Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join with Senators Kohl, Clinton, and Byrd today in introducing legislation to stop the entertainment industry from deceptively marketing adult-rated material to children, legislation that hopefully will make the hard job of raising kids in today's culture a little easier for America's parents. As my colleagues may recall, Federal Trade Commission released a groundbreaking report last fall documenting the seriousness of this problem. Specifically, the FTC found that the movie, music, and video game industries had been routinely and aggressively targeting the sale of heavily-violent, adult-rated products to children. Some companies were going so far as to conduct focus groups for R-rated slasher films with 9- and 10-year olds and to pass out promotional materials for other violent R-rated movies at Campfire Girl meetings and Boys and Girls Clubs. This report engendered a lot of outrage, and with good reason. These industries were making a mockery of the ratings systems that they had created and promoted. They were also making an end run around America's parents, in effect cutting out the middle mom and dad to target violent, harmful materials directly to children. The report also generated a number of promises from the offending industries to change their ways and strengthen their self-regulatory programs. This week, the FTC released a follow-up report to evaluate how well the entertainment industry has done in keeping its promises, and there was some encouraging news. The FTC found in their snapshot survey that the movie and video game industries had made real progress in limiting their advertising in popular teen venues and in providing more rating information in their marketing. Other independent analyses show similarly encouraging results. Ad revenues for R-rated films on MTV are apparently declining. Disney, Warner Brothers, and Fox have pledged not to market R-rated movies to children. And several other studios have decided against making or distributing heavily-violent movies that were once regularly targeted at kids. I appreciate these steps, which may well result in reduced revenues for some of these companies, and which show that our government can work on behalf of parents to prod the entertainment industry to draw some lines to protect our children without approaching censorship. But much as I appreciate this progress, I cannot really give a full- blow hooray for Hollywood, because the FTC report makes clear that this problem has not been solved. Some video game makers and movie studios, including those that have pledged not to unfairly target kids, are still advertising adult-rated products in places popular with young teens. And the leading music companies and their trade group, the RIAA, have sadly been MIA, doing little if anything to respond to the FTC report and curb the marketing of obscenity-laced records to kids. I am also concerned about the future. The FTC rightly recommended that the lasting solution to this problem is responsible self- regulation, specifically, uniform policies adopted by the entertainment industry prohibiting the targeting of adult-rated material to children and meaningful sanctions to enforce those standards. Unfortunately, to date only the video game industry has agreed, and commendably so, to meet this recommendation and truly police themselves. That means there is no permanent mechanism of accountability for the movie and music industries, no ongoing norm or standard that says it is wrong to market adult-rated material to children. And I fear that the competitive pressures in these markets are so intense that they will once again lead companies to do exactly that once the scrutiny goes away. That is why I feel we must go forward with a legislative response. The bill we are introducing today would provide a narrowly-tailored shield to help protect our children from this kind of unfair and unhealthy targeting. It would treat the marketing of adult-rated movies, music recordings, and video games to children like any other deceptive act that harms consumers, and give the FTC the same authority it has under the current false and deceptive advertising laws to bring actions against companies that engage in deceptive practices. In particular, it would give the FTC the authority to penalize companies that violate this provision with civil fines of up to $11,000 per offense. Some will claim this is censorship. But the truth is we're not empowering the FTC to regulate content in any way or even to make judgments about what products are appropriate for children. We are simply saying that if you voluntarily label a product as being unsuitable for kids, and then turn around and market it in a way that directly contradicts that rating, you should be held accountable, just like any other company that misleads consumers. That's not censorship, that's common sense. The bottom line here is that the First Amendment is not a license to deceive. And this legislation translates that important principle into policy. It says to the people who run the entertainment industry that they cannot have it both ways. They cannot label their products for adults and target them to kids. And they cannot continue to undermine their ratings and undercut the authority of parents. I ask my colleagues today on both sides of the aisle for their support on this bill and the ongoing effort to help protect their children from harmful media messages. I thank the chair, and ask unanimous consent that my statement and bill be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak with colleagues about global warming, which quite literally is a cloud that is looming on our horizon. As many have feared, there is evidence that this cloud has recently grown darker and more ominous. Over the last few months, in fact, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its third report on global warming. This report was authored by over 700 expert scientists. Their conclusions, I am afraid, offer convincing evidence of a planet in distress, one that is slowly overheating with very serious--some would say disastrous but certainly very serious--consequences for those who will follow us on this Earth. According to these scientific experts, unless we find ways to stop global warming, the Earth's average temperature can be expected to rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit during this next 100 years. Such a large rapid rise in temperature will profoundly affect the Earth's landscape in very real and consequential terms. Sea levels could swell enormously, potentially submerging literally millions of homes and coastal properties under our present day oceans. Precipitation would become more erratic, leading to droughts that would make hunger an even more serious global problem than it is today. Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever would spread at an accelerated pace. Several weather disturbances and storms triggered by climate phenomena, such as El Nino, would be aggravated by global warming and become, I am afraid, more routine. Unfortunately, that is not the first time we have heard such disconcerting predictions, which in their way are so extreme that they may be hard for some to believe, although I find as I go around my State and on occasion around the country that the public is ahead of their political leadership on this issue--at least a lot of the political leadership. The public has been reading these reports and understands that something is happening with the weather that will affect life on this planet unless we do something about it. For years, scores of scientists from throughout the world have issued warning after warning attesting to the harmful effect of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. While it is true that there have been some efforts to curb the release of these gases, I am afraid we have spent a lot more time debating the credibility of the warnings than doing something about them. Truly, this new data does not end the serious debate about whether global warming is a fact. This most recent scientific report is the most advanced study we have had on the subject. I personally conclude that the science is now incontrovertible. As this latest report reminds us, the threat is being driven by our own behavior. Remember the old Pogo cartoon: We have met the enemy and it is us. That is, unfortunately, the case with global warming. Let me quote the scientists in the report directly. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. Human beings have added more than 3 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year for the past two decades. In fact, the current levels of carbon dioxide are likely the highest they have been in 20 million years of history. In the face of this mounting evidence, what have we done? I am afraid we have a statement from President Bush saying that he ``takes the issue of global warming very seriously.'' But, unfortunately, thus far the acts that have followed that statement do not match the statement. I am afraid the only global cooling that will occur under this administration is the cooling of our foreign relations with countries around the world, including some of our foremost allies who are very anxious to work with us to do something about global warming. Last month the administration unilaterally announced, without consultation with Congress, and apparently without consultation with our allies or others around the world, that it had ``no interest in implementing'' the Kyoto Protocol. In doing so, the administration did not just back away from America's signature on an international agreement. They backed away from the process that resulted in the accord, and that action not only undermines our global environment but it also undermines our credibility with our allies. This is one issue that is so serious and will so profoundly affect the lives of our children and grandchildren and those who follow us here on Earth that we ought to be at the head as the