Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object, sometimes it is work to manufacture a time for a vote. I note, so there is not any confusion, and notwithstanding the fact that the conference report was sent over without people seeing it, I am perfectly happy to have the vote on this today. I am perfectly happy to go to a vote today on each of the aspects, so there will not be any question on that, and I understand that notwithstanding the fact that we can't get any other work done around here, the Republican leadership, which is their right, is going to take a few days off again, but I want to at least have this debate on the day we vote. I commend the Senator from Kansas and the Senator from Minnesota for their work in getting us to this point. I do not object.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. The Republican nominee for President, George W. Bush, has said what the Senate ought to do on all these nominees is, within 60 days, vote them up or down, but at least bring them to a vote. Would the Senator from Iowa agree with me that that is a good idea on what should be done?

Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LEAHY. Would he also agree with me that if Governor Bush actually means that, he ought to pick up the phone and call the Republican leadership and say there are an awful lot of women and minorities and others who have been bottled up, as well as Bonnie Campbell, a lot longer than 60 days--I think one for more than 1,360 days--we ought to vote them up or down?

Mr. LEAHY. Lastly, would the Senator from Iowa agree with me that all he wants and would be satisfied with--bring her down here, 9 o'clock in the morning, or at night, whatever, and let's have a rollcall vote? I can assure you, I have read all of her file, and I sit on the Judiciary Committee. I have gone through every bit of this. Bonnie Campbell is one of the most qualified people nominated by either a Republican or Democrat in the 25 years I have been on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. There is no question about it. In fact, in the 1999 bill they were able to purchase nearly 400 vests, many of those in the rural areas. If we get this through, now they can purchase 1,176 vests. I say this because the Senate moved very quickly to pass a bill that increased the penalties if we harmed dogs or horses used by law enforcement. In other words, we could quickly zip this through and pass a bill saying the penalty will be increased if one harms a dog or horse used by law enforcement, but, whoops, we can't pass a bipartisan piece of legislation protecting the law enforcement officer himself or herself. I think of Alice in Wonderland, I have to admit, under those circumstances.

Mr. LEAHY. I say to my friend from Nevada, I, too, support the bill protecting animals in law enforcement. But I wish we could have added this other part. If you have the police officer out with the police dog, that police officer deserves protection. If you have a police officer out there with a horse--in many parts of both urban and rural areas horses are still used for a number of reasons by police officers--then let's also protect the police officer. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the situation we are in right now is interesting. It is different from any similar period I can recall in nearly 26 years in the Senate. We are at the end of the fiscal year--we have actually gone beyond the end of the fiscal year--and nothing seems to be happening. I voted against the continuing resolution, not because I do not think we should keep the Government going--of course we should; it is unfortunate to close down the Government--but more to express my concern that we are not doing our business. We have not passed our appropriations bills as we should. We all talk about how we make Government more efficient or how we make Government better. But imagine if you are running one of these Agencies or one of these Departments and you have to make the decisions for the year, and Congress, which has a mandate under law to pass the appropriations bills by September 30, we are here on October 5 and are nowhere near completing the bills. Yet in a Congress that spends more time investigating than legislating, we are perfectly willing to have investigations and actually bring a lot of these Departments to a halt while we ask them question after question, even if the questions have already been asked, and yet we are unwilling to do our own work on time. It is not the way it can be done, and it is not the way it should be done. I strongly urge Senators to consider next year when we come back, no matter who wins the Presidency, no matter who wins seats in the Senate or in the other body, that we spend more time trying to do things that actually help the country, that we set aside some of the partisanship and bitterness that has marked this Senate actually since impeachment time, which in itself was marked by partisanship when impeachment was rushed through in a lame duck House of Representatives and then passed over to this body. It appears in many ways we lost our footing at that time and never got back on course. There are bills that have bipartisan support. There was one I was discussing on the floor a few minutes ago with the distinguished Senator from Colorado, the Campbell-Leahy bulletproof vest bill. This is a bill that provides money for bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers. Senator Campbell and I served in law enforcement before we came to Congress. We served at a time when much of law enforcement did not face the danger it does now, but we kept enough of our ties to law enforcement and so we know how difficult it is. We know that the men and women we send out to protect all of us are themselves so often the victims of the same criminals from whom they try to protect us. Bulletproof vests are a $500 or $600 item. They wear out in 5 years. A lot of departments, especially small departments in States such as Vermont or rural areas like Texas, cannot afford these vests. I have letters from hundreds of law enforcement people from around the country who tell me that under the original Campbell-Leahy bill, they finally have a sense of security because they have bulletproof vests. We want to extend that for a couple more years. Yet we cannot even get a vote on it. This is a bill which, if it is brought to a vote in this Chamber, I am willing to bet virtually every Senator, Republican and Democrat, will vote for. How can one vote against it? Yet there has been one hold on the Republican side of the aisle, and we cannot bring up this vital law enforcement piece of legislation. I wanted to be sure--I am hearing from law enforcement agencies all across the country: Why can't you pass it?--so I actually made the point of checking with all 46 Democratic Senators: Do any of you have any objection to voting on this on a second's notice? They said: No, pass it by unanimous consent, if you want. I ask whoever is holding it up on the other side not to continue to hold it up. Mr. President, I return to ask the Republican leadership what is holding up enactment of the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000? This is a bill I introduced with Senator Campbell and others last April. The Senate Judiciary Committee considered and and reported the bill unanimously to the full Senate back in June. I have since been working to get Senate consideration, knowing that it will pass overwhelmingly if not unanimously. Unfortunately, an anonymous ``hold'' on the Republican side prevented enactment before the Senate recessed in July. I have been unable to discover which Republican Senator opposes the bill or why, and that remains true today. We have been working for several months to pass the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000. It has been cleared by all Democratic Senators. That it has still not passed the full Senate is very disappointing to me, as I am sure that it is to our nation's law enforcement officers, who need life-saving bulletproof vests to protect themselves. Protecting and supporting our law enforcement community should not be a partisan issue. Senator Campbell and I worked together closely and successfully in the last Congress to pass the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998 into law. This year's bill reauthorizes and extends the successful program that we helped create and that the Department of Justice has done such a good job implementing. I have charts here that show how successful the Bulletproof Vests Grant Program has been for individual states. In its first year of operation in 1999, the program funded the purchase of 167,497 vests with $23 million in federal grant funds. For the State of Alabama, the program funded the purchase of 2,287 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of California, the program funded the purchase of 28,106 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Colorado, the program funded the purchase of 1,844 bulletproof vests for police officers in 1999. For the State of Idaho, the program funded the purchase of 711 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Michigan, the program funded the purchase of 2,932 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Minnesota, the program funded the purchase of 1,052 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Mississippi, the program funded the purchase of 1,283 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Missouri, the program funded the purchase of 2,919 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of New York, the program funded the purchase of 13,004 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Oklahoma, the program funded the purchase of 3,042 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Rhode Island, the program funded the purchase of 792 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For the State of Utah, the program funded the purchase of 1,326 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 1999. For my home State of Vermont, the program funded the purchase of 361 bulletproof vests for police officers in 1999. For big and