U.S. Attorneys and to fund technology, equipment and training grants to increase accurate identification of gang members and violent offenders and to maintain databases with such information to facilitate state and Federal coordination. The first defense in protecting our youth against gang influence is a good offense. I have long thought that programs aimed at combating gang activity must incorporate gang prevention and education--programs that would examine why our youth choose to associate in gangs and prey on others--to be effective. When Chairman Hatch appropriately targeted gang violence as a subject for a full Committee hearing last year, all agreed that we should be doing more to deter our youth from joining gangs in the first place. This bill heeds that call. Another unifying theme of the expert witnesses at the Committee's hearing was the serious need for Federal assistance in protecting witnesses who will provide information about and testify against gangs from intimidation. Our bill not only provides funding to help protect witnesses, it also makes it a Federal crime to intimidate witnesses in certain State prosecutions involving gang activity. Second, the bill defines a Federal criminal street gang by using well-established legal principles and providing recognizable limits. Rather than create yet another cumbersome and broad-reaching Federal crime that overlaps with numerous existing Federal statutes, this bill actually targets the problem that needs to be addressed: violent criminal street gangs. It recognizes that gangs are ongoing entities whose members commit crimes more easily simply because of their association with one another. Gangs prove the old adage: there is safety in numbers. Gang members can be sheep-like in their loyalty and allegiance to the gang. In this regard, the bill also explicitly and evenhandedly addresses the evidentiary significance of gang symbolism in gang prosecutions. In addition to witness intimidation, other important crimes established by this bill include: One, participation in criminal street gangs by any act that is intended to effect the criminal activities of the gang; two, participation by committing a crime in furtherance of or for the benefit of the gang, and three, recruitment and retention of gang members. There are increased penalties for those who target minors for recruitment in a criminal street gang. Third, the bill requires a comprehensive report on the current treatment of juveniles by the States, and the capability of the Federal criminal justice system to take on these additional cases and house additional prisoners, so that Congress can make an informed decision about whether or not to expand the Federal role in prosecuting juvenile offenders. Some have suggested that the Federal Government has been unable to proceed effectively against gang crime because of Federal law's protections for juvenile offenders. I have not seen sufficient evidence to support his claim, but I think that Congressional consideration of this issue would benefit greatly from a comprehensive General Accounting Office study on this topic. We need to know both whether justice would be served by increasing the Federal role, and whether the Federal system--including both our prosecutors and the Bureau of Prisons--is prepared for such a step. Fourth, the bill promotes the recruitment and retention of highly- qualified State and local prosecutors and public defenders by establishing a student loan forgiveness program modeled after the current program for Federal employees. We have worked very hard in crafting this legislation not to further blur the lines between Federal and State law enforcement responsibilities or to add more burdens to the FBI as the primary Federal investigative agency. Federal law enforcement has been faced with a unique challenge since the September 11 attacks. The FBI is no longer just an enforcement agency, but also has a critical terrorism prevention mission. This mission is a daunting one, and our Federal law enforcement resources are not limitless. I, for one, do not want the FBI or U.S. Attorneys to focus these limited resources on cases that are best handled at the local level. Combating gang violence should not be a partisan battle. The tragedy of gang violence affects too many. No community can afford to lose a single youth to the arms of a waiting gang. No gang should be allowed to flourish without consequence in our communities. I urge your support for this important bill.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I proudly note passage of S. Res. 310, a resolution to designate May 15, 2004, as National Peace Officers Memorial Day. I again cosponsored this resolution with Senator Campbell, as we do every year. We are right to remember and commemorate the sacrifice and commitment of our law enforcement officers serving our communities, States and country. We annually honor the officers and their families who made the ultimate sacrifice for public safety. I commend Senator Campbell for his leadership in this issue. This marks the 8th year running that he and I have teamed up to submit the resolution to commemorate National Peace Officers Memorial Day. As a former deputy sheriff, Senator Campbell has experienced first-hand the risks faced by law enforcement officers every day while they protect our communities. I also want to thank each of our Nation's brave law enforcement officers for their unwavering commitment to the safety and protection of their fellow citizens. They are real-life heroes. Currently, more than 850,000 men and women who guard our communities do so at great risk. Each year, 1 in 15 offices is assaulted, 1 in 46 officers is injured, and 1 in 5,255 officers is killed in the line of duty in the United States every other day. After the hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, 72 peace officers died while trying to ensure that their fellow citizens in those buildings got to safety. That act of terrorism resulted in the highest number of peace officers