Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my distinguished colleague, Senator Nickles, the assistant majority leader, and my esteemed colleagues Senators Kempthorne, Mack, Hutchinson, Craig, and DeWine as a co-sponsor of The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Freedom of religion is a bedrock principle for the American people, a cherished right that lies at the very foundation of our country. It is appropriate, and it is right, that we as Americans express our concern about abuses of that freedom as a cornerstone of our foreign policy. This is not a concern that is unique to Americans, for the freedom of religion is explicitly recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sadly, and tragically, that recognition has not served to prevent the assault on believers of a variety of religions simply for seeking to follow their faith. We must not be silent. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 is a serious, thoughtful, and comprehensive approach to the problem of religious persecution. This bill employs a broad range of tools within the United States foreign policy apparatus for the most flexible, appropriate, and enduring response to violations of religious liberty. The bill is carefully crafted to do the following: promote religious freedom through both incentives and sanctions, with the long-term goal of alleviating religious persecution rather than merely punishing governments; build on principles contained in U.S. and international human rights law, on negotiating principles of U.S. Trade law, and on ideas advocated by religious and human rights leaders; dispel the option of silence, with its Annual Report publicly addressing all forms of religious persecution; promote the conclusion of binding agreements with offending governments to cease the violations, allowing for reasonable negotiation to achieve this goal; and sanction gross violators, through an annual review and sanctions process. The issue of religious persecution is one that we must be concerned about, one that we must take action on. The International Religious freedom Act of 1998 is an effective means of doing so and I am honored to be an original co-sponsor of it. There are other excellent approaches to this critical international problem, including the legislation cosponsored by Congressman Wolf and Senator Spector. In the weeks ahead we will look forward to working with all of our colleagues on this issue, inviting and welcoming a collective approach that will result in our bringing the most effective legislation to pass.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my distinguished colleague, Senator Nickles, the assistant majority leader, and my esteemed colleagues Senators Kempthorne, Mack, Hutchinson, Craig, and DeWine as a co-sponsor of The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Freedom of religion is a bedrock principle for the American people, a cherished right that lies at the very foundation of our country. It is appropriate, and it is right, that we as Americans express our concern about abuses of that freedom as a cornerstone of our foreign policy. This is not a concern that is unique to Americans, for the freedom of religion is explicitly recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sadly, and tragically, that recognition has not served to prevent the assault on believers of a variety of religions simply for seeking to follow their faith. We must not be silent. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 is a serious, thoughtful, and comprehensive approach to the problem of religious persecution. This bill employs a broad range of tools within the United States foreign policy apparatus for the most flexible, appropriate, and enduring response to violations of religious liberty. The bill is carefully crafted to do the following: promote religious freedom through both incentives and sanctions, with the long-term goal of alleviating religious persecution rather than merely punishing governments; build on principles contained in U.S. and international human rights law, on negotiating principles of U.S. Trade law, and on ideas advocated by religious and human rights leaders; dispel the option of silence, with its Annual Report publicly addressing all forms of religious persecution; promote the conclusion of binding agreements with offending governments to cease the violations, allowing for reasonable negotiation to achieve this goal; and sanction gross violators, through an annual review and sanctions process. The issue of religious persecution is one that we must be concerned about, one that we must take action on. The International Religious freedom Act of 1998 is an effective means of doing so and I am honored to be an original co-sponsor of it. There are other excellent approaches to this critical international problem, including the legislation cosponsored by Congressman Wolf and Senator Spector. In the weeks ahead we will look forward to working with all of our colleagues on this issue, inviting and welcoming a collective approach that will result in our bringing the most effective legislation to pass.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I had come to the floor to speak very briefly on the amendment, now withdrawn, that had been offered by the Senator from Texas. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues. Briefly, I wish to speak on the amendment offered by the Senator from Texas and the one that has been referred to by the Senator from Wisconsin about our Bosnia policy. A discussion was offered by the Senator from West Virginia about the power of the purse, and that is a power that we, of course, continue to have. We have, by explicit and implicit expressions, consented to and supported the policy that we are following in Bosnia. It is a successful policy. We will return to these discussions, as these two amendments suggest, before this year is ended. When it comes to discussing the power of the purse and the relations between the President and Congress on this matter of Bosnia policy, I simply wanted to say that I will be recorded as being in favor of the current course of our policy. It has worked. To set a date to create an exit strategy other than the one that is there now, which is the accomplishment of the Dayton process, would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or more colloquially, as our distinguished former majority leader Bob Dole has said, to impose an exit date now on our Bosnia policy, to cut off funding would be ``like a football team leaving the field in the second half when they are ahead of the game.'' Remarkable progress has been made in Bosnia, thanks to the presence of the NATO troops and, most particularly, our American presence there to end the war, to begin to rebuild a civil society. Even in the Serbian section there is new hope with new leadership from President Plasic and Prime Minister Dodik. We have proven that the reasonable exercise that diplomacy matched with force can end conflict and genocide in Europe. Now, that is a remarkable accomplishment. I would hate to see us jeopardize it by congressional termination of the funding or by artificially setting an exit date, or even an exit strategy, short of the accomplishment of the goals of the Dayton process. I thank my colleagues for giving me this opportunity. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am very pleased today to join with my colleagues, including Senators Specter and Rockefeller, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, and the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond, as an original cosponsor of this legislation which would authorize access to priority medical care for veterans treated with nasopharyngeal radium irradiation. Enactment of this legislation would be a major step forward for our veterans who received this treatment for inner-air problems between l940 and l960. I applaud the Clinton Administration for submitting this legislation. Mr. President, nasal radium irradiation was the largest scale radiation experiment in the United States and the consequences of exposing so many people to ionizing radiation has not been adequately addressed. It was used to alleviate pressure changes associated with submarine and flying duties for our soldiers and to treat children with inner ear problems. We have a moral obligation to do everything we can to help these veterans and civilians. This legislation is especially important to me because veterans who received this treatment included Navy submariners trained in Connecticut. I've been working for the last four years to get similar legislation enacted. Under this bill, veterans who received nasopharyngeal radium treatments will receive the same status as other atomic veterans who served in the occupational forces in Nagasaki and Hiroshima or were present at the test sites in Nevada and the Pacific. What this means is that these veterans will be able to enroll in the ionizing radiation registry which entitles them to a full and complete physical examination. They will also gain access to medical care to treat cancerous conditions detected during this examination that are associated with exposure to ionizing radiation. Studies that have analyzed the health effects of external irradiation of the head and neck indicate that there is an increased risk of tumours of the brain and of the thyroid, salivary and parathyroid glands. Mr. President, I've been working on many aspects of this problem for a number of years. I've been very concerned about notifying veterans who received this treatment so that they are aware of the concerns about the long term effects of such treatment and can take appropriate actions. Last September, the Veterans Administration agreed to provide such notification where they had the information available. The Veterans Administration is also considering performing a health surveillance involving about 400 veterans whose names were discovered in a logbook in April l996 at the Submarine School Museum in Connecticut. This would also be a significant step forward. I also remain very concerned about our civilians who have been exposed to this treatment. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 500,000 and two million civilians received this treatment between 1945 and l960. I was very pleased that CDC hosted a video conference on the treatment at Yale in September l995 and has published notices in medical bulletins about the treatment, including fact sheets for the general public. My number one priority on the civilian side now is attempting to ensure that civilians who received the treatment are notified. I have written to Secretary Shalala asking her to undertake a feasibility study about providing notice. People need to know that they had this treatment so that they can determine appropriate next steps, and our government should do everything possible to ensure that notice is provided. Mr. President, many challenges remain as the government seeks to fulfill its moral obligation to our veterans. But enactment of this legislation would be an extremely important step forward.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am very pleased today to join with my colleagues, including Senators Specter and Rockefeller, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, and the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond, as an original cosponsor of this legislation which would authorize access to priority medical care for veterans treated with nasopharyngeal radium irradiation. Enactment of this legislation would be a major step forward for our veterans who received this treatment for inner-air problems between l940 and l960. I applaud the Clinton Administration for submitting this legislation. Mr. President, nasal radium irradiation was the largest scale radiation experiment in the United States and the consequences of exposing so many people to ionizing radiation has not been adequately addressed. It was used to alleviate pressure changes associated with submarine and flying duties for our soldiers and to treat children with inner ear problems. We have a moral obligation to do everything we can to help these veterans and civilians. This legislation is especially important to me because veterans who received this treatment included Navy submariners trained in Connecticut. I've been working for the last four years to get similar legislation enacted. Under this bill, veterans who received nasopharyngeal radium treatments will receive the same status as other atomic veterans who served in the occupational forces in Nagasaki and Hiroshima or were present at the test sites in Nevada and the Pacific. What this means is that these veterans will be able to enroll in the ionizing radiation registry which entitles them to a full and complete physical examination. They will also gain access to medical care to treat cancerous conditions detected during this examination that are associated with exposure to ionizing radiation. Studies that have analyzed the health effects of external irradiation of the head and neck indicate that there is an increased risk of tumours of the brain and of the thyroid, salivary and parathyroid glands. Mr. President, I've been working on many aspects of this problem for a number of years. I've been very concerned about notifying veterans who received this treatment so that they are aware of the concerns about the long term effects of such treatment and can take appropriate actions. Last September, the Veterans Administration agreed to provide such notification where they had the information available. The Veterans Administration is also considering performing a health surveillance involving about 400 veterans whose names were discovered in a logbook in April l996 at the Submarine School Museum in Connecticut. This would also be a significant step forward. I also remain very concerned about our civilians who have been exposed to this treatment. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 500,000 and two million civilians received this treatment between 1945 and l960. I was very pleased that CDC hosted a video conference on the treatment at Yale in September l995 and has published notices in medical bulletins about the treatment, including fact sheets for the general public. My number one priority on the civilian side now is attempting to ensure that civilians who received the treatment are notified. I have written to Secretary Shalala asking her to undertake a feasibility study about providing notice. People need to know that they had this treatment so that they can determine appropriate next steps, and our government should do everything possible to ensure that notice is provided. Mr. President, many challenges remain as the government seeks to fulfill its moral obligation to our veterans. But enactment of this legislation would be an extremely important step forward.