Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I regret how little progress we were able to make yesterday on legislation to increase the number of H-1B visas. This legislation was reported from the Judiciary Committee more than a half a year ago. I have advocated that it receive a fair hearing and that the Senate vote to increase the number of H-1B visas. I have also said we should take up other important immigration matters that have been neglected for too long in this body. But those requests have fallen on deaf ears, as yesterday once again demonstrated. Senators Daschle and Reid have offered to spend only 10 minutes debating immigration amendments. Under those terms, we could complete action on this bill in well under a day. But the majority apparently would rather see this process continue to drag on than take a simple up-or-down vote on matters of critical importance to the Latino community and other immigrant groups. Indeed, this bill has been more strictly controlled than any bill during this Congress. At a certain point one cannot help but ask: What is the majority afraid of? We ought to vote up or down on the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. I don't say this from any parochial interest. We do not have any significant minority ethnic group in Vermont. We are sort of unique in that regard. But all Vermonters, Republican and Democrat alike, believe in fairness. It is a matter of fairness to have the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act voted on. Let us vote it up or vote it down. I will vote for it. I am a cosponsor of it. I strongly support it. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee complained yesterday that the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act was not introduced until July, and that the Democrats were pressing for action on the bill even though it had no hearings. As the chairman must know, the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act brings together a number of proposals that have been talked about since the very beginning of this Congress, and in some cases for years before that. Indeed, the current proposal is drawn from S. 1552, S. 1592, and S. 2668. And as the chairman also must recognize, these proposals have been denied hearings in the Judiciary Committee he chairs and the Immigration subcommittee that Senator Abraham chairs. For the chairman to point to the lack of hearings on these proposals as an excuse to derail them reminds me of the person on trial for killing his parents who throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan. Meanwhile, I am encouraged by the majority leader's conciliatory words on the substance of the LIFA proposals. According to today's Congress Daily, the majority leader has said that he thought the proposals ``could be wrapped in such a way that I could be for it.'' I hope this signals that he will work with us to find a way to have a vote on these issues. Let me be clear: I support increasing the number of H-1B visas and voted for S. 2045 in the Judiciary Committee. I have 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 have hoped that the majority could agree to at least vote on--if not vote for--limited proposals designed to protect Latino families and other immigrant families. I have hoped that the majority would consider proposals to restore the due process that was taken away from immigrants by the immigration legislation Congress passed in 1996. In short, I thought we could work together to restore some of America's lost luster on immigration issues. Since the majority has thus far been unwilling to do that, pro-immigration Senators have been faced with a choice between achieving one of our many goals or achieving nothing at all. Like most of my Democratic colleagues, 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. Allowing workers with specialized skills to come to the United States and work for a 6-year period--as an H-1B visa does--helps to alleviate those shortages. In the current fiscal year, 115,000 H-1B visas were available. These visas ran out well before the fiscal year ended. If we do not change the law, there will actually be fewer visas available next year, 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. I think that S. 2045 is a valuable starting point, although it can and should be improved through the amendment process. I have been involved in helping to ease America's labor shortage for some time. 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. I believe that keeping such bright, young graduates in the United States should be the primary purpose of any H-1B legislation we pass. By concentrating on such workers, we can address employers' needs for highly-skilled workers, while also limiting the number of visas that go to foreign workers with less specialized skills. 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 our adults the training they need to refashion their careers to suit the changes in our economy. This bill goes part of the way toward improving our education and training programs, but could do better. Although I have said that this is not a perfect bill, there are a few provisions within it that should be retained in any final version. I strongly support the increased portability this legislation offers for visa holders, making it easier for them to change jobs within the United States. And the legislation extends the labor attestation requirements in the bill--which 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--as well as the Labor Department's authority to investigate possible H-1B violations. It is regrettable that it has taken so long for us to turn our attention to the H-1B issue. The Judiciary Committee reported S. 2045 more than six months ago. It has taken us a very long time to get from point A to point B, and it has often appeared that the majority has been more interested in gaining partisan advantage from a delay than in actually making this bill law. The Democratic leader has said month after month that we would be willing to accept very strict time limits on debating amendments, and would be willing to conduct the entire debate on S. 2045 in less than a day. Our leader has also consistently said that it is critical that the Senate should take up proposals to provide parity for refugees from right-wing regimes in Central America and to address an issue that has been ignored for far too long--how we should treat undocumented aliens who have lived here for decades, paying taxes and contributing to our economy. These provisions are both contained in the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. I joined in the call for action on H-1B and other critical immigration issues, but our efforts were rebuffed by the majority. Indeed, months went by in which the majority made no attempt to negotiate these differences, 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 is hostile to this bill and that only Republicans are interested in solving the legitimate employment shortages faced by many sectors of American industry. 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. Finally, a few weeks ago, the majority made a counteroffer that did not provide as many amendments as we would like, but which did allow amendments related to immigration generally. We responded enthusiastically to this proposal, but individual members of the majority objected, and there is still no agreement to allow general immigration amendments. At least some members of the majority are apparently unwilling even to vote on issues that are critical to members of the Latino community. This is deeply unfortunate, and leaves those of us who are concerned about humanitarian immigration issues with an uncomfortable choice. We can either address the legitimate needs of the high-tech industry in the vacuum that the majority has imposed, or we can refuse to proceed on this bill until the majority affords us the opportunity to address other important immigration needs. I still hope that an agreement can be reached with the majority that will allow votes on other important immigration matters as part of our consideration of this bill, but I have little confidence that this will happen. I regret that we will likely be unable to offer other important amendments to this bill. For much of the summer, the majority implied that we were simply using the concerns of Latino voters as a smokescreen to avoid considering S. 2045. Speaking for myself, although I have had reservations about certain aspects of S. 2045, I voted to report it from the Judiciary Committee so that we could move forward in our discussions of the bill. I did not seek to offer immigration amendments on the Senate floor because I wanted to derail S. 2045. Nor did the White House urge Congress to consider other immigration issues as part of the H-1B debate because the President wanted to play politics with this issue, as the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee suggested on the floor a few weeks ago. Rather, the majority's inaction on a range of immigration measures in this Congress forced those of us who were concerned about immigration issues to attempt to raise those issues. Under our current leadership, the opportunity to enact needed change in our immigration laws does not come around very often, to put it mildly. 