ever killed in a single incident in the history of this country. In 2003, 146 law enforcement officers died while serving in the line of duty, well below the decade-long average of 165 deaths annually, and a major drop from 2001 when a total of 237 officers were killed. A number of factors contributed to this reduction including better equipment and the increased use of bullet-resistant vests, improved training, and advanced emergency medical care. And, in total, more than 17,100 men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice--of that number 43 are police officers who have already been killed in 2004 while serving in the line of duty. During the 108th Congress, we have improved the Justice Department's Public Safety Officers Benefits program by making law the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act (Public Law 108-182), which allows survivors of public safety officers who suffer fatal heart attacks or strokes while participating in non-routine stressful or strenuous physical activities to qualify for federal survivor benefits. The Senate also passed the Campbell-Leahy Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, S. 764, which will extend through FY 2007 the authorization of appropriations for the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program that helps State, tribal and local jurisdictions purchase armor vests for use by law enforcement officers. The House has yet to act on this important measure. We want to be sure that every police officer who needs a bulletproof vest gets one. Last month, the Senate added to the gun liability bill by a vote of 91-8 the Campbell-Leahy Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, S. 253. This measure would establish national measures of uniformity and consistency to permit trained and certified on-duty, off-duty or retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms in most situations so that they may respond immediately to crimes across State and other jurisdictional lines, as well as to protect themselves and their families from vindictive criminals. This National Peace Officers Memorial Day, Vermonters will remember our brave State Police Trooper, Sergeant Michael Johnson, who was killed last Father's Day while trying to stop a suspect leading two other State troopers on a high-speed chase. Sergeant Johnson was not even on duty, but he went to help his fellow troopers that Sunday afternoon after hearing their trouble on his radio. He had just deployed a set of tire spikes across the interstate when the suspect swerved to avoid the spikes and struck him. Sergeant Johnson left behind his wife and three children. Words are insufficient for the brave sacrifice of the man who was so admired by his family, community and the Vermont State Police force. In memory of this bravery and service to his family, community, State and country, Sergeant Johnson will be one of the names added this year to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. National Peace Officers Memorial Day will provide the people of the United States with the opportunity to honor the extraordinary service and sacrifice given year after year by our police forces. More than 15,000 peace offices are expected to gather in Washington to join with the families of their fallen comrades. I thank the Senate for acting on this important resolution.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation? Are we still in morning business?

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last Thursday I came to the floor to mark Earth Day, and I wanted to highlight the laser-like focus of the Bush administration in rolling back 30 years of environmental protections. When one looks at their record, it is literally breathtaking. The reason I am concerned about this is that most of our environmental legislation was put together by bipartisan coalitions. In my State of Vermont we do not think of the environment as a Republican or a Democratic issue. We think of it as an issue of protecting what is best about our country and protecting it for not only ourselves but for our children and our grandchildren. Unfortunately, this administration tends to look at the environment as something where they should react to their largest contributors and take advantage of what it may do for them today and let our children and our grandchildren worry about it tomorrow. Why do I say this? Three years into office, the Bush administration has taken well over 300 actions to weaken and sometimes to gut environmental protections to clean the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. They have taken huge steps to hand over our public lands to timber, oil and gas companies for more drilling and logging. With this record, it is no wonder that the administration continues to use every page of its public playbook to downplay the effect of these rollbacks. One of their favorite tactics is announcing environmental rollbacks on Fridays or around holidays when they think the American public will not be paying attention. In fact, we all know if you have something good you want to announce, you do it early in the week, you do it with a lot of fanfare. But if you have something you don't want anybody to pay much attention to, you do it late on Friday. The administration has announced at least 40 environmental rollbacks on Fridays, another 20 on holidays. Actually, for them, every Friday is Friday the 13th: Friday, November 22, the clean air rollback; Friday, January 3, 2003, fast-tracked logging; Friday, January 29, 2003, clean water protections threatened; Friday, July 11, 2003, weakened our drinking water protections; Friday, October 10, 2003, changed environmental rules for mining waste; on Friday, October 17, 2003, dioxin regulation, or in this case deregulation. And on and on. These are just a few of the actions they have taken on Friday. They show just how far the administration has gone in gutting the Clean Air Act, ramping up logging in some of our spectacular national forests, dumping more mining wastes