greatest nation in the world of international efforts to stop this problem, to deal with it, and not be viewed by most of the rest of the world as loners going our own way not listening to science experts and not acting responsibly. I am afraid the Bush administration has also walked away from its chief domestic initiative on climate change, which was a very hopeful initiative, when it reversed the President's campaign pledge to adopt a market-based trading mechanism regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from powerplants. Those emissions account for up to 40 percent of our Nation's carbon dioxide emissions and 10 percent--one-tenth--of the global carbon dioxide emissions at this point coming from American powerplants. We have to take firm and decisive action--we ought to be taking it together; we ought to be taking it across party lines--to address global warming. If we act soon, we can still avoid the bleak fate that will otherwise await our children and grandchildren on this good Earth that the Good Lord gave us. We are visitors here, temporary visitors. We have an obligation to act not only as good visitors but as trustees of the planet for those countless generations that will follow. Science is giving us a warning. We all ought to put ideology aside and figure out a way to cooperate to respond to that warning, to protect the planet and those who will follow us on it. Doing so will require two things. One is global leadership, and the other is a shared effort to change the source of the problems and deal with them through technology and through cooperative effort. In the clear absence of Presidential action thus far, we in the Senate, I am pleased to say, have begun to provide some leadership on this issue. Just before the recess, we passed an amendment to the budget resolution that reestablished funding for all climate change programs throughout our Government, including funding for energy efficiency programs, funding for programs to encourage emissions reductions in developing countries, and the funding for full and adequate participation in international negotiations. I hope President Bush and others in the administration will take note of the Senate's concern about climate change, represented by this amendment, and join with us in taking action on this problem. There have been some strong voices within the administration that clearly understand the dimensions of the problem and want to work to be leaders in dealing with it. I am speaking of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. O'Neill, and the Administrator of the EPA, Ms. Whitman. The alarming conclusions of the U.N. scientists' report should be of concern to all of us. Global warming is most decidedly not a partisan issue; it is a human problem. It is a problem for all of us who inhabit the Earth. Neither party wants to allow the apocalyptic future projected by the scientists' report. The evidence is compelling. Our planet is, in fact, slowly overheating. So now we have to join together across party lines and international borders and agree to act. This is a challenge because we are talking about a problem whose beginnings we can see now but whose worst effects will probably, hopefully, not be felt until some years have passed. So this requires leadership--political leadership--to avoid a problem whose worst effects most of us will not experience in our lifetimes, but it is the responsible thing to do to take such action. Kyoto set a framework. I was at Kyoto when that agreement was negotiated. It is not a perfect document by far. But considering the fact that we were dealing with so many of the nations of the world, approaching this problem from different places, it is a framework for international cooperation. I hope the administration, on second look, will view it that way, will go to the international meeting in Germany in July, which is the next step in the Kyoto process, will consult with our allies and others in the world, and will find a way, together with us--both parties in Congress--to move forward to deal with this problem. We deal with serious problems every day in the Senate. It is part of the challenge and, indeed, the excitement of the privilege we have to serve our Nation. It is when we deal with those problems effectively that we have together--all of us--the moments of greatest satisfaction. This, in the long run, is one of the largest problems which any of us in this Chamber will ever confront. The sooner we get together and make some progress to deal with it, the better will be the world's future. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join with Senators Kohl, Clinton, and Byrd today in introducing legislation to stop the entertainment industry from deceptively marketing adult-rated material to children, legislation that hopefully will make the hard job of raising kids in today's culture a little easier for America's parents. As my colleagues may recall, Federal Trade Commission released a groundbreaking report last fall documenting the seriousness of this problem. Specifically, the FTC found that the movie, music, and video game industries had been routinely and aggressively targeting the sale of heavily-violent, adult-rated products to children. Some companies were going so far as to conduct focus groups for R-rated slasher films with 9- and 10-year olds and to pass out promotional materials for other violent R-rated movies at Campfire Girl meetings and Boys and Girls Clubs. This report engendered a lot of outrage, and with good reason. These industries were making a mockery of the ratings systems that they had created and promoted. They were also making an end run around America's parents, in effect cutting out the middle mom and dad to target violent, harmful materials directly to children. The report also generated a number of promises from the offending industries to change their ways and strengthen their self-regulatory programs. This week, the FTC released a follow-up report to evaluate how well the entertainment industry has done in keeping its promises, and there was some encouraging news. The FTC found in their snapshot survey that the movie and video game industries had made real progress in limiting their advertising in popular teen venues and in providing more rating information in their marketing. Other independent analyses show similarly encouraging results. Ad revenues for R-rated films on MTV are apparently declining. Disney, Warner Brothers, and Fox have pledged not to market R-rated movies to children. And several other studios have decided against making or distributing heavily-violent movies that were once regularly targeted at kids. I appreciate these steps, which may well result in reduced revenues for some of these companies, and which show that our government can work on behalf of parents to prod the entertainment industry to draw some lines to protect our children without approaching censorship. But much as I appreciate this progress, I cannot really give a full- blow hooray for Hollywood, because the FTC report makes clear that this problem has not been solved. Some video game makers and movie studios, including those that have pledged not to unfairly target kids, are still advertising adult-rated products in places popular with young teens. And the leading music companies and their trade group, the RIAA, have sadly been MIA, doing little if anything to respond to the FTC report and curb the marketing of obscenity-laced records to kids. I am also concerned about the future. The FTC rightly recommended that the lasting solution to this problem is responsible self- regulation, specifically, uniform policies adopted by the entertainment industry prohibiting the targeting of adult-rated material to children and meaningful sanctions to enforce those standards. Unfortunately, to date only the video game industry has agreed, and commendably so, to meet this recommendation and truly police themselves. That means there is no permanent mechanism of accountability for the movie and music industries, no ongoing norm or standard that says it is wrong to market adult-rated material to children. And I fear that the competitive pressures in these markets are so intense that they will once again lead companies to do exactly that once the scrutiny goes away. That is why I feel we must go forward with a legislative response. The bill we are introducing today would provide a narrowly-tailored shield to help protect our children from this kind of unfair and unhealthy targeting. It would treat the marketing of adult-rated movies, music recordings, and video games to children like any other deceptive act that harms consumers, and give the FTC the same authority it has under the current false and deceptive advertising laws to bring actions against companies that engage in deceptive practices. In particular, it would give the FTC the authority to penalize companies that violate this provision with civil fines of up to $11,000 per offense. Some will claim this is censorship. But the truth is we're not empowering the FTC to regulate content in any way or even to make judgments about what products are appropriate for children. We are simply saying that if you voluntarily label a product as being unsuitable for kids, and then turn around and market it in a way that directly contradicts that rating, you should be held accountable, just like any other company that misleads consumers. That's not censorship, that's common sense. The bottom line here is that the First Amendment is not a license to deceive. And this legislation translates that important principle into policy. It says to the people who run the entertainment industry that they cannot have it both ways. They cannot label their products for adults and target them to kids. And they cannot continue to undermine their ratings and undercut the authority of parents. I ask my colleagues today on both sides of the aisle for their support on this bill and the ongoing effort to help protect their children from harmful media