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 now in the week before we are scheduled to adjourn, and this is the first immigration bill to be debated on the floor in this Congress. Even humanitarian bills with bipartisan backing have been ignored in this Congress, both in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor of the Senate. It is particularly upsetting that the majority refuses to vote on the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. This is a bill that I have cosponsored and that offers help to hardworking families who pay taxes and help keep our economy going strong. On two occasions, including last Friday, the minority has moved to proceed to this bill, and the majority has twice objected. In our negotiations with the majority about how S. 2045 would be brought to the floor, we have consistently pressed for the opportunity to vote on the proposals contained within it. But the majority has turned its back on the concerns of Latinos and other immigrants who are treated unfairly by our current immigration laws. The majority has shown a similar lack of concern for proposals by numerous Democratic Senators to restore the due process protections that were removed by the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective 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 limited by the Refugee Protection Act (S. 1940) that I have introduced with Senator Brownback. As important as H-1B visas are for our economy and our Nation's employers, it is not the only immigration issue that faces our Nation. And the legislation we are concerned with today 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. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate today is passing S. 2272, the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act, SANCA. I strongly support this legislation, which will provide much needed dollars to the Nation's overburdened abuse and neglect courts. We added to their burdens in 1997, by passing the Adoption and Safe Families Act, ASFA, without providing adequate funding to assure effective implementation. Courts nationwide are struggling to meet the accelerated timelines and other requirements of that legislation, which was intended to expedite the process of securing safe, permanent, and loving homes for abused and neglected children. SANCA will help ease the pressure, by making available to State and local courts some Federal funding to assure timely court hearings and reduce the case backlogs created by the ASFA. Both the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators have adopted resolutions in support of SANCA. It is without doubt a good idea. This legislation authorizes $10 million over five years to assist state and local courts to develop and implement automated case tracking systems for abuse and neglect proceeding. It authorizes another $10 million to reduce existing backlogs of abuse and neglect cases, plus $5 million to expand the Court-Appointed Special Advocate, CASA, program in underserved areas. That is a total of $25 million that would help address a very real problem that we in Congress helped to create. In my own State of Vermont, the courts are committed to implementing the ASFA and reducing the amount of time spent by children in foster care settings. But they are having trouble meeting the Federal law's tight deadlines and procedural requirements. My only concern with S. 2272 is the competitive grant method that it adopts for allocating grant money. By contrast, the model for S. 2272-- the Court Improvement Project, or CIP--allocates money by formula. Congress created the CIP grant program in 1993, to assist State courts in improving their handling of child abuse and neglect cases. On an annual basis, each State is awarded $85,000, and the remainder of the funds are distributed by formula based on the proportionate population of children in the States. This has been a highly successful program. States have combined CIP funds with State and local dollars to make sweeping changes in the way they handle child abuse and neglect cases. Under SANCA, State and local courts would compete against each other for a relatively small number of grants, and many will get no help at all, even if their needs are great. I understand that there is companion legislation, the ``Training and Knowledge Ensure Children a Risk-Free Environment, TAKE CARE, Act,'' S. 2271, which would authorize increased assistance for every State to help improve the quality and availability of training for judges, attorneys, and volunteers working in the Nation's abuse and neglect courts. That bill was referred to the Committee on Finance, which has yet to consider it. It is my hope that the Senate will take up and pass S. 2271 before the end of this legislative session. Many other important bills remain pending before this body as we head into the final weeks of the 106th Congress. I want to highlight one bill, which I introduced with Senators DeWine and Robb this summer, and which the Judiciary Committee reported by unanimous consent last week. The Computer Crime Enforcement Act, S. 1314, would authorize a $25 million Department of Justice grant program to help states prevent and prosecute computer crime. Grants under our bipartisan bill may be used to provide education, training, and enforcement programs for local law enforcement officers and prosecutors in the rapidly growing field of computer criminal justice. Our legislation has been endorsed by the Information Technology Association of America and Fraternal Order of Police. I hope all Senators can join us in our bipartisan effort to provide our state and local partners in crime fighting with the resources they need in the battle against computer crime. I commend Senator DeWine and Senator Rockefeller for their leadership on the SANCA legislation and urge its speedy passage into law. Amendment No. 4209

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. On this question, I have been here now with a number of distinguished majority leaders, all of whom have been friends of mine: the Senator from Montana, Mr. Mike Mansfield; the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Robert C. Byrd; the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Howard Baker; the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Robert Dole; the Senator from Maine, Mr. George Mitchell. During that time, I do not recall a case where a majority leader, even though they have the ability to call up an amendment, has ever done that without giving notice first to the Senator who sponsored the amendment. That is during my now almost 26 years with all these distinguished, both Democratic and Republican, majority leaders. Has it been the experience of the distinguished Democratic deputy leader that if the leader is going to call up another Senator's amendment, that they give the sponsor notice?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada makes a compelling argument. Consider the extraordinary and, I believe, unprecedented procedure of the majority leader in calling up an amendment of a Democratic Senator who was not consulted. Note that the amendment is the amendment filed just before the amendment that we have been trying to have considered to provide Latino and immigration fairness, the one on which we are being denied consideration or a vote. The amendment on the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act is something we ought to at least have the guts to stand up and vote up or down on and let the Latino population of this country know where we stand. I say to my friend from Nevada, this exercise--to me, at least-- appears to be an attempt to keep us from voting on something of significance to this country. Isn't this very similar to what we have seen on the question of judges, where anonymous holds from the Republican side have stopped us from voting up or down on judicial nominations for months and years in some cases; and anonymous holds from the Republican side are currently preventing Senate action on the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization; and anonymous holds from the Republican side have been preventing Senate action on the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000, a bill to help fund bulletproof vests to protect our State and local police officers; and anonymous holds on the Republican side have prevented passage of the visa waiver legislation; and anonymous holds on the Republican side are preventing the Senate from passing the Computer Crime Enforcement Act? Is there a pattern here? The majority appears not to want to allow the Senate to either vote for or against these measures. They should at least allow us to vote.

Mr. LEAHY. Just for a question.

Mr. LEAHY. Is that a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President?

Mr. LEAHY. With my permission.

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

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

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, my friend the Senator from Nevada has given me more credit than I deserve, but I do strongly support the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act, as just that, a matter of fairness, as something we should do. Whether we have a large immigrant population in our States or not, this is something where Senators are going to reflect the conscience of the Nation, as this body should. My question is this. I was over at one of our latest investigation committee meetings. We tend to investigate rather than legislate in this body. I was at a meeting where the Senate decided to go ahead and investigate the Wen Ho Lee investigation and, thus, hold up the FBI, who were supposed to be debriefing Dr. Wen Ho Lee today under the court agreement. Instead, in the Senate we jumped in, feet first, to interfere with that. I had to be off the floor to serve as Ranking Democrat of Judiciary at that hearing. So I wonder if the Senator from Nevada could explain the parliamentary procedure in which we find ourselves. It seems somewhat of a strange one.

Mr. LEAHY. And then, Mr. President, if he will yield to me for a question also?