on public lands, and dumping more sewage sludge on private lands. Another favorite tactic is either ignoring or sometimes, if the science doesn't suit their political needs, if they cannot get away with ignoring the science, then they just change it. One of the most blatant examples of this was the White House scrubbing of an annual EPA air report to avoid any mention of evidence of climate change. Just recently, the New York Times reported on the creative White House fact spinning of the administration's proposed retreat from strong mercury controls at powerplants. We all recognize their favorite tactic: If you are going to gut the environment, then just give it a nice name. You can see the number of focus groups they must use in the administration to come up with these names. They don't say, we are going to join Polluters-R-Us, or we are going to give a payoff to some large polluting corporation because they helped out in a fundraiser. Instead, they will go to focus groups and find out what will sound good to people, what is a good line we can use and maybe they won't look behind it, maybe they will just look at the rhetoric and ignore the reality. I will give some examples. ``Clear Skies'' and ``Healthy Forests''-- these are lines they use, but they are just about as accurate as ``No Child Left Behind.'' They have used all of these tactics when it comes to misleading the public. For example, on wetlands protections, last January--on a Friday, of course--the administration announced one of its most sweeping rollbacks to take away protections under the Clean Water Act for 20 million acres of wetlands. This policy created such a groundswell of opposition from hunters, anglers, environmental groups, and others that the President finally withdrew the proposed rulemaking last December. One of the things they found out is hunters, anglers, and environmentalists often include a whole lot of Republicans as well as a whole lot of Democrats, and that the environment is not just for one party. But they got such enormous objection that they withdrew it-- they had to withdraw it--but they did not tell the public they were not revoking the underlying instructions to Federal agencies to follow the same policy that leaves 20 million acres of wetlands at risk. That is why I found it so interesting that the President would start his reelection attempts to greenwash his administration's anti- environmental record by talking about wetlands. Here you have this enormous anti-environmental record. You put at risk 20 million acres of wetlands. You would think the last thing in the world they would want to do is talk about wetlands, but that is what he started with. He had some nice photo-ops walking around the salt marshes and wetlands of Maine, but when you look between the lines of his Earth Day announcement, it doesn't hold water. While the President was touting his plan to restore 1 million acres of wetlands, he made no mention of his policy to revoke protection of 20 million acres. We will give you 1, we will take back 20. He didn't tell the folks in Maine that he proposed to cut the funding next year for one of the programs, the Wetlands Reserve Program, that was supposed to help meet his 1 million-acre target. You take back 20 million acres, you promise 1 million acres, but then you say, we won't even give you the money for the 1 million. He did not tell the folks in Maine that his administration has not fully funded this program since Congress expanded it in the last farm bill. Yes, as he said in Maine, the President did indeed sign the farm bill to expand it. That is part of his job. But it is quite a leap for the administration to now promote that as one of their environmental accomplishments. In fact, the administration has done everything it can to shortchange the conservation programs that are so important, not only to Maine and Florida but to every other State. He not only proposed cuts to the WRP but also to other programs that might help landowners and farmers conserve the resources on their land. When the President went down to Florida campaigning the next day, he also forgot to mention a few key facts, such as the fact that the Army Corps has allowed more than 3,800 acres of wetlands to be drained or filled in the Everglades. The Bush administration stood by and watched as the Army Corps signed off on development permits that are destroying the Everglades. It has also argued against Clean Water Act regulations of water being pumped from urban Broward County into the Everglades. If you go back to the 300-plus rollbacks under this administration, it brings up even more policies that are hurting the environment in Maine and Florida and Vermont. The administration's retreat from aggressive mercury controls on powerplants has just been the most recent of these all-out environmental assaults. It is hard to say we are family friendly when we are going to put more mercury into the air, the water, and the fish pregnant women eat, or by which the newborn children might be affected. That is not being family friendly, to say we have to support our polluting industries because they have been strong supporters of the President and it is tough about the newborn children. The President, as any President of any party, can always get nice photo-ops. But his record on the environment is too mired on reversals and rollbacks for any greenwash to last too long. Greenwash, like whitewash, doesn't stick too long, and despite all the public relations maneuvering, the public recognizes the enormous and long-term effect of the Bush policies on our environment and on our health. When the administration is done, it will mean more pollution in the rivers and streams, more toxins in the air, and of course a lot less natural resources to pass on to the next generation. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on May 12, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is planning to visit Washington for meetings with President Bush and other top administration officials. I mention this because welcoming President dos Santos to the United States is contrary to President Bush's January 12, 2004, proclamation barring corrupt foreign officials from entering the United States. President Bush's proclamation suspends entry into the United States of public officials, and their spouses, children, and dependents, if their ``solicitation or acceptance of any article of monetary value, or other benefit, in exchange for any act or omission in the performance of their public functions has or had serious adverse effects on the national interests of the United States.'' It also bars officials ``whose misappropriation of public funds or interference with the judicial, electoral, or other public processes'' has harmed the national interest. If this standard does not apply to President dos Santos, it is hard to imagine to whom it could apply. He presides over one of the world's most corrupt governments. The IMF has concluded that between 1997 and 2002, Angola could not account for the expenditure of $4.2 billion in public funds, attributing this loss--equivalent to 10 percent of Angola's GDP--in substantial part to high-level corruption. In a corruption trial in France in 2003, the former head of the oil company Elf Aquitaine testified that President dos Santos had received large bribes from the company. According to the Intelligence Unit of ``The Economist'' magazine, President dos Santos tops the list of the richest men in Angola, one of Africa's poorest countries. President Bush's proclamation states that corruption is a threat to U.S. national interests when it has serious adverse effects on, among other things, ``U.S. foreign assistance goals . . . or the stability of democratic institutions and nations.'' I could not agree more. Massive corruption has clearly had these effects in Angola. To protect their ability to misappropriate public funds, Angolan leaders have limited press freedom, intimidated the judiciary, and resisted democratic and economic reforms. Moreover, they have refused to spend the country's oil revenues to lift their people from poverty. Half of Angola's children are malnourished even as government officials amass fortunes. President Bush's proclamation states that persons to be barred entry for corruption, as well as those whose entry would not be contrary to the national interest, ``shall be identified by the Secretary of State or the Secretary's designee, in his or her sole discretion, pursuant to such standards and procedures as the Secretary may establish.'' If the Secretary has not yet acted to establish clear and consistent standards and procedures for making these determinations, he needs to act promptly. And whether he has or not, the policy behind President Bush's proclamation should be applied to the visit of President dos Santos and other Angolan officials. I strongly agree with President Bush that the corruption of public institutions threatens United States ``efforts to promote security and to strengthen democratic institutions and free market systems.'' As I have said before, corruption is like a cancer. It is the biggest obstacle to development--from Indonesia to Guatemala, from Nigeria to Pakistan. It undermines virtually everything we are trying to do through the Foreign Operations budget. Fortunately, some leaders are trying to stop it, such as President Bolanos of Nicaragua, and we should do everything possible to support him and people like him, by prosecuting corrupt officials for money laundering or other violations of U.S. law, and by denying them visas to the United States. Again, I commend President Bush for his proclamation and urge the Secretary of State to implement it vigorously.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I do not anticipate using all my time by any means. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Arizona who had indicated earlier that he fit us in because of conflicting schedules that the Senator from California and I have. Before I even begin, I want to again thank the distinguished Senators from Arizona and California for all they have done on this issue. This past Sunday, as we all know, marked the start of National Crime Victims' Rights Week. We set this week aside each year to refocus attention on the needs and rights of crime victims. One would almost think we would not have to do that, but as a matter of fact, too often, the needs of victims are not met, and their rights are not fully honored. I learned this during my time as a prosecutor. I think all of us have learned this, from the experiences and some terribly gripping stories that we have heard from our constituents. This year, the Senate had been scheduled to mark the occasion of National Crime Victims' Rights Week by taking up S.J. Res. 1, a proposed constitutional amendment. It was going to end up being days, maybe weeks, of debate even though everyone knew that the constitutional amendment was not going to pass. We went through this process back in April of the year 2000, during the last Presidential election year. I said then, during that earlier debate on the constitutional amendment, that I have worked long and hard to protect and advance crime victims' rights, as have many on both sides of the aisle in this body. As a prosecutor for 8\1/2\ years, I worked day to day, year to year alongside victims, seeking justice on their behalf. This was back at a time before people spoke much about victims having rights. I like to think that my office was a model in this regard, for making sure that victims were heard. I have worked on and have led many legislative efforts on behalf of victims throughout my service in the Senate. One of the most recent of those efforts was the creation of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund. I am grateful to have been able to take part in something that has brought some relief to so many victims. But I will never forget the victims I worked with as a prosecutor or the needs of the new victims minted each day through the crimes committed against