messages. I thank the chair, and ask unanimous consent that my statement and bill be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am grateful for the opportunity today to speak about an important piece of environmental legislation, the Brownfields Revitalization and Environmental Restoration Act. This bill enjoys the bipartisan support of 15 of the 18 members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and with the additions made in the manager's amendment, I hope it will receive widespread support on the floor. This bill aims to return abandoned, contaminated lots that plague nearly every city and town in this country to their past vitality. Once upon a time, these 450,000 ``brownfields'' were home to our neighborhood gas station, a flourishing textile mill, or a manufacturing plant. They were central to the economic well being of their communities. Unfortunately, now they lay idle and unproductive, spoiling the quality of life in thousands of communities across the country. Brownfields lower a community's tax base, encourage urban sprawl and loss of open space, and worst of all, threaten to pollute local streams and drinking water, endangering human health and environmental quality. While everyone wishes to see brownfields reintegrated into the community, they often remain untouched urban eyesores. Developers fear the potential liability risks involved in developing a site laden with unknown chemicals. Communities lack the funds to initiate their own clean up plans. This bill could change all of that. First, it provides much-needed funding for brownfields' restoration programs. Second, it offers important legal protections that will give developers, private and public, the confidence to cleanup these toxic sites. All across the country, we see examples of communities successfully restoring brownfields sites into vibrant and prosperous enterprises, including in my home state of Connecticut. With the help of small federal grants and loans, more than two dozen cities and towns throughout Connecticut have been able to jump-start their plans for environmental remediation and economic development of brownfields sites. Just last month, I joined in the Grand Opening of a new Harley Davidson dealership on a former brownfields site in Stamford, one of EPAs Brownfields Showcase Communities. Prior to cleanup, the area was a chemical cesspool of abandoned lots contaminated with PCBs, lead, arsenic and several other metals. During cleanup, close to 3,000 tons of contaminated soil were removed from the site, reducing the risk of groundwater contamination and exposure to neighborhood residents. Now this enterprise brings new life, a cleaner environment, and new jobs to the industrial South End of Stamford. The promise of this approach may seem obvious, but the language in this bill was not easily agreed. It is the product of over eight years of negotiations, debate and finally compromise. So it is with pride that I join more than two thirds of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, and dozens of organizations representing a wide range of interests, including those of mayors, developers, realtors, insurance companies and environmental groups, in supporting this legislation, I believe we should all feel a sense of accomplishment and pride--this was battle hard won. This is a good day for America's communities, especially in the inner cities which regrettably are home to many of these urban wastelands. But it doesn't have to stay that way. This legislation is a shot in the economic arm for towns like Stamford seeking to revitalize their neighborhoods for future generations to enjoy. I strongly urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor this amendment offered by Senators Murray and Akaka to restore funding authorization for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Project Impact and Hazard Mitigation grants. I have also indicated my opposition to the administration's cuts in these programs in a letter to Chairman Domenici and Senator Conrad, pursuant to my obligation as ranking member of the Governmental Affairs Committee to express views on the President's budget as it affects matters within our jurisdiction. The administration's proposed cuts in these programs would shift part or all of the funding burden for these programs back on the States, whose resources are already tightly stretched. Moreover, these programs are designed to reduce future losses that would in many cases greatly outstrip the Federal Government's original investment; as a result, we will spend more on recovery programs tomorrow than we will save today by eliminating these programs. Overall, my State of Connecticut is already receiving less federal funding for emergency management than it did in 1995, it will be hard for States like Connecticut to absorb these additional cuts and still maintain the current level of services. Specifically, the amendment would restore funding authorization for ``Project Impact'' which the administration proposes to zero out. This is a $25 million pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness program that was recently instituted by FEMA. The agency partners with cities at risk for flooding and other disasters to create programs boosting awareness of how to prepare and lessen the damage from disasters. In Connecticut, for example, four cities have been included in this program: Westport, East Haven, Norwich, and Milford. Since Project Impact is new and still being implemented, it has not yet been fully evaluated; however, one of Project Impact's strengths is providing funding directly to cities. Zeroing this program out without providing something in its place is ``not prudent,'' according to Connecticut's Director of Emergency Management. Moreover, the program helps FEMA to achieve its Strategic Goal 1, which seeks to protect lives and prevent the loss of property by implementing pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness measures. Project Impact is a key part of this effort. The amendment would also reverse the Administration's decision to cut the federal share of funding for hazard mitigation grants which are given for post-disaster mitigation to prevent future losses. Instead of providing funding to states on a 75-25 ratio, the Administration would reduce the federal government's share to 50 percent. Again, this places the burden back on the states to fund these efforts. These two programs provide needed assistance to States and communities across the country that experience losses due to major disasters. The amount of money that would be saved by these proposed cuts is relatively small. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to restore funding authorization for these two worthy FEMA programs.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about our country's future and how it is being determined in the debate over this budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 83, which I oppose. At this propitious moment, we face a set of choices, both pleasant and consequential, about what to do with this precious surplus we have worked so hard as a nation to accumulate. The question is, how do we make the projected surplus work best for us? How do we take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity today to strengthen our economy and country for tomorrow, to expand this prosperity and security for generations to come? It is my view that this Congress must implement an effective long- term vision. The central point I want to make today is that as we develop a budget, we need to be concerned with more than just a tax plan. We need a strategic blueprint for how to extend and expand our economic growth and how to widen the circle of opportunity and security to allow more Americans to share in the nation's prosperity. Unfortunately, that blueprint is not coming from our Republican colleagues or from the White House. The President has put forward a tax cut that was designed 15 months ago, in the midst of the Republican primaries, when one of his opponents, Steve Forbes, was promoting flat taxes. The Bush tax plan abandons fiscal responsibility and blithely spends, indeed, overspends, a projected surplus whose size six months down the road is unclear, to say nothing of its dimensions 10 years later. It is a tax plan that gives the most to those who need it least and leaves little or nothing for making the kinds of investments that will secure and brighten our future. Our Republican colleagues have put together a partisan budget blueprint that simply accommodates the President's tax cut. But neither the Bush plan nor the Republican budget are right for our country. They will waste the wealth our nation has earned over the last eight years and send us back down the road to debt, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment. They cannot answer the big questions of what kind of country we want to be ten years from now, because they do not ask the right questions. They lack vision and therefore squander this moment's opportunity. The Republican Budget Resolution does not protect the Social Security or Medicare trust fund surpluses. It claims to set aside $453 billion for a ``contingency fund'' in order to prevent Congress from spending the Social Security and Medicare surpluses; however, that amount is not sufficient to maintain current policies, such as extending expiring tax credits, reforming the alternative minimum tax, and providing agricultural assistance--and to pay for the cost of new initiatives such as a national missile defense system. Because of the excessive Republican tax cut and the inadequate size of this contingency fund, Congress may be forced to raid the Social Security and Medicare trust funds or face the prospect of a return to budget deficits. The GOP budget imposes deep cuts on important programs. The Budget Resolution would cut non-defense discretionary spending by about $8 to $9 billion or two percent below the level needed to keep pace with what was provided last year, adjusted for