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair, and my friend and colleague from Delaware. He and others, including the Senator from Minnesota, have just finished, and my friend and senior colleague from Connecticut, who is the lead cosponsor of this, has spoken quite eloquently. I really in a sense say amen to what they have said, and will add a few words: First, pride that we have put together a bipartisan resolution here with original cosponsors: Senator Nickles, Senator Dodd, Senator Biden, Senator Helms, myself, and Senator Levin. This speaks volumes about the facts that we have learned. We have learned most recently from the lessons of Bosnian history--the concern, the inaction, the failure to be willing to use force early--that you wonder about whether the application of even diplomatic strength that was clear and resolute would draw a reaction, and, as a result in part, a lot of people suffered, a lot of people died, a lot of bloodshed occurred, and a wider war in Europe was threatened. When we finally acted--NATO acted--particularly through the air in 1995, the Serbians, who were portrayed as a monster, as an army difficult to contend with in response to the application of force by NATO from the air in 1995, basically found their way to Dayton, and the peace process began. That has led to a much better state. We have learned. We are acting quickly here. We are building on statements made by former President George Bush, the so-called ``Christmas statement,'' in which he stated quite clearly the vital national interest that the United States has in maintaining peace and stability in Kosovo--that fear being, of course, if we let that go, if we let the Serbian minority continue to suppress the Albanian majority, we will not only have been untrue to our own American principles of freedom and self-determination but that we will have turned our back on a situation that is bound to explode. A people will not long continue to accept the suppression that the minority has visited on the majority in Kosovo without striking back--weakly in some ways against a superior force but resolutely, because that yearning for freedom exists within the hearts of people everywhere, and certainly in the hearts of the Albanians in Kosovo. That is exactly what is happening now. The fear that President Bush expressed, which is a fear that has been shared across both branches of our Government and both parties, is that a conflict in Kosovo, which is inevitable under the current circumstances, will lead to a wider conflict in Europe, and once again the Balkans will be the match that lights a fire that none of us want to see occur. That is why the exercise of leadership by the contact groups-- Secretary Albright has been very strong, and very purposeful in this regard--here refreshingly after the unhappy experiences we had in the recent crisis in Iraq, we stand side by side with all of our major allies in NATO, and with Russia apparently in urging more than that; in expressing our willingness to impose sanctions on the Serbs, if they do not cease the suppression of the human rights of the Albanian people; if they do not come to the peace table. With this concurrent resolution, the U.S. Senate has the opportunity, which I am confident we will take soon today, to express quite clearly: One, that we condemn the Serbian Government in the strongest possible terms for the gross human rights violations against its citizens, including the indiscriminate use of Serbian paramilitary police units against the Albanian population of Kosovo. This is one of those stories that has not been widely told. But the Albanian people in Kosovo have been subject to persistent, not just discrimination but tyrannical exercise of power to deprive them of their own self-expression, of their own cultural expression, to some extent even of their own religious expression. We condemn terrorist actions by any groups or any individuals in Kosovo. We urge the international community to respond affirmatively to the call of the contact group for the imposition of broad sanctions against Serbia if it fails to prevent additional atrocities. And we call on our own Government to freeze funds of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia if they do not comply by March 25, 1998, with the terms set forth by the contact group. We ask our Government to demand that the Serbian Government and the ethnic Albanian leadership and representatives of all ethnic and religious groups in Kosovo immediately begin unconditional talks to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Kosovo and to provide for the exercise of legitimate civil and political rights of all people there. Then we demand that the international human rights monitors, especially from the Red Cross, who were forced to withdraw from Kosovo be allowed to return immediately in order to be able to report to the world on human rights violations there. This is a strong, unambivalent statement not just of the concern about the deprivation of human rights that we in the Senate feel but of our sense of purpose about using every element of strength we have with our allies to suppress the conflict and to put the conflicted parties on the path to peace. And that peace will have to recognize the legitimate--indeed, the universal--human rights of the Albanian people of Kosovo. Mr. President, I was intrigued by an article I read in one of the newspapers within the last week from Belgrade which suggested that Serbian public opinion in Belgrade is not behind the policies of the current Milosevic government in Kosovo which they think will lead to war. People in Serbia have not fallen for the siren appeals to nationalism--as I believe my colleague from Delaware said, an attempt to impose a sense of greater Serbian nationalism as not just an organizing principle but a tyrannical principle to replace communism. The people of Serbia are like people everywhere else. They have been suffering under this leadership. Their economy is in terrible shape. Their lives are not what they want them to be. Their children have futures much darker than they would like them to be. They want there to be peace. I read an article written by a Serbian nationalist who said, ``Kosovo is our past; it is not our future. Our future is here, to build a strong, vital, democratic, economically vibrant Serbia.'' Let us hope that those voices are heard. And I think when our voices are heard in the Senate today, we will make room for those more progressive voices in Serbia and peaceful voices in Kosovo to work their will so that the conflict will be ended and self-determination will be the future. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from Delaware for his continuing leadership on these and so many other matters of vital interest to our country, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution sponsored by Senator Bond to oppose less restrictive requirements for double- and triple-trailer trucks. The resolution states that existing prohibitions and restrictions on these vehicles should be retained. Mr. President, there are serious safety concerns associated with the operation of bigger trucks. Because of their instability, handling difficulties, and braking problems, bigger trucks cannot stop quickly to prevent accidents and cannot be controlled safely. Bigger truck also are disproportionately responsible for expensive damage to our roads and bridges that we all must pay to repair. I long have opposed the operation of bigger trucks in my home state of Connecticut. Traffic in Connecticut is too congested to allow these trucks, and the geography is too varied. On I-84 west of Hartford, for example, about 105,000 vehicles each day clog the highway, and traffic steadily is getting worse. Truck accidents on this stretch of road in the last year have been a cause of public concern. The last thing citizens of Connecticut need is even bigger trucks competing with cars here and on other crowded highways. Common sense alone tells us that these bigger trucks are not compatible with passenger vehicles. The public overwhelmingly agrees. Opinion polls show that the public consistently has opposed legalizing the use of bigger trucks. People find these vehicles intimidating and are very aware of the hazards associated with their operation. Mr. President, getting into a car exposes any one of us to the chance of an accident under the best of circumstances, and we know how many Americans are injured or killed in highway accidents. We do our best to protect ourselves on the road--for example by fastening our seat belts, by obeying traffic laws, and by refusing to ride with drivers who drink. With all the other risks we face on our increasing crowded roads, we surely do not need the added hazards posed by bigger trucks. I enthusiastically support the Bond resolution for this reason. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, on March 4 the Senate voted in favor of an amendment to ISTEA that would make .08 BAC for drunk drivers the law of the land. I voted for this amendment and was an original co- sponsor of the bill introduced last year by Senators Lautenberg and DeWine to establish .08 BAC as a national standard. Today I stand in support of a related amendment sponsored by Senators Lautenberg and DeWine that would establish national minimum penalties for repeat drunk driving offenders. Like the .08 BAC amendment, this amendment is supported by senators from both sides of the aisle. Having agreed upon a clear and reasonable standard for drunk driving, we need to take firm steps that stop repeat offenders and that discourage others from drinking and driving. The terrible price we pay as a society for drunk driving warrants firm measures to address the repeat offender problem. In 1996, over 17,000 Americans lost their lives in car accidents when a driver had been drinking alcohol. These Americans died in every state and they come from all walks of life. Many thousand more Americans suffer severe injuries in alcohol-related car accidents and families are devastated. Experts tell us that repeat offenders account for a disproportionate part of these drunk driving accidents. This amendment provides states with necessary flexibility and a number of important tools with which to combat the repeat offender problem. It includes minimum sentencing and license revocation. It allows states to implement vehicle impoundment or restrictions on vehicle use. Punitive actions are only part of what is necessary. The amendment also provides for alcohol assessment and appropriate treatment for repeat offenders to address the underlying problems that lead to drunk driving. These carefully considered steps to fight repeat offender drunk driving need to be implemented to protect all Americans. Drinking and driving once is inexcusable. Drinking and driving a second or third time simply cannot be tolerated. Madam President, I support the Lautenberg and DeWine repeat offender amendment to ISTEA.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Jeffords to announce the introduction of the Health Care Quest Act. Last year, he and I worked together on a bill to improve the quality of health care purchased by the federal government for Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and VA beneficiaries. The Health Care Quest Act extends our effort to improve health care quality to the more than 100 million beneficiaries in private sector plans. For millions of these individuals, passage of the bill will bring for the first time rights for external appeals when their plan denies payment for medical treatments. The appeals process will be available to any person who thinks they were wrongly denied coverage, and gives them the right of appeal to an impartial body outside the health plan with a decision guaranteed on a timely basis. A timely decision is crucial to a sick person or parent of a child with an illness and this bill sets out very specific timeliness the health plan must meet for the appeal. The bill guarantees reimbursement for people who go to the emergency room thinking they are sick. Without enactment, a father who goes to the emergency room because he thinks that he is having a heart attack could be left with thousands of dollars of bills. I think that we can rely on the wisdom of people to decide when they need to go to the hospital. a person with a medical emergency should not have to wait to be buzzed in to the emergency room by a managed care bureaucrat hundreds of miles away. Medical care is more serious than admitting visitors to an apartment building. Patients should expect physicians to recommend the best treatment options and serve as their advocates. Protections from so-called ``gag clauses'' were included in last year's Balance Budget Act for Medicare beneficiaries. We are extending these protections to beneficiaries of private sector plans. One distinctive feature of the Health Care Quest Act is its focus on empowering purchasers, providers, and consumers with useful information about their health care. At the center of this effort is a new health care quality advisory body to follow up on the good work conducted by the President's Advisory Commission. The Health Quality Council will continuously update and expand the comparative measures of quality available to drive competition based on value. If the new grievance process in the bill provides a floor under quality, the new information requirements point consumers toward the best care available. I would like to end with a comment on the need for quality legislation. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that close to half of Americans--48 percent--report they personally, or someone they know, have experienced problems such as lack of information, problems with access to specialists, disputes over emergency room coverage, or no recourse to external grievance procedure. Low-quality health care's tragic result is sobering, 34.7% children in HMO's not immunized in 1996. 1,600 unnecessary cardiac deaths occurred among 57 million HMO enrollees because a common treatment for heart attacks (beta-blockers) was not used appropriately. 