them. For years, at Christmas time, I received a very poignant letter from a woman who was the victim of a very serious crime. She told me how she was doing, how her children were doing. When I go to the grocery store in Vermont, or I'm walking down the street, I run into people who were helped during those years and who had a voice during those years. It is gratifying, but I have to think about the fact that every single day, there are a whole lot more crimes, and a whole lot more victims. I have always believed that victims should be afforded certain basic protections. I believe victims should be notified when the defendant is in court or when he is about to be released. I believe victims should be heard at critical stages of the prosecution. I believe victims are entitled to restitution from offenders. In recent years, the debate has never been about whether victims should be protected. Of course they should. Rather, the debate has been about how victims should be protected. I did not think the proposed constitutional amendment was the best way forward. I still believe that. We all agree, and every witness who testified before the Judiciary Committee on this issue agreed, that every right provided by the victims' rights amendment can be, or already is, protected by State or Federal statutory law. So we have long had the power to enhance victims' rights through regular legislation, passed with a simple majority vote, and make an immediate difference in the lives of crime victims. Legislative enhancements are more easily enacted, more directly applied and implemented, and more able to provide specific, effective remedies. In addition, as Chief Justice Rehnquist and others have pointed out, statutes are more easily corrected if we find, in hindsight, that they need correction, clarification, or improvement. When we pass the Kyl-Feinstein-Hatch-Leahy Victims' Rights Act, we will take a step that I have long advocated. So I thank and commend the principal sponsors of S.J. Res. 1, the distinguished Senators from California and Arizona. We came from both sides on the constitutional debate, but all of us are deeply committed to the cause of victims' rights, and that is why we came together on this legislation. This legislation will provide crime victims in the Federal system with all the rights and protections that the proposed constitutional amendment would have provided. In fact, our statute goes further than the constitutional amendment because it gives the same rights and protections to all crime victims, not just to the victims of violent crimes. The elderly woman who is defrauded out of her life savings will get the same protection from this statute as other crime victims. This statute, S. 2329, also spells out how victims' rights are to be enforced, using language that Senator Kennedy and I developed in S. 805, the Crime Victims Assistance Act. In addition to providing victims with standing to assert their rights in mandamus actions, S. 2329 will establish an administrative authority in the Department of Justice to receive and investigate victims' claims of unlawful or inappropriate action on the part of criminal justice and victims' service providers. Department of Justice employees who fail to comply with the law pertaining to the treatment of crime victims could face disciplinary sanctions, including suspension or termination of employment. We have incorporated other proposals from S. 805 as well, to help States implement and enforce their own victims' rights laws. And we have called for two annual reports, one by the Administrative Office of the Courts, and the other by the General Accounting Office, to make sure we get some feedback on how the rights and procedures established by the statute are working in practice. Over time, we will be able to modify and fine-tune the statute so that it provides an appropriate degree of protection for the rights of crime victims. I have no doubt we are going to pass this law today. I believe the other body will pass the law, and the President will sign it. Then part of our duty is going to have to be to follow up to see how it works. I said to some of the representatives of victims' groups this morning, keep our feet to the fire. Make sure we follow up. Passage of this bill will necessitate careful oversight of its implementation by Congress. If, as I hope, federal judges and prosecutors take victims' rights seriously, there should be little need for victims to bring mandamus actions to enforce their rights. But if, for whatever reason, victims feel that they are not being treated fairly, we may see a wave of new litigation in the federal courts, with victims and their lawyers having to insert themselves into criminal cases. We will need to monitor the situation closely. I am committed to giving victims real and enforceable rights. But I am convinced that prosecutors should be capable of protecting those rights, once we make them clear. In my experience, prosecutors have victims' interests at heart. Senator Kennedy and I proposed in the Crime Victims Assistance Act a limited-standing provision, which applied with respect to the victim's right to attend and observe the trial, and under which a victim could assert her right if the prosecutor refused to do so. Passing such a provision would have allowed us to observe over a period of time whether direct participation of victims in criminal proceedings has any unanticipated consequences for the administration of justice. This Victims' Rights Act proposes a bolder experiment, entitling victims to assert a panoply of rights, regardless of whether the prosecution is already asserting the same rights on their behalf. For example, at the insistence of other sponsors, this bill will enable victims to bring mandamus actions alleging the denial of their statutory right ``to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy,'' which may be difficult claims to adjudicate. I note with some regret that S. 2329 picks up language from S.J. Res. 1 denying victims any cause of