inflation. Funding for environmental protection, disaster assistance, veterans' medical care, Community Oriented Policing (COPS) and the Army Corps of Engineers would be particularly hard hit. The Republican budget also falls short on debt reduction. The Budget Resolution would reduce the publicly-held federal debt from $3.4 trillion at the end of Fiscal Year 2000 to $818 billion by Fiscal Year 2011. Many experts believe that the publicly-held debt could be reduced to under $500 billion, $300 billion more in debt reduction than proposed by the Republicans. If we are to seize this moment, we must have a clear vision and a long view of where we want to go, and how best to get there. We need a new approach, rooted in old values--the broadly cherished principles of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and community upon which this democracy was built--values so ingrained in our national consciousness as to transcend the rhythms of history. We must be guided by the promise of growth and opportunity that moved the pioneers, by the hard-work and enterprise that gave rise to the middle class, by the sense of responsibility to one another that has created good citizens and strong communities, and by that indefatigable American spirit of optimism and innovation that drives us forward in our pursuit of better lives and brighter vistas. What we need is a budget based on fiscal responsibility and wise investments, an agenda that empowers our citizens to succeed in the near term but that also guarantees their long term security. We must begin with a fiscally sensible budget, a budget that places the highest priority on paying down the national debt. One of the most enduring lessons of the last 20 years is that debt reduction pays off in the long term. Our surplus now gives us a historic opportunity to be debt free by the end of this decade, which will keep interest rates down on home mortgages, car loans, credit card bills and student loans, loosening the budgets of millions of American families. Low interest rates also cut the cost for capital available for business innovation and expansion. We must set aside at least one-third of the projected surplus to continue to pay off America's long-term debt. If the surplus does not turn out to be as large as we hope it will, then we will not have committed to obligations that might drive us into deficit spending again. The funds we set aside for debt reduction will become a rainy day fund. The next steps would be to invest in the building blocks of our society and economy: defense, healthcare, the environment, education, scientific research and development, and a robust private sector. And yet, the Bush partisan budget does just the opposite. For example, in healthcare the Bush budget would cut aid to the uninsured. By decreasing the funding for programs that increase access to health services for people without health insurance by 86 percent, the President jeopardizes the health and well being of the nearly 42 million Americans that cannot afford health insurance and will actually decrease their access to health care services. His budget also fails to provide an adequate prescription drug benefit, providing only $153 billion over 10 years to provide for a four year, low-income prescription drug benefit. CBO estimates this level of funding ``won't provide a great deal for any one person.'' I believe America should be increasing access to health insurance and health care services . . . not cutting critical programs. I am committed to passing a prescription drug plan that meets the need of seniors. I also am discouraged by the lack of funding that the Bush administration plans to designate for essential programs to protect our public health and environment. At the same time the Bush Administration has rolled back a number of regulations for protection in these areas and has walked away from its domestic and international commitments to address the problem of climate change, it also has slashed the funds available to the agencies responsible for these important issues. The amount the Republican Budget Resolution designates for these essential environmental programs is 15 percent below what is needed to maintain FY2001 spending power. I have supported efforts to put this funding back in the budget resolution. The amendment that I co-sponsored with Senator Kerry renewed the funding for the range of government programs intended to address our climate change problem. I thank my colleagues for recognizing the dire need for these programs and passing the amendment. I also supported the amendment sponsored by Senator Corzine, which would have provided the funding that is needed for the full range of environmental programs. Mr. President, the protection of the environment is not a luxury item; we must not sacrifice it to pay for a tax cut. This budget resolution also must recognize that skills and learning not only drive productivity growth, but increasingly determine individual opportunity. We must concentrate our resolve and our resources on changing the way we teach and train our labor force. We need to start at the beginning and reform our K-12 system to raise academic achievement for all children. Congressional Democratic education proposals all provide more funding for our public schools than President Bush and the Republicans do, and that is undoubtedly because they spend so much on his tax cut plan, that he has little left over for other critical societal investments. As we move forward, we can and should create a direct and progressive connection between taxes and education. Parents, workers and employees should be given tax credits to make lifelong learning easier. The expenses of employers investing in remedial education--to make up for failures in the performances of our K-12 school system--should be offset with a new education tax credit. And most importantly, I support tax relief for low- and middle-income families struggling to pay the cost of their children's college education and their own mid-career re- training. These families should be allowed to deduct up to $10,000 of higher education costs from their income tax each year. Equally as important are adequate funds for basic science and research and development. The role of scientific innovation is central to our country's economic growth. The story of the American economy is the story of scientific breakthroughs leading to economic growth. Yet, President Bush's budget outline starves three of the greatest generators of innovative ideas: The National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy. For instance, the National Science Foundation is slated for a 1.3 percent funding boost, which is effectively a cut, since that increase is less than the rate of inflation. Rather than curtailing physical science R&D funding, we should be doubling the federal basic research investment over the next 10 years and promoting education initiatives to expand the technically- trained workforce. Increases in federal research dollars, at NSF, NASA, and DoE are critical to educating the next generation of scientists and engineers. A visionary budget must allow for a tax package with a purpose. And that purpose must be, above all else, to stimulate economic growth, to raise the tide that lifts the lot of all Americans. One-third of the projected surplus should be dedicated to tax reductions, some to reward working families and the rest to business tax cuts that stimulate economic growth and new jobs. In the spirit of the Innovation Economy, we should look to tax incentives that will spur the drivers of growth: innovation investment, a skilled workforce, and productivity and there are many possibilities to consider. In 1997, I supported reducing the capital gains rate to help reduce the cost of innovation investment in our economy, and I think it helped build our economic boom. I believe the capital gains rate should be reduced again. Eliminating capital gains entirely for long-term investments in start-up entrepreneurial firms would encourage a strong venture capital market, and the investment in new companies that is falling off now. Small firms lagging behind their larger brethren in productivity growth should be given tax credits to invest in information technology. Small business accounts for 40 percent of our economy and 60 percent of the new jobs. But less than one-third of small businesses are wired to the Internet today. Those that are wired--and this is a stunning statistic--have grown 46 percent faster than their counterparts who are unplugged. One of the most effective ways to spur business investment, productivity increases and economic growth is adjusting depreciation schedules in the tax code to more accurately reflect the lifetime of a product. For some classes of investments, particularly rapidly changing information technology equipment, current depreciation schedules no longer match actual replacement rates, so companies that use technology must continue to carry an expense on their books long after the expenditure has ended its useful life. I suggest that, where appropriate, depreciation schedules should be shortened to reflect actual replacement rates. Removal of economic and governmental barriers to the build-out of a broadband should be a top priority so we can erect the next stage of the IT infrastructure. Broadband offers new opportunities for new products, services, and efficiencies. We should offer a tax credit to get this new infrastructure build-out promptly. Making the R&D tax credit permanent would encourage industry to invest in research and technological innovation. Additional reforms to the credit could make it more accessible to small businesses and start ups and encourage more cooperative research consortia. If we are successful in building on our prosperity, we will be able to guarantee the future of Social Security and Medicare. Everyone knows that strengthening Medicare will require more resources, not less. Yet the President's tax cut reaches into the Medicare surplus, leaving