Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am here today with Senators McConnell, Moynihan, Gorton, and Grams to introduce the Auto Choice Reform Act of 1997. If enacted, this bill would save American consumers tens of billions of dollars, while at the same time producing an auto insurance system that operates more efficiently and promises drivers better and quicker compensation. America's drivers are plagued today by an auto accident insurance and compensation system that is too expensive and that does not work. Each of us currently pays an average of $785 annually for our auto insurance per car. This is an extraordinarily large sum, and one that is particularly difficult for people of modest means--and almost impossible for poor people--to afford. A study of Maricopa County, AZ drives this point home. That study found that families living below 50 percent of the poverty line spend nearly one-third of their household income on premiums when they purchase auto insurance. Perhaps those costs would be worth it if they meant that people injured in car accidents were fully compensated for their injuries. But under our current tort system, that often is not the case, particularly for people who are seriously injured. Because of the need to prove fault and the ability to receive compensation only through someone else's insurance policy, some injured drivers--like those in one car accidents or those who are found to have been at fault themselves--are left without any compensation at all. Others must endure years of litigation before receiving any compensation for their injuries. In the end, people who suffer minimal injuries in auto accidents generally end up overcompensated, while victims of serious injuries often fail to receive full restitution. According to a study by Rand's Institute for Civil Justice, people who suffer economic losses--lost wages and medical bills, for example--in the range of $25,000 to $100,000 currently are compensated for just over one-half of their losses on average. The very seriously injured--those with economic losses of over $100,000--receive compensation worth just 9 percent of those damages on average. Much of this shortfall is due to the high transaction costs-- the 33-percent attorneys' fee regularly taken out of a plaintiff's recovery, for one thing--associated with the current system. These statistics show that our auto insurance and compensation laws violate the cardinal rule I think those of us in the business legislating have a duty to follow: to draft our laws to encourage people to minimize their disputes, and to encourage those who do have disputes to resolve them as efficiently, as economically, and as quickly as possible. This is particularly true when we are dealing with laws impacting on people who are physically injured, because injured people simply--and literally--cannot afford to wait the years it often takes for a lawsuit to wind its way through our legal system. The laws governing our auto accident and insurance system do not now meet those simple criteria. They instead require consumers to pay extraordinarily high premiums to purchase auto insurance. That auto insurance, in turn and as a result of our broken legal system, does not bring seriously injured people either speedy or full compensation for their injuries. My colleagues and I set out to rethink the legal framework governing our car insurance and compensation system. We asked ourselves whether we could write a law that would both lower premiums and better compensate people for injuries suffered in car accidents. Why, we wondered, should people hurt in car crashes--people who have bought and paid for insurance policies--not be able to receive compensation for their injuries unless they find someone else who was at fault, sue them, engage in potentially years of litigation, and collect from that other person? Why, we asked, couldn't auto insurance instead be more like health and homeowner insurance, where people know when they buy their policies that they will be compensated immediately for any covered injury, regardless of who caused the injury and without having to find and pay a lawyer and often suffer through years of litigation? The answer we came up with was that there is no reason not to change our auto insurance and compensation laws to address these problems. Our Auto Choice proposal would address these problems by introducing reason into our auto insurance and accident laws. The bill would produce a system that would guarantee immediate compensation to injured people. At the same time, it would bring tremendous savings to the system--up to $45 billion annually according to a recent study. And, it would do so, not by forcing people to do something they do not want to do, but by giving them the choice--the right to determine for themselves what is in their best interests. Here's how our plan would work: All drivers would be required to purchase a certain minimum level of insurance, but they would get to choose the type of coverage they want. Those drivers who value immediate compensation for their injuries and lower premiums would be able to purchase what we call personal protection insurance. If the driver with that type of coverage is injured in an accident, he or she would get immediate compensation for all economic losses--things like lost wages, medical bills and attorneys fees--up to the limits of his or her policy, without regard to who was at fault in the accident. If their economic losses exceeded those policy limits, the injured party could sue the other driver for the extra economic loss on a fault basis. The only thing the plaintiff could not do is sue the other driver for noneconomic losses, the so-called pain and suffering damages. Those drivers who did not want to give up the ability to collect pain and suffering damages could choose a different option, called tort maintenance coverage. Drivers with that type of policy would be able to cover themselves