action for damages in the event that their rights are violated. Allowing victims to vindicate their rights through separate proceedings for damages instead of through mandamus actions in the criminal case could well be a more efficient as well as a more effective way of ensuring that victims' rights are honored. Certainly the prospect of being held to account in such proceedings would provide a powerful incentive to take victims' rights seriously. But the Republican sponsors of the bill did not want to provide for damages. Similarly, some Republican Senators did not want to allow courts to appoint attorneys to help crime victims. It is my hope and belief that victims will seldom need representation, since they already have powerful advocates in our public prosecutors. Still, it is possible that a judge would want to appoint an attorney for a victim in an extraordinary case, as for example if there is a material conflict between the victim's interests and the interests of the prosecution. By failing to provide for this possibility, S. 2329 may perpetuate a system of unequal justice for victims, where the wealthy have the benefit of counsel, and the poor do not. There are other provisions that were also, regrettably, left on the cutting-room floor during negotiations on this bill. First, we dropped a provision that was in the proposed constitutional amendment, which would have given victims certain rights in the context of clemency proceedings. I know Attorney General Ashcroft, when he was a Member of the Senate, felt strongly that victims should have a voice in these proceedings. I would welcome the chance to work with him, to have him provide for that within the Federal system, to do in the Federal system what he wanted to do while a member of this body. A second provision that I would have liked to include in the bill would have authorized funding for a broad range of compliance authorities to help enforce the rights of crime victims in the state systems. Senator Kennedy and I proposed such a program in the Crime Victims Assistance Act, but I was unable to persuade my colleagues to include it in this bill. There are a variety of remedies for violations of rights that are operating at the State level, all of which have strengths and weaknesses. Some States use more than one approach. Arizona has a non- statutory ombudsman staff position in the Attorney General's office, to receive and investigate victim complaints; a victims' legal assistance project run by a non-profit and the Arizona State University College of Law, and a system of auditing those who receive grants to implement victims' rights. Wisconsin uses a State employee to receive and attempt to resolve victim complaints, as well as a victims' rights board that can formally receive complaints and seek sanctions for violations. Alaska has a State Office of Victims' Rights. South Carolina has an independent victim ombudsman. Connecticut has a State Victim Advocate. Vermont is exploring various options. We do have a Center for Crime Victims Services, which advocates informally for victims and is one of the premier victims' services sites in the country. Finally, I want to comment on the unusual genesis of this bill, and the extraordinary procedure that has brought us so swiftly to a vote in the Senate. As I mentioned earlier, the Senate was scheduled to begin work this week on the proposed constitutional amendment, S.J. Res. 1. On Wednesday, the Republican leadership moved to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed. I would not have opposed this motion. I voted to proceed to an earlier iteration of this constitutional amendment four years ago, and I would have been prepared to proceed to it again this week. Even given the time this would have taken and the expected outcome, I would not have opposed a debate on the constitutional amendment. It was under these circumstances that we had so little opportunity to work on crafting the crime victims' statute. I would have liked to have gotten the views of the Office for Victims of Crime and other components of the Department of Justice, for example. Many victims' groups and domestic violence organizations opposed the constitutional amendment, as did many law professors, judges, and prosecutors. I would have liked to hear their views on this statute. I am personally concerned that the statute may not adequately address the special problems raised in domestic violence and abuse situations. If it does not, then we may need to amend it again. Given the Republican leadership's insistence on proceeding to the constitutional amendment today, there was not as much time as I would have liked to develop the statutory alternative that we vote on today, and no time to hold hearings on it or improve the bill in Committee. Fortunately, however, this is to be a statute, not a constitutional amendment, and it can be modified and improved. We will be able to make it better as we go along. I commend my good friend, Senator Feinstein, for mediating this consensus legislation. I know that she would have preferred to pass a constitutional amendment. She has made that clear. Nevertheless, she worked hard to produce a bill that we all can support, showing once again that she is first and foremost a legislator who wants to get things done. Due in large part to Senator Feinstein's efforts, we now have an opportunity to advance the cause of victims' rights with strong, practical, bipartisan legislation. I have never doubted Senator Feinstein or Senator Kyl's commitment to victims' rights. I am delighted that we have come together to advance that common cause. My friend and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, is another lead sponsor of this legislation. He and I have worked together on the Judiciary Committee in this area. He has been a tireless advocate for the rights of crime victims, and more generally for fairness in the administration of justice. I want to thank David Hantman and Steve Cash of Senator Feinstein's staff; Bruce Artim and Grace Becker