small states, the program was a success in its first year. I have a second chart that shows how successful the Bulletproof Vests Grant Program has been for individual states in its second year of operation. In 2000, the program funded the purchase of 158,396 vests with $24 million in federal grant funds. For the State of Alabama, the program funded the purchase of 2,498 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of California, the program funded the purchase of 27,477 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Colorado, the program funded the purchase of 2,288 bulletproof vests for police officers in 2000. For the State of Idaho, the program funded the purchase of 477 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Michigan, the program funded the purchase of 3,427 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Minnesota, the program funded the purchase of 709 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Mississippi, the program funded the purchase of 1,364 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Missouri, the program funded the purchase of 1,221 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of New York, the program funded the purchase of 11,969 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Oklahoma, the program funded the purchase of 3,389 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Rhode Island, the program funded the purchase of 313 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For the State of Utah, the program funded the purchase of 1,326 bulletproof vests for law enforcement officers in 2000. For my home State of Vermont, the program funded the purchase of 175 bulletproof vests for police officers in 2000. For the second year in a row, the program was a great success. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these two charts listing the number of bulletproof vests purchased and the Federal grant amounts for each state in 1999 and 2000 under the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. LEAHY. The Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000 builds on the success of this program by doubling its annual funding to $50 million for fiscal years 2002-2004. It also improves the program by guaranteeing jurisdictions with fewer than 100,000 residents receiving the full 50-50 matching funds because of the tight budgets of these smaller communities and by making the purchase of stab-proof vests eligible for grant awards to protect corrections officers in close quarters in local and county jails. We have 20 cosponsors on the new bill, including a number of Democrats and Republicans. This is a bipartisan bill that is not being treated in a bipartisan way. For some unknown reason a Republican Senator has a hold on this bill and has chosen to exercise that right anonymously. More than ever before, police officers in Vermont and around the country face deadly threats that can strike at any time, even during routine traffic stops. Bulletproof vests save lives. It is essential the we update this law so that many more of our officers who are risking their lives everyday are able to protect themselves. I hope that the mysterious ``hold'' on the bill from the other side of the aisle will disappear. The Senate should pass without delay the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000 and send to the President for his signature into law. Before we recessed last July, I informed the Republican leadership that the House of Representatives had passed the companion bill, H.R. 4033, by an overwhelming vote of 413-3. I expressed my hope that the Senate would quickly follow suit and pass the House-passed bill and send it to the President. President Clinton has already endorsed this legislation to support our Nation's law enforcement officers and is eager to sign it into law. I find it ironic that the Senate in July passed the Federal Law Enforcement Animal Protection Act, H.R. 1791. That bill increased the penalties for harming dogs and horses used by federal law enforcement officers. President Clinton signed that bill into law on August 2nd. The majority acted quickly to protect dogs and horses used by law enforcement officers but has stalled action on legislation to provide life-saving protection for law enforcement officers themselves. The Senate should have moved as quickly in July to pass the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000 and sent it to the President for his signature into law. Several more months have come and gone. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. Not knowing what the misunderstanding of our bill is, I find it is impossible to overcome an anonymous, unstated objection. I, again, ask whoever it is on the Republican side who has a concern about this program to please come talk to me and to Senator Campbell. I hope that the Senate will do the right thing and pass this important legislation without further unnecessary delay. Exhibit 1

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today is October 5, the first anniversary of an event I hope I will not see again in the Senate. I have spoken many times about the Senate being the conscience of the Nation, and it should be. A year ago today, I believe the country was harmed by a party-line vote. That party-line vote defeated the nomination of Justice Ronnie White to the Federal district court in Missouri. Justice White, on the Missouri Supreme Court, had the highest qualifications. He passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee. He had the highest ABA ratings. He is a distinguished African American jurist. Yet when it came to a vote, every Democrat voted for him and every Republican voted against him. I believe that was a mistake and one we will regret. I spoke on this nomination on October 15 and 21 of last year and more recently this year. Fifty-one years ago this month--I was 9 years old--the Senate confirmed President Truman's nomination of William Henry Hastings to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. That was actually the first Senate confirmation of an African American to our Federal courts--only 51 years ago. Thirty-one years ago, the Senate confirmed President Johnson's nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. When we rejected Ronnie White, I wonder if we went backward or we moved forward. This year, the Judiciary Committee has even refused to move forward with a hearing on Roger Gregory or Judge James Wynn to the Fourth Circuit. It is interesting--talk about bipartisanship--one of these men is a distinguished African American, a legal scholar, strongly supported by both the Republican and Democratic Senators from his State. Senator Warner, a distinguished and respected Member of this body and a Republican, strongly supports him. Senator Robb, an equally distinguished and respected Member of this body and a Democrat, a decorated war hero, also supports him, and the President nominated him. We cannot even get a vote. I hope this does not continue. I suggest, again, whoever wins the Presidency, whoever wins seats or loses seats in the Senate, that we not do this next year. This year, the Judiciary Committee reported only three nominees to the Court of Appeals all year. We denied a committee vote to two outstanding nominees who succeeded in getting hearings. I understand the frustration of Senators who know Roger Gregory, Judge James Wynn, Kathleen McCree Lewis, Judge Helene White, Bonnie Campbell, and others should have been considered and voted on. There are multiple vacancies on the Third, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuits; 23 current vacancies. Our appellate courts have nearly half of the judicial vacancies in the Federal court system. That has to change. I hope it will. I see my distinguished colleague and friend from Texas on the floor. I want to assure her I will yield the floor very soon. But I hope we can look again and ask ourselves objectively, without any partisanship, can we not do better on judges? I quoted Gov. George Bush on the floor a couple days ago. I said I agreed with him. On nominations, he said we should vote them up or down within 60 days. If you don't want the person, vote against them. The Republican Party should have no fear of that. They have the majority in this body. They can vote against them if they want, but have the vote. Either vote for them or vote against them. Don't leave people such as Helene White and Bonnie Campbell--people such as this--just hanging forever without even getting a rollcall vote. That is wrong. It is not a responsible way and besmirches the Senate, this body that I love so much. I consider it a privilege to serve here. This is a nation of a quarter of a billion people; and only 100 of us can serve at any one time to represent this wonderful Nation. It is a privilege that our States give us. We should use the privilege in the most responsible way to benefit all of us. When Senators do not vote their conscience, they risk the debacle that we witnessed last October 5th, when a partisan political caucus vote resulted in a fine man and highly qualified nominee being rejected by all Republican Senators on a party-line vote. The Senate will never remove the blot that occurred last October when the Republican Senators emerged from a Republican Caucus to vote lockstep against Justice White. At a Missouri Bar Association forum last week, Justice White expressed concern that the rejection of his nominations to a Federal judgeship will have a ``chilling effect'' on the desire of other young African American lawyers to seek to serve on our judiciary. President Clinton has tried to make progress on bringing greater diversity to our federal courts. He has been successful to some extent. With our help, we could have done so much more. We will end this Congress without having acted on any of the African American nominees, Judge James Wynn or Roger Gregory, sent to us to fill vacancies on the Fourth Circuit and finally integrate the Circuit with the highest percentage of African American population in the country, but the one Circuit that has never had an African American judge. We could have acted on the nomination of