scant hope for modernization, or a new, meaningful prescription drug benefit, as the President promised. While today's workers will rely more and more on personal savings for retirement, for millions of Americans, Social Security is still the foundation of their old-age support. We must meet our obligations to our retirees, but we must also seek reforms that will make their retirements more secure. A responsible, long term budget also must be attentive to short term challenges. While I am confident it is the inherent strength of our private sector that will do most to bring our economy out of its current dip, we in government can provide some help through Federal Reserve monetary policy and federal government fiscal policy. Finally, the administration and its congressional allies have acknowledged that the $1.6 trillion Bush tax cut plan would give nothing back to taxpayers this year and little next year. So now, they talk about wanting to add a one year economic stimulus to their larger plan and pass the two together. Mr. President, as I have stated before, I fear that doing so would hold hostage the help our lagging economy needs now to a drawn-out congressional debate about the long-term Bush plan. In other words, help would not come until it was too late. We need a fair, fast and fiscally responsible tax stimulus. Economists tell us that it would take a tax cut of at least $60 billion to have a positive effect on our economy this year. Current estimates are that the federal government will have a surplus of about $100 billion at the end of this fiscal year, September 30, so we can safely afford a $60 billion stimulus. I would divide that $60 billion by the 200 million Americans who paid income or payroll taxes last year and send each one of them a $300 check as soon as possible--a surplus dividend tax rebate that can give our economy and our national confidence the kick-start they need. That check would go to every member of a family who worked last year. Ten years from now, we will be judged by the decisions we make today. People will ask, did we fully understand the awesome changes taking place in our economy and in our society? Did we direct our unprecedented surpluses into investments with the greatest returns? Did we give our workers the tools they need to seize the opportunities an innovation economy offers? And were we guided by those proud American values that have brought us this far? If we keep that perspective in view from the vantage point of our daily lives, we'll have a good shot at answering those questions affirmatively. But we must exercise discipline and follow a regimen: We cannot spend money we don't have, despite the temptations to do so. We must pay our bills and make investments for our future before we take vacations. A short term economic stimulus to help lift us out of this economic slowdown has to be followed by business tax credits and smart investments to sustain longer-term growth. Only then, can we be confident of our ability to provide comfort and security to our parents and for a bright future to our children.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment sponsored by my distinguished colleagues from Massachusetts and Maine to ensure full funding of all Federal programs aimed at addressing a growing and increasingly troubling international problem, global warming. If left unchecked, global warming has the potential to dramatically alter life as we know it, leaving our children and grandchildren to inherit a planet suffering from all manner of ailments. While we cannot know precisely how dramatic these changes may be over time, recent science paints a rather bleak picture of what we can expect to happen. The implication to act now could not be more clear. Yet the Bush Administration has inexplicably withdrawn its support for almost all of the initiatives, both domestic and international, to begin to nurse our planet back to health. We must not let this happen. This amendment would ensure that those initiatives are properly funded. Over the last three months, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC, released its third report on global warming. The report was authored by over 700 expert scientists. According to these experts, unless we find ways to stop global warming, the Earth's average temperature can be expected to rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit during this next century. Such a large, rapid rise in temperature will profoundly alter the Earth's landscape in very real and consequential terms. Sea levels could swell up to 35 feet, potentially submerging millions of homes and coastal property under our present-day oceans. Precipitation would become more erratic, leading to droughts that would make hunger an even more serious global problem than it is today. Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever could spread at an accelerated pace. Severe weather disturbances and storms triggered by climatic phenomena, such as El Nino, would be aggravated by global warming and become more routine. This new data should end serious debate about whether global warming is a fact. The science is now inconvertible. The only thing left to do is debate and decide how we should respond, not if we should. As the latest scientific report reminds us, this threat is being driven by our own behavior. Let me quote the scientists directly, ``There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.'' Mr. President, human beings have added more than three billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year for the past two decades. More amazing, and more disturbing, is the fact that current levels of carbon dioxide are likely the highest they have been in 20 million years of history and 31 percent higher than those present in 1750. Faced with these findings, President Bush has said that he ``takes the issue of global warming very seriously.'' Unfortunately, his recent acts contradict his statement. In fact, it appears that the only cooling of the globe that will occur under President Bush is the cooling of our foreign relations. I was deeply disappointed last month when the President reneged on his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Just last week, the Bush Administration unilaterally also announced, without consultation with Congress and apparently without regard for our interests abroad, that it had ``no interest in implementing'' the Kyoto Protocol. In doing so, they did not just back away from the United States' signature on an international agreement; they backed away from the international process that resulted in the accord. Finally, while we do not yet have the exact numbers of the President's budget, it appears that he plans to significantly cut a number of the programs aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions domestically and overseas. Most troubling are the reductions in the budgets of the Nation's energy efficiency programs and the funding for USAID's program to encourage developing countries to reduce emissions. How can the White House justify walking away from the Kyoto Protocol because of inadequate participation by developing countries when they are cutting the chief U.S. program aimed at securing that participation? Global warming is a real threat to us, our children, and our grandchildren. We must demonstrate leadership and confront it now. This amendment will fund the programs we have to provide that leadership. We must pass it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor this bill, and I thank my colleague, the Senator from Texas, for working with me to draft this bill in a manner that achieves its purpose, but does not open any loopholes in the original section 527 reform law. Last year, Congress passed the first significant campaign finance reform measure in a quarter of a century. The so-called section 527 reform bill dealt with a truly troubling development, one whereby organizations that received tax-exempt status by telling the IRS that they existed to influence elections denied the very same thing to the FEC. As a result, these self-proclaimed election organizations engaged in election activity without complying with any aspect of the election laws, influencing our elections without the American public having any idea who, or what, was behind them. Our law put a stop to that, by requiring organizations claiming tax- exempt status under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to do three things: 1. give notice of their intent to claim that status; 2. disclose information about their large contributors and their big expenditures; and 3. file annual informational returns along the lines of those filed by virtually all other tax-exempt organizations. During the nine months or so that the 527 reform law has been in effect, that law has blasted sunshine onto the previously shadowy operations of a multitude of election-related organizations. Through the filings mandated by that law, the American public has learned a great deal about who is financing many of these organizations and how these organizations are spending their money. But the law has had another impact, and that is to impose new reporting requirements on a group of organizations that already fully disclose to the public all of the activities covered by the 527 reform law. This bill gives relief to those organizations. In particular it grants relief from the 527 reform law to two categories of organizations that are involved exclusively in State and local elections and that already fully disclose their activities. I thank my colleague from Texas for working with me to ensure that we accomplish that goal without opening up any loopholes in the 527 reform law that will allow undisclosed money to reenter our election system. First, the bill provides new exemptions for State and local candidate committees. Under the reform law, committees of candidates for State or local office have to notify the IRS of their intent to claim section 527 status, and they have to file annual informational