1,200 breast cancers undetected resulting in 1,800 years of life that could have been saved. Quality is often an issue of where you get your care with wide variations at sites within easy driving distance of each other. One of the premier hospitals in Connecticut, Yale-Haven, discharges over 92% of its heart attack victims alive--despite taking sicker patients with more health problems. Other hospitals within a thirty-minute drive have survival rates as much as 10 percent lower. Yet few patients know their choice of destination may be a life-and-death decision. The Health Care Quest Act attacks these deadly problems. After it is enacted, a Connecticut resident with an emergency can go to a hospital armed with information, and once there expect their care to be covered by their insurer. If they have a problem they will be get an appeal. And each day they are healthy, a Health Quality Council will be working to make sure the best possible health system is there when they need it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend Senator Dodd in introducing legislation that is vitally important to the future of Connecticut's only national park, the Weir Farm National Historic Site. As my colleagues may recall, Weir Farm was the home of the great American painter J. Alden Weir, who is widely considered a leader of the American Impressionism movement of the late 19th Century. The brilliant natural beauty of Weir Farm's landscape served as the inspiration for much of Weir's art as well as the work of several other renowned Impressionists who often traveled to the farm at the time. The splendor and serenity of this place also moved Weir's descendants and other artists who later made their home at the farm to preserve much of the landscape in the pristine state that originally inspired the many painters who visited there. Congress sought to protect this enormously valuable piece of our national heritage when it approved legislation that Senator Dodd and I cosponsored in 1990 to make Weir Farm part of the National Park System and the first site to honor an American painter. This legislation (P.L. 101-485) authorized the Park Service to acquire 62 acres of the original Weir property along with several of the buildings that Weir lived and worked in and many of the original furnishings. The State of Connecticut strongly supported this project and helped make it possible by approving a $4.25 million bond issue to purchase the 60 acres of open space surrounding the Weir homestead. The legislation was also strongly endorsed by a coalition of 20 leading national conservation groups, including The Nature Conservancy, which owns a large preserve of open land adjacent to the park property that further enhances the park's conservation mission. Today, thousands of visitors who make their way to Weir Farm each year can get lost in the tranquility of the place. They can tour the studio where Weir and his successors toiled and the classic New England barn that caught the eye of many visiting artists and that was rehabilitated with a generous appropriation from Congress. But something is missing--the art itself. Sadly, these visitors cannot view the wonderful collection of Impressionist works that the park managers and supporters are in the process of acquiring through private donations. That is because there is simply no place to put them on the current site. The cramped historic buildings are ill-equipped to accommodate even a legitimate visitor center, let alone a museum-quality gallery. And the possibility of building an addition has rightly been ruled out of the question because it would distort the landscape and run counter to the park's mission of preserving the historic character of the property. The legislation we are introducing today would help fill that void and help the park fulfill another critical part of its mission, which is to reunite Weir Farm's historic landscape with the rich array of art it inspired. Specifically, our bill would authorize the Park Service to go forward with its plan to acquire a neighboring property outside the park's boundary and build a full-fledged visitor center to house the collection of privately-acquired paintings from Weir, Childe Hassam, John Twachtman and several others. A companion version of this bill is being introduced in the House today as well by Congressman Jim Maloney, who represents the district in which the park is located. The Park Service approved this project as part of Weir Farm's long- term General Management Plan. The Park Service has already identified an ideal 13-acre site to house the visitor center, as well as an adjacent administrative and maintenance facility that was also called for under the management plan. The owners of the targeted site are willing sellers and the Trust for Public Land--with a donation from the Weir Farm Trust, the park's private partner--has generously agreed to act as an intermediary in the purchase by putting an option on the property to prevent it from being developed. But for the project to go forward, Congress must first approve the acquisition and a one-time change in the park's boundary. Our legislation would do just that, providing the Park Service with the authority to acquire up to 15 additional acres and expand the park's boundary to include this new land. It would also raise the authorization for land acquisition included in the original Weir Farm legislation up from $1.5 million to $4 million. The Park Service estimates that the total cost of acquiring the property for the future visitor center will be $1.6 million. Of that total, it is expected that approximately $500,000 would come from unexpended land acquisition funds already appropriated by Congress and state and private contributions. That leaves a Federal contribution in the neighborhood of $1.1 million, which the Park Service has indicated it will request in its budget for fiscal year 2000. The projected cost of building the visitor center and the adjoining administrative/ maintenance facility is $4.7 million, of which approximately half would come from private sources and the other half would come from Federal funding through the Park Service. This project not only has the strong support of the Park Service and the State of Connecticut but of the communities surrounding Weir Farm, which straddles the town line between Wilton and Ridgefield. A number of residents in Ridgefield, where the visitor center would be built, initially expressed concern about the impact the project could have on the neighborhood. But the park managers and the leaders of the Weir Farm Trust worked diligently to address those concerns and show the community that the visitor center would in no way threaten the pastoral nature of the area or significantly worsen traffic along the neighborhood's narrow, windy roads. In fact, the friends of Weir Farm showed that this plan would actually enhance the conservation goals of the park and the community. It would prevent the historic character of the Weir property from being disturbed. And the proposed visitor center site would link the park to an additional 119 acres of contiguous open space owned by the state and the Town of Ridgefield. Also, an independent study showed that the proposed visitor center would not significantly impact the flow of traffic in the neighborhood, and the Park Service is confident that this plan provides the best long-term solution for managing transportation to the park site. In addition to reaching out to local residents, the park managers and the Ridgefield town government collaborated closely with my office and Senator Dodd's office to help us craft the bill we are introducing today in such a way as to ensure that the natural and historic character of the site would be preserved and to ensure the town maintained control over how the property was to be developed. As a result of these efforts, both the Ridgefield Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Selectmen formally approved this legislation late last year. This was not an easy process, and I want to express my deep appreciation to Weir Farm's superintendent, Sarah Olson, and to the town leaders in Ridgefield for their cooperation and their commitment to reach a resolution that is for the good of both the community and the park. The visitor center we're proposing to build will help Weir Farm realize its full potential not just as a pastoral prize but as a true cultural landmark, one that will likely attract art lovers from throughout the region and hopefully the nation to see Weir's jewel and its splendid setting. The alternative, Mr. President, is that if this project does not move forward, we will have squandered a wonderfully unique opportunity to make Weir Farm the only place of its kind to wed art and artistic vision in this way. The Ridgefield Press and The Wilton Bulletin, the leading local newspapers, urged us not to let this opportunity slip away in a joint editorial published last year that strongly endorsed the visitor center project. ``Bringing the art to Weir Farm,'' the editors wrote, ``has the potential to turn the site into something more than a retreat for artists and hikers--allowing an unusual cultural experience of considerable depth.'' Senator Dodd and I would ask our colleagues to help us seize this important opportunity by supporting this legislation, which would complete the mission we started eight years ago when we agreed to make Weir Farm part of the park system. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend Senator Dodd in introducing legislation that is vitally important to the future of Connecticut's only national park, the Weir Farm National Historic Site. As my colleagues may recall, Weir Farm was the home of the great American painter J. Alden Weir, who is widely considered a leader of the American Impressionism movement of the late 19th Century. The brilliant natural beauty of Weir Farm's landscape served as the inspiration for much of Weir's art as well as the work of several other renowned Impressionists who often traveled to the farm at the time. The splendor and serenity of this place also moved Weir's descendants and other artists who later made their home at the farm to preserve much of the landscape in the pristine state that originally inspired the many painters who visited there. Congress sought to protect this enormously valuable piece of our national heritage when it approved legislation that Senator Dodd and I cosponsored in 1990 to make Weir Farm part of the National Park System and the first site to honor an American painter. This legislation (P.L. 101-485) authorized the Park Service to acquire 62 acres of the original Weir property along with several of the buildings that Weir lived and worked in and many of the original furnishings. The State of Connecticut strongly supported this project and helped make it possible by approving a $4.25 million bond issue to purchase the 60 acres of open space surrounding the Weir homestead. The legislation was also strongly endorsed by a coalition of 20 leading national conservation groups, including The Nature Conservancy, which owns a large preserve of open land adjacent to the park property that further enhances the park's conservation mission. Today, thousands of visitors who make their way to Weir Farm each year can get lost in the tranquility of the place. They can tour the studio where Weir and his successors toiled and the classic New England barn that caught the eye of many visiting artists and that was rehabilitated with a generous appropriation from Congress. But something is missing--the art itself. Sadly, these visitors cannot view the wonderful collection of Impressionist works that the park managers and supporters are in the process of acquiring through private donations. That is because there is simply no place to put them on the current site. The cramped historic buildings are ill-equipped to accommodate even a legitimate visitor center, let alone a museum-quality gallery. And the possibility of building an addition has rightly been ruled out of the question because it would distort the landscape and run counter to the park's mission of preserving the historic character of the property. The legislation we are introducing today would help fill that void and help the park fulfill another critical part of its mission, which is to reunite Weir Farm's historic landscape with the rich array of art it inspired. Specifically, our bill would authorize the Park Service to go forward with its plan to acquire a neighboring property outside the park's boundary and build a full-fledged visitor center to house the collection of privately-acquired paintings from Weir, Childe Hassam, John Twachtman and several others. A companion version of this bill is being introduced in the House today as well by Congressman Jim Maloney, who represents the district in which the park is located. The Park Service approved this project as part of Weir Farm's long- term General Management Plan. The Park Service has already identified an ideal 13-acre site to house the visitor center, as well as an adjacent administrative and maintenance facility that was also called for under the management plan. The owners of the targeted site are willing sellers and the Trust for Public Land--with a donation from the Weir Farm Trust, the park's private partner--has generously agreed to act as an intermediary in the purchase by putting an option on the property to prevent it from being developed. But for the project to go forward, Congress must first approve the acquisition and a one-time change in the park's boundary. Our legislation would do just that, providing the Park Service with the authority to acquire up to 15 additional acres and expand the park's boundary to include this new land. It would also raise the authorization for land acquisition included in the original Weir Farm legislation up from $1.5 million to $4 million. The Park Service estimates that the total cost of acquiring the property for the future visitor center will be $1.6 million. Of that total, it is expected that approximately $500,000 would come from unexpended land acquisition funds already appropriated by Congress and state and private contributions. That leaves a Federal contribution in the neighborhood of $1.1 million, which the Park Service has indicated it will request in its budget for fiscal year 2000. The projected cost of building the visitor center and the adjoining administrative/ maintenance facility is $4.7 million, of which approximately half would come from private sources and the other half would come from Federal funding through the Park Service. This project not only has the strong support of the Park Service and the State of Connecticut but of the communities surrounding Weir Farm, which straddles the town line between Wilton and Ridgefield. A number of residents in Ridgefield, where the visitor center would be built, initially expressed concern about the impact the project could have on the neighborhood. But the park managers and the leaders of the Weir Farm Trust worked diligently to address those concerns and show the community that the visitor center would in no way threaten the pastoral nature of the area or significantly worsen traffic along the neighborhood's narrow, windy roads. In fact, the friends of Weir Farm showed that this plan would actually enhance the conservation goals of the park and the community. It would prevent the historic character of the Weir property from being disturbed. And the proposed visitor center site would link the park to an additional 119 acres of contiguous open space owned by the state and the Town of Ridgefield. Also, an independent study showed that the proposed visitor center would not significantly impact the flow of traffic in the neighborhood, and the Park Service is confident that this plan provides the best long-term solution for managing transportation to the park site. In addition to reaching out to local residents, the park managers and the Ridgefield town government collaborated closely with my office and Senator Dodd's office to help us craft the bill we are introducing today in such a way as to ensure that the natural and historic character of the site would be preserved and to ensure the town maintained control over how the property was to be developed. As a result of these efforts, both the Ridgefield Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Selectmen formally approved this legislation late last year. This was not an easy process, and I want to express my deep appreciation to Weir Farm's superintendent, Sarah Olson, and to the town leaders in Ridgefield for their cooperation and their commitment to reach a resolution that is for the good of both the community and the park. The visitor center we're proposing to build will help Weir Farm realize its full potential not just as a pastoral prize but as a true cultural landmark, one that will likely attract art lovers from throughout the region and hopefully the nation to see Weir's jewel and its splendid setting. The alternative, Mr. President, is that if this project does not move forward, we will have squandered a wonderfully unique opportunity to make Weir Farm the only place of its kind to wed art and artistic vision in this way. The Ridgefield Press and The Wilton Bulletin, the leading local newspapers, urged us not to let this opportunity slip away in a joint editorial published last year that strongly endorsed the visitor center project. ``Bringing the art to Weir Farm,'' the editors wrote, ``has the potential to turn the site into something more than a retreat for artists and hikers--allowing an unusual cultural experience of considerable depth.'' Senator Dodd and I would ask our colleagues to help us seize this important opportunity by supporting this legislation, which would complete the mission we started eight years ago when we agreed to make Weir Farm part of the park system. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the bi-partisan amendment introduced by Mr. Lautenberg and Mr. DeWine to set a national illegal blood alcohol content (BAC) limit of .08 for drivers over age 21. I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of the bill upon which this amendment is based. Mr. President, the drunk driving problem is a national disgrace. Its severe emotional and financial costs to society are staggering. In 1996, more than 17,000 Americans died in alcohol-related crashes. That means someone in America loses a loved one every 30 seconds to a driver who is drunk. In 1996, more than 321,000 persons were injured in crashes where police report that alcohol was present. When you count up the health care costs, lost work, and other economic impacts, alcohol-related crashes also add up to a monetary loss to society of more than $44 billion every year. It's not surprising that a recent survey by Allstate identified drunk driving as the #1 highway safety problem in the eyes of a majority of Americans. We know that the physical and mental abilities of virtually all drivers are impaired at .08. This impairment includes critical driving tasks such as vision, balance, reaction time and hearing, judgement, and the ability to concentrate. The heightened risk of a crash starts with the first drink, but rises rapidly when BAC is as high as .08. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has concluded that, in single-vehicle crashes, the relative risk for drivers with a BAC between .05 and .09 is more than 11 times greater than for drivers with no alcohol in their systems. Although setting a minimum BAC isn't the only answer to our national drunk driving problem, it's a necessary part of the solution. Studies show that .08 actually has saved lives where it is law by deterring unsafe drinking behavior. In fact, figures show that even heavy drinkers, who account for a large number of drunk driving arrests, are less likely to get behind the wheel because of .08 laws. We also should remember that .08 makes it easier for police and courts to do their jobs--they are less likely accept excuses when faced with offenders who have BAC levels at or around .10. A national strategy to require driver safety measures like this one has worked before. We have seen, for example, how earlier national laws that require seat belts and mandate zero tolerance for drinking and driving under age 21 dramatically have reduced driving fatalities. More than an estimated 16,000 lives have been saved since 1975 by the 21 drink age law. It also is very important to remember that the concept of .08 is not new or radical. 15 States already have adopted .08. Many industrialized nations have even lower legal limits ranging from .02 to .08. Don't be misled by those who may argue that .08 laws prohibit reasonable alcohol consumption. Such is not the experience of States that have adopted this law. To be legally drunk under a .08 standard, a 170-pound male must consume four and a half drinks in an hour and on an empty stomach. That's not what I consider social drinking and that's just not the kind of behavior that most of us who drive would consider safe. Mr. President, we need .08 BAC as a national limit. Having one mandatory national standard doesn't permit confusion about what's safe and what's reasonable. Pedestrians, passengers, and safe drivers all need protection from drunk drivers no matter where they live.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes, prior to adjournment. Understanding, therefore, that I am all that stands between the Chamber and adjournment, I will try to speak less than 10 minutes.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, one of the great opportunities that comes with having been elected a Member of the U.S. Senate is to participate in deliberations on this great floor. Not just, may I say, the discussions and debates and votes on specific legislation, but to participate in what we call here morning business, which I have always seen as the people's forum, an opportunity to speak on events of the day, both public and, in some senses, those that are more personal. I would like to do that this morning. The subject involves athletics, but it also involves, I think, values. This will not be the first time that any Member of the Senate has spoken on the floor about athletics, particularly about a team in his or her own home State. But the circumstances that lead me to stand today are somewhat different. In my own home State of Connecticut, and it seems in many places across the Nation, there are discussions in newspapers, in diners, on the radio, probably around the water cooler at the office, about what happened on the UCONN women's basketball team this week. Our great coach, Geno Auriemma, coach of our No. 2 ranked University of Connecticut women's basketball team--and, I may say with some honesty and a certain amount of envy, the occupant of the chair happens to come from the State where the No. 1 team is, Tennessee. But Coach Auriemma gave a most unusual gift, as it was put, to his All- America forward, Nykesha Sales, who is also a native of the State of Connecticut. As is known by most, with the help of the Villanova Wildcats, who UCONN was playing on this occasion, the coaches, the referees, in fact even with the help and consent of Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, Coach Auriemma gave Nykesha Sales her place as an all-time leading scorer in Connecticut women's basketball history. That seems generous enough and positive enough, but, as my colleagues probably know, the record has been called into question. Although the box score lists those two points, they were obtained through an uncontested lay-up that required the involvement and consent, if you will, of every player on the floor of that arena and of the coaches as well. Three days prior to that match, that basketball game against Villanova, Nykesha Sales ruptured her Achilles' tendon, thus ending her season and, since this is her senior year, her career at the University of Connecticut, leaving her just two points short of the record as the all-time women's basketball scorer, a record that we all felt, who have watched this wonderful young woman with pride over these last years--we all knew she deserved. This was heartbreaking news, not just to her and her family but to the entire team, to the coach, to fans throughout the State and I would guess fans of college basketball everywhere. So Coach Auriemma reacted as a human being with a big heart, which he has; as a great coach as well. He went to the extra effort to arrange a way for his star player to get that game-time basket that she needed to establish her place in the University of Connecticut record books. Since that moment, Tuesday night of this week, Coach Auriemma has been criticized by many who say that this gift that he gave, which a lot of us feel was not just a gift but something Nykesha Sales earned over her extraordinary career at the University of Connecticut, somehow calls into question the integrity of the game, that in some way it is another form of cheating, some have said surprisingly, and that it in some way cheapens the record. I rise today to say to my colleagues here in the Senate that I feel quite the opposite. I think in this gesture, in this act, Coach Auriemma, the coach of the Villanova team, and all the other players on the field, have reminded us that beneath the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat with which they and we all identify, sports can provide opportunities for values to be learned and for lessons to be conveyed. Sports are a passion here in America. I yield to that passion myself. We find a way, over and over, to take personally the things that happen on courts and in stadiums around the country. The reason I think we are so attuned to these events is because of the complex web of individual dramas underneath the final score that keeps us riveted throughout the seasons and throughout the years. Just as teams become families among themselves when they are at their best, so do our favorite teams, in fact, become our own extended families. Former Connecticut women's basketball star, current professional basketball star Rebecca Lobo perhaps said it best about the events of this week, when she said, ``if the UCONN family''--and I stress the family here--``doesn't have a problem with it, why does everyone else?'' In fact, this was a University of Connecticut basketball record, a school record. There are obviously unforgettable moments in sports, moments when we are all left full of pride, sometimes full of despair, disappointment. We in Connecticut have had our share, like the extraordinary Tate George buzzerbeater in the 1990 NCAA tournament, the same NCAA championship that the same UCONN women's basketball team won in 1995. But I would say that the record that Nykesha Sales established this week joins that kind of high ranking of memorable and historic events in Connecticut sports history. It's true that Nykesha's basket may not have been the single greatest moment of her athletic prowess, nonetheless it was a remarkably profound moment of sportsmanship, of values, of team spirit, of a sense of family that these teams at their best exemplify. For those who would condemn or criticize a caring coach and a grateful player for doing this, I really ask you to reconsider, again, beneath the box score, the final tally, the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, what these sports, particularly at the college level, can convey to those who participate in them. I think we have a coach here, and a player, who have exemplified the very best in their careers. Coach Auriemma displayed a level of concern and, in fact, a kind of courage in doing what he did, and it exemplifies the program that athletic director Lew Perkins has set up at the University of Connecticut, and that not only Coach Auriemma and the women's team exemplify but Coach Jim Calhoun on the men's team do as well. These are families. These two coaches are, in a way, for the sake of those families, the fathers. They practice a kind of what some may call ``tough love.'' They demand a lot of their players, but they also give a lot back to those players. There are no two more competitive coaches, no two more competitive teams; yet, underneath that, extraordinary personal relationships have developed. I always take great pride and am moved by the stories of the UCONN basketball players, men and women, when they leave the school, graduate and go on--and this, of course, is true throughout the country and important to remember--that they have a tendency to call the coaches for advice about personal decisions in their lives. So there are lessons learned here and values exemplified. Perhaps these don't receive as much attention as they should in the coverage of sports today. But, again, particularly at the college level, I think that this is ultimately what it is all about. In this unusual act, Coach Auriemma, and everyone else who was involved in this decision, I think, has not only done the right thing, but have reminded us that as much as we all share in the exultation of victory and the agony of defeat when it affects our team, that something else is going on which is that individual skills are being developed, that relationships are being formed, that a kind of community is being formed, that people accept responsibility for one another, and that those values--as we have seen as these players have left the University of Connecticut and so many other college programs around the country--those values, those relationships, that trust continues on beyond and after the competitive days. It leaves us, thrilled as we all are to follow our favorite teams, with lessons that are ultimately more lasting and certainly are profoundly encouraging. So, perhaps it is only sports. Maybe we all make too much of it. But I wanted to rise to the defense of a great coach, a great player, a great program, a great team, and tell them that I am proud of them. I would say, finally, and with all respect to the occupant of the chair, it is going to be hard for this UCONN women's basketball team to go on to the post-season competition without Nykesha Sales, who was their star. I know they are going to give it their all, and I want to say to them that no matter what happens in this NCAA post-season competition, that as far as I am concerned--and I am sure I speak for everybody in the State of Connecticut, regardless of what the results are--this team and this coach, both on the court and off, are winners. I thank the Chair and I believe with that and yielding of the floor, the Senate will be adjourned.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and thank my friend from Maine, and thank her particularly along with Senator Jeffords for their extraordinary progressive action in trying to find common ground and for constituting what is now clearly a bipartisan majority of the Senate in favor of campaign finance reform. It may be blocked by the filibuster rules, but there is a majority here that recognizes the gravity of the challenge to America's democracy posed by the current absence of any real regulation of campaign spending in our country and campaign contributions and wants to do something about it. I support the Snowe-Jeffords proposal. I want to approach it from this point of view. Mr. President, we all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say here, having listened to this debate, that the beauty of the first amendment is also clearly in the eye of the beholder because the first amendment has been used in this debate to oppose measures that are being designed to avoid evasion of laws that have been upheld as constitutional. Let me be very specific and brief. The law says that an individual cannot give more than $2,000 to a campaign. Some might say that is an abridgement of free speech, but it has been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in Buckley. The law says that corporations and unions cannot contribute from their treasuries for political purposes to affect elections. Some might say that was an abridgement, a violation of their free speech, but that has been upheld as constitutional. But what has happened? Soft money, issue ads, which are clearly ads for or against candidates have been used to evade those clearly constitutional restrictions on contributions to political campaigns. And so we have to do something about it. It will not be a violation of the first amendment. The current ability of parties and outside groups to disguise candidate-focused electioneering ads as issue ads undermines these longstanding and important Federal elections policies. A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that in 1996, 29 groups spent as much as $150 million on what the groups called issue ads, but which the Annenberg study leaves little doubt were mostly aimed at electing or defeating particular candidates. Mr. President, $150 million, that is approximately one-third of the total spent for all ads by all candidates. That study found that over 85 percent of those so-called issue ads mentioned a candidate by name, almost 60 percent used a candidate's picture and, worst of all, more than 40 percent of those were pure attack ads. Let us pass Snowe-Jeffords which is clearly constitutional and will stop these evasions of laws limiting contributions to campaigns that have been upheld as constitutional. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair for the very gracious way in which he conveyed that message, which is very typical of the occupant of the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleague from Wisconsin. Mr. President, I have spent so much time on this subject in the last year that I think I can just clear my throat in 5 minutes. But I will try to do more than that, and I hope to have additional opportunities to comment as the debate goes on. I want to speak against the underlying proposal, the so-called Paycheck Protection Act, and in favor of the substitute McCain-Feingold proposal that is before us. The Paycheck Protection Act, very briefly, is a very disappointing response to the many problems the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee uncovered in its recently concluded investigation. In fact, I was very surprised to see my dear friend, the majority leader, say yesterday, ``I have laid down a bill that embodies the most important campaign finance reform of all, paycheck protection.'' Frankly, there is not a single problem, with all respect, looked at during our investigation in the Governmental Affairs Committee that would have been solved with the Paycheck Protection Act. ``Paycheck Protection'' doesn't touch foreign money, it doesn't touch the use of public buildings for fundraising, it doesn't touch the problem of unregulated and undisclosed attack ads, and it doesn't touch the abuse of tax-exempt status by tax-exempt organizations. In fact, the underlying bill, the Paycheck Protection Act, is a response to a problem that doesn't exist. No one is forced to join a union, and under the Beck decision, nonunion members already have an absolute right to ask for a refund of the amount they paid the union in agency fees that went to political activities of which they do not approve. Union members, for their part, voluntarily join an organization, and they express a desire to have their leadership represent them, both with management and more generally. If they disagree with the way in which the leadership of the union is spending that money for political or legislative purposes, they have the same right that shareholders have who are disgruntled with the activities of the leadership of a corporation. Shareholders can launch a proxy fight. Disgruntled union members can try to change the leadership of the union. There is a democratic process dramatically, intensely supervised by the Federal Government itself. In fact, I suggest that the Paycheck Protection Act as before us is not only a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, it is itself a problem because it is of doubtful constitutionality. This bill says to a union that before it can involve itself in political activities, before it can spend its own general treasury funds, contributed by dues-paying members, not just on political campaigns but, by definition in the underlying bill, in attempting to influence legislation, the union leadership needs the separate prior written voluntary authorization of each one of their members. To me, that comes close to being a prior restraint on the exercise by a labor union of the rights it receives under the First Amendment to petition our Government to attempt to influence legislation and to free association. If that is not the case, it certainly raises questions of equal protection, because there is no similar restriction put on any other organization that I know of, including particularly corporations. True, there is language in the paycheck protection bill that deals with corporations, but by not even trying to cover shareholders, it is plainly not at all equivalent to the restriction on the expenditure of union dues. On the other side, McCain-Feingold, with appreciation to its two cosponsors--a great example of the kind of bipartisanship that should exist around here--is a practical response to the problems that came before the Governmental Affairs Committee. The arguments against it, with all respect, are premised on this strange twist of principle that money is speech. I think it was my friend, the junior Senator from Georgia, who said last year, if money is speech under the Constitution, that must mean that the more money you have, the greater is your right to free speech. Is that what the Framers of the Constitution meant when they said that all of us are created equal, we have an equal right, unfettered, to petition our Government? I don't think so. Against that specious principle, money is speech, they have undercut the sacred principle of equality of access to our Government. So I say the soft money ban and the other limits in the McCain- Feingold proposal are constitutional. In the Buckley decision, the Court made it clear that it is constitutional to limit contributions to campaigns, and this ban on soft money is just another way to do that. The fact is, as Chairman Thompson of the Governmental Affairs Committee said during our proceedings, effectively, there is no campaign finance law anymore in the United States of America, and the reason why the limits on individual contributions, the prohibitions on corporate and union money that are in the law are no longer effective is mostly because of soft money.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation designed to prevent future occurrences of some of the more egregious campaign finance abuses that we learned of during the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation into the 1996 federal election campaigns. What I have particularly in mind is the misuse of taxpayer money by our presidential candidates and by various tax-exempt organizations that intervened in both congressional and presidential elections in 1996. Over the course of its inquiry, the Governmental Affairs Committee compiled a compelling record that leaves little question our political system was subverted in 1996 by overzealous presidential campaigns working with their parties to circumvent spending limits and by independent organizations abusing the special tax status conferred upon them. At times, the campaigns and outside groups conducted their business as if the election laws were written in invisible ink. Our democratic process suffered as a result. My proposal focuses on two specific areas of the law whose spirit and intent were violated in 1996. They are the campaign finance statutes regarding the public financing of presidential campaigns and the tax code, as it applies to the political activity of tax-exempt organizations. Let me first make clear that I am a steadfast supporter of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. I hope the ideas that I present today might be considered as supplemental to it, since they complement McCain-Feingold and fill in some of the gaps that only became apparent after our year-long Governmental Affairs Committee investigation. The Abuse of Public Financing for Presidential Campaigns Under the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act and the Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account Act, the taxpayers spent approximately $236 million on the 1996 presidential campaigns. The purpose of this support was to limit spending in order to protect presidential candidates from the potentially corrupting influence of full-time fund-raising and to reduce the flow of private money into campaign coffers. The two laws give public subsidies to presidential candidates and their parties at three stages. First, the Treasury matches contributions raised by certain primary candidates who agree to limit their primary spending to an amount specified in the statute. Second, political parties may receive a specified amount to fund their presidential nominating conventions if they agree to spend no more than that. Third, major party nominees who agree to limit their spending to the amount they receive in public funds are eligible for full public financing during the general election. Both of 1996's major party candidates accepted public financing and pledged in return to limit their spending to $37 million during the primary season and $62 million during the general election. But, as the Governmental Affairs Committee's hearings demonstrated, the candidates effectively ignored their pledges. Instead of curtailing their fund-raising and limiting themselves to spending the amount they agreed to, the two major party candidates continued raising massive amounts of money which their parties then spent on TV ads that advanced the nominees' candidacies. In other words, the public did not get the behavior they were supposed to get in return for their $236 million. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, S. 25, would go a long way toward preventing these abuses by banning soft money and limiting the sources of funding available for running advertisements using a candidate's likeness or name within 60 days of an election. But because the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo explicitly sanctioned Congress's ability to impose even greater restrictions on those candidates who accept public financing, we should go beyond S. 25's proposals in regard to publicly-funded presidential candidates. Therefore, I am introducing legislation that would underscore the original goal of the presidential public financing laws by banning candidates from raising soft money throughout their campaigns, requiring them to limit fundraising to hard money during the primary season, and prohibiting them from raising any money at all after they are nominated. My bill would further prevent presidential candidates from using the parties to circumvent spending limits by making illegal their involvement in any party spending on advertising that exceeds the amount federal law in 2 U.S.C. Sec. 441a(d) explicitly authorizes for candidate/party coordination. I am also proposing to limit what parties seeking public financing of their conventions can do. To get convention financing, parties would have to agree to use only hard money to pay for advertising using the name or likeness of the presidential candidates and would be limited in their coordinated or independent expenditures on behalf of presidential candidates to the amount set forth in Section 441a(d). Parties seeking convention financing also would have to agree to a ban on soft money and would be prohibited from soliciting or directing contributions for tax-exempt organizations. The Abuse of Tax-Exempt Organizations And that leads me to an equally troubling phenomenon in the 1996 elections, which was the improper use of tax-exempts to circumvent the tax-code and campaign finance laws so that they could conduct partisan campaign-related activity. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) mandates strict limits on who may contribute to campaigns, and it imposes reporting and disclosure requirements on organizations involved in federal elections. The purpose is to ensure honest elections by limiting the sources of campaign funds and publicly identifying those trying to influence votes. Groups with Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) status --which confers not only tax-exempt status but also the ability to receive tax- deductible contributions--may not intervene in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate. The tax code permits organizations with Section 501(c)(4) status--which qualify for tax- exempt status, but whose contributors cannot deduct their contributions--to engage in non-partisan election advocacy as long as that is not the group's primary activity. Unfortunately, the scope of the activities some of these groups engaged in during the 1996 elections went far beyond what Congress intended. The Republican National Committee, (RNC), for example, infused the 501(c)(4) organization Americans for Tax Reform, (ATR), with over $4.5 million in the weeks leading up to the 1996 election. The RNC sent that money to ATR just in time for ATR to pay its bills for a direct mail and phone bank campaign involving four million calls and 19 million pieces of mail explicitly disputing the Democrats' position on Medicare as it related to the November 5th election. By funneling money through an outside group like ATR, the RNC was effectively able to hide the fact that it was behind the mail and phone calls. Recipients of the material funded by the RNC were left with the impression that it came from a disinterested organization, not the party itself. The RNC also steered large amounts of money to the American Defense Institute (ADI), a 501(c)(3) organization that runs a voter turnout program for military personnel, who tend to vote Republican. The Washington Post reported on October 23, 1997 that in September 1996, ADI returned $600,000 donated to it by the RNC because, according to the group's president, ``we didn't want to be controversial and we had funding from other sources.'' However, as the Post reported, that money was not returned until several days after the RNC itself sent checks totaling $530,000 from six donors to ADI. Around that time, RNC Chairman Haley Barbour also apparently solicited $500,000 from the Philip Morris Companies Inc. for ADI. The timing of these transactions raises the question of whether the RNC and ADI substituted the donor's money for the RNC's money to avoid publicizing the fact that the RNC was the source of ADI's funding--in other words, to avoid disclosure requirements. Furthermore, all the donors could take a tax deduction for their RNC-solicited ADI contributions, forcing taxpayers to subsidize donations to a political campaign. On the Democratic side, the Committee heard testimony that Vote Now 96, the fund-raising arm of the 501(c)(3) get-out-the-vote organization Citizens Vote, Inc., sought and received help from the DNC in raising money for its work, presumably because these organizations were working to raise the turnout among groups who tend to vote Democratic. For example, the DNC apparently directed a $100,000 contribution to Vote Now 96 from Duvaz Pacific Corporation after it learned the head of the Philippine company, who had attended a DNC fund-raiser, could not legally contribute to the party because of her foreign citizenship. There is also significant evidence that a number of tax-exempt groups, none of which disclosed their activities to the FEC, intervened in elections by producing TV ads the groups claimed were issue oriented, but which, in fact, were designed to influence specific elections. According to a study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the 501(c)(4) Citizens for Reform ran $2 million worth of ads during October and November of 1996 on behalf of several Republican congressional candidates around the country. All of these activities by tax-exempt, presumably non-partisan corporations cry out for remedial action by Congress. The McCain- Feingold proposal, S. 25, partially addresses these problems by prohibiting party organizations from soliciting contributions for, or directing them to, tax-exempt entities. This is a very important restriction. In addition, I am proposing to prohibit such organizations from coordinating any expenditure with parties and candidates and