Kathleen McCree Lewis and confirmed her to the Sixth Circuit to be the first African American woman to sit on that Court. Instead, we will end the year without having acted on any of the three outstanding nominees to the Sixth Circuit pending before us. This Judiciary Committee has reported only three nominees to the Courts of Appeals all year. We have held hearings without even including a nominee to the Courts of Appeals and denied a Committee vote to two outstanding nominees who succeeded in getting hearings. I certainly understand the frustration of those Senators who know that Roger Gregory, Judge James Wynn, Kathleen McCree Lewis, as well as Judge Helene White, Bonnie Campbell and others should have been considered by this Committee and voted on by the Senate this year. There continue to be multiple vacancies on the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth and District of Columbia Circuits. With 23 current vacancies, our appellate courts have nearly half of the total judicial emergency vacancies in the federal court system. I note that the vacancy rate for our Courts of Appeals is more than 12 percent nationwide. If we were to take into account the additional appellate judgeships included in the Hatch-Leahy Federal Judgeship Act of 2000, S.3071, a bill that was requested by the Judicial Conference to handle current workloads, the vacancy rate on our federal courts of appeals would be more than 17 percent. The Chairman declares that ``there is and has been no judicial vacancy crisis'' and that he calculates vacancies at ``less than zero.'' The extraordinary service that has been provided by our corps of senior judges does not mean there are no vacancies. In the federal courts around the country there remain 63 current vacancies and several more on the horizon. With the judgeships included in the Hatch-Leahy Federal Judgeship Act of 2000, there would be over 130 vacancies across the country. That is the truer measure of vacancies, many of which have been long-standing judicial emergency vacancies in our southwest border states. The chief judges of both the Fifth and Sixth Circuits have had to declare their entire courts in emergencies since there are too many vacancies and too few circuit judges to handle their workload. The chairman misconstrues the lessons of the 63 vacancies at the end of the 103rd Congress in 1994. I would point out that in 1994 the Senate confirmed 101 judges to compensate for normal attrition and to fill the vacancies and judgeships created in 1990. In fact, that Congress reduced the vacancies from 131 in 1991, to 103 in 1992, to 112 in 1993, to 63 in 1994. Vacancies were going down and we were acting with Republican and Democratic Presidents to fill the 85 judgeships created by a Democratic Congress under a Republican President in 1990. Since Republicans assumed control of the Senate in the 1994 election the Senate has not even kept up with normal attrition. We will end this year with more vacancies than at the end of the session in 1994. As I have pointed out, the vacancies are most acute among our courts of appeals. Further, we have not acted to add the judgeships requested by the Judicial Conference to meet increased workloads over the last decade. According to the Chief Justice's 1999 year-end report, the filings of cases in our Federal courts have reached record heights. In fact, the filings of criminal cases and defendants reached their highest levels since the Prohibition Amendment was repealed in 1933. Also in 1999, there were 54,693 filings in the 12 regional courts of appeals. Overall growth in appellate court caseload last year was due to a 349 percent upsurge in original proceedings. This sudden expansion resulted from newly implemented reporting procedures, which more accurately measure the increased judicial workload generated by the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, both passed in 1996. Let me also set the record straight, yet again, on the erroneous but oft-repeated argument that ``the Clinton Administration is on record as having stated that a vacancy rate just over 7 percent is virtual full- employment of the judiciary.'' That is not true. The statement can only be alluded to an October 1994 press release. It should not be misconstrued in this manner. That press release was pointing out that at the end of the 103rd Congress if the Senate had proceeded to confirm the 14 nominees then pending on the Senate calendar, it would have reduced the judicial vacancy rate to 4.7 percent, which the press release then proceeded to compare to a favorable unemployment rate of under 5 percent. Unfortunately, the chairman's assertions are demonstrably false. Contrary to his statement, the Justice Department's October 12, 1994 press release that he cites does not equate a 7.4 percent vacancy rate with ``full employment,'' but rather a 4.7 percent rate. Additionally, the vacancy rate was not reduced to 4.7 percent in 1994, and stands at three times that today. The Justice Department release was not a statement of administration position or even a policy statement but a poorly designed press release that included an ill-conceived comment. Job vacancy rates and unemployment rates are not comparable. Unemployment rates are measures of people who do not have jobs not of Federal offices vacant without an appointed office holder. When I learned that some Republicans had for partisan purposes seized upon this press release, taken it out of context, ignored what the press release actually said and were manipulating it into a misstatement of Clinton administration policy, I asked the Attorney General, in 1997, whether there was any level or percentage of judicial vacancies that the administration considered acceptable or equal to ``full employment.'' The Department responded: There is no level or percentage of vacancies that justifies a slow down in the Senate on the confirmation of nominees for judicial positions. While the Department did once, in the fall of 1994, characterize a 4.7 percent vacancy rate in the federal judiciary as the equivalent of the Department of Labor `full employment' standard, that characterization was intended simply to emphasize the hard work and productivity of the Administration and the Senate in reducing the extraordinary number of vacancies in the federal Article III judiciary in 1993 and 1994. Of course, there is a certain small vacancy rate, due to retirements and deaths and the time required by the appointment process, that will always exist. The current vacancy rate is 11.3 percent. It did reach 12 percent this past summer. The President and the Senate should continually be working diligently to fill vacancies as they arise, and should always strive to reach 100 percent capacity for the Federal bench. At no time has the Clinton administration stated that it believes that 7 percent vacancies on the federal bench is acceptable or a virtually full federal bench. Only Republicans have expressed that opinion. As the Justice Department noted three years ago in response to an inquiry on this very questions, the Senate should be ``working diligently to fill vacancies as they arise, and should always strive to reach 100 percent capacity for the federal bench.'' Indeed, I informed the Senate of these facts in a statement in the Congressional Record on July 7, 1998, so that there would be no future misunderstanding or misstatement of the record. Nonetheless, in spite of the facts and in spite of my July 1998 statement and subsequent statements on this issue over the past three years, these misleading statements continue to be repeated. Ironically, the Senate could reduce the current vacancy rate to under 5 percent if we confirmed the 39 judicial nominees that remain bottled up before the Judiciary Committee. Instead of misstating the language of a 6-year-old press release that has since been discredited by the Attorney General herself, the chairman would have my support if we were working to get those 39 more judges confirmed. I regret to report again today that the last confirmation hearing for federal judges held by the Judiciary Committee was in July, as was the last time the Judiciary Committee reported any nominees to the full Senate. Throughout August and September and now into the first week in October, there have been no additional hearings held or even noticed, and no executive business meetings have included any judicial nominees on the agenda. By contrast, in 1992, the last year of the Bush administration, a Democratic majority in the Senate held three confirmation hearings in August and September and continued to work to confirm judges up to and including the last day of the session. I continue to urge the Senate to meet its responsibilities to all nominees, including women and minorities. So long as the Senate is in session, I will urge action. That highly-qualified nominees are being needlessly delayed is most regrettable. The Senate should join with the President to confirm well-qualified, diverse and fair-minded nominees to fulfill the needs of the Federal courts around the country. As I noted on the floor earlier this week, the frustration that many Senators feel with the lack of attention this Committee has shown long pending judicial nominees has simply boiled over. I understand their frustration and have been urging action for some time. This could all have been easily avoided if we were continuing to move judicial nominations like Democrats did in 1992, when we held hearings in September and confirmed 66 judges that Presidential election year. I regret that the Judiciary Committee and the Senate is not holding additional hearings, that we only acted on 39 nominees all year and that we have taken so long on so many of them. I deeply regret the lack of a hearing and a vote on so many qualified nominees, including Roger Gregory, Judge James Wynn, Judge Helene White, Bonnie Campbell, Enrique Moreno, Allen Snyder and others. And, I regret that a year ago today, the Senate rejected the nomination of Justice Ronnie White to the Federal District Court of Missouri on a partisan, party-line vote.

Mr. LEAHY. I yield for a question.

Mr. LEAHY. That is right.