for whatever level of economic and noneconomic damages they want, and they would then be able to collect those damages, also from their own insurance company, after proving fault. As I mentioned earlier, the savings from this new Choice system would be dramatic. According to a newly released report from the Joint Economic Committee, if all American drivers opted for personal protection insurance, they would save an average of $243 annually on their auto insurance premiums. Drivers in my home State of Connecticut would see even better savings, putting an additional $383 per year into their pockets. All told, the American economy could save up to $45 billion each and every year under our proposal. Our Auto Choice plan, I think, both serves the reform goals I discussed above and incorporates all of the lessons we learned during our past experiences with no-fault laws. It ensures that most injured people would be compensated immediately and that we all can purchase auto insurance at a reasonable rate. As I said at the outset, we as legislators do our best when we make sure that our legal system minimizes the potential for disputes in society and facilitates the resolution of those disputes that exist. The Auto Choice law would do exactly that. It would ensure that something tens of thousands of us now have disputes about--who should compensate whom for car accidents-- no longer would be the subject of disputes because everyone who is injured will know from the outset that they will be compensated, they will know by whom they will be compensated, and they will know they will be compensated without having to sue someone else first. Mr. President, this bill would be a boon to the American driver and to the American economy. I look forward to working with my colleagues to see it enacted into law.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I'm delighted to join with Senator Moynihan and Senators Lautenberg, Chafee, Dodd, and numerous other colleagues to introduce the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Reauthorization Act of l997. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I was proud to have worked hard with Senator Moynihan and others to craft ISTEA in l991. Without a doubt, ISTEA was the most significant and innovative transportation legislation of a generation. It recognized that our Nation is now reaching a maturing system of transportation. With our Interstate system built, ISTEA moved us to also focus on maintenance, intermodalism, efficiency, funding flexibility, and environmental protection. So often today we hear complaints about laws and programs that don't work. ISTEA is a law that has worked and is working--very well. It's one area where we don't need to reinvent government--we did that in l991 when we adopted ISTEA. That's why Governors, mayors, county officials, guilders unions, environmental groups, planners, businessmen and women, and others are telling us to reauthorize the law with minimal change. That was the resounding message I heard in Connecticut at a forum yesterday from a broad range of interests. Let me spend a few minutes reviewing why ISTEA is so important. In a very unique way, ISTEA combines this country's long-standing commitment to our national priorities--a national system of transportation central to our economic growth and our commitment to protecting and enhancing our environment--with a new emphasis on responding to local conditions, priorities, and interests and involving the public in this decisionmaking process. The statement of policy that introduces ISTEA reminds us that the economic health of the country depends on access to an efficient transportation system. It reads as follows: It is the policy of the United States to develop a national intermodal transportation system that is economically efficient and environmentally sound, provides the foundation for the nation to compete in the global economy and will move people and goods in an efficient manner. ISTEA's commitment to a national transportation system includes dedicated sources of funding to preserve, restore, and rehabilitate our Interstate highways and bridges. In many areas of the country, like my own, our infrastructure is older and densely traveled. We need dedicated sources of funding for these programs to help ensure an efficient transportation system for our entire Nation. Second, ISTEA recognized that there is an inextricable link between transportation and the quality of our environment, particularly our air quality. Automobiles are a large contributor to our smog, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter pollution. As Americans drive more and more miles, the pollution control gains from cleaner cars get wiped out. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program is one of the most innovative programs created under ISTEA. It is providing $1 billion per year for projects to reduce air pollution. These funds are being used to help States restore air quality to healthy levels. This program is the opposite of the so-called unfunded mandates--it provides Federal funds to help meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act. In Connecticut where our air quality is so bad, this program provides an important source of funding to help us move toward clean air. Stamford, Greenwich, and Norwalk, for example, made innovative use of these funds. Our bill would substantially increase funding for this program. While recognizing these national priorities, ISTEA also makes nearly one-half of all funds available for State and local decisionmaking. The transportation needs of Connecticut are different from the needs of Montana, and this program allows each area to decide what's right for them, again, within the context of protecting a national transportation system. And for the first time, it allowed local decisionmakers to spend funds on either highways or transit. This leveling of the playing field between transit and highways is very