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I congratulate Congresswoman Karen McCarthy of Missouri, who has worked so hard on this legislation. It provides congressional approval to an interstate compact that is important to her and to the people of Kansas City. I know that she helped establish the Kansas and Missouri Metropolitan Culture District for local efforts to benefit Kansas City and that she has championed this effort to obtain the constitutionally required congressional consent to the compact between Missouri and Kansas in this regard. I am glad the Senate is responding favorably to her efforts and commend her leadership in moving this measure through Congress.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to again urge the Senate to bring up and pass, S. 2787, the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, VAWA II--we are quickly running out of time to reauthorize it. The authorization for the original Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, expires at the end of this week on September 30, 2000. There is absolutely no reason to delay this bill which has overwhelming bipartisan support. I have joined Senators from both sides of the aisle at rallies and press conferences calling for the immediate passage of this legislation. The bill has 70 co-sponsors and is a significant improvement of the highly successful original VAWA which was enacted in 1994. There is no objection on the Democratic side of the aisle to passing VAWA II. Unfortunately, there have been efforts by the majority party to attach this uncontroversial legislation to the ``poison pill'' represented by the version of bankruptcy legislation currently being advanced by Republicans. I do not agree with stall tactics like this one and believe we should pass VAWA II as a stand-alone bill, without further delay. Yesterday, in New Mexico, where he was releasing funding made available through VAWA for one of the country's oldest battered women's shelters, the President made a public plea for Congress to reauthorize VAWA, claiming, ``[T]his is not rocket science. Yes we're close to an election . . . But it is wrong to delay this one more hour. Schedule the bill for a vote.'' I urge my colleagues to heed the cry of the President as he speaks on behalf of the almost 1 million women around this country who face domestic violence each year. The President called domestic violence ``America's problem'' and I could not agree with him more. When we talk about reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act we are not just talking about a big bureaucratic government program the effects of which we can't really see. With this bill we are talking about reauthorizing critical programs that have had a tremendous immediate effect on how this Nation handles domestic violence and its victims. We are at risk of jeopardizing what has been one of the most effective vehicles for combating domestic violence if we let this law expire. I have heard from countless people in Vermont that have benefitted from grant funding through VAWA programs. VAWA II ensures the success of these crucial programs such as the Rural Domestic Violence Grant program. These grants are designed to make victim services more accessible to women and children living in rural areas. I worked hard to see this funding included in the original VAWA in 1994, and I am proud that its success has merited an increased authorization for funding in VAWA II. Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grants have been utilized by the Vermont Network Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, the Vermont Attorney General's Office, and the Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to increase community awareness, to develop cooperative relationships between state child protection agencies and domestic violence programs, to expand existing multi disciplinary task forces to include allied professional groups, and to create local multi-use supervised visitation centers. I witnessed the devastating effects of domestic violence when I was the Vermont State's Attorney for Chittenden County. In those days, long before the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, there were not support programs and services in place to assist victims of these types of crimes. Today, because of the hard work and dedication of those in Vermont and around the country who work in this field every day, an increasing number of women and children are being aided by services through domestic violence programs and at shelters around the Nation. Lori Hayes, Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, and Marty Levin, Coordinator of the Vermont Network Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, have been especially instrumental in coordinating VAWA grants in Vermont. Let the Senate pass S. 2787, the Violence Against Women Act 2000 without further delay before its critical programs are jeopardized. It was cleared for passage by all Democratic Senators two months ago and should be passed today. It is past time to reauthorize and build upon the historic programs of the Violence Against Women Act and do all that we can to protect children from the ravages and lasting impact of domestic violence. A Washington Post editorial today called the failure to pass the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, ``inexplicable neglect,'' claiming that ``[t]here seems to be no good reason practical or substantive, to oppose reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.'' That could not be more true Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from the September 26, 2000 edition of the Washington Post be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to speak today about the provisions in H.R. 4365--which passed the Senate on Friday, that address our Nation's growing problems with methamphetamines and ecstasy and other club drugs. I am happy to have worked with Senator Harkin and Senator Biden to ensure that these provisions could be included in the conference report. Indeed, Senator Harkin has worked tirelessly to address this issue, and I commend him for his efforts; without his involvement, this legislation would not have passed. I believe that the methamphetamine provisions in this report embody the best elements of S. 486, which the Senate passed last year, while casting aside the more ill-advised ideas in that legislation. The manufacture and distribution of methamphetamines and amphetamines is an increasingly serious problem, and the provisions we have retained in this legislation will provide significant additional resources for both law enforcement and treatment. In addition to creating tougher penalties for those who manufacture and distribute illicit drugs, this bill allocates additional funding to assist local law enforcement, allows for the hiring of new DEA agents, and increases research, training and prevention efforts. This is a good and comprehensive approach to deal with methamphetamines in our local communities. Meanwhile, we have not included in this legislation the provision in S. 486 that would have allowed law enforcement to conduct physical searches and seizures without the existing notice requirement, a serious curtailment of the civil liberties that Americans have come to expect. It would have also amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure so that Rule 41(d)'s requirements concerning the notice, inventory, and return of seized property would only apply to tangible property, thus exempting the contents of individuals' computers from the property protections provided to American citizens under current law. I worked hard to make sure that that provision did not become law, and I had effective and dedicated allies on both sides of the aisle in the House of Representatives. Indeed, the methamphetamine legislation approved by the House Judiciary Committee did not include this provision. We have also not included those provisions from S. 486 that concerned advertising and the distribution of information about methamphetamines. Both of those provisions raised First Amendment concerns, and I believe the legislation is stronger without them. Once again, the House Judiciary Committee acted wisely, leaving those provisions out of its meth legislation. The meth bill has taken a lengthy path from introduction to passage, and I believe it has been improved at each step. For example, we significantly improved this bill during committee considerations. As the comprehensive substitute for the original bill was being drafted, I had three primary reservations: First, earlier versions of the bill imposed numerous mandatory minimums. I continue to believe that mandatory minimums are generally an inappropriate tool in our critically important national fight against drugs. Simply imposing or increasing mandatory minimums subverts the more considered process Congress set up in the Sentencing Commission. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines already provide a comprehensive mechanism to equalize sentences among persons convicted of the same or similar crime, while allowing judges the discretion they need to give appropriate weight to individual circumstances. The Sentencing Commission goes through an extraordinary process to set sentence levels. For example, pursuant to our 1996 anti- methamphetamine law, the Sentencing Commission increased meth penalties after careful analysis of recent sentencing data, a study of the offenses, and information from the DEA on trafficking levels, dosage unit size, price and drug quantity. Increasing mandatory minimums takes sentencing discretion away from judges. We closely examine judges' backgrounds before they are confirmed and should let them do their jobs. Mandatory minimums also impose significant economic and social costs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the annual cost of housing a federal inmate ranges from $16,745 per year for minimum security inmates to $23,286 per year for inmates in high security facilities. It is critical that we take steps that will effectively deter crime, but we should not ignore the costs of the one size fits all approach of mandatory minimums. We also cannot ignore the policy implications of the boom in our prison population. In 1970, the total population in the federal prison system was 20,686 prisoners, of whom 16.3 percent were drug offenders. By 1997, the federal prison population had grown to almost 91,000 sentenced prisoners, approximately 60 percent of whom were sentenced for drug offenses. The cost of supporting this expanded federal criminal justice system is staggering. We ignore at our peril the findings of RAND's comprehensive 1997 report on mandatory minimum drug sentences: ``Mandatory minimums are not justifiable on the basis of cost-effectiveness at reducing cocaine consumption, cocaine expenditures, or drug-related crime.'' This is why I have repeatedly expressed my concerns about creating new mandatory minimum penalties, including in the last Congress, when