to forbid them to run advertisements or send direct mail identifying a candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election. I am confident this proposal will pass constitutional muster because the Supreme Court upheld similar restrictions on tax-exempt organizations in Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington. In finding against a First Amendment challenge to a prohibition against substantial lobbying by a 501(c)(3), the court said that ``tax exemptions and tax deductibility are a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system'' and that by restricting a tax- exempt's lobbying activities ``Congress has merely refused to pay for the lobbying out of public monies.'' My bill also would also make clear that Section 527 organizations must comply with federal campaign laws. Internal Revenue Code Section 527 offers tax benefits to ``political organizations,'' a term it defines to include organizations seeking to influence Federal, State or local elections. A number of 501(c)(4) groups active in federal election campaigns apparently have switched their tax status to Section 527, which offers tax benefits with fewer restrictions on political activity. At the same time, these groups claim they are not subject to FECA because they don't engage in express advocacy of particular candidates, even though FECA defines the groups it covers in essentially the same terms as Section 527. My bill would make it clear that the taxpayers should not be subsidizing undisclosed and unregulated political activities by groups who claim they are trying to influence Federal elections for the purpose of the tax code--and thus are entitled to tax-exemption--but not for the purpose of FECA--and thus are immune from regulation. My bill makes clear that they cannot have it both ways and that Section 527's tax benefits are available only to groups regulated under FECA, unless a group seeking Section 527 status is engaged exclusively in State or local political activity. It is important to emphasize that this bill would not prevent any one or anything from engaging in any type of activity. Instead, it would just say that if a candidate or an organization puts a hand out and asks for a public subsidy--whether it be public financing for a presidential candidate or tax-exemption for an organization--they have to be willing to comply with the rules for taking that public subsidy. After all, no person or entity has a right to public money or to be free of taxes; it is entirely up to Congress to determine what type of activities are so important to society that we should use public money or tax-exemption as ways of encouraging them. In offering tax-exemption to the 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations covered by this bill, Congress already plainly chose to limit their involvement in partisan campaign activity. This bill would merely build on the experience of the 1996 elections to clarify the scope of those limitations. There are always some who find new and clever ways to manipulate the legal system. Their efforts peaked in our politics in the 1996 cycle with an unparalleled flouting of the laws' requirements and prohibitions. Based on the excuses the Committee heard last year to justify this behavior, I have no doubt the trend will continue--unless we find the will to radically restructure our campaign finance laws. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation, and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a section-by- section of it appear in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk, based in Darien, Connecticut, on their 75th anniversary. For 75 years the Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk has worked to promote volunteerism, develop the potential of women, and improve the community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Since Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk was founded in 1923, their members have donated more than 2.5 million volunteer hours to meeting the needs of the area towns it serves. In doing so, they have touched many lives and served innumerable members of the community with their hard work and generous spirit. Their donation of time and money has helped organizations such as the Volunteer Center, the Women's Crisis Center, Lockwood Mathews Mansion, and the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk to better serve the people of the area. The work of the Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk over the past 75 years had made it a cornerstone of the community, and the people of Connecticut thank them for their service, dedication, and contribution to their communities.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and thank my friend and senior colleague from Connecticut. I thank him for his eloquent and moving tribute to Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff whose passing yesterday we mourn on the floor of the Senate today. I would like to just add a few words to my colleague's extraordinary statement. Mr. President, as Senator Dodd has referred to that critical moment in the 1954 campaign of Senator Ribicoff for Governor of Connecticut, when there were expressions of bigotry, of anti-Semitism, and Senator Ribicoff at a turning point in his own career rose to challenge those whispers directly in the eloquent words that Senator Dodd has spoken in what has become known in Connecticut political lore as Abe Ribicoff's ``American Dream Speech.'' In the bottom line of it was Senator Ribicoff saying, ``Abe Ribicoff believes in the American dream.'' And indeed he did. The extraordinary life that he led that ended yesterday, after 87 years, is a testament to the vitality of the American dream. Mr. President, there are many other great civilizations and democracies in the world, but I must say the more that I have the opportunity to visit them the more I come back home appreciating how unique this great country of ours is, how we have created here an ethic of mutual respect, of a fairness of opportunity that has allowed people who are capable, who are willing to work hard to rise to the highest levels in our society, whether it is in the public sector, the private sector, in the arts, sports, whatever. In that moment of crisis, in a campaign that, if he had lost, probably his public career would have ended, Abe Ribicoff stood up and directly confronted and challenged those who did not believe in the American dream, who were prepared to stimulate an effort against him because of his religion, to say that he believed in the American dream and had confidence that the people of Connecticut did. Also, of course, they vindicated that confidence on election day. His father was an immigrant from Poland--Polish, Jewish--came to New Britain, CT, worked at first as a peddler, then as a factory worker, and raised a son and other distinguished members of the family who rose to extraordinary and proud heights. Abe Ribicoff worked for everything he achieved. He had--if I may borrow from a phrase that my colleague mentioned earlier--he had a regal quality to him. It is a remarkable thing to say, when you think of the humble origins from where he came, but it was within himself, his dignity, his intelligence, his civility, his honor and integrity that those qualities remarkably in the hurly-burly of the political life that we lead remained intact. He worked his way forward, ultimately graduating from the University of Chicago Law School. He came back to Connecticut and began to practice law. And very soon he went into public life. As Senator Dodd said, he has a record that as far as we know is unequaled in America because of the extraordinary range of offices he held--State legislator, judge, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Governor, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Kennedy Cabinet, and then the capstone to his career, 18 extraordinarily distinguished and productive years as a U.S. Senator. I want to comment on a few of those periods of his life and end with a personal word. When Abe Ribicoff became Governor of the State of Connecticut, he led an administration that constituted a turning point in the history of our State and, in many ways, pointed the direction for the future of the Democratic Party. As I have been thinking over the last 24 hours of some of the accomplishments that characterized Abe Ribicoff's career, it seems to me he was a ``new Democrat'' before anybody thought of the term. In Connecticut, where the party had most of its strength in the cities, Abe Ribicoff and others--including my colleague's distinguished and beloved father, Senator Tom Dodd--reached out from the cities to the suburbs, to the smaller towns, and broadened the reach of the Democratic Party in our State. In doing so, he not only achieved personal success and paved the way for partisan success in the future throughout the State but served with the public and the public interest in Connecticut mightily. Abe Ribicoff as Governor was a fiscal conservative. He believed in balancing the budget. He believed in governmental reform. He focused on public safety questions such as highway safety. He never hesitated to work across party lines. During his 6 years as Governor, there were times when the Republican Party controlled one or, I believe, both Houses of the State legislature. He had a guiding principle that he adopted and articulated that carried him very well, right through the Senate years. It is what he described as the integrity of compromise. He said, in this business of politics there is nothing dishonorable and certainly not dishonest about compromising your initial position to get something done. What is the value, he would say, of holding to that initial position as strongly as you originally felt if just moving a little bit--as long as it is not against your conscience and your principles--allowed you to do something for the people. He had a distinguished, very popular career as Governor, winning a very close victory in 1954, then going on to win an enormous landslide in 1958. As Senator Dodd has said, he played a pivotal role, along with our State Democratic chairman, John Bailey, in the election of JFK as President, there, again, as my senior colleague has said, giving another testament to Abe Ribicoff's belief in the American dream. President Kennedy asked Senator Ribicoff to become a member of the Cabinet, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. He served there with distinction. He did some of the early work that led to the Medicare Program, which today is so critical to so many millions of Americans to provide decent health and is itself one of the reasons the average lifespan of the American people is longer today than it was before Medicare started. The truth is, as he said to those of us who were privileged to know him and as he said after his retirement from public life, that the year and a half as a member of the Cabinet were not the happiest years of his career. In fact, they were probably the least satisfying. He was very honest about it. He said, ``I'm used to being my own man. I was Governor, I was a Member of Congress. I'm used to being my own man, instead of having to support positions that are someone else's that I really didn't support or having to oppose other positions that I really did support.'' He served with distinction but not with pleasure and took the opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate in 1962. That, I think, was the most productive and the most satisfying time of his remarkable career. He was again ahead of his time here. He worked on subjects like environmental protection before the great burst of activity in that area occurred in the 1970s. He had a hearing and invited the mother of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson, after she published her book ``Silent Spring,'' to testify before his committee. From that testimony, he worked on pesticides and other threats to the environment and public health. He continued the work that he started at HEW and played a leading role in the passage of the Medicare Program, serving as a member of the Finance Committee. He continued the work he had done in Connecticut on highway safety and did some very important legislative work to raise the standards for automotive safety of the American people. He was a great believer in free and fair trade and a strong supporter of the kind of governmental stimulus to the private sector that creates economic growth. He was very much in that sense a person of the Senate. He worked very easily and comfortably across party lines. Again, remembering the integrity of compromise in a body of 100 people with a lot of strong opinions, you need people who are bridge builders, and Senator Abe Ribicoff built some extraordinary bridges that have so dramatically improved the quality of American life. Mr. President, if I may end on a personal note, Senator Ribicoff was for me a hero, an inspiration, and a mentor. In 1954, when he first ran for Governor, I was a kid in Stanford, CT, beginning to develop an interest in politics. I was taken by his strength, by his independence, by the way he carried himself. Because he and I shared the same religion--both members of a minority religion--I wondered how he would fare. In some sense, he tested in a most public way the faith that my own dear parents gave me that this is a great country, this is a country of opportunity; people will judge you not by how you worship but by how you work, how you conduct yourself, what you propose to do. Of course, in that election in 1954, the people of Connecticut vindicated Abe Ribicoff's faith, my parents' faith and in that sense gave me that faith at a critical time in my own life. In the 1960s, as a college student, I had the great opportunity to work for Senator Ribicoff for two summers. This is sometimes what happens to Senate interns. We end up in the field of our dreams, as it were, here in the U.S. Senate, first in 1962 on his committee, his Campaign Finance Committee, working in the State, and then in the summer of 1963 as one of his first summer interns. We developed, I don't even want to at that stage call it a friendship, but he was a mentor, he was a teacher. I learned an enormous amount from him and will forever be grateful that when a few years later, in 1970, I decided to tackle public office as a State senator, he was gutsy enough and supportive enough to endorse me. It happened to be a Democratic primary against an incumbent, so it was quite a boost for a youngster, running without previous officeholding experience, to receive the support of the distinguished U.S. Senator whom I have talked about in terms of compromise and the integrity of compromise. While it was true he was a moderate man in many ways, and that helped him to build the coalitions that made things happen for his constituents and for the American people, Abe Ribicoff's moderation was not a mushy vacuum moderation. It was full of principle; it was full of substance. As those of us who knew and loved him also can tell you, he was capable of leaving that moderation to go to periods of white heat when he felt strongly about something and was prepared to step out on those occasions, regardless of what the political conventions would have told him to do. The most dramatic, well-known example is the remarkable, courageous speech at the 1968 Democratic National Convention that Senator Dodd referred to. Abe Ribicoff was a towering figure who served with honor and great result. It is a source of great personal pride and no small amount of humility that I have the opportunity to stand here as a U.S. Senator today to express my own sadness at his passing and my own pride at the great career that he had and, finally, to offer my condolences to his beloved wife Casey, to his children Peter and Jane, to his stepson Peter, and to his six grandchildren. Your father, your grandfather, served America with great distinction and served in a way that should give hope to the millions of others out there who may be, as he did long ago, forming their own American dream. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I want to express my personal gratitude to the Senate majority leader, to the Senate Democratic leader, to my colleague from Texas who has just spoken for their eloquent statements, but really more for the unmistakable message that they send, which is that there are ultimately times of conflict abroad that involve the vital interests of the United States, as the current situation in Iraq does, no Democrats, no Republicans, only Americans standing side by side in support of the Commander in Chief and all those Americans in uniform who serve under him. That, I hope, is the message that will be heard in Baghdad, most importantly. If the Commander in Chief of the United States decides that military force is necessary to be employed against Iraq, the overwhelming majority of Members of the U.S. Senate will stand strongly behind him and behind those American personnel in uniform who will carry out that policy. Mr. President, the statements of the majority leader and the Democratic leader are the finest examples of bipartisanship and statesmanship. They remind us, though there may be disagreements in this Chamber on partisan lines, that, again, when challenged, when it comes to America's vital interests abroad, we will stand together above party lines. The administration has been very accessible, very forthcoming in consulting with both Houses of Congress about the challenge that Saddam Hussein and Iraq represent to us and to the security of our allies in the region and our soldiers in the region and of the world in general. I think we have to express our appreciation to the administration for that dialog that continues. What is at stake in Iraq today? For one, something that might be considered quaint in some quarters, meaningless in other quarters, international agreements are at stake, agreements to end the gulf war, promises made by Saddam Hussein about allowing inspections which would enable us--the world--to guarantee that he was keeping his promises to disarm, a request justifiably made by the victorious forces in Operation Desert Storm and required of those who were vanquished in that conflict. So it is the integrity of these agreements, in the first instance, that is at stake. Secondly, there are consequences, which is the threat that Saddam Hussein will use those weapons of mass destruction that we know he has; that he will use the ballistic missile, the delivery system capacity to deliver those weapons of mass destruction that we know he has in rudiment and is developing even further. We know, as one of my colleagues said a moment ago--I believe it was Senator Daschle--unlike other leaders in the world, including dictatorial leaders of rogue nations who possess weapons of mass destruction, this particular leader, Saddam Hussein, has used those weapons against his neighbor, Iran, in the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties, and against the Kurdish population of his own country. So our anger, our anxiety, our unease, our judgment that we have vital interests at stake is not theoretical. It is based on a course of behavior by this particular leader of this particular nation. We went through the entire cold war with enormous amounts of nuclear power in our hands and in the hands of the Soviet leaders, but there was, in the end, a kind of understanding based on a strange form of civilized premise, which is that those weapons would not ultimately be used, and they were not ultimately used. I don't think we can reach that same conclusion about this leader based on his own course of behavior. There is a way in which there is a line to be drawn in this case, just as we drew a line in the post-cold-war-world, when Saddam invaded Kuwait and threatened our neighbors and vital economic interests and energy supplies in that region and we acted, reacted and reacted forcefully and rolled him back. Just as in Bosnia, we saw ethnic conflict could divide Europe and create broader conflict there, and we acted and stopped it. So, too, in this case, we are called upon to show that we are willing to draw a line, a preventive line, against those who possess weapons of mass destruction--chemical and biological; some have called them the poor nations' nuclear weapons--that we will draw a line and say we won't tolerate it. We are going to act to impose a regime of promises to disarm and if those promises are not kept, the international community will act to enforce them. We have vital interests at stake in the region. We have thousands of soldiers there within range of these weapons of Saddam Hussein. We have allies in the region in the moderate Arab nations and in Israel, and we have vital economic interests in the oil supply in that region. Mr. President, the fact is that all of those interests, all that we have at stake there--international promises made by Saddam as a condition to the end of the cold war, the threat of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems, the vital interests in the region, the necessity to draw a line against the use of chemical and biological poisons, which all of the military experts tell us will characterize and intensify the security threats to our region and most of the rest of the world in the next century--all of those threats are not just to the United States, they are surely to our allies in the region and are to most of the rest of the world. That is perhaps why so many nations have come to our side as we face the reality that the United Nations, not the United States, tell us of the refusal of Saddam Hussein to allow the inspections that he promised and, therefore, the fact that we have gone now more than 5 months with those sites uninspected and day by day the threat rises. That is why our closest and most steadfast ally, Britain, have joined us, are ready to stand and fly side by side with us. But they are not alone. Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, Kuwait, Israel and a growing number of others are prepared to join us. As much as we are heartened by this support, we don't see the same range of the coalition that we had leading up to the gulf war. Maybe that is understandable because the threat that the current crisis poses is not as immediate and accomplished, it is mostly imminent. In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded his neighbor Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf states, oil-producing states. In that circumstance, with a danger that was real and experienced, it was easier to assemble the broad-based coalition that we did. Today, the threat may not be as clear to other nations of the world, but its consequences are even more devastating potentially than the real threat, than the realized pain of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, because the damage that can be inflicted by Saddam Hussein and Iraq, under his leadership, with weapons of mass destruction is incalculable; it is enormous. Therefore, I hope, though the circumstance may not be as clear, that other nations that have not yet forcefully expressed their willingness to stand with us and Britain and the other allies I mentioned will come to an understanding of that. It has been my hope all along that if the United States continued to lead, as we have, that the full range of coalition allies would, once again, stand by our side. I always remember the Biblical evocation which is, if the sound of the trumpet is not clear, then who will follow in battle? If the sound of the trumpet is clear, then I hope that the widest range of other nations in the world will follow into battle, if that is necessary, not simply to follow our leadership, but because their vital interests are at stake, in the resolution of this problem. Mr. President, I think the administration has made clear, and that is why I believe there is broad support for the possible attacks that may occur on Iraq, that its goals here are limited. If air attacks occur, these are not acts of revenge, these are not punitive acts which have no meaning. These would be acts and attacks that are aimed at accomplishing what the inspections were supposed to accomplish, that are aimed at accomplishing what the gulf war cease-fire agreement was supposed to accomplish, which is the diminution and ultimately the elimination of Iraq's capacity to wage chemical, biological or nuclear war against its neighbors or ultimately anyone in the world. That limited goal may not satisfy some people, but it is a reasonable goal at this time, and it is a goal that I think ultimately and effectively will enjoy the broadest support in the U.S. Senate. Mr. President, there are those who say, ``Well, what next? What if this doesn't work?'' I am confident it will work. When I say it will work, I mean I have the confidence the United States military has the capacity to strike at Iraq in a way that will, in fact, incapacitate, debilitate, postpone the ability of that country under Saddam Hussein to inflict damage on its neighbors with weapons of mass destruction. So that goal will be accomplished. I think the question of what is next is an appropriate topic of discussion. Some people say we should pull back and wait and see what, in that initial time of that military strike, if it occurs, it will gain us, to see whether diplomacy can work again, to see if we can build the fullness of the coalition and again confront Saddam with the opportunity to comply with the promises he previously made. Others, and I number myself among this group, are very skeptical of that policy. Diplomacy is always preferable to the use of force, and yet, I myself remain profoundly skeptical that an acceptable diplomatic resolution to this conflict is possible. It is a painful and sad conclusion, but it is based not on animus toward that country, certainly not animus toward the people of Iraq, but it is based on the record. The record I need not cite in detail, but we know about the violent way in which Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, eliminating those of his fellow Iraqis who were in his way, about the violent and dictatorial way in which he has ruled. Life doesn't matter when you stand in the way of him; of the means that he used to conduct the war against Iran, including weapons of mass destruction; of his invasion of Kuwait; of his flaunting of the very agreements he made to end the gulf war; of the taunting of the international community that he represents today. Mr. President, if this were a domestic situation, a political situation, and we were talking about criminal law in this country, we have something in our law called ``three strikes and you are out,'' three crimes and you get locked up for good because we have given up on you. I think Saddam Hussein has had more than three strikes in the international, diplomatic, strategic and military community. So I have grave doubts that a diplomatic solution is possible here. What I and some of the Members of the Senate hope for is a longer- term policy based on the probability that an acceptable diplomatic solution is not possible, which acknowledges as the central goal the changing of the regime in Iraq to bring to power a regime with which we and the rest of the world can have trustworthy relationships. That is not going to be simple. It is not going to come overnight. It involves an effort to work with Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein, to use some of the same methods that were used in the cold war, something as simple and yet as effective as Radio Free Europe which spoke so powerfully to the hopes and dreams of people who lived so long under the tyranny of the Soviets, the Communists, and do the same for the people who live under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, to work with our allies to build the kind of alternative that will raise our hopes for peace in that region of the world. Those discussions about what may follow an air attack on Iraq are important. They are not easy. They deserve to be debated. For now I think what is most important is that people of both parties have come together on the floor of the Senate to speak to this challenge to international law, to America's vital interests, and to say, directly or indirectly, ``Mr. President, if you, as Commander in Chief, act in this circumstance, in this crisis, you and the troops who serve under you will have broad bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.'' I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.) iraq's threat to international peace and security

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Mr. Hiram Bingham IV, a Connecticut native, who risked his life and sacrificed his career to rescue thousands of Jews from the Nazis while serving as a U.S. diplomat in Vichy France. Mr. Bingham performed these services despite the opposition of his superiors in France and in Washington, displaying a courage of conviction which demands both our recognition and greatest respect. Hiram Bingham IV died in 1987 and it was only last year that his son, William S. Bingham, discovered the records which brought his father's exploits to light. Survivors whom Hiram Bingham helped rescue have now petitioned Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial, that he be honored as a ``righteous gentile'' for having put his life and career on the line to save Jewish refugees. Hiram Bingham IV never sought glory for himself but as a man who put service to others before all other considerations he has earned our appreciation as a true American hero. In doing so he has extended the remarkable public service and honorable reputation of the Bingham family, one of Connecticut's great families. Mr. President, I ask that an article by William Bingham in the New London Day be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the New London Day, Oct. 5, 1997] A Man From Salem Emerges as a Hero of the Holocaust: Hiram Bingham IV (By William S. Bingham) When we lose a loved one, we struggle desperately to recollect bits and pieces of a life lived and finished. We hang tightly onto the slightest memories that have meaning for us. Gradually, the memories fade and the vividness of those who were once alive grows dim. But parchment and celluloid, letters and photographs allow us to recapture our loved ones' lives. These images and words left behind in journals, books and correspondence allow us to revisit the life and times of our loved ones and the history they embrace. Such was the journey I started when I began investigating my father's secret history as a covert operative in a mission to rescue Jews, artists and other political figures from the Nazis during World War II. I cannot say I know everything about my father. Most of him is still a mystery to me. But almost 10 years after the death of my father, Hiram Bingham IV, I discovered a cache of diaries and documents tightly bound in manila folders by hay bale rope and masking tape, buried deep in the dust and cobwebs of an ancient linen closet tucked by colonial design into the wall behind the fireplace in my family's 230-year- old pre-Revolutionary homestead in Salem. In these bound folders and files marked simply ``H.B.