Mr. LEAHY. There is no question it would benefit rural Nevada. Of course, the distinguished deputy leader was in law enforcement himself. He knows the threat that police officers face. That threat is not exclusive to big cities, by any means.

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

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Alaska for his usual courtesies. I will take time on our side briefly. I thank the Senate Chaplain, Dr. Ogilvie, for his courtesy in inviting today's visiting Chaplain, Father Claude Pomerleau. Father Pomerleau is very special to me; he is my brother-in-law. He is the chairman of the department of history and political science at the University of Portland. He has a distinguished career, a doctorate from the University of Denver, where actually N O T I C E Effective January 1, 2001, the subscription price of the Congressional Record will be $393 per year or $197 for six months. Individual issues may be purchased for $4.00 per copy. The cost for the microfiche edition will remain $141 per year with single copies remaining $1.50 per issue. This price increase is necessary based upon the cost of printing and distribution. Michael F. DiMario, Public Printer one of his lead professors was Dr. Madeleine Albright's father. He speaks many, many languages. He is seen as a leading authority on Latin America. He teaches in Chile as well as at the University of Portland-- in fact, he just came back from there. I could go through all these things about him, but from a personal point of view he is very special to me. His sister, Marcelle, and I have been married now for 38 years, and he was present when we were married, as were his brother Rene and his father and mother, Phil and Cecile Pomerleau. Phil and Cecile are no longer with us, but I have a feeling they look down in pride at their son this morning, as we all do. He is a teacher, he is a mentor, a brother, a son, a beloved uncle--in our family he has been all of those and more. He has been a very dear friend to me. I think of what Edward Everett Hale, a former distinguished Senate Chaplain, once said. He was asked: Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale? And he said: No, I look at the Senators and I pray for the country. I am privileged to have a brother who not only prays for the country, but prays for this Senator. I consider it, in my 26 years here, one of the rarest privileges I have had to be able to see him on the floor. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I join today with Senators Bayh, Grams, and Cleland in introducing the ``Protecting Seniors from Fraud Act of 2000.'' I have been concerned for some time that even as the general crime rate has been declining steadily over the past eight years, the rate of crime against the elderly has remained unchanged. That is why I introduced the Seniors Safety Act, S. 751, with Senators Daschle, Kennedy, and Torricelli over a year ago. The Protecting Seniors from Fraud Act includes one of the titles from the Seniors Safety Act. This title does two things. First, it instructs the Attorney General to conduct a study relating to crimes against seniors, so that we can develop a coherent strategy to prevent and properly punish such crimes. Second, it mandates the inclusion of seniors in the National Crime Victimization Study. Both of these are important steps, and they should be made law. The Protecting Seniors from Fraud Act also includes important proposals for addressing the problem of crimes against the elderly, especially fraud crimes. In addition to the provisions described above, the bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to establish local programs to prevent fraud against seniors and educate them about the risk of fraud, as well as to provide information about telemarketing and sweepstakes fraud to seniors, both directly and through State Attorneys General. These are two common-sense provisions that will help seniors protect themselves against crime. I hope that we can also take the time to consider the rest of the Seniors Safety Act, and enact even more comprehensive protections for our seniors. The Seniors Safety Act offers a comprehensive approach that would increase law enforcement's ability to battle telemarketing, pension, and health care fraud, as well as to police nursing homes with a record of mistreating their residents. The Justice Department has said that the Seniors Safety Act would ``be of assistance in a number of ways.'' I asked Senator Hatch to hold Judiciary Committee hearings on the bill as long ago as October 1999, and again this past February, but my requests have thus far not been granted. I ask again today for hearings on this important and comprehensive proposal. First, the Seniors Safety Act provides additional protections to nursing home residents. Nursing homes provide an important service for our seniors--indeed, more than 40 percent of Americans turning 65 this year will need nursing home care at some point in their lives. Many nursing homes do a wonderful job with a very difficult task--this legislation simply looks to protect seniors and their families by isolating the bad providers in operation. It does this by giving federal law enforcement the authority to investigate and prosecute operators of those nursing homes that engage in a pattern of health and safety violations. This authority is all the more important given the study prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services and reported this summer in the New York Times showing that 54 percent of American nursing homes fail to meet the Department's ``proposed minimum standard'' for patient care. The study also showed that 92 percent of nursing homes have less staff than necessary to provide optimal care. Second, the Seniors Safety Act helps protect seniors from telemarketing fraud, which costs billions of dollars every year. My bill would give the Attorney General the authority to block or terminate telephone service where that service is being used to defraud seniors. If someone takes your money at gunpoint, the law says we can take away their gun. If someone uses their phone to take away your money, the law should allow us to protect other victims by taking their phone away. In addition, my proposal would establish a Better Business Bureau-style clearinghouse that would keep track of complaints made about telemarketing companies. With a simple phone call, seniors could fine out whether the company trying to sell to them over the phone or over the Internet has been the subject of complaints or been convinced of fraud. Senator Bayh has recently introduced another bill, S. 3025, the Combating Fraud Against Seniors Act, which includes the part of the Seniors Safety Act that establishes the clearinghouse for telemarketing fraud information. Third, the Seniors Safety Act punishes pension fraud. Seniors who have worked hard for years should not have to worry that their hard- earned retirement savings will not be there when they need them. The bill would create new criminal and civil penalties for those who defraud pension plans, and increase the penalties for bribery and graft in connection with employee benefit plans. Fourth and finally, the Seniors Safety Act strengthens law enforcement's ability to fight health care fraud. A recent study by the National Institute for Justice reports that many health care fraud schemes ``deliberately target vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or Alzheimer's patients, who are less willing or able to complain or alert law enforcement.'' This legislation gives law enforcement the additional investigatory tools it needs to uncover, investigate, and prosecute health care offenses in both criminal and civil proceedings. It also protects whistle-blowers who alert law enforcement officers to examples of health care fraud. In conclusion, I would like to commend Senators Bayh and Cleland for working to take steps to improve the safety and security of America's seniors. I call upon my colleagues to pass this bipartisan legislation and begin the fight to lower the crime rate against seniors. I also urge them to consider and pass the Seniors Safety Act. Taken together, these two bills would provide a comprehensive approach toward giving law enforcement and older Americans the tools they need to prevent crime.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, all Democrats have cleared for final passage H.R. 5107, the Work for Hire and Copyright Corrections Act of 2000. I hope that the Senate will take up H.R. 5107 without further unnecessary delay. Representatives Berman and Coble deserve credit, along with the interested parties, for working out a consensus solution in their work for hire copyright legislation. I do not know why the Senate has not confirmed their work and accorded their bill consent for final passage. Why the Republican majority has not taken up this measure since the middle of last week is another unexplained mystery. As has been true with our bipartisan bill to provide bulletproof vest grants to law enforcement, S. 2014, and its House-passed counterpart, H.R. 4033, all Democrats have cleared these matters for Senate action. As has been true for some time with the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, S. 2787, all Democrats have cleared these matters for Senate action. The same is true with respect to S. 1796, the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, all Democrats have cleared these matters for Senate action. There are so many bills cleared by the Senate Democrats being held hostage without explanation by the Republican majority, it is hard to know where to begin and where to end. Here is this last week of the session the Senate could be making progress on a number of items but we remained stymied. I regret that Congress did not complete its necessary work on the required appropriations bills before the beginning of the new fiscal year. We are again requiring the Government to exist from continuing resolution to continuing resolution. Along with the American people, I hope that we will complete our work before too much longer.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont has used one part of his time under the unanimous consent agreement, but I understand I have other time under the agreement. How much time is available to the Senator from Vermont?