another anti-methamphetamine bill was before the Judiciary Committee. Second, earlier drafts of this bill would have contravened the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Richardson versus U.S. I, along with some other members of the Committee, believed that it would be inappropriate to take such a step without first holding a hearing and giving thorough consideration to such a change in the law. The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Hatch, was sensitive to this concern and he agreed to remove that provision from this legislation. Third, an earlier version of the bill contained a provision that would have created a rebuttable presumption that may have violated the Constitution's Due Process Clause. Again, I believed that we needed to seriously consider and debate such a provision before voting on it. And again, the Chairman was sensitive to the concerns of some of us on the Committee and agreed to remove that provision. The SAMHSA authorization bill also dealt with ecstasy and other so- called ``club drugs.'' Ecstasy is steadily growing in popularity, especially among younger Americans. It is perceived by many young people as being harmless, but medical studies are beginning to show that it can have serious long-term effects on users. This bill asks the Sentencing Commission to look at our current sentencing guidelines for those who manufacture, import, export, or traffic ecstasy, and to provide for increased penalties as it finds appropriate. It also authorizes $10 million for prevention efforts. These efforts are particularly crucial with new drugs like ecstasy, so that our young people can learn the true consequences of use. This legislation took a tough approach to drugs without taking the easy way out of mandatory minimums, and without undue Congressional interference with the Sentencing Commission. I hope that any future efforts we must take to address our drug problem will use these provisions as a model.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to thank my distinguished colleagues, Senators Baucus and Smith, for their hard work on the Water Resources Development Act of 2000. I am especially grateful for their inclusion of a provision in this bill that will ultimately expand the successful federal, state, and local partnerships restoring the highest water quality in the Lake Champlain watershed. One project that we could not come to full agreement on before this bill's passage, however, was authorization for the repair of the Waterbury Dam. Our lack of final language was in a large part due to the absence of a final Dam Safety Assurance Program Evaluation Report from the Army Corps of Engineers, a final draft of which was sent to ACE Headquarters for review on August 24, 2000. The Waterbury Dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1935 and holds 1.23 billion cubic feet of water in its reservoir. Were the dam to fail, this volume of water would ultimately submerge and destroy the entire corridor of cities and towns downstream in the Winooski River valley. Thousands of lives would be lost. Hundreds of thousands of acres would be completely devastated. Unfortunately, increasingly serious cracks and seepage in Waterbury Dam's structure were recently discovered and have heightened concerns that the dam could, in fact, fail. The State of Vermont and the Army Corps went into action and drew down the water level to alleviate pressure on the dam. The Corps carried out an assessment this summer to further characterize immediate repair needs. There is strong evidence that these cracks are, in fact, the result of initial design flaws and the Corps work today follows two previous instances--one in 1956-8 and one in 1985--when the Army Corps of Engineers had full authority to make needed dam modifications. I understand that the Army Corps of Engineers is expediting the review of the Dam Safety Assurance Report for the Waterbury Dam. I am grateful to Senators Smith and Baucus for their understanding that the final report may contain important information relevant for authorization of the project. I look forward to working with my distinguished colleagues, Senators Smith and Baucus, once the report is finalized and is able to guide our plans for Waterbury Dam repair.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I regret to report to the Senate that the last confirmation hearing for federal judges held by the Judiciary Committee was in July. Throughout August and now into the third week in September, there have been no additional hearings held or even noticed. 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 also regret that the Judiciary Committee's inaction on judicial nominations has led to Senators object to Senate committees continuing to meet on other matters when the Senate is in session. The matter is most acute with regard to the numerous vacancies on our Courts of Appeals and the qualified women and men who have been stalled before this Committee. This Judiciary Committee has reported only 3 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, Helene White, Bonnie Campell and others should be considered by this Committee and voted on by the Senate without additional delay. Currently there remain more judiciary vacancies than there were when Congress adjourned in 1995. We have not even kept up with attrition over that last 5 years. Earlier this week, Senator Hatch joined with me and a dozen other Senators to introduce the Federal Judgeship Act of 2000. That legislation incorporates recommendations of the Judicial Conference of the United States to authorize 70 judgeships in addition to the 64 current vacancies within the federal judiciary. If those additional judgeships were taken into account, the so-called ``vacancy rate'' would be over 13 percent with over 130 vacancies. We can make quick progress when we want to do so. The last group of nominees considered by the Judiciary Committee included three who were nominated on a Friday, had their hearing the next week and were approved and reported to the Senate within 6 days. By contrast, we still have pending without a hearing qualified nominees like Judge Helene White of Michigan. She has been held hostage for over 45 months without a hearing. She is the record holder for a judicial nominee who has had to wait the longest for a hearing and her wait continues without explanation to this day. We still have pending before the Committee, the nomination of Bonnie Campbell to the Eighth Circuit. Ms. Campbell had her hearing last May, but the Committee refuses to consider her nomination, vote her up or vote her down. Instead, there is the equivalent of an anonymous and unexplained secret hold. Bonnie Campbell is a distinguished lawyer, public servant and law enforcement officer. She was the Attorney General for the State of Iowa and the Director of the Violence Against Women Office at the United States Department of Justice. And she enjoys the full support of both of her home State Senators, Senator Harkin and Senator Grassley. I commend Senator Harkin for his remarks on Ms. Campbell's nomination earlier today. I understand his frustration and believe that this Senate's failure to act on this highly qualified nominee is without justification. We still have pending without a hearing the nomination of Roger Gregory of Virginia and Judge James Wynn of North Carolina to the Fourth Circuit. Were either of these highly-qualified jurists confirmed by the Senate, we would be finally acting to allow a qualified African American to sit on that Court for the first time. We still have pending before the Committee the nomination of Enrique Moreno to the Fifth Circuit. He is the latest in a succession of outstanding Hispanic nominees by President Clinton to that Court, but he too is not being considered by the Committee or the Senate. Let me return briefly to the nomination of Roger Gregory. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee indicated in his recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the reason Roger Gregory would not be confirmed is because the Administration refused to consult with his home State Senators. In fact, this nomination is supported by both Virginia Senators, both Senator Warner and Senator Robb. Indeed, Senator Robb made a forceful statement on behalf of this just a few days ago. In response to that assertion in the Wall Street Journal, the Counsel to the President sent a letter to the editors of that paper that corrected the misstatement. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that letter be included in the Record at the end of my remarks. The Chairman also suggested that it was too late in the session to move on these nominations. In addition to the recent examples I already noted, nominees now on the Senate calendar awaiting action after being before the Judiciary Committee for less than one week, there is the example of the hearing held last week by the Government Affairs Committee on two District of Columbia Superior Court judges, who one was nominated on May 1 and the other was nominated on June 26. Another example of the ability of the Senate to act is the September 8 confirmation of James E. Baker to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Of course, the Republican candidate for the presidency has said that nominations should be acted upon within 60 days. Of the 42 judicial nominations currently pending, 33 have been pending from 60 days to 4 years without final action, including Roger Gregory. Finally, there is the contrasting example of responsible action by the Democratic majority in 1992 on the nomination of Timothy Lewis to the Third Circuit. Tim Lewis was nominated on September 17. By September 17, Roger Gregory had already been pending for well over 60 days. Tim Lewis was accorded a hearing on September 24, was voted on by the Committee on October 7, and was confirmed by the Senate on October 8, before it adjourned for rest of the campaign before the presidential election that year. I note for the Senate that there continue to be multiple vacancies on the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth and District of Columbia Circuits. With 22 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 11 percent nationwide. If we were to take into account the additional appellate judgeships included in the Hatch-Leahy Federal Judgeship Act of 2000 and requested by the Judicial Conference to handle their increased workloads, the vacancy rate would be 16 percent. Pending before the Committee are a dozen nominees to the Federal Courts of Appeals who are awaiting a hearing. They include Judge Helene White of Michigan, who is now the longest pending judicial nomination at over 45 months without even a hearing; Barry Goode, whose nomination to the Ninth Circuit was the subject of numerous statements by Senator Feinstein and who has been pending for over two years; Allen Snyder, another well-respected and highly-qualified nominee who got a hearing but no Committee vote although he received the