of Senator Hatch's staff; Steven Higgins of Senator Kyl's staff; Robin Toone of Senator Kennedy's staff; Bob Schiff and Alex Busansky of Senator Feingold's staff; Neil MacBride and Louisa Terrell of Senator Biden's staff; Chris Kang of Senator Durbin's staff; Mark Childress and Jennifer Duck of Senator Daschle's staff; and, most especially the members of my own staff for their hard work on this bill over the last several days under extraordinary circumstances and pressures. I also want to commend and thank the many victims' advocates and service providers in Vermont and across the country who show their dedication every day of the year to crime victims. I want to thank those who work in the area of domestic violence and abuse in particular. I am thankful for their dedication and grateful for their advice and insights over the years. For more than 20 years I have sponsored and championed legislation to help victims. I have mentioned the recent September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and I am also proud of such other advancements on behalf of victims as a law to provide assistance to victims of international terrorism, and bills to raise the cap on victims' assistance and compensation programs and to protect the rights of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Today's vote provides us the opportunity to make progress on yet another important measure to address the needs of victims. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the National Center for Victims of Crime stating strong support for S. 2329 be printed in the Record as well as, for the sake of completeness, a number of editorials that appeared on this subject recently.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, Earth Day usually marks the beginning of the President's and his green team's migration out to our Nation's parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. Since this is an election year, I am sure they are ramping up their efforts to greenwash their environmental record with very nice photo ops. Greenwash, like whitewash, doesn't stick. You have only to open the daily newspaper to see the laserlike focus the Bush administration has taken to rolling back our environmental laws, and while doing so rewarding special interests and corporate polluters. The starkest example is their outright assault on the most bipartisan environmental law of the 20th century, the Clean Air Act. I say bipartisan because leading Republicans and leading Democrats across the political spectrum, in the House and in the Senate, came together to pass the Clean Air Act. My predecessor, the senior Senator from Vermont, Bob Stafford, was one of those leaders. You would think of all acts, one that would be put together by Republicans and Democrats would be safe from assault by this Administration. That is not the case. By stealthy executive fiat, the Administration has dismantled the Clean Air Act bit by bit to let polluting industries off the hook when it comes to cleaning up dirty coal-fired powerplants that each year belch hundreds of thousands of tons of soot and toxic pollutants-- pollutants like mercury. The administration's actions to retreat from strong mercury controls, to undermine current lawsuits against the biggest utility companies, and to allow new coal-fired powerplants to be built without the best controls amounts to a triple whammy for public health and the environment. We often speak about being family friendly in this body. How do we tell a pregnant mother or a parent with small children how family friendly it is to allow more mercury into our air and into our water and the fish we eat. When the Clean Air Act was passed, Congress gave coal-fired powerplants a grace period to either clean up or shut down. At the end of the Clinton administration, we were making real progress toward meeting that goal. States such as my State of Vermont, which have been the dumping ground for toxic pollutants like mercury for decades, were finally going to get some relief. But, unfortunately, the only people letting out a sigh of relief now are the CEOs and corporate attorneys in the boardrooms of multibillion dollar energy companies. They are the only ones celebrating this Earth Day. Despite all of the administration's public relations tactics, I believe the American people are catching on, and enough is enough. To date, this Administration has made well over 300 rollbacks to our environmental protections. Think of that, three years in office and they have had 300 rollbacks of our environmental laws. There is certainly a lot about which the American people should be outraged. But I think it is important to take note of the strong bipartisan and growing outcry about the Administration's latest retreat from the Clean Air Act in the form of its mercury proposal. Senators Snowe, Jeffords, Dayton, and I were joined by 41 other Senators in calling on the administration to withdraw its mercury proposal. The concerns are building so swiftly they may soon reach critical mass. Look at this map. It gives some indication why the concerns are so great and why the objections are bipartisan. This is the Environmental Protection Agency's own map: ``Mercury Deposition in the United States.'' This is the Canadian border along here. Look how the mercury, because they are willing to violate and allow violations of the Clean Air Act, comes across. Look how it inundates the States in this area. My own State of Vermont is basically hidden under the deepest red of mercury pollution on the chart. The new EPA proposal to reduce mercury emissions was supposed to bring the powerplants into the 21st century and clean up their emissions. It does not do that. It falls short of what is necessary and falls far short of what is possible. Despite the Administration's best efforts to use every tactic in its public relations arsenal to convince Americans more mercury in the water, food, and environment over a long period of time is the best we can do, it is not working. In the last 2 months, much