important for many areas of the country, including my own. ISTEA also created a popular program known as Transportation Enhancements which provides a small amount of funding to mitigate some of the negative effects transportation has caused for our local communities. I heard yesterday at a forum in Connecticut how funds were used from this program to restore a recreational and open space corridor along the abandoned right of way of the former Farmington Canal and the Boston and Main Railroad. This project was selected as one of the Nation's 25 best enhancement projects. We've also used funds from this program to help restore some of our coastal wetlands, to protect and enhance the landscape of our famous Merritt Parkway and for the restoration of the Route 8 and Route 15 interchanges. We should also not forget the important process changes made by ISTEA. The law gave local decisionmakers and the public a much greater role in making the transportation decisions that so affect their communities. In Connecticut, mayors and other local elected officials strongly support this approach. In fact, I heard from mayors at a forum yesterday that ISTEA's planning provisions have led to greater cooperation between central cities and their suburban neighbors on a wide variety of issues--extending beyond transportation. Unfortunately, despite ISTEA's record of achievement, our efforts to reauthorize it will not be easy. ISTEA is under attack. A significant number of Senators already support proposals which would eliminate many of the fundamental bases of ISTEA, including much of our commitment to a national transportation system. Instead, these proposals would turn much of the program into essentially a block grant, where I'm concerned our national priorities for our transportation system would be lost. The funds would be distributed based on how much money each State is contributing to the Highway Trust Fund in gasoline taxes rather than looking to the Nation's infrastructure needs and also focusing funding on those systems that require preservation and enhancement. In short, these proposals would largely abandon the Federal role in transportation which is so essential to support national economic growth, global competitiveness, and the quality of life in our communities. I congratulate my friend and colleague Senator Moynihan and his staff for their outstanding work in putting this bill together. I look forward to working with him and my other colleagues as we move through this process.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I'm delighted to join with Senator Moynihan and Senators Lautenberg, Chafee, Dodd, and numerous other colleagues to introduce the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Reauthorization Act of l997. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I was proud to have worked hard with Senator Moynihan and others to craft ISTEA in l991. Without a doubt, ISTEA was the most significant and innovative transportation legislation of a generation. It recognized that our Nation is now reaching a maturing system of transportation. With our Interstate system built, ISTEA moved us to also focus on maintenance, intermodalism, efficiency, funding flexibility, and environmental protection. So often today we hear complaints about laws and programs that don't work. ISTEA is a law that has worked and is working--very well. It's one area where we don't need to reinvent government--we did that in l991 when we adopted ISTEA. That's why Governors, mayors, county officials, guilders unions, environmental groups, planners, businessmen and women, and others are telling us to reauthorize the law with minimal change. That was the resounding message I heard in Connecticut at a forum yesterday from a broad range of interests. Let me spend a few minutes reviewing why ISTEA is so important. In a very unique way, ISTEA combines this country's long-standing commitment to our national priorities--a national system of transportation central to our economic growth and our commitment to protecting and enhancing our environment--with a new emphasis on responding to local conditions, priorities, and interests and involving the public in this decisionmaking process. The statement of policy that introduces ISTEA reminds us that the economic health of the country depends on access to an efficient transportation system. It reads as follows: It is the policy of the United States to develop a national intermodal transportation system that is economically efficient and environmentally sound, provides the foundation for the nation to compete in the global economy and will move people and goods in an efficient manner. ISTEA's commitment to a national transportation system includes dedicated sources of funding to preserve, restore, and rehabilitate our Interstate highways and bridges. In many areas of the country, like my own, our infrastructure is older and densely traveled. We need dedicated sources of funding for these programs to help ensure an efficient transportation system for our entire Nation. Second, ISTEA recognized that there is an inextricable link between transportation and the quality of our environment, particularly our air quality. Automobiles are a large contributor to our smog, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter pollution. As Americans drive more and more miles, the pollution control gains from cleaner cars get wiped out. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program is one of the most innovative programs created under ISTEA. It is providing $1 billion per year for projects to reduce air pollution. These funds are being used to help States restore air quality to healthy levels. This program is the opposite of the so-called unfunded mandates--it provides Federal funds to help meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act. In Connecticut where our air quality is so bad, this program provides an important source of funding to help us move toward clean air. Stamford, Greenwich, and Norwalk, for example, made innovative use of these funds. Our bill would substantially increase funding for this program. While recognizing these national priorities, ISTEA also makes nearly one-half of all funds available for State and local decisionmaking. The transportation needs of Connecticut are different from the needs of Montana, and this program allows each area to decide what's right for them, again, within the context of protecting a national transportation system. And for the first time, it allowed local decisionmakers to spend funds on either highways or transit. This leveling of the playing field between transit and highways is very important for many areas of the country, including my own. ISTEA also created a popular program known as Transportation Enhancements which provides a small amount of funding to mitigate some of the negative effects transportation has caused for our local communities. I heard yesterday at a forum in Connecticut how funds were used from this program to restore a recreational and open space corridor along the abandoned right of way of the former Farmington Canal and the Boston and Main Railroad. This project was selected as one of the Nation's 25 best enhancement projects. We've also used funds from this program to help restore some of our coastal wetlands, to protect and enhance the landscape of our famous Merritt Parkway and for the restoration of the Route 8 and Route 15 interchanges. We should also not forget the important process changes made by ISTEA. The law gave local decisionmakers and the public a much greater role in making the transportation decisions that so affect their communities. In Connecticut, mayors and other local elected officials strongly support this approach. In fact, I heard from mayors at a forum yesterday that ISTEA's planning provisions have led to greater cooperation between central cities and their suburban neighbors on a wide variety of issues--extending beyond transportation. Unfortunately, despite ISTEA's record of achievement, our efforts to reauthorize it will not be easy. ISTEA is under attack. A significant number of Senators already support proposals which would eliminate many of the fundamental bases of ISTEA, including much of our commitment to a national transportation system. Instead, these proposals would turn much of the program into essentially a block grant, where I'm concerned our national priorities for our transportation system would be lost. The funds would be distributed based on how much money each State is contributing to the Highway Trust Fund in gasoline taxes rather than looking to the Nation's infrastructure needs and also focusing funding on those systems that require preservation and enhancement. In short, these proposals would largely abandon the Federal role in transportation which is so essential to support national economic growth, global competitiveness, and the quality of life in our communities. I congratulate my friend and colleague Senator Moynihan and his staff for their outstanding work in putting this bill together. I look forward to working with him and my other colleagues as we move through this process.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a national organization based in my district in Connecticut and headed by Col. George F. Keyes USMC (ret.), its current president. The Marine Cadets of America was founded in Connecticut in 1958 and is in its 39th year of operation, and although its mission has drastically changed and is geared to diverting children from falling prey to drugs and alcohol, it also provides children with a wholesome environment by teaching leadership skills, CPR, vocational skills, and a regular camping and survival program along with physical fitness and water sports. The men and women that serve as adult advisors and role models all serve without pay as volunteers and donate their professional skills to the children of this program. I congratulate and commend these men and women for their efforts and wish them every success in the continued efforts of this outstanding youth program.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a former marine, Mr. Anthony (Duke) DeBiase on the occasion of his 29 years of faithful service to the youth of Connecticut through his service with the youth program, the Marine Cadets of America. Mr. DeBiase is a retired city of New Haven employee and also served as chief of security for the New Haven public school system prior to his retirement. Mr. DeBiase also served for 15 years as a member of the board of directors for the U.S. Marine Corps Youth Foundation and among his awards is the Distinguished Service Award from the foundation, he is also the recipient of the Certificate of Congressional Recognition which was awarded for his outstanding community service. Captain DeBiase presently serves as the commanding officer of Company A, 1st Battalion, Marine Cadets of America, a national program recognized by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Department of Defense. The dedication of Captain DeBiase to the war on drugs through his program has bestowed national recognition for his efforts and we wish him continued success in his outstanding leadership to the youth of America.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may be allowed to proceed as in morning business.