highest rating from the ABA, enjoys the full support of his home state Senators, and had his hearing on May 10, 2000. There are and have been many others, including a number of qualified minority nominees whom I have been speaking about throughout the year, including Kathleen McCree Lewis of Michigan, Enrique Moreno of Texas and Roger Gregory of Virginia. Let us compare to the year 1992, in which a Democratic majority in the Senate confirmed 11 Court of Appeals nominees during a Republican president's last year in office among the 66 judicial confirmations for the year. In 1992, the Committee held 15 hearings--twice as many as this Committee has found time to hold this year. The Judiciary Committee has held hearings on only five Court of Appeals nominees all year and has refused to vote on two of those. In the last 10 weeks of the 1992 session, the Committee held four hearings and all of the nominees who had hearings then were confirmed before adjournment. In the last 10 weeks of the 1992 session, we confirmed 32 judicial nominations. What is most significant about the recent trend of judicial vacancies and vacancy rates is that the vacancies that existed in 1993, even after the creation of 85 new judgeships in 1990, had been cut almost in half in 1994, when the rate was reduced to 7.4 percent with 63 vacancies at the end of the 103rd Congress. We continued to make progress even into 1995. In fact, the vacancy rate was lowered to 5.8 percent after the 1995 session, and before the partisan attack on federal judges began in earnest in 1996 and 1997. Progress in the reduction of judicial vacancies was reversed in 1996, when Congress adjourned leaving 64 vacancies, and in 1997, when Congress adjourned leaving 80 vacancies and a 9.5 percent vacancy rate. No one was happier than I that the Senate was able to make progress in 1998 toward reducing the vacancy rate. I praised Senator Hatch for his effort. Unfortunately, the vacancies have since grown again. During Republican control it has taken two-year periods for the Senate to match the one-year total of 101 judges confirmed in 1994, when we were on course to end the vacancies gap. Nominees like Judge Helene White, Barry Goode, Judge Legrome Davis, and J. Rich Leonard, deserve to be treated with dignity and dispatch--not delayed for two and three years. We are still seeing outstanding nominees nitpicked and delayed to the point that good women and men are being deterred from seeking to serve as federal judges. Nominees practicing law see their work put on hold while they await the outcome of their nominations. Their families cannot plan. They are left to twist in the wind. All of this despite the fact that, by all objective accounts and studies, the judges that President Clinton has appointed are a moderate group of judges, rendering moderate decisions, and certainly including far fewer ideologues than were nominated during the Reagan Administration. With respect to the Senate's treatment of nominees who are women or minorities, I remain vigilant. I have said that I do not regard Senator Hatch as a biased person. I have also been outspoken in my concern about the manner in which we are failing to consider qualified minority and women nominees over the last several years. From Margaret Morrow, Margaret McKeown and Sonia Sotomayor, through Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon, and including Judge James Beatty, Jr., Judge James Wynn, Roger Gregory, Enrique Moreno and all the other qualified women and minority nominees who have been delayed and opposed over the last several years, I have spoken out. 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 Ronnie White to be a Federal District Court Judge in Missouri. The Senate should be moving forward to consider the nominations of Judge James Wynn, Jr. and Roger Gregory to the Fourth Circuit. Fifty years has passed since the confirmation of Judge Hastie to the Third Circuit and still there has never been an African-American on the Fourth Circuit in the history of that Circuit. The nomination of Judge James A. Beaty, Jr., was previously sent to us by President Clinton in 1995. That nomination was never considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Senate and was returned to President Clinton without action at the end of 1998. It is time for the Senate to act on a qualified African-American nominee to the Fourth Circuit. President Clinton spoke powerfully about these matters at the NAACP Convention. We should respond not be misunderstanding or mischaracterizing what he said, but instead taking action on these well-qualified nominees. In addition, the Senate should act favorably on the nominations of Enrique Moreno to the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Moreno succeeded to the nomination of Jorge Rangel on which the Senate refused to act last Congress. These are well-qualified nominees who will add to the capabilities and diversity of those courts. In fact, the Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit declared that a judicial emergency exists on that court, caused by the number of judicial vacancies, the lack of Senate action on pending nominations, and the overwhelming workload. I continue to urge the Senate to meet its responsibilities to all nominees, including women and minorities. 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. I ask unanimous consent that an article for the Wall Street Journal be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to urge the majority to lift its hold on H.R. 3767, which would permanently authorize the visa waiver pilot program. I am a cosponsor of the Senate version of this legislation, which 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 residents of some of our most important allies to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa, and in allowing American citizens to travel to those countries without visas. Countries must meet a number of requirements to participate in the program, including having extraordinarily low rates of visa refusals. Of course, the visa waiver does not affect the need for international travelers to carry valid passports. The visa waiver pilot program expired on April 30. The House passed legislation to make the program permanent before that deadline. But the Senate failed to meet this deadline, and the Administration was forced to extend it administratively. Since then, the Senate has missed deadline after deadline, and has had to rely on the grace of the Administration for this program--which is relied upon by thousands of American travelers every year--to continue. Every Democratic Senator has cleared this bill. But the majority has refused to clear it, even five months after it passed the House and the statutory authorization for this program expired. Earlier in the year, some members had substantive concerns about the bill. Those have been rectified. I am unaware of any remaining substantive objections to this legislation, and it is now well past time to pass it. Passing it will not require any floor debate or roll call vote. It simply requires Senators to life their holds. This is a bill that benefits American travelers from every State and the tourism industry in every State. It is not a Democratic bill or a Republican bill. It is not a regional bill. It is simply a good, common-sense bill that deserves the Senate's support. There has been too much stalling on this bill already--we should act today.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I applaud what the distinguished Senator from Illinois has said. He, of course, has worked so long on both the H-1B visas issue and the immigration issues included in the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. I know of nobody who spends more time on these issues than he does. I am proud to be here with him, and I invite him to return to these issues as we proceed in this debate.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. LEAHY. Regarding the last bill that went through, I want to take a moment to compliment a colleague of mine from Massachusetts, Congressman Delahunt, who has worked so hard and so diligently. It will give me a great deal of pleasure to tell him it has passed. I thank my friend.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, at the end of July, the administration transmitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives legislation intended to increase privacy and security in cyberspace. Today, at the request and on behalf of the Administration, I introduce this legislation, the Enhancement of Privacy and Public Safety in Cyberspace Act. The White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, announced the administration's cyber-security proposal in an important speech at the National Press Club on Monday, July 17, 2000. This is a complex area that requires close attention to get the balance among law enforcement, business and civil liberties interests just right. I welcome the Administration's participation in this debate on the privacy implications of government surveillance, which certainly deserves just as much attention as the issue of the collection and dissemination of personally-identifiable information by the private-sector. The means by which law enforcement authorities may gain access to a person's private ``effects'' is no longer limited by physical proximity, as it was at the time the Framers crafted our Constitution's Fourth Amendment right of the American people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. New communications methods and surveillance devices have dramatically expanded the opportunities for surreptitious law enforcement access to private messages and records from remote locations. One example of these devices is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Carnivore software program, which screens Internet traffic and captures information targeted by court orders. The Senate and House Judiciary Committees have both conducted hearings on Carnivore to discuss how the software works and whether it minimizes intrusion or maximizes the potential for government abuse. The Attorney General is arranging for an independent technical review of Carnivore, and I look forward to reviewing the results. In short, new communications technologies pose both benefits and challenges to privacy and law enforcement. The Congress has worked successfully in the past to mediate this tension with a combination of stringent procedures for law enforcement access to our communications and legal protections to maintain their privacy and confidentiality, whether they occur in person or over the telephone, fax machine or computer. In 1968, the Congress passed comprehensive legislation authorizing government interception, under carefully defined circumstances, of voice communications over telephones or in person in Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. We returned to this important area in 1986, when we passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which I was proud to sponsor, that outlined