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to congratulate Fred Wilber from my hometown of Montpelier, Vermont on his cyberselling success. For the last twenty-seven years, Fred Wilber has owned Buch Spieler, a music store in downtown Montpelier. Recently the New York Times reported on Buch Spieler's growing sales from its Internet site at http://www.bsmusic.com. Mr. President, I ask that the full text of the New York Times article of September 22, 2000, titled ``The Opposite of Amazon.com,'' be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. The success of Fred Wilber is a shining example for all Vermont small business owners to follow. By taking advantage of the new markets offered by the Internet for its goods and services, Buch Spieler has increased overall sales by 10 percent and expanded its customer base by 20 percent in the last year and a half. For years we Vermonters have complained about not having access to a major market to sell our goods. Now through the Internet, we can sell our goods in the blink of an eye to anyone in the world as Fred Wilber and Buch Spieler have shown. I commend Fred Wilber for being a cyberselling leader and tapping into the Internet's world markets. The article follows: [From the New York Times; Sept. 22, 2000] The Opposite of Amazon.com (By Leslie Kaufman) For 27 years, Fred Wilber has run a quirky music store called Buch Spieler in downtown Montpelier, Vt., population of roughly 8,000. The store, which sells out-of-print movie soundtracks, among other goodies, has had its ups and downs, but in 1998, as Internet music distributors like CDNow and MP3.com exploded in popularity, Mr. Wilber began to worry that the Web would be his Waterloo. His answer was to build his own Web site (www.bsmusic.com). Designed by his brother and lacking time-saving features like one-click shopping, it is hardly slick. But it has been successful. In the year and a half since the site went into service, Mr. Wilber says overall sales have jumped 10 percent. Just as important, he estimates, the Internet has expanded his customer base by some 20 percent. It turns out that Mr. Wilber's peculiar tastes have been strengths on the Web. When the site was recently sent an e-mail message requesting the score from ``Gordy! The Little Pig That Hit It Big!'' a 1995 movie, he simply took it off the shelf and shipped it. ``It is not easy e-commerce,'' Mr. Wilber said of his Web site. ``But we are not trying to compete with Amazon. We focus on our own niche.'' To many experts, the advent of the Internet seemed to signal a grim future for mom-and-pop retailers. Increased competition and the availability of a diverse array of merchandise to populations that had been essentially captive audiences threatened to erode their customer base. But a survey of more than 1,500 businesses in 16 downtown commercial districts nationwide, released earlier this month by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, indicates that the Internet can spur sales in storefront retail businesses. Just as they compete in the brick-and-mortar world against big-box enemies like Wal-Mart Stores and Home Depot, small retailers seem to do best in the virtual world by focusing on unusual products or aiming to give excellent, personalized customer service. The National Trust is a nonprofit organization that develops programs to support and maintain historic downtown areas. And because the survey canvassed only merchants in towns where some revitalization of historic downtown areas in under way, the National Trust said its results probably overstate the positive impact of the Web on all small businesses. Even so, the news was surprisingly upbeat. The trust's survey, one of the first in the nation to examine the impact of e-commerce on small retailers, found that some 16.4 percent of Main Street businesses it polled were already using the Internet to sell things. Further, the survey found, merchants that sell online--with most of them starting their Web sites only within the last 18 months--have experienced a 12.8 percent increase in overall sales. On average, 14.3 percent of their total sales are now attributable to the Internet. Small, specialized businesses ``are really starting to gravitate toward the Web,'' said Kennedy Smith, director of the National Trust's Main Street Center. ``The thing that was a surprise was the extent to which it was helping them.'' For a struggling storefront operation, a 5 percent increase in sales can make the difference between shutting its doors or staying open, Ms. Smith said. The news about small storefront retailers presents a stark contrast to larger, purely e-commerce retailers. Many experts once suggested that even individual entrepreneurs working out of homes and garages--selling everything from books to bow ties--would prosper on the Internet as barriers to entry were eliminated. But as it has turned out, while several of these pure e-retailers had jumps in sales initially, they are now struggling to make money as the challenges of marrying cyberspace and the real world have become clear. Hundreds of these operations are now cutting back or going out of business entirely. Established name-brand retailers, so-called clicks-and- mortars, have also had their share of tribulations on the Internet. While many have recorded strong sales through their online arms, it has often come at enormous cost. To sustain the level of service associated with their stores, most big- name retailers have had to do everything from hire new workers to set up a separate warehouse operation to handle the orders. There is no way to know exactly how many small storefront merchants do business over the Web, but their ranks are already in the tens of thousands and growing. As of May, some 29 percent of all American small businesses--from retailers to public relations firms--had Web sites, according to the Kelsey Group, a consulting firm specializing in local advertising and e-commerce. That is up from 23 percent in May of last year. Of this Web-connected minority, almost half are selling goods over the Interent, according to the Kelsey Group, which gets its information from a survey of a national panel of 600 businesses with fewer than 100 employees. The use of the Web by small retailers is likely to accelerate because many larger companies, hoping that small businesses could be revenue generators, have been intensifying efforts to bring mom-and-pop stores online over the course of the last year. Last September, for example, Amazon.com started zShops, a service that allows small businesses to have a link to their products pop up when a visitor to Amazon clicks on a relevant book or compact disc. A seller of spice grinders, say, could arrange for a link to appear every time a person clicked on a book about Indian cooking. Web developers of all sizes--from Microsoft to tiny outfits run by a couple of a guys in a college dorm--are offering small businesses access to a range of Web services, from Web site design to purchasing banner advertising. In fact, the business of providing Web services to small operators has already become competitive enough that many of the mom-and- pop retailers said their entry costs had been very reasonable. James and Mary DeFore, for example, own a women and children's store called Unique Boutique in downtown Thomasville, Ga., a small city of about 20,000 people. They were doing a healthy side business in prom dresses, and decided that if they offered them on the Web they might attract rural customers who could not get into town. So last January, they hired a local service provider, who for a few hundred dollars designed a simple but colorful Web site with the catchy name Time for Prom (timeforprom.com). The site went live in February, and by march the DeFores were getting up to 40,000 visitors to their Web site each month. By June, they had nearly 500 orders for dresses that cost $150 to $200. And requests came not just from rural areas in Georgia but also from Missouri and West Virginia and even Hawaii and Japan. ``The biggest problem,'' Mr. DeFore said, ``was fulfilling all the orders.'' Despite not having a powerful brand name or being linked to a powerful portal like Yahoo or America Online, Time for Prom shows that small retailers need not get lost in the vast clutter on the Internet if they develop a clear, arrow identity. In fact, another Thomasville retailer, Hi-Fi Sales and Service, which specializes in equipment for home theaters and live field recording, did $1.9 million in business over the Web last year, which represented a significant portion of its total sales, and now gets some 30 percent of its new customers online with no advertising. The key to the success of Hi-Fi Sales is making sure it is visible. ``We spend a lot of energy making sure we come up high in the search engines,'' said Jim Oade, one of the three brothers who co-own the business. Each search engine has different rules for deciding in what order to list businesses related to key words, he said. So one of the brothers, Doug Oade, devotes himself, among other things, to keeping current with the rules and making sure the company's Web site (www.oade.com) has enough of the right key words to pop up swiftly when a consumer wants audio products. The Oade brothers' national customer base is still fairly unusual among mom-and-pop ventures. Most storefront retailers use the Internet mainly for defending and cementing the relationship with customers they already have--a relationship that is very much under siege by giant retailers. Osborn Drugs in Miami (pronounced Mi-AM-a), Okal., has been a family drugstore for 29 years. Since it started its Web site in 1996, sales through the Interent have increased only about 5 percent a year, according to Bill Osborn, who runs the store with his father. But more than 90 percent of the traffic on the Web site comes from regular long-term Osborn customers who just like to e-mail their prescriptions in. ``We view it as a way to service customers we already have,'' Bill Osborn said. ``We are not trying to go public as osborndrug.com.''