returns if they have over $25,000 in gross receipts. Since the reform law went into effect, we have become convinced that the burden these requirements impose on State and local candidate committees outweigh the public purpose served by requiring them to comply with these mandates. In contrast to other types of political committees, State and local candidate committees often are not permanent organizations. They often crop up a few months before an election and then cease to exist shortly after the election. They are often staffed by volunteers and run on a shoe string budget. Any new paperwork requirement--regardless of how reasonable it may be in other contexts--can put a significant burden on these minimally staffed and often short-lived committees. At the same time, State and local candidate committees do not pose the threats the 527 law intended to address. In contrast to other political committees, there is never any doubt as to who is running the candidate committee and as to whose agenda the candidate committee aims to promote. Just as importantly, State laws regulate and require disclosure from all candidate committees. We therefore have concluded that even though we do not believe the 527 reform law's mandates to be particularly burdensome in general, State and local candidate committees present a special case, one that warrants exempting them from the reform law's requirements to file a notice of intent to claim section 527 status and to file an annual return even if the organization does not have taxable income. I note, though, that these organizations still will have to file and make public annual returns if they have taxable income. The second group to which we are granting a lesser degree of relief is a very carefully defined group of so-called State and local PACs. In granting this relief, we have walked a very fine line. On one hand, we want to recognize the fact that every State requires disclosure from political committees involved in that State's elections and that many State and local PACs covered by the 527 reform law therefore are already disclosing the information the 527 law seeks to State agencies. On the other hand, we still believe that there is a strong public interest in knowing how the federal tax-exemption under section 527 is being used by these organizations, and we most decidedly do not want to exempt from the law's disclosure requirements any State or local PAC that does not otherwise publicly disclose all of its activities. To exempt a State or local PAC merely because it claims that it is involved only in State elections and files information about some of its activities with a State agency would risk creating a massive loophole that could undermine the 527 reform law. That is because just as prior to the passage of the 527 reform law, some 527 groups were claiming that they were trying to influence elections for the purposes of the tax code, but not for the purposes of the election laws, a broad exemption for State or local PACs could lead some groups to claim that they are influencing State elections for the purposes of section 527 but not for the purposes of the State disclosure laws. So, we have reached the following compromise. First, we are not exempting any of these organizations from the section 527(i) notice requirements. Unlike candidate committees, PACs generally are not transient, volunteer-staffed organizations, and it is not always clear to the public who is behind these groups. Moreover, because we are not completely exempting these groups from the law's other disclosure requirements, the notice requirement will be critical in helping the IRS and outside groups monitor compliance with the law's other mandates. In light of that, we believe the minimal effort required to file the 527(i) notice is worth the tremendous value of giving the public some basic information about these groups. Second, we are granting an exemption from the section 527(j) contribution and expenditure reporting requirements to some of these organizations, but only if they can meet certain strict requirements. The group's so-called exempt function activity must focus exclusively on State or local elections. The group must file with a State agency information on every contribution and expenditure it would otherwise be required to disclose to the IRS. In addition, these State filings must be pursuant to a State law that requires these groups to file the State reports; this requirement seeks to prevent organizations from hiding truly federal activity by voluntarily reporting to a State where reports may not be as readily accessible as are federal reports. Moreover, no group will be able to take advantage of this exemption if the State reports its files are not publicly available both from the State agency with which the report is filed and from the group itself. Finally, this exemption also is not available to any organization in which a candidate for federal office or someone who holds elected federal office plays a role--whether through helping to run the organization, soliciting money for the organization or deciding how the organization spends its money. In short, this bill exempts from 527(j) reporting obligations only those groups that truly and legitimately engage in exclusively State and local activity and only when they already report publicly on all of the information the 527 law seeks. Finally, the bill makes a small change to these State and local groups' obligation to file an annual information return when they do not have taxable income. Under the current law, they must file such returns when they have $25,000 in annual receipts; the bill increases that trigger to $100,000. Like all other 527 organizations, though, they still will have to file such returns if they have taxable income. Again, let me thank Senator Hutchison for her efforts on this bill. I believe we have worked out a good compromise, one that grants relief where it is warranted, but does not in any way threaten to open up a loophole in the law. I thank her for that, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor this amendment offered by Senators Bond and Mikulski to increase funding authorization for Function 250. Studies have shown that roughly half of the economic growth in the past 50 years is a direct result of technological innovation; science, engineering, and technology play a central role in the creation of new goods and services, new jobs and new capital. Three of the greatest generators of innovative ideas, The National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy, receive significant budget increases in this amendment, reaffirming our nation's commitment to achieving advances in science and technology. This commitment to research and development is also imperative for training the next generation of scientists and engineers. Reductions in R&D translate to reductions in the number of students trained in technical disciplines. In short, strong support for federally-funded R&D is crucial to continued economic and technological success for our Nation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Utah. I did not comment because, for me, the distinguishing factor in this amendment is the short-term economic stimulus and the particular method to achieve it, which is spelled out here, which is the substitute for the House tax bill. Those who framed the amendment consistently linked it with the long-term tax cut that, as you know, most Democrats propose because we think it is more fiscally responsible. Mr. President, if I may return the question, is the Senator from Utah prepared to separate the short-term fiscal stimulus? Again, I think across the aisle we agree that $60 billion is the number. We may disagree about how to distribute it--to separate that from the longer term, 10-year discussion about how to divide the surplus.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota. It seems to me as we deal with this budget resolution and we think about the condition of our economy and of the Federal Government books, we have a short-term need and a long-term opportunity. The long-term opportunity is to constructively use the surplus that the American people have built up over the 1990s, to continue our prosperity, to continue to act with fiscal responsibility, and to invest in the seeds of growth in our economy so that the private sector, which is where jobs and growth are created, can in fact continue the growth in this decade that we had in the last decade. We also clearly have a short-term need. It has affected our longer- term discussions because the obvious fact is that the economy, after a period of unprecedented growth, has now slowed. My friend from Utah used the word ``prophecy.'' We all would like to achieve some degree of it. I think it is fair to say that none of us has clear prophecy when it comes to our economy. Now a $9 trillion economy is affected every day by the decision of now 280 million people. We can't predict what they are going to do next week, let alone 10 years from now. The economy is slowing. We don't know how long this slowdown will last or how deep it will go. That is why people on both sides of the aisle and folks in the administration are now talking about trying to use part of the surplus that we know will be there on October 1 of this year, when the books close for the Federal Government on September 30, to use that to get some money out into the economy--not with any confidence that it is going to make everything better in our economy but with the confidence that it will help. I spoke to a number of economists before I worked on the proposal that underlies the amendment that my friend and colleague from Illinois and the Democratic leader offered, of which I am proud to be a cosponsor. I said to these business leaders and economists: What is a reasonable amount of money for us to try to get into people's pockets right away, in the next couple of months, to have an effect on the economy? Interestingly, the consensus was $60 billion. That is a