procedures for law enforcement access to electronic mail systems and remote data processing systems, and that provided important privacy safeguards for computer users. The Administration's legislation is an important contribution to the ongoing debate over the sufficiency of our current laws in the face of the exponential growth of computer and communications networks. In fact, this legislation contains some proposals which I support. For example, the bill would allow judicial review of pen register orders so the judge is not just a rubber stamp, and would update the wiretap laws to apply the same procedural rules to e-mail intercepts as to phone intercepts. Nevertheless, the merits of other provisions in this legislation would benefit from additional scrutiny and debate. For example, the legislation proposes elimination of the current $5,000 threshold for large categories of federal computer crimes. This would lower the bar for federal investigative and prosecutorial attention with the result that lesser computer abuses could be converted into federal crimes. Specifically, federal jurisdiction currently exists for a variety of computer crimes if, and only if, such criminal offenses result in at least $5,000 of aggregate damage or cause another specified injury, such as the impairment of medical treatment, physical injury to a person or a threat to public safety. Elimination of the $5,000 threshold would criminalize a variety of minor computer abuses, regardless of whether any significant harm results. Our federal laws do not need to reach each and every minor, inadvertent and harmless hacking offense--after all, each of the 50 states has its own computer crime laws. Rather, our federal laws need to reach those offenses for which federal jurisdiction is appropriate. This can be accomplished, as I have done in the Internet Security Act, S. 2430, which I introduced earlier this year, by simply adding an appropriate definition of ``loss'' to the statute. Prior Congresses have declined to over-federalize computer offenses and sensibly determined that not all computer abuses warrant federal criminal sanctions. When the computer crime law was first enacted in 1984, the House Judiciary Committee reporting the bill stated: The Federal jurisdictional threshold is that there must be $5,000 worth of benefit to the defendant or loss to another in order to concentrate Federal resources on the more substantial computer offenses that affect interstate or foreign commerce. (H.Rep. 98-894, at p. 22, July 24, 1984). Similarly, the Senate Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Senator Thurmond, rejected suggestions in 1986 that ``the Congress should enact as sweeping a Federal statute as possible so that no computer crime is potentially uncovered.'' (S. Rep. 99-432, at p. 4, September 3, 1986). For example, if an overly-curious college sophomore checks a professor's unattended computer to see what grade he is going to get and accidentally deletes a file or a message, current Federal law does not make that conduct a crime. That conduct may be cause for discipline at the college, but not for the FBI to swoop in and investigate. Yet, under the Administration's legislation, this unauthorized access to the professor's computer would constitute a federal offense. As the Congress considers changes in our current laws with a view to updating our current privacy safeguards from unreasonable government surveillance, I commend the administration for focusing attention on this important issue by transmitting its legislative proposal. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, at the end of July, the administration transmitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives legislation intended to increase privacy and security in cyberspace. Today, at the request and on behalf of the Administration, I introduce this legislation, the Enhancement of Privacy and Public Safety in Cyberspace Act. The White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, announced the administration's cyber-security proposal in an important speech at the National Press Club on Monday, July 17, 2000. This is a complex area that requires close attention to get the balance among law enforcement, business and civil liberties interests just right. I welcome the Administration's participation in this debate on the privacy implications of government surveillance, which certainly deserves just as much attention as the issue of the collection and dissemination of personally-identifiable information by the private-sector. The means by which law enforcement authorities may gain access to a person's private ``effects'' is no longer limited by physical proximity, as it was at the time the Framers crafted our Constitution's Fourth Amendment right of the American people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. New communications methods and surveillance devices have dramatically expanded the opportunities for surreptitious law enforcement access to private messages and records from remote locations. One example of these devices is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Carnivore software program, which screens Internet traffic and captures information targeted by court orders. The Senate and House Judiciary Committees have both conducted hearings on Carnivore to discuss how the software works and whether it minimizes intrusion or maximizes the potential for government abuse. The Attorney General is arranging for an independent technical review of Carnivore, and I look forward to reviewing the results. In short, new communications technologies pose both benefits and challenges to privacy and law enforcement. The Congress has worked successfully in the past to mediate this tension with a combination of stringent procedures for law enforcement access to our communications and legal protections to maintain their privacy and confidentiality, whether they occur in person or over the telephone, fax machine or computer. In 1968, the Congress passed comprehensive legislation authorizing government interception, under carefully defined circumstances, of voice communications over telephones or in person in Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. We returned to this important area in 1986, when we passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which I was proud to sponsor, that outlined procedures for law enforcement access to electronic mail systems and remote data processing systems, and that provided important privacy safeguards for computer users. The Administration's legislation is an important contribution to the ongoing debate over the sufficiency of our current laws in the face of the exponential growth of computer and communications networks. In fact, this legislation contains some proposals which I support. For example, the bill would allow judicial review of pen register orders so the judge is not just a rubber stamp, and would update the wiretap laws to apply the same procedural rules to e-mail intercepts as to phone intercepts. Nevertheless, the merits of other provisions in this legislation would benefit from additional scrutiny and debate. For example, the legislation proposes elimination of the current $5,000 threshold for large categories of federal computer crimes. This would lower the bar for federal investigative and prosecutorial attention with the result that lesser computer abuses could be converted into federal crimes. Specifically, federal jurisdiction currently exists for a variety of computer crimes if, and only if, such criminal offenses result in at least $5,000 of aggregate damage or cause another specified injury, such as the impairment of medical treatment, physical injury to a person or a threat to public safety. Elimination of the $5,000 threshold would criminalize a variety of minor computer abuses, regardless of whether any significant harm results. Our federal laws do not need to reach each and every minor, inadvertent and harmless hacking offense--after all, each of the 50 states has its own computer crime laws. Rather, our federal laws need to reach those offenses for which federal jurisdiction is appropriate. This can be accomplished, as I have done in the Internet Security Act, S. 2430, which I introduced earlier this year, by simply adding an appropriate definition of ``loss'' to the statute. Prior Congresses have declined to over-federalize computer offenses and sensibly determined that not all computer abuses warrant federal criminal sanctions. When the computer crime law was first enacted in 1984, the House Judiciary Committee reporting the bill stated: The Federal jurisdictional threshold is that there must be $5,000 worth of benefit to the defendant or loss to another in order to concentrate Federal resources on the more substantial computer offenses that affect interstate or foreign commerce. (H.Rep. 98-894, at p. 22, July 24, 1984). Similarly, the Senate Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Senator Thurmond, rejected suggestions in 1986 that ``the Congress should enact as sweeping a Federal statute as possible so that no computer crime is potentially uncovered.'' (S. Rep. 99-432, at p. 4, September 3, 1986). For example, if an overly-curious college sophomore checks a professor's unattended computer to see what grade he is going to get and accidentally deletes a file or a message, current Federal law does not make that conduct a crime. That conduct may be cause for discipline at the college, but not for the FBI to swoop in and investigate. Yet, under the Administration's legislation, this unauthorized access to the professor's computer would constitute a federal offense. As the Congress considers changes in our current laws with a view to updating our current privacy safeguards from unreasonable government surveillance, I commend the administration for focusing attention on this important issue by transmitting its legislative proposal. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, let me speak about the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act and why we should consider this bill now. I say this with no ulterior motive. Obviously, if anyone looks at the demographics of Vermont, they know I am not speaking about this because of a significant Hispanic population in the State of Vermont. I speak about it out of a sense of fairness. It is called the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. That is what it is. I am a proud cosponsor of this legislation, not only as a Senator but as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, because it addresses three very important issues to the Latino community. We fought on our side of the aisle consistently to obtain debate and a vote on these proposals either as an amendment or as a freestanding bill. Once again, I call on the leadership to give us either a vote as a freestanding bill or as an amendment because we ought to stand up in the Senate and say how we stand on this issue. If my colleagues on the other side believe in compassionate conservatism, they will allow a vote on this bill, which offers help to hardworking families who pay taxes and help keep our economy strong. First off, this legislation ensures that we treat all people who fled tyranny in Central America equally, regardless of whether the tyrannical regime they fled was a left-wing or right-wing government. I remember going into a refugee camp in Central America and talking to a woman who was there with her one remaining child. Her husband had been killed. Her other children had been killed. I said: Do you ally yourself with the left or the right? She didn't know who was on the left or who was on the right in the forces that were fighting. She only knew that she and her husband had wanted to raise their family and to farm a little land. And yet the forces of the regime came in and killed the whole family with the exception of her and her one child. People who have no political position get caught in terrible circumstances, in between forces to which they have no allegiance. In 1997, Congress granted permanent residence status to Nicaraguans and Cubans who fled dictatorship and who met certain conditions. It may well have been the right step. But others were left behind. It is past time to extend the benefits of the 1997 law to Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Haitians. To benefit under this bill, an immigrant would have to have been in the United States since December of 1995 and would have to demonstrate good moral character. In addition to the clear humanitarian justifications for treating an immigrant from Guatemala who fled terror in the same way we treat an immigrant from Nicaragua who fled terror, there is also a strong foreign policy justification for this bill. These immigrants send money back to their families. They help support fledgling economies in what remain fragile democracies. The United States has devoted significant effort to assisting democratic efforts in Latin America, and the hard work that Latin American immigrants perform in America helps to stablize the growth of democracy there. Second, this amendment would reinstate section 245(i), which, for a $1,000 fee, allows immigrants on the verge of getting legal permanent residence status to achieve that status from within the United States, instead of being forced to leave their families and their jobs for lengthy periods to be able to complete the process. Section 245(i) was a part of American law until 1997, when Congress failed to renew the provision. There is bipartisan support for correcting this erroneous policy, and now is the time to do it. It is important to note that these are people who already have the right under our laws to obtain permanent residency--this provision simply streamlines that process while contributing a significant amount to the Treasury. Indeed, in the last fiscal year in which section 245(i) was law, it produced $200 million in revenue for the government. At a time when the Immigration and Naturalization Service is plagued by backlogs, that is funding that would be useful. Third, of course, the amendment would allow people who have lived and worked here for 14 years or more, contributing to the American economy, to adjust their immigration status. That has been a part of the immigration law since the 1920s. It has been continually updated. It should be updated now for the first time in 14 years. This will adjust the status of thousands of people already working in the United States, helping both them and their employers to continue playing a role in our current economic boom. These are people who have built deep roots in the United States, who have families here and children who are American citizens, and who have in many cases done jobs that American citizens did not want. We should continue our historical practice and update the registry. This legislation has the strong support of numerous groups representing Hispanic Americans, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. It also has the support of conservative groups such as Americans for Tax Reform and Empower America. It has received union support from the AFL-CIO, the Union of Needletrades and Industrial Textile Employees, and the Service Employees International Union. Religious groups ranging from the U.S. Catholic Conference to the Anti-Defamation League to Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services have also endorsed the bill. Finally, business organizations including the National Restaurant Association and the American Health Care Association have also encouraged this bill's passage. When we talk about H-1B visas, we are usually talking about giving immigration benefits to people who are going to have high-paying, high- tech jobs. Everybody wants to do that. We worked to get that out of the Judiciary Committee. But I would say to those who are holding up the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act, don't think only of people in high-tech, high-paying jobs. Think of the needs of ordinary workers. It seems that the immigration concerns of everyday families have been ignored day after day in this Congress. I am talking about people who are not going to be in executive positions, and who cannot afford lawyers or anything else they want. I am talking about men and women who work for an hourly wage, who try to raise their families, who go to church, who want to see their children go to school, who want to live the American life, the American dream. My grandparents came to this country. They did not speak a word of English. But they raised a family. They raised six children, including my mother. They started a small business. They had a grandson who ended up in the Senate. But they also had six children. They weren't wealthy. My grandfather came here not speaking a word of English, with his brother, and they started a stone shed. Then when they had enough money to afford to send back to Italy for their wives and their children, they did. It was the American dream. People still have that dream. We should help them, especially in this case. There are also important due process issues that need to be fixed if America wants to retain its historic role as a beacon for refugees and a nation of immigrants. But in this Congress, even humanitarian bills with bipartisan backing have been completely ignored, both in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. The bipartisan bills that have suffered from the majority's neglect include both modest bills designed to assist particular immigrant groups and larger bills designed to reform substantial portions of our immigration and asylum laws. Bills to assist Syrian Jews, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Liberians, Hondurans, Cubans, and Salvadorans all need attention. Bills to restore due process rights and limited public benefits to legal permanent residents have been ignored. The Refugee Protection Act, a bipartisan bill with 10 sponsors that I introduced with Senator Brownback, has not even received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, despite my request as Ranking Member. The Refugee Protection Act addresses the issue of expedited removal, the process under which aliens arriving in the United States can be returned immediately to their native lands at the say-so of a low-level INS officer. Expedited removal was the subject of a major debate in this chamber in 1996, and the Senate voted to use it only during immigration emergencies. This Senate-passed restriction was removed in what was probably the most partisan conference committee I have ever witnessed. The Refugee Protection Act is modeled closely on that 1996 amendment, and I hope that it again gains the support of a majority of my colleagues. As a result of the adoption of expedited removal, we now have a system where we are removing people who arrive here either without proper documentation or with facially valid documentation that an INS officer suspects is invalid. This policy ignores the fact that people fleeing despotic regimes are quite often unable to obtain travel documents before they go--they must move quickly and cannot depend upon the government that is persecuting them to provide them with the proper paperwork for departure. 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 our country without the opportunity to convince an immigration judge that they faced persecution in their native lands. To provide just one example, a Kosovar Albanian was summarily removed from the U.S. after the civil war in Kosovo had already made the front pages of America's newspapers. The majority has mishandled even those immigration bills that needed to be passed by a date certain to avoid significant humanitarian and diplomatic consequences. In the most egregious example, the Senate failed to pass a bill to make permanent the visa waiver program that allows Americans to travel to numerous other countries without a visa. The visa waiver pilot program expired on April 30, and the House passed legislation to make the program permanent in a timely manner, understanding the importance of not allowing this program--which our citizens and the citizens of many of our closest allies depend upon--to lapse. The Senate, however, simply ignored the deadline and has subsequently ignored numerous deadlines for administrative extensions of the program. I am well aware that immigration is just one of the many issues that Congress must address. Indeed, there may be some Congresses where immigration needs to be placed on the backburner so that we can address other issues. But this is not such a Congress. It was only four years ago that we passed two bills with far-reaching effects on immigration law--the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. There are still many aspects of those laws that merit our careful review and rethinking. Among many others, Senators Kennedy, Moynihan, and Durbin have been actively involved in promoting necessary changes to those laws, in an attempt to rededicate the United States to its historic role as a leader in immigration policy. But their efforts too have been ignored by the majority. In the limited time we have remaining, I urge the majority to just bring up the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act and have a vote on it. We know we could pass it if we could only be allowed to have a vote. Let's show the kind of fairness that America wants to show. Let us be the beckoning country that it was to my grandparents and my great- grandparents.