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, one of the joys in living in a State as small as Vermont is that you get to know where all the treasures are. One such treasure is Villa Tragara in Waterbury Center. My family and I have gone there for so many years and have become friends of Tish and Tony DiRuocco. When my mother was alive, she knew that she could call Tony when the Italians won soccer matches and have someone she could speak with in her native tongue, while they both toasted Italy's victory. Recently Debbie Salomon, Vermont's foremost chronicler of epicurean delights, wrote about the DiRuocco's Restaurant and I ask that the article from the Free Press be printed in the Record at this point. The article follows: [From the Burlington Free Press, Sept. 12, 2000] Strong Marriage Is Secret Ingredient to Villa Tragara's Success (By Debbie Salomon) Behind every great restaurant chef/owner stands a spouse. If the spouse is a woman, chances are she'll put on a nice outfit, slap on some makeup and stand in front taking reservations, dispatching servers, running credit cards, remembering names, smoothing ruffled feathers and smiling, smiling, smiling through aching feet, a throbbing head and sore back. That's if the baby sitter shows up. That's Tish DiRuocco. Tish and Tony DiRuoccco, owners of Villa Tragara in Waterbury Center, are old-timers in an industry where almost 75 percent of newcomers fail the first year. Villa Tragara recently celebrated its 20th anniversary; in June, Tony was named Restaurateur of the Year by Vermont Lodging & Restaurant Association. Should have been ``Restaurateurs . . .'' ``Did you see (the Stanley Tucci film) `Big Night?' Tish asks. ``Tony's like the chef and the brother is me.'' ``They are a very strong family, a wonderful team,'' says Joan Simmons of Craftsbury, a 20-year devotee, who celebrates most family occasions at Villa Tragara, including her mother's 90th birthday. Simmons describes their entrance: ``You would have though Queen Victoria was arriving.'' I thought of Tish as I watched Hadassah Lieberman's rave at the Democratic National Convention. The motto of these strong-willed spouse-partners seems to be Stand By Your Man and Help! Perhaps Tish and Tony cling so tenaciously to each other and their business because getting there wasn't half the fun. They met when 19-year-old Tish, a Montrealer, lived with a family in Switzerland to improve her French. The small Swiss town had only one nightspot. Tony--born and educated in Capri, Italy--was the showy bartender. ``He threw bottles into the air and caught them.'' Tish recalls, still misty-eyed at 48. ``I had no money but he made me the perfect drink at the perfect price. They fell in love. Tony followed her back to Montreal. They married in 1976. Tish's family had a ski house in Vermont. Her dream was to live here, despite Tony's growing success in cosmopolitan Montreal. They scoped out the Italian restaurant scene in the Stowe vicinity and decided a market existed for Tony's painstakingly elegant (pasta, bread, desserts made in-house) Northern Italian preparations. They found a charming 1820 farmhouse on Vermont 100 in Waterbury Center, which became the restaurant. Tish's parents helped financially, but the complications of non-citizens opening a business in the United States would fill the phone book. ``We were young and naive,'' Tish admits. Add ``fanatically hard-working'' The charming location proved less than ideal, since vacationers driving north to Stowe didn't want to drive back for dinner. ``We had to be creative the first 10 years, until word-of- mouth got around, ``Tony says. Finally, the Stowe Montrealers who had adored Tony's cuisine at home rediscovered him and oh, did he cater to their tastes. ``They want it special, not off the menu,'' he says. ``Tony's so intent on pleasing that he's flexible to a fault,'' Tish adds. But bumps along the way, including an exhausting foray into retail refrigerated pasta that Tish delivered to gourmet shops between caring for two children and running Villa Tragara, might have derailed a less-committed couple. The Stowe restaurant scene was exploding with competition. Attitudes toward food were changing. ``We were a sinking ship but we were going down fighting,'' Tish admits. Once, things got so bad they closed the door and fled to Martha's Vineyard for a week. Tony was forced to make changes, to lighten sauces with vegetable purees, to initiate cabarets, dinner theater, jazz, a moderately priced tapas menu and early-bird discounts. Redecoration turned the farmhouse--particularly the mountain- view solarium--into a lively, informal trattoria. Herbs grow along the path to the front door; zucchini clog the compost- enriched garden plot out back. And, somehow, their marriage has not only survived, but flourished. How? ``We drop the restaurant when we go home,'' Tish says. ``If we have an argument, it keeps until the next day.'' Watching them you fee the connection. ``She is my partner, 120 percent,'' Tony affirms, touching Tish's shoulder. They have led student tours to Italy. They provide food for Odysesy of the Mind and March of Dimes events. On Christmas, Tony contributes lasagna (of all things) to a Christmas dinner at a Waterbury church and donates food to a retirement home. No wonder, in March of 1999, Tony was one of 59 restaurateurs worldwide (nine in the U.S.) to receive the Insegna Del Ristornate Italiano, which honors chiefs who leave Italy but ``keep the good name alive.'' The award was presented by Italian president Oscar Scalfaro. The Pope recognized the honorees during a public audience. Simmons was happy but not surprised at the recognition. ``When you walk in that door you feel special. Tony and Tish are genuinely glad to have your business,'' she says. The Simmonses drive almost an hour once a month to eat at Villa Tragara. ``I'm a schoolteacher, not a rich woman, but we would rather eat at a place we know is good.'' Because, Simmons concludes, ``Anything else is going out to get some food. This is going out to dinner.'' What a nice story.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on July 2, 2000, the people of Mexico elected Vincente Fox, candidate of the National Action Party, to be their President. This election represents a dramatic change and a historic affirmation of democracy in Mexico. The inauguration of Mr. Fox later this year will end 71 years of PRI control of the Mexican Presidency. I want to join other Members of congress in expressing my congratulations to Mr. Fox and the people of Mexico. I also want to commend President Zedillo, whose leadership helped to ensure the freest and fairest election in Mexico's history. Mr. Fox's election has significance far beyond Mexico's borders. It represents an historic opportunity for our two countries to redefine, broaden and strengthen our relationship. It is a relationship that has been burdened by history, and plagued by distrust, arrogance, and misunderstanding. There have been times when it seemed that on issues of hemispheric or international importance Mexico embraced whatever position was the opposite of the United States position, simply because we are the United States. At other times, our country has treated Mexico like a second-class cousin once or twice removed. Problems that can only be solved through cooperation have too often been addressed with fences and sanctions, and self-serving assertions of sovereignty. It is time for a new approach. There is far too much at stake for us to continue down the road of missed opportunities. Mexico is our neighbor, our friend, and our strategic partner. We share a 2,000-mile border. We have strong economic ties, with a two-way annual trade of $174 billion. We have a common interest in combating transnational problems, and we have strong cultural bonds, as more than 20 million people of Mexico descent now live in the United States. At present, there are several issues between the two countries that deserve immediate attention: After more than 6 years, the situation in Chipas remains unresolved. Many innocent lives have been lost and thousands of people are displaced and living in squalor. Tens of thousands of Mexican troops have surrounded the area, which could explode in renewed violence at any time. There is an urgent need to demilitarize the area and embark on an enlightened, sustained, good faith process to address the underlying social, economic, and political issues and resolve this conflict peacefully. Since the implementation of NAFTA, trade between our countries has doubled. While NAFTA has been beneficial for both nations, reports of violations of labor and environmental laws must be more effectively addressed and outstanding trade disputes must be resolved. The Mexican Government has made progress in combating illegal narcotics trafficking by undertaking a number of measures, including firing more than 1400 federal police officers for corruption, cooperating with the FBI last year on an investigation that occurred on Mexican soil, and increasing seizures of illegal narcotics. However, major problems remain and far more needs to be done to reduce narco- trafficking and official corruption in Mexico. Illegal immigration continues to be a major concern for both countries. Although we must be sure that our immigration laws are effectively and fairly enforced, a long-term solution can only be achieved by improving the quality of life in Mexico where half the population--some 50 million people--struggles to survive on $2 per day. With thousands of United States and Mexican citizens traveling back and forth across the