number that has come up on both sides of the aisle in the Senate and from the administration. One business leader said economists told him we could expect a multiplier effect of 1\1/2\ times so that we might--actually, by putting $60 billion back into the public's pockets right away--have a 1\1/2\ times multiplier, or a $90 billion effect on the economy. That is 1 percent of the gross domestic product. That would be a tremendous result and a great lift out of the slowdown. Other experts told us they have done studies that, interestingly, have focused on what taxpayers do with a refund check. I am sure the Chair will not be surprised to hear that 70 percent of those checks are spent within 3 months. It is different than having a reduction in your withholding. It is a check in hand. You may buy something you have needed. Maybe you pay down a bill. Maybe, if you are a young worker, you buy a CD or a new suit. That is our short-term stimulus package, and the most important part of the amendment that is before the Senate now is the last paragraph sent to the Senate that ``the levels in this resolution assume that the Senate should discharge H.R. 3 from the Committee on Finance''--that is the tax bill they sent over--``strike all after the enacting clause and insert the text of the agreed upon $60 billion bipartisan economic stimulus package,'' including an immediate economic stimulus check for everyone in America who pays payroll taxes or income taxes. That means everybody. If you don't make enough to pay an income tax, but you are working and you have a lot of money taken out of your paycheck every week, every couple of weeks, you get $300. How did we come to $300? Take 200 million taxpayers and put that into the $60 billion we want to get into the economy. It comes out to $300 per taxpayer. If you are older and you pay income tax, but you don't have payroll withdrawals or deductions, you still get the $300. So the point of this amendment is let's do it now and help the economy now. Let's not have it said a year from now that the Senate and the Congress and the Government of the United States fiddled while the American economy was slowing down. One positive step we can take is to adopt this amendment, substitute for the House tax bill sent over here, get a $300 check from the Federal Government into the hands and wallets and pocketbooks of the 200 million Americans who pay payroll or income tax, and let them go out and move this economy out of the dip it is in now. That is the vote we are casting. Don't hold short-term economic relief hostage to the much more complicated, long-term, controversial partisan debate going on about how to spend the surplus for the next 10 years. America needs help now. Let's do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I was hoping the Senator would have commended me, too, for cosponsoring this amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Virginia and the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Which is, he wanted an immediate defense supplemental. But here we are on the budget resolution, so our responsibility is to go forward. I will read one sentence. He says very clearly in another sentence: However, I believe there are certain requirements that must be addressed regardless of the outcome of the ongoing strategy review.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Very briefly, I say, I think my distinguished colleague from Virginia is misapplying what Senator Levin was saying.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Very briefly, I do. Of course, Senator Levin's hope, and the rest of us, many on the committee, was that the defense supplemental would come to us before the budget resolution. But here we are on the budget resolution now, needing to make judgments about next year and years after. That is the purpose of this amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Virginia is showing his normal generosity.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. If I might respond, on my time, I thank the Senator from Virginia, my respected chairman of the committee. I am encouraged. I know the military was very hopeful, as this administration began, that they would have the opportunity to receive a supplemental appropriation. I commend the Senator from Virginia. As I recall, on February 7 he sent a letter, along with 8 colleagues, to the President, stating that there are bills ``which must be paid now. If money is not provided in these areas there could be a significant negative impact on readiness for this fiscal year and beyond.'' So as Senator Landrieu says, this amendment would take care of the ``beyond.'' I hope you and I and Senator Landrieu and others can stand on this floor in this fiscal year and support a supplemental for the Pentagon.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield to my colleague from Louisiana.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Responding to the Senator from Virginia, noting a very definitive but subtle shake of the head by the Senator from Louisiana, I therefore reached the conclusion that what I thought was the original intention of the amendment, which was to include an emergency supplemental for the defense, is not true?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes, indeed. I am happy to yield.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota for his thoughtful and persistent and effective leadership on these budgetary matters. I thank the Chair and will see if I can use less than 10 minutes. I rise today to support this amendment offered by the lead sponsor, my friend and colleague on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Landrieu of Louisiana, and also cosponsored by Senator Carnahan, a new member of the committee, from Missouri. This is an important amendment. The Senator from North Dakota spoke some words that struck me as I listened to my chairman from Virginia about going ahead with this for 1 year but not for the 10 years. Of course, the powerful reality is, we are arguing about priorities and fiscal responsibility. The concern of so many Members is we are committing to this enormous tax plan from the President which, by the Concord Coalition estimate, will cost $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years, threatening to take us back--not just threatening but likely to take us back--into deficit, higher interest rates, higher unemployment and we are prepared to consider on a 10-year basis. When it comes to the needs of our military, we are only prepared to allot the appropriate amount of money for 1 year. I think what is appropriate on the revenue side is appropriate on the spending side. What is most appropriate is fiscal responsibility. What this amendment by Senator Landrieu puts at issue is what this debate on the budget resolution is all about, which is priorities. I suppose it is not only about that. The other part is fiscal responsibility. We say it over and over again, and it is true, when it comes to the health of our economy, most of it happens in the private sector. Government doesn't create jobs. The private sector does. But there are a few things that Government can do to create the environment for jobs and give some incentives for jobs and economic growth. The first and most important is to remain fiscally responsible. The second is to make the kinds of investments that help the private sector grow. Incidentally, one of those is to support research and development through the Defense Department, which has traditionally, in our country, led to enormous economic growth. So this is about fiscal responsibility. But then this amendment really is about priorities. You cannot have it all. You cannot have it all and be fiscally responsible. If you go for the Concord Coalition estimate of $2.3 trillion on the Bush tax plan, then you are making it impossible to do a lot of other things that we must do and that the people want us to do. Of course, one of the most fundamental responsibilities that Government has is to provide for the common defense of our Nation. That does not come cheaply. There is no free lunch when it comes to national security. Others have said, and I need not belabor the fact, that in the last campaign then-Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney were very critical of our allocation of resources for the military and assured the military, particularly personnel, that help was on the way. Here we are in April of 2001. President Bush sends his budget to us, at least in general terms. I think we have to conclude that help may be on the way, but when it comes to our defense budget, the check must have been lost in the mail because we are not meeting the needs all of us know are there. This amendment, introduced by the two Senators, one from Louisiana, the other from Missouri, of which I am proud to be a cosponsor, would right that wrong. It takes $100 billion from money that would be spent on the tax cut and allocates it, $10 billion a year, to our national security. It also does what folks at the Pentagon will tell you they desperately need, which is to allow for an emergency defense supplemental of $7.1 billion this year. That would make up for the $1.4 billion deficit now in the defense health program and provide immediate assistance for the real serious near-term readiness and personnel needs that have resulted from the military reductions and operating tempo increases we have seen since the end of the cold war. There are real and present needs now that this amendment would meet. I know there has been reference to the strategic review being done in the Defense Department. I support that review. I am very encouraged by the instructions that Secretary Rumsfeld has given to those who are working on the review. We need to transform our military. We need to use the technology that is available around the world today to make sure that we are ready for the threats that will come in the future and that we are not just prepared to fight the last war, or wars of the past. But