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this month we observe the 52d anniversary of the beginning of the end of World War II, and the liberation of victims of the Holocaust in Europe. Just 2 years ago, the 50th anniversary of the war's end, there were many ceremonies, memorials, books, articles, and television programs marking the events of 1945. Now, much of the world's attention seems focused on the coming millennium, and the beginning of the 21st century. But we must not allow ourselves to forget those events of the 20th century that continue to shape our lives. And we must never allow humanity to forget the awful truth of the Holocaust, for if we do, we risk unleashing the horror of that time on the world once again. The act of remembrance becomes more difficult with each passing year, for there remain fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to history. Fewer survivors of the Holocaust remain. Fewer liberators are alive to tell what they saw with their own eyes. And so it falls upon us, the children of the survivors and the liberators, the victims and the witnesses, to carry this burden into the new century, to tell our own children all we know about the horrors visited upon the world a little more than five decades ago, and to pray that what is our history remains history. Mr. President, a short while ago, a distinguished American statesman, Paul Wolfowitz, said, ``Our goal, as we enter the 21st century, is to make sure that it does not repeat the 20th century,'' which is to say the two world wars, the cold war, and all that occurred within it. Today, I wish to speak briefly about one event in the history of the Holocaust and World War II, and that is the liberation of Dachau, the anniversary of which falls less than 3 weeks from today. And I will do so in the words of the 42d Rainbow Infantry Division's ``History of World War II,'' written shortly after the war's end: That word, Dachau, is one which few men of the Rainbow will ever forget. They had heard of Nazi concentration camps and believed or half-believed the stories of the SS atrocities and brutalities conducted in them. Soon they were to see the most famous of all German horror prisons. The oldest such camp in Germany, its very name was feared. Men and women who entered those massive stone gates as prisoners never came out. Inside them was practiced systematic murder. Men who had seen friends die and witnessed all the horrors or war were to turn pale and sick at what they saw at Dachau . . . As the first American entered the prison the 33,000 inmates went wild with joy and at the same time joined in the battle against the SS, some of whom had changed into prisoners striped uniform in an attempt to escape. The first hysterical group to see the Americans rushed and were pushed into an electrified fence which surrounded the principal enclosure and several of them were killed. As the Americans entered the enclosure they rushed to them and tried to throw their arms around them. . . . The men of the Second Battalion began moving through the camp. Everywhere they saw sights which filled them with horror. Drawn up on sidings outside the camp itself they found 50 boxcars, each one filled with about 30 men who had either starved to death in these cars or had been killed by the machine guns of the guards when they tried to escape. . . . In the camp itself there were bodies everywhere. The majority of the guards had fled the night before the Rainbowmen arrived, but before they left they had roamed through the camp killing important prisoners or persons against whom they bore a grudge. . . . Then the guards decided this method was too slow and they turned their machine guns on the inmates. Before they stopped and fled they had killed more than 2,000 in an orgy of murder. Inmates of the camp had gathered these bodies into piles, stacking them up like cordwood. . . . Toward the end [of the war] . . . the Nazis had run out of coal and had no way to cremate the bodies, but still the business of murder by gas continued and hundreds of others died of starvation. These bodies the Rainbowmen found dumped into open graves or thrown into the moat until they dammed the water. The stench of the camp was nauseating and in the huts in which the inmates lived the odor was overpowering. Beaten, tortured and starved by the guards, some of these people had become little more than animals. . . . Dachau was a nightmare to all the men of the Division who saw it . . . but it was also a lesson. ``Now I know why we are fighting,'' man after man said. ``The Nazis who conceived such a place as that were madmen and those people who operated it were insane. We cannot live in the same world with them. . . .'' Mr. President, I have had the honor of meeting some of the veterans of the Rainbow Division, and they have always carried with them the terrible memory of Dachau. And yet, as heroic as their work in fighting the Nazis and liberating the victims of the Holocaust was, to a man they deny any special attention. Like so many men of their generation who did their duty, they simply say, ``we had a job to do, and we did it.'' In so doing, they defended not only the security of the United States of America. They demonstrated that to be human was to be capable of great acts of courage and goodness, even in the face of unspeakable cowardice and evil. Mr. President, I have had the honor of meeting several of the veterans of that Rainbow Division, and they have always carried with them terrible memories of Dachau. Yet, as heroic as their work in fighting Nazis and liberating the victims of the Holocaust was, to a man they denied any special attention. They pushed it aside like so many men in our generation who did their duty. They simply say over and over again, ``We had a job to do and we did it.'' In so doing, they defended not only the security of the United States of America; they demonstrated that to be human was to be capable of great acts of courage and goodness, even in the face of unspeakable cowardice and evil. Mr. President, in closing, I would like to make special mention of two people involved in this one story of the Holocaust and the liberation of Dachau. One is a constituent, Robert T. Kennedy, of Wallingford, CT, who at age 32 was drafted into the Army, in part because of his expertise in radio technology, and despite the fact he had a heart condition. Like so many others of his generation, he answered the call of duty, even though it meant leaving his wife, Beatrice, and 6-month-old son, Bobby, at