border every day, the spread of HIV/AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases is inevitable. These health problems, and shared environmental problems, can only be effectively addressed if we work together. Human rights is another issue of importance to the Mexican people, and to Americans. These are universal rights, and it is very disturbing to read reports by the State Department and respected human rights organizations of widespread torture by Mexican police. It is also unacceptable that American citizens, including priests, some of whom have lived and worked in Mexico for decades, have been summarily deported for as little as being present at a demonstration against excessive force by the Mexican Army. Even when the Inter-American Human Rights Commission rejected the Mexican Government's arguments in these cases, the Mexican Government has refused to change its policy. On August 24, 2000, President-elect Fox came to the United States, where he met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore. During those meetings, Mr. Fox expressed a strong commitment to democracy, economic development, and human rights, and to cooperate with the United States to combat corruption, illicit drug trafficking, and other transnational threats. This bodes well for our future relationship. I hope that we would soon invite President-elect Fox to address a joint session of Congress. This should happen as soon as possible after the 107th convenes in January. Congress has had a major role in shaping United States policy toward Mexico, and we would all benefit from hearing directly from Mr. Fox. It would also give him an opportunity to outline in more detail his proposals to address key issues that affect our relations. Like many Americans I was very encouraged by Vincente Fox's election, and am confident that he will be a strong partner of the United States. I look forward to making the most of this opportunity to strengthen the United States-Mexico relationship.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am very pleased the Senate is poised to pass legislation to increase the number of H-1B visas. The bill that we will pass today is the result of long negotiations. It is significantly improved from the version reported from the Judiciary Committee earlier this year. This is an important step that will allow American employers to compensate for the current shortage in highly skilled employees by hiring such employees from abroad. Thanks to the efforts of Senators Kennedy, Lieberman, Feinstein, and others, this bill also includes strong education and worker training components. That is going to help American workers and students to erase the skills shortage. No one on this side of the aisle sees H-1B visas as a permanent solution. It is a stopgap until our renewed commitment to education and training pays dividends. I would like to thank all of those in the corporate world who have supported our efforts on education and training. Although I am happy about the passage of this bill, I am somewhat disappointed in the severe way in which debate on this bill was restricted. I had hoped that our consideration of this bill would allow us to achieve other crucially important immigration goals that have been neglected by the majority throughout this Congress. I had hoped that the Republican majority could agree to at least vote on, if not vote for, limited proposals designed to protect Latino families and other immigrant families. I had hoped that the majority would consider proposals to restore the due process that was taken away from immigrants by the immigration legislation that Congress passed in 1996. I thought we could work together to restore some of America's lost luster on immigration issues. That did not happen. Still, we did have a vote on the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act that showed where the Senate stood on issues of extreme importance to the Hispanic community, Eastern Europeans, and the Liberians. On that vote, regrettably, every Republican voted no. They refused to even consider the amendment. We should have had a vote. Senators should have the political courage to either vote for it, or vote against it. I hope my Republican colleagues have the chance to reevaluate their position. The President has said he wants Congress to address these issues before we adjourn. Many Democratic Members of Congress and I join him in that view, and we will continue to work to see that this Congress addresses the real needs of real people, whether they be native-born or immigrant. Both my mother and my wife are first-generation Americans. I think if Congress had taken some of the attitudes toward immigration that some take today when their families were seeking to enter the United States, neither might be in this country. I agree that we need to increase the number of H-1B visas. The stunning economic growth we have experienced in the past eight years has led to worker shortages in certain key areas of our economy, and I have been involved in promoting efforts to ease those shortages. Last year, I cosponsored the HITEC Act, S. 1645, legislation that Senator Robb has introduced that would create a new visa that would be available to companies looking to hire recent foreign graduates of U.S. master's and doctoral programs in math, science, engineering, or computer science. Although S. 2045 uses a broader approach, the goals are similar. Allowing workers with specialized skills to come to the U.S. and work for 6-year periods, as the H-1B visa does, helps to alleviate worker shortage. In the recently ended fiscal year, 115,000 such visas were available, and they ran out well before the fiscal year ended. That is why we have to change the law now. If we do not change the law, there will actually be fewer visas available in fiscal year 2001, as the cap drops to 107,500. This will simply be insufficient to allow America's employers--particularly in the information technology industry--to maintain their current rates of growth. As such, I think that we need to increase the number of available visas dramatically. The bill we will vote on today accomplishes that goal, increasing the number of visas to 195,000 for FY 2001. It also contains a provision that will allow educational institutions to use H-1B visas without counting against the cap, which will greatly help our colleges and universities, which are often on a different hiring schedule than our nation's other employers and have been shut out in the past from obtaining needed visas. Of course, H-1B visas are not a long-term answer to the current mismatch between the demands of the high-tech industry and the supply of workers with technical skills. Although I believe that there is a labor shortage in certain areas of our economy, I do not believe that we should accept that circumstance as an unchangeable fact of life. We need to make a greater effort to give our children the education they need to compete in an increasingly technology-oriented economy, and offer adults the training they need to refashion their careers to suit the changes in our economy. This bill takes significant steps to improve our education and training programs. Since employers pay a $500 fee for a visa, increasing the number of visas will lead to an increase in revenue generated for worker training programs, scholarships for disadvantaged students, and funding for public-private partnerships to improve science and technology education. I also want to note that the legislation extends current law's attestation requirements. These requirements force employers to certify that they were unable to find qualified Americans to do a job that they have hired a visa recipient to fill. The Labor Department also retains authority under S. 2045 to investigate possible H-1B violations. I continue to believe that we could have passed this legislation many months ago. The Judiciary Committee reported S. 2045 more than six months ago, with my support. During this long stretch of inactivity, it has often appeared that the Republican majority has been more interested in gaining partisan advantage from a delay than in actually making this bill law. The Democratic Leader said repeatedly that he wanted to pass a bill, and that although Democratic members did want the opportunity to offer amendments, he was ready to agree to limit debate on those amendments so that we could conclude all work on this bill in a single day. Those offers were rebuffed again and again by the majority. Months went by in which the Republican majority made no attempt to negotiate with us, time which many members of the majority instead spent trying to blame Democrats for the delay in their bringing this legislation to the floor. At many times, it seemed that the majority was more interested in casting blame upon Democrats than in actually passing legislation. Instead of working in good faith with the minority to bring this bill to the floor, the majority spent its time trying to convince leaders in the information technology industry that the Democratic Party was hostile to this bill, which was always false. Considering that three-quarters of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted for this bill, and that the bill has numerous Democratic cosponsors, including Senator Lieberman, this partisan appeal was not only inappropriate but absurd on its face. I do regret that we have not made more progress on the longstanding proposals that have been combined now under the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. These provisions had been proposed throughout this Congress, and