two things about that strategic review: One is that everyone knows there are needs now and there will be needs next year and the year after and for the coming decade that deal with shortfalls-- certainly in the near term--shortfalls that are basic, in items as basic to the military as ammunition, flying hours, housing, quality of life for our military personnel as documented by my colleagues who have already spoken, force protection, and aircraft and ship maintenance, including, incidentally, repairs to the U.S.S. Cole. There are immediate needs now, regardless of what the strategic review brings. Second, as my colleagues have said already, and I will say it, therefore, briefly, no one should be under the illusion that whatever the strategic review brings will it say that we can maintain our national defense by spending less money. We are working through our committee on a bipartisan basis to push the Pentagon to be as efficient as possible. Some members of the committee have come out again with a call for another round of the BRAC, of the base realignment and closure operation, to avoid wasteful spending. But there has never been a strategic review--never been an historic transformation such as we are going through in our military today, attempting to apply the lessons and the products of information technology and high technology to our military--that has cost less. So this is a very measured and moderate amendment. The fact is, I would wager, my colleagues, that if we had the ability to take ourselves 10 years forward and look back, assuming that we in our time and those who follow us are responsible, which I hope and trust they will be, we will, in fact, spend much more than the extra $100 billion that Senator Landrieu's amendment allocates to the military because we will feel it is necessary.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay my respects to the memory of my dear friend, Congressman Norman Sisisky. Like many of my colleagues, I was shocked and saddened at hearing the news of his sudden passing last Friday. We have lost a respected and treasured colleague; the people of Virginia have lost one of the most committed and effective men ever to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives; and America has lost a distinguished member of what Tom Brokaw has called ``the greatest generation.'' Norm Sisisky was a classic example of the devoted public official our founders envisioned serving in ``the people's house.'' For Norm was a man of the people, someone who worked hard, played by the rules and maintained a steadfast commitment to his family and community. That he excelled in politics is no surprise to those of us who knew him. He genuinely liked and respected people and they returned that with the trust and affection. His trademark grin and infectious laugh drew people to him. Norm never took himself too seriously, and always took great delight in good-natured banter. But he did take his job seriously. He was an aggressive advocate for his constituents in Virginia's 4th Congressional district for the past 18 years. He never forgot his roots, and never wavered in his commitment to fighting for the little guy, and he never lost sight of his role as their voice in our great system. But of all his many and important public accomplishments, Norm Sisisky was probably proudest of his service in the U.S. Navy, and of his advocacy in Congress for our servicemen and women. Those of us who have had the privilege of watching Norm battle on behalf of our armed services from his position on the House Armed Services Committee were always impressed by his extensive knowledge and his keen insight. And we were inspired by his determination to keep our defenses strong, even if we in the Senate occasionally had to face his formidable presence in disagreement in conference. I will forever remember Norm Sisisky as a man of considerable skill, devotion, humor, and honor. He leaves behind a loving family, devoted friends, and a strong nation. That is his proud legacy.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Tennessee in offering this amendment, and I am delighted to be joined by Senators Leahy, Collins and Jeffords as cosponsors. Senators Thompson, Collins and I spent the better part of a year working on the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation into fundraising improprieties in the 1996 federal election campaigns. That investigation sparked a lot of discussion about whether many things that happened in 1996 were illegal or just wrong--things like big soft money donations, attack ads run by tax-exempt organizations, fundraising in federal buildings and the like. But one thing I never heard argument about is whether it was illegal to knowingly infuse foreign money into a political campaign or to use unwitting straw donors to hide the true source of money that was going to candidates or parties. I, for one, had no doubt that the people who did those things in 1996 would be prosecuted and appropriately punished. Unfortunately, Mr. President, many of them were prosecuted, but I have grave doubts about whether they were appropriately punished. I know that there are many who blame the Justice Department for this, but when I first looked into it a couple of years ago, I was frankly surprised by what I learned--and that is that prosecutors just don't have the tools they need to effectively investigate, prosecute and punish people who egregiously violate our campaign finance laws. I think Charles LaBella, the former head of the Justice Department's Campaign Finance Task Force, put it best in a memo he wrote assessing the Department's campaign finance investigation. According to press reports, LaBella wrote that ``The fact is that the so-called enforcement system is nothing more than a bad joke.'' Unfortunately, it's a bad joke that has real consequences for the integrity of our campaigns and our democracy. Let me give you one example. Many people are understandably upset that Charlie Trie and John Huang didn't go to jail for what they did in '96. But the Federal Election Campaign Act, or FECA, doesn't authorize felony prosecutions. No matter how egregiously someone violates FECA, all they can be charged with is a misdemeanor. And people rarely go to jail for misdemeanors. To get around FECA's limits, prosecutors often charge campaign finance abusers with other federal crimes that are felonies, which is what they did with Trie and Huang. But that still often doesn't solve the problem. That's because when it comes time for sentencing, judges have to turn to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which still often bring light sentences because there is no guideline on campaign finance violations. The guidelines assign what's called a ``base offense level'' for each crime, and then they give a number of factors that, if present, tell the judge either to increase or decrease the offense level. The higher the offense level, the higher the sentence. Because the Guidelines don't have a provision on campaign finance violations, judges have to look for the next closest offense, and they often end up using the fraud guideline. But that guideline doesn't take into account the factors that make campaign finance violations so harmful, and the factors that are there often aren't particularly relevant to campaign finance violations. For example, there is nothing in the guideline that makes judges distinguish between a campaign finance violation involving $2,000 and one involving $2,000,000. So, when judges calculate the offense level of a defendant who funneled millions of foreign dollars into a US campaign, they don't end up with a high offense level, meaning that the defendant doesn't get a lengthy sentence. The prosecutors know this and the defendants know this, and that must be one of the reasons why prosecutors accepted plea bargains from John Huang and Charlie Trie--because they knew they wouldn't do much better even if they won convictions at trial. Our amendment would solve these problems, by putting a felony provision into FECA and by directing the Sentencing Commission to promulgate a campaign finance guideline. If those two things happen, we will have greater confidence that those who violate the law will be appropriately punished. I understand that some may worry that we are criminalizing participating in the political process. That is neither the intent nor the effect of this amendment. Our amendment would allow felony prosecutions only if, first, the defendant knowingly and willfully violated the law, and second, if the offense involved at least $25,000. So, it would not punish the donor who inadvertently goes over his contribution limits, nor would it go after the Party Committee clerk who makes a record-keeping mistake. Instead, our amendment aims at the opportunistic hustlers who come up with broad conspiracies to violate the election laws usually for personal gain by funneling foreign money into our campaigns or using large numbers of straw donors to hide their identity or make contributions they aren't allowed to make the people everyone says should be going to jail. Our amendment contains one other provision--one extending FECA's statute of limitations from three to five years. As of now, FECA has the only statute of limitations outside the Internal Revenue Code of less than five years. We need to change that so that prosecutors are denied the time they need to pursue complex crimes. Mr. President, this amendment is about something that we all should be able to agree upon, which is that actions that are already criminal and that we all agree are wrong should be punished. None of our amendment's provisions should be controversial, and I hope that we can see them enacted into law, so that we can go into the next election cycle with confidence that prosecutors have the tools necessary to deter and to punish those who would violate our election laws. I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

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