has come to light about the Administration's close collusion with polluting industries and devising its policy on mercury. The lobbyists from the industry sent their proposal to the Administration. The Administration does not even pretend to look at this scientifically or be independent. They just take it verbatim. They might as well have kept the letterheads from some of these companies. Instead of using the EPA letterhead, they could put ``Polluters 'R Us,'' or whatever industry sent to them. There are 20 examples where industry helped ghostwrite the mercury proposal. In a way, it is almost humorous that they would be so blatant about turning this over to the polluters, except that it suggests a very serious breach of the public rulemaking process and undermines the public trust in EPA's ability to be an independent decision-maker and perform its mission to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment. This Administration has a credibility problem about its approach to the Clean Air Act and to mercury pollution. New warnings about mercury risk from tuna, increasing numbers of pregnant women with mercury levels above safe levels, more newborns being born with high mercury levels, all are adding up to widespread and growing public demand for prompt action. We know from reports in the New York Times that the Bush administration employed a favorite tactic of sweeping science under the rug when it was drafting the mercury proposal. But we cannot ignore the facts. This chart shows the estimates of newborn children and women with unsafe mercury blood levels. They have doubled. These are some of the estimates from EPA scientists about which the White House wished the American people did not know. Anyone who has children or grandchildren should worry about this issue. Anybody who is expecting a child should worry about what this administration is doing. Anybody who has young children should worry about what they are doing. The estimate of women of childbearing age with mercury levels above what EPA considers safe has doubled. Apparently, the administration does not want the public to know that their mercury proposal does not go far enough fast enough to protect mothers and newborns from mercury. The same strategy is to ignore career staff and public health experts in the administration's proposal to write a giant loophole into the Clean Air Act New Source Review, called NSR. For anyone who has not seen it, I suggest a careful reading of the New York Times magazine article from several weekends ago titled ``Up In Smoke'' to see how the Bush administration strategically placed industry lawyers in key positions at EPA, spending the last few years helping the biggest utility companies in the country get off the legal hook of pollution control plans. They put the fox in to guard the henhouse. They have said to industry--and these are industries that contributed mightily to this administration--they have said: We will set aside the nonpartisan nonpolitical scientists; we will set aside the people whose sworn duty is to be here to protect the American public; we will put your lawyers in place, and we will let them write the rules for the rest of the country. Agency experts repeatedly warned the political appointees at the EPA that through new policy, this new NSR policy would undercut the lawsuits. And they went even further. They gave industry even more than they asked for and now industry attorneys are going to court where cases have been brought and are saying they should be dismissed because of the administration's actions. This is a very real problem in States like mine, if you are downwind. If Government wins the NSR cases despite the administration's back- door tactics and hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic pollutants will be cut. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is not satisfied. Retreating from strong mercury controls, undermining the NSR cases, is not enough. We now have reports that say the administration is considering new guidelines to States to limit their ability to require that new coal- fired plants use the best available technology to reduce emissions. That should set off alarm bells in the Northeast. This chart shows where new proposed plants are. The power industry has plans to build nearly 100 new coal-fired powerplants in the United States over the next 10 years, but the administration is trying to make darn sure they do not have to put in the kind of technology necessary to cut pollutants. These plants, located mostly in the Midwest and Great Lakes, will add thousands of pounds of new pollutants to our Nation's air. Over the last several decades, we have learned what comes out of the plants ends up in the lakes, rivers, and streams, as well as the food supplies of the children in the Northeast. If coal really is making a come back, as people predict, we should ensure it is not at the expense of our health and environment. On every front, the Bush administration is selling American technology and American ingenuity short. The administrations is setting the bar way too low, and they have set the clock for far too long. The technology exists to go much further. The administration needs to start putting the public interest ahead of special interests and tell the industry to use it. Just think of that, putting the public interest ahead of special interest. What a novel idea. If we did that, the American people would much better served. I hope the administration will withdraw its industry-ghostwritten, scientifically unjustifiable mercury rule, withdraw its NSR policy and drop plans to allow new powerplants to be built without the best environmental controls. I worry that the industry stalwarts within the administration will continue with their schemes to let corporate polluters off the hook. Remember, this is the same White House that tried to put more arsenic in our drinking water. The American people know their real slogan is, ``Go ahead and pollute, we don't give a hoot.'' I yield the floor.