--Personal Notes-- Marseilles--1940,'' which had lain untouched for more than a half-century, I discovered chilling evidence of my father's secret role in thwarting the spread of Nazism and in rescuing thousands of Jews from the Nazis. After my father died in 1987, I discovered he was a silent hero of the Holocaust. As with almost all intelligence operatives, he maintained secrecy about most of his actions from everyone except those who had a need to know up to the time of his death. He kept his silence because he himself became a victim of pro-Nazi elements and Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. government and, in his role as a rescuer, he took actions which were condemned by his superiors and contravened U.S. laws and policy. My father's story contained in these hidden papers sheds a small ray of light on one of the darkest periods in human history. Among his papers were secret memos, photographs and reports on the concentration camps, maps and notes on escape routes and meetings of the anti-Nazi conspirators. There were reports on Nazi propaganda, hidden Nazi gold and war criminals and the ``Fifth Column'' (Nazi civilian infiltrators worldwide). There were accounts and descriptions of Nazi agents and suspected agents within and without the U.S. consulate in Marseilles and embassies in Europe and Latin America and their methodology for world conquest. There were letters from Marc Chagall and Thomas Mann, which the top opponents of Adolf Hitler had written to my father pertaining to the rescues, the rescue operations and my father's participation. There were copies of passport photos and ``official'' documents and papers used by the escapees to gain freedom from the concentration camps and to escape the Holocaust. As a vice consul in the U.S. Consulate in Marseilles, France, when the Nazis invaded and took Paris in the summer of 1940, my dad became a government expert on Nazis and Fascists, and a key agent in the secret rescue operation of thousands of Jewish and other political refugees from war- torn Europe. The whole rescue operation, encouraged and supported by Eleanor Roosevelt, was kept in large part secret even from his State Department superiors, because many of them at first supported Hitler. Some in the U.S. government believed Hitler would win the war and felt that the U.S. should maintain favorable political, social and economic relations with the Nazis. In the face of strident and vocal opposition from his own bosses in France and Washington, my father helped establish a clandestine operation of international operatives smuggling Hitler's ``most wanted'' enemies--predominantly Jewish intellectuals, political activists and artists who opposed Nazism--through an underground railroad system across Europe to gain safe passage through Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America to the United States and other safe harbors. Some of my father's collaborators formed Maquis, guerrilla-resistance cadres, to fight the Nazis in the countryside. But my father's role in the operation had to remain secret from his superiors, his family and all but his closest friends, because he followed a moral imperative to aid Jews and other political refugees in violation of official U.S. policy, regulations and laws. My father's superiors in the State Department and other branches of government who favored accommodation and cooperation with Hitler had forbidden official and unofficial support for the operation. It was only because of Eleanor Roosevelt's quiet support, pressuring Franklin D. Roosevelt to permit the operation, and my father's Washington contacts through his own father (former Connecticut Gov. and U.S. Sen. Hiram Bingham III), that my father himself was not arrested and prosecuted for violating ``official'' U.S. law and policy. But my father suffered retaliatory treatment at the hands of his superiors and feared government prosecution if the extent of his role in the planning and execution of rescue missions was known. Why were the Nazis chasing Chagall? In the pictures and letters it became clear that my father was instrumental in saving Chagall, but why did he need to? Why did the Nazis want to exterminate the surrealist artists like Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and Andre Masson, or the surrealist poet Andre Breton, or the novelists? Because surrealism was a threat to Nazism--it was nonconformist and often contained political messages that were the antithesis of Nazism, totalitarianism and nationalism. My father was an artist and philosopher till the end of his life. He would sit on an old beat-up chair by the bathtub, where he would place his large-framed canvases flat on the porcelain rim of the tub and paint his surreal visions while listening to Beethoven and Brahms. He liked the subdued light from the west through a small window there, and he could rotate his paintings to adapt to the swirls of his ``music on canvas,'' as he called it. You could turn the panting upside down or sideways, he told me, any way, and new visions would be revealed. My father had painted portraits of some of the rescued, and he had painted copies of several of Chagall's paintings because he admired Chagall and had become his friend during the crisis. My father's journal entries revealed that Chagall had gracefully admired my father's rather traditional portraits and landscapes during meetings at my father's villa in Marseilles while they were planning his escape, and Chagall told him always to paint large canvases and never conform to what others wanted him to paint. I remembered the tale of Lion Feuchtwanger, who was smuggled out of a concentration camp at Nimes dressed up as woman at the direction of my father and hidden at my father's villa for two months, passed off as his mother-in-law from Waycross, Ga., to fool the neighbors and the Gestapo and spies at the U.S. Consulate. Feuchtwanger, I learned, was Hitler's Public Enemy Number One, because of his historical novel, ``The Oppermans,'' which exposed Hitler and the evils of Nazism in 1933. Hitler stripped Feuchtwanger of his German citizenship, and the Nazis issued a death warrant for him before he fled to France, where the pro-Nazi Vichy government held him until he was rescued. When it was leaked to members of the U.S. Consulate that my father was hiding Feuchtwanger and his wife at my father's villa, my father soon realized that his own life was in danger--so he put a pseudonym ``Lion Wetcheek'' on Feuchtwanger's passport and arranged that the Feuchtwangers be smuggled on a footpath over the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain and on to Lisbon, Portugal, where they caught a steamship to New York City. The code words for them in this operation were ``Harry's friends.'' I vaguely remembered the names of Rudolf Breitscheid and Rudolf Hilferding, whom my parents would discuss in hushed and saddened voices. Although their names rang a bell in my recollections from youth, I never knew who they were or what happened to them. The two Rudolfs were Hitler's greatest political enemies in the Reichstag. Old political activists in Germany, they too were stripped of German citizenship by Hitler and fled to France. Met in brothels Some of the rescue team would meet in Marseilles brothels with their prospective escapees, because it was one of the few places where discretion and hushed conversation in English and other foreign languages could take place without arousing the suspicion of the proprietors. On occasion, some of the women in the team (Americans among them) would entice pro-Nazi guards and policemen in order to distract them, or get them drunk so that rescue operations could proceed with little or no interruption. Other meetings took place in jazz clubs, until the Nazis forbade jazz, or at my father's villa in the evening after his work in the visa section of the consulate was finished for the day. Until I discovered these papers, only a few individuals knew my father's role: those who worked closely with him and a handful of those he helped rescue. Some, like the artists Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and Andre Masson--and writers Victor Serge, Lion Feuchtwanger and Franz Werfel and the family of Thomas Mann--were close to my father during their own escapes. But because my father had to keep his actions secret from his own government superiors and fellow employees, some of whom were supporters of and informants for the Nazis, he could not reveal his role in planning and executing the escapes of the refugees to any but a select few of the escapees who were staunch anti-Nazi activits and conspirators in the underground network. At any moment, Nazi agents posing as refugees or enemies of Hitler and Mussolini might infiltrate and blow the whole operation. Indeed, when the true nature of my father's role became more fully known by his superiors in the U.S. State Department, he was removed from his position in the visa section. Given meaningless bureaucratic paperwork, he was passed over time and again for promotions, and he was ultimately dispatched to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with my mother and their five children. Despite the threat from Nazi sympathizers and agents acting with the U.S. State Department, my father continued to investigate and report on the Nazi menace in Latin America and in the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires. In an ultimatum to the State Department in 1945, he vowed to resign from the diplomatic corps if there were no efforts to put a stop to the spread of Nazism and fascism in Latin America. For this ultimatum, he was again passed over for promotion and his pleas for investigations of Nazi gold and war criminals being smuggled into Chile and Argentina on German U-boats (submarines) were ignored. He then made good on his vow, resigned from his post, and returned to the family homestead in Salem to farm, paint, pursue various business ventures and study Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, which he embraced as a believer in mystical Christianity. Only now, after 50 years of obscurity, is my father's story coming to light worldwide. After discovering the cache of documents, I began an effort to investigate all of his correspondence and official files, including those in the U.S. archives, which are now declassified, and to find those he rescued who may never have known his role in their escapes. All of these incredible stories of spies, refugees, counterspies, American heroes, surrealist artists and writers fighting and fleeing the conflagration which engulfed Europe, I am assembling into a personal and historical account of the events for publication based on my father's papers and supporting documents. Prompted by contacts from a man whom he rescued and from the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which knew of his involvement in the effort, the key documents and photographs I discovered in that ancient linen closet behind the fireplace have been duplicated and are being preserved by the museum. More than 50 documents and photographs from my father's files were exhibited, along with several of my father's surrealist paintings and landscapes, at the Simon Weisenthal Center--House of Tolerance Museum, in Los Angeles, during July and August this past summer. petition seeks medal A petition prepared by survivors my father helped rescue asks that Hiram Bingham IV be honored with a medal from the State of Israel and a tree planted in his honor at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Israel. If he is awarded the Yad Vashem medal as one of the rescuers, he will be only the second U.S. Citizen and the only U.S. diplomat ever so honored for putting his life and career on the line to rescue Jewish refugees. Perhaps most important, the documents related to Nazi gold and war criminals being spirited away to Latin America on submarines with the knowledge of the U.S. State Department now are being investigated by the Simon Weisenthal Center.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, since 1983, the United States Congress and the German Parliament have conducted an annual exchange program for senior staff members from both countries. The program gives professional staff the opportunity to observe and learn about each other's political institutions and convey Members' views on issues of mutual concern. The program is now in its 15th year and has strong support and participation from federal agencies as well as corresponding support from the German government. A staff delegation from the United States Congress will be chosen to visit Germany March 22 to April 4 of this year. During the two week exchange, the delegation will attend meetings with Bundestag Members, Bundestag party staff members, and representatives of numerous political, business, academic, and media agencies. Cultural activities and a weekend visit in a Bundestag Member's district will complete the schedule. A comparable delegation of German staff members will visit the United States for three weeks this summer. They will attend similar meetings here in Washington and visit the districts of Congressional Members. The Congress-Bundestag Exchange is highly regarded in Germany, and is one of several exchange programs sponsored by public and private institutions in the United States and Germany to foster better understanding of the politics and policies of both countries. The ongoing situation in Bosnia, the future expansion of NATO and the proposed expansion of the European Union, as well as plans for a single currency will make this year's exchange particularly relevant. The U.S. delegation should consist of experienced and accomplished Hill staff members who can contribute to the success of the exchange on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bundestag sends senior staff professionals to the United States. Applicants should have a demonstrable interest in events in Europe. Applicants need not be working in the field of foreign affairs, although such a background can be helpful. The composite U.S. delegation should exhibit a range of expertise in issues of mutual concern in Germany and the United States such as, but not limited to, trade, security, the environment, immigration, economic development, health care, and other social policy issues. In addition, U.S. participants are expected to help plan and implement the program for the Bundestag staff members when they visit the United States. Participants are expected to assist in planning topical meetings in Washington, and are encouraged to host one or two Bundestag staffers in their Member's district over the July Fourth break, or to arrange for such a visit to another Member's district. Participants will be selected by a committee composed of U.S. Information Agency personnel and past participants of the exchange. Senators and Representatives who would like a member of their staff to apply for participation in this year's program should direct them to submit a resume and cover letter in which they state why they believe they are qualified and some assurances of their ability to participate during the time stated. Applications may be sent to Kathie Scarrah, in my office at 706 Hart Senate Building, by Thursday, February 12.