in some cases in previous Congresses. They are solid, pro-family proposals that would reward immigrants who are working and paying taxes in the United States. But the Republican majority--as has been shown repeatedly on the Senate floor over the past week--refused even to consider these proposals, instead branding them as rewards for illegal immigrants. Thankfully, the President has taken action to provide temporary protection for the Liberians who faced imminent return to their conflicted nation, and who would have been protected by the LIFA legislation. It is shameful that the Congress has not taken action on the Liberians' behalf, despite the dogged and dedicated efforts of Senator Jack Reed. I am worried about the things we have not done on immigration issues in this Congress. It is a disturbing but increasingly undeniable fact that the interest of the business community has become a prerequisite for immigration bills to receive attention on the Senate floor. In fact, we are in the final days of the Congress, and this is the first immigration bill to be debated on the floor. Even humanitarian bills with bipartisan backing have been ignored in this Congress, both in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor of the Senate. The majority has shown a similar lack of concern for proposals by Senators to restore the due process protections were removed by the passage of the Antiterrorism Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act 4 years ago. There are still many aspects of those laws that merit our careful review and rethinking, including the inhumane use of expedited removal, which would be sharply reformed by S. 1940, the Refugee Protection Act, which I have introduced with Senator Brownback and our 10 cosponsors. But the Refugee Protection Act has not even received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, despite my requests as ranking member. This is quite unusual, because every committee I have served upon has honored such requests on the part of the ranking member. When I was chairman, any request made by a ranking member was honored. Indeed, I have never seen anything like this, especially on a bill that has such bipartisan support. The bill addresses the issue of expedited removal, a process under which aliens arriving in the United States can be returned immediately to their native land at the say-so of low-level INS officers. Expedited removal was the subject of a major debate in this Chamber in 1996. The Senate voted to use it only during immigration emergencies. The Senate- passed restriction was removed at probably the most partisan conference committee I have ever witnessed. The Refugee Protection Act is modeled closely on the 1996 amendment. I hope someday we can pass it. We should. As a result of the adoption of expedited removal, we now have a system of removing people arriving here either without proper documentation or with valid documents that INS officers suspect are invalid. This policy ignores the fact that somebody who is fleeing a despotic regime is quite often unable to go in and get a passport from the same regime they are trying to flee, either because of religious persecution or some other type of persecution. The only way to get out of there is with a forged passport. In the limited time that expedited removal has been in operation, we already have numerous stories of valid asylum seekers who were kicked out of country without the opportunity to convince an immigration judge that they faced persecution in their native lands. To provide just one example, a Kosovo Albanian was summarily removed from the United States after the civil war in Kosovo had already made the front pages of America's newspapers. Imagine what happens to such people when they are forced to return to their native lands. I also urge the Senate to take up S. 3120, the Immigrant Fairness Restoration Act, which was introduced by Senators Kennedy and Bob Graham. This bill would go a long way toward undoing the damage done to due process by the 1996 immigration laws, and the House has already passed related, bipartisan legislation. Among other things, S. 3120 would eliminate the retroactive features of those laws, which have led to the deportation of legal permanent residents who committed relatively minor crimes decades ago. I have sponsored legislation that would at the very least provide due process to those who have served in our Armed Forces, the Fairness for Immigrant Veterans Act, S. 871. This legislation has been endorsed by the American Legion, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and other veterans' groups. The Republican majority has refused to consider even this narrow reform. As important as H-1B visas are for our economy and our nation's employers, this is not the only immigration issue that faces our nation. Although the legislation we are concerned with today is good legislation, it does not test our commitment to the ideals of opportunity and freedom that America has represented at its best. Those tests will apparently be left for another day, or another Congress. In closing, I commend our leaders in this matter: Senator Daschle, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Kennedy, and their able staffs. In particular, I would like to thank Andrea LaRue with Senator Daschle, Eddie Ayoob with Senator Reid, Esther Olavarria and Melody Barnes with Senator Kennedy and the Democratic staff of the Immigration Subcommittee, and Tim Lynch with my Judiciary Committee staff. I have not heard thanks from the other side. I thank Senator Abraham and his staff for cooperation in improving the bill and Senator Hatch for allowing the matter finally to proceed to conclusion. I also thank Lee Otis and Stuart Anderson with Senator Abraham and Sharon Prost with Senator Hatch for their hard work on this legislation. Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act In addition to passing S. 2045, the Senate has also agreed to pass H.R. 3767, legislation to make the visa waiver pilot program permanent. We pass this legislation only because Senator Daschle worked with Senator Kennedy and me to make sure that the majority agreed to release its hold on the bill as part of our broader agreement on H-1B legislation. I hope that Senator Daschle's commitment to this bill is appreciated by the thousands of American travelers who benefit from it. This legislation will achieve the important goal of making our visa waiver program permanent. We have had a visa waiver pilot project for more than a decade, and it has been a tremendous success in allowing American citizens to travel to some of our most important allies for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa, and in allowing citizens of those countries to travel here under the same terms. Countries must meet a number of requirements to participate in the program, including having very low rates of visa refusals. Of course, the visa waiver does not affect the need for international travelers to carry valid passports. Despite having expressed no substantive objection to this bill, the majority refused to allow this legislation to go forward for months. I note for the record that every single Democratic Senator said they would vote for this bill. Those from the business community and elsewhere who asked about the bill were assured by Senator Daschle, Senator Reid and I that every single Democratic Senator supported this. Even though the travel industry and the State Department urged Republicans to allow this legislation to pass, and even though the visa waiver pilot program had expired April 30, the majority refused to let this bill go forward. They apparently held the bill to use as leverage to promote unrelated legislation, just a chit to be used whenever it seemed to fix a whim. I am glad they finally have reversed course. The House passed legislation months ago to make this program permanent, heeding the calls of American tourists and business people who are able to travel to almost 30 other nations with only a passport because of the program. By playing political games, the Senate jeopardized our relationships with the other nations who take part in the program. Thankfully, we have finally moved beyond these games and are set to send this legislation back to the House for final approval. I would like briefly to note the inclusion of an amendment in the visa waiver bill that is of major importance to my State of Vermont and many other States. This provision extends the EB-5 immigrant investor pilot program, which allows foreign investors to obtain resident status in return for substantial investments in regions that are not sharing in the general American prosperity. In my State, this program is starting to bear fruit--I am happy that we are extending it for an additional three years so that we can ensure that its potential is realized. In conclusion, I would like to thank Senator Kennedy for all of his work on immigration issues, from H-1B to visa waiver to the countless proposals he has initiated and supported to help immigrant families. He has consistently worked across the aisle with Senators Hatch and Abraham to achieve the best possible solutions to our immigration problems. Immigrants in America should understand they have a devoted ally in the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy. And I thank our Democratic Leader Tom Daschle for his commitment to getting this matter concluded without additional unnecessary delay. They and their staffs, along with the staff of our Republican counterparts, were instrumental in moving this matter to passage. I thank all on both sides.