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are finally turning our attention to this legislation and a debate over the best way to increase the number of H-1B visas, a policy goal that is shared widely in this body. The bill was reported from the Judiciary Committee more than six months ago. It has taken us a very long time to get from Point A to Point B, and it has often appeared that the majority has been more interested in gaining partisan advantage from a delay than in actually making this bill law. The Democratic Leader has consistently said that we would be willing to accept very strict time limits on debating amendments, and would be willing to conduct the entire debate on S. 2045 in less than a day. Our Leader has also consistently said that it is critical that the Senate take up proposals to provide parity for refugees from right-wing regimes in Central America and to address an issue that has been ignored for far too long--how we should treat undocumented aliens who have lived here for decades, paying taxes and contributing to our economy. I joined in the call for action on H-1B and other critical immigration issues, but our efforts were rebuffed by the majority. Indeed, months went by in which the majority made no attempt to negotiate these differences, 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 is hostile to this bill and that only Republicans are interested in solving the legitimate employment shortages faced by many sectors of American industry. 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. Finally, last week, the majority made a counteroffer that did not provide as many amendments as we would like, but which did allow amendments related to immigration generally. We responded enthusiastically to this proposal, but individual members of the majority objected, and there is still no agreement to allow immigration amendments. At least some members of the majority are apparently unwilling even to vote on issues that are critical to members of the Latino community. This is deeply unfortunate, and leaves those of us who are concerned about humanitarian immigration issues with an uncomfortable choice. We can either address the legitimate needs of the high-tech industry in the vacuum that the majority has imposed, or we can refuse to proceed on this bill until the majority affords us the opportunity to address other important immigration needs. I voted yesterday to proceed to S. 2045 because I believe it presents a good starting point for discussion, and because I believe we should make progress on immigration issues in this Congress. I still hope that an agreement can be reached with the majority that will allow votes on other important immigration matters as part of our consideration of this bill. I believe there is a labor shortage in certain areas of our economy, and a short-term increase in H-1B visas is an appropriate response. Due to the stunning economic growth we have experienced in the past eight years, unemployment is lower than the best-case scenario envisioned by most economists. Increasing the number of available H-1B visas is particularly important for the high-tech industry, which has done so much to contribute to our strong economy. Although it is important that the high-tech industry ensure that it is making maximum possible use of American workers, it should also have access to highly-skilled workers from abroad, particularly workers who were educated at American universities. Under current law, however, which allowed for 115,000 visas for FY 2000, every visa was allotted by March, only halfway through the fiscal year. So I support this bill's call for an increase in the number of visas. But I believe the legislation can be improved, and I look forward to the opportunity to make improvements through the amendment process. Most importantly, instead of including an open-ended provision exempting from the cap those foreign workers with graduate degrees from American universities, as S. 2045 does, I believe we should retain a concrete cap on the number of these visas. I believe we should increase the cap to 200,000, and then set aside a significant percentage of those visas for such workers. This should address employers' needs for highly-skilled workers, while also limiting the number of visas that go to foreign workers with less specialized skills. I regret that we will likely be unable to offer other important amendments to this bill. For much of the summer, the majority implied that we were simply using the concerns of Latino voters as a smokescreen to avoid considering S. 2045. Speaking for myself, although I have had reservations about certain aspects of S. 2045, I voted to report it from the Judiciary Committee so that we could move forward in our discussions of the bill. I did not seek to offer immigration amendments on the Senate floor because I wanted to derail S. 2045. Nor did the White House urge Congress to consider other immigration issues as part of the H-1B debate because the President wanted to play politics with this issue, as the distinguished Chairman of the Judiciary Committee suggested on the floor last Friday. Rather, the majority's inaction on a range of immigration measures in this Congress forced those of us who were concerned about immigration issues to attempt to raise those issues. Under our current leadership, the opportunity to enact needed change in our immigration laws does not come around very often, to put it mildly. 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, with only a few weeks remaining before we adjourn, this will be the first immigration bill to be debated on the floor in this Congress. 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 bipartisan bills that have suffered from the majority's neglect include both modest bills designed to assist particular immigrant groups and larger bills designed to reform substantial portions of our immigration and asylum laws. Bills to assist Syrian Jews, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Liberians, Hondurans, Cubans, and Salvadorans all need attention. Bills to restore due process rights and limited public benefits to legal permanent residents have been ignored. The Refugee Protection Act, a bipartisan bill with 10 sponsors that I introduced with Senator Brownback, has not even received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, despite my request as Ranking Member. The Refugee Protection Act addresses the issue of expedited removal, the process under which aliens arriving in the United States can be returned immediately to their native lands at the say-so of a low-level INS officer. Expedited removal was the subject of a major debate in this Chamber in 1996, and the Senate voted to use it only during immigration emergencies. This Senate-passed restriction was removed in what was probably the most partisan conference committee I have ever witnessed. The Refugee Protection Act is modeled closely on that 1996 amendment, and I hope that it again gains the support of a majority of my colleagues. As a result of the adoption of expedited removal, we now have a system where we are removing people who arrive here either without proper documentation or with facially valid documentation that an INS officer suspects is invalid. This policy ignores the fact that people fleeing despotic regimes are quite often unable to obtain travel documents before they go--they must move quickly and cannot depend upon the government that is persecuting them to provide them with the proper paperwork for departure. 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 our country without the opportunity to convince an immigration judge that they faced persecution in their native lands. To provide just one example, a Kosovar Albanian was summarily removed from the U.S. after the civil war in Kosovo had already made the front pages of America's newspapers. The majority has mishandled even those immigration bills that needed to be passed by a date certain to avoid significant humanitarian and diplomatic consequences. First, the Senate failed to pass a bill to make permanent the visa waiver program that allows Americans to travel to numerous other countries without a visa. The visa waiver pilot program expired on April 30, and the House passed legislation to make the program permanent in a timely manner, understanding the importance of not allowing this program--which our citizens and the citizens of many of our closest allies depend upon--to lapse. The Senate, however, simply ignored the deadline and has subsequently ignored numerous deadlines for administrative extensions of the program. Second, the Senate has thus far refused to act on the bipartisan S. 2058, which would extend the deadline by one year for Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Haitians to apply for adjustment of status under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, NACARA, and the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, HRIFA. The original deadline expired on March 31. But the Senate did not extend the deadline--an action that the Judiciary Committee unanimously approved--by March 31. And the Senate has not acted to extend the deadline in the intervening five and a half months. No one has expressed any opposition to S. 2058, which counts Senators Mack and Helms among its sponsors; rather, the majority has simply allowed the bill to sit and fester, perhaps holding it hostage to the passage of S. 2045. As a result, we in the Congress have had to rely upon the Administration's assurances that it would not remove those who would be aided by the extension from the United States while this legislation was pending. As someone who has served for more than 25 years in the Senate, I find it profoundly disturbing that this body must rely on the Administration not to enforce the law because it has taken us so long to actually make good on our intention to change it. We should not need to rely on the good graces of the Administration--we should do our job and legislate. I am well aware that immigration is just one of the many issues that Congress must address. Indeed, there may be some Congresses where immigration needs to be placed on the backburner so that we can address other issues. But this is not such a Congress. It was only four years ago that we passed two bills with far-reaching effects on immigration law--the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. There are still many aspects of those laws that merit our careful review and rethinking. Among many others, Senators Kennedy, Moynihan, and Durbin have been actively involved in promoting necessary changes to those laws, in an attempt to rededicate the United States to its historic role as a leader in immigration policy. But their efforts too have been ignored by the majority. When a bill such as S. 2045 comes to the floor, then, those of us who are concerned about immigration legislation would be abdicating our duty not to raise other potential immigration legislation. Most members of both parties want to see a significant increase in the number of H- 1B visas. If there had been another avenue to obtain consideration of the rest of our immigration agenda, we would have taken it. But such an avenue was not offered. I voted to proceed to consideration of this bill. I hold out hope that we can reach an agreement to discuss other critical immigration matters. If the majority truly wishes to display compassionate conservatism, and show concern for all Americans, such an agreement should be easy to reach.