home. Young Bob was nearly 3 when his dad finally returned from the war. Sergeant Kennedy was a member of the Rainbow Division, and he witnessed the horrors of Dachau. And he made sure to tell his children all about the concentration camp, even at an age when they could barely grasp its meaning. He spoke of the rage he and his fellow soldiers felt for those who made torture and murder a way of life, and he told of how the men of the Rainbow forced the civilian townspeople of Dachau to march up to the nearby camp and see for themselves what most, if not all, of them surely must have known was occurring for so many years. Sergeant Kennedy passed away in 1976, but the memory of his service lives on in the hearts of his family. Another person who was there, in that same dark corner of the Earth at the same moment in history as Sergeant Kennedy and the men of the Rainbow Division, was Ella Wieder, an inmate first at Auschwitz, and then at Dachau-Allach, a subcamp of Dachau also liberated at the end of April 1945. Apparently, it was her work as a slave laborer that, fortunately, stood in the way of her termination long enough for her to survive the Holocaust. After the war she returned to her native Czechoslovakia, and met Rabbi Samuel Freilich. They married, and soon thereafter gave birth to a daughter, Hadassah, who is my wife, and the mother of our child, Nana. Mr. President, I tell this story with some feeling today particularly because for the last 17 years Sgt. Robert Kennedy's son, Jim Kennedy, has been my spokesman, my press secretary, my communications director, my muse, and, best of all, my friend. Tomorrow, after these 17 years in the movement of life that is inevitable, Jim Kennedy, who for the first time is sitting by my side on the floor, is leaving the service of the U.S. Government, and, more particularly, work at my own office, to go on to a wonderful opportunity in the private sector in New York. I cannot thank him enough, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so publicly, not just for the extraordinary eloquence and hard work that he has brought to our work together but to the profound sense of values carrying on the heroism of his father and his family that he has brought to his work with me, to his personal life, to his marriage, and to his fatherhood. I cannot thank him enough. I will miss him. But I wish him all of God's blessings in the years ahead. I know that, though we will not be working together, our friendship will go on for as long as the Good Lord gives us the opportunity to be alive on this Earth. Mr. President, life goes on, despite the efforts of the Nazis and so many others to snuff it out. With this tremendous yearning and quest to realize the rights that our Constitution and Declaration of Independence enshrines to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness we prevail. And with those rights, however, comes the responsibility of caring for the lives of others. That means remembering the past and its shameful secrets in a way that secures a more hopeful future. It means carrying forth the lessons of the 20th century into the 21st, and telling the stories of the heroes, like Sgt. Kennedy, and the villains of this time in hopes that future generations will never know the enormous terror that once ruled in the dismal environs of Dachau not so long ago. And it means being grateful to all those here at the Senate, like Jim Kennedy who helped people like me give service to the public, and hopefully in that service make this a freer, better country and world. I thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor. Mr. SMITH of Oregon addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join again with Senator Roth in this effort to designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area. This legislation would save the American people the huge social and environmental costs of unwise and unnecessary development of one of nature's crown jewels. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the last complete Alaskan wilderness with elements of each tundra ecosystem, the biological heart of the North Slope of Alaska. It is on a par with our other great national resources, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, the Badlands, Glacier Bay, and Denali. This is a unique piece of God's Earth that must be preserved for our entire Nation for centuries to come. Make no mistake, environmental impacts to the Arctic National Refuge from oil development would be severe and irreversible. The refuge includes the calving grounds for one of the largest caribou herds in North America, the Porcupine herd--152,000 strong. Native American customs have centered around the herd's annual migration for at least 20,000 years. The refuge is a treasure chest of plants, animals, and wilderness unique to the world in terms of abundance, diversity, and value to humankind. Over 200 species of plants and animals thrive in the refuge, including muskoxen, snow geese, Arctic foxes, Arctic grayling, and Arctic char. It is the only natural area in the United States with all three species of North American bears--the black bear, the grizzly bear and the polar bear. It is one of the most natural areas in our Nation, untouched by development, and the last of its kind. Many environmental studies demonstrate that the negative environmental effects of opening the Arctic Refuge to development will be severe. Biologists from Federal and State agencies and universities have concluded that oil development will harm the calving of the caribou herd, and reduce its long term numbers very significantly. The Office of Management and Budget has stated that ``exploration and development activities would bring physical disturbances to the area, unacceptable risks of oil spills and pollution, and long-term effects that would harm wildlife for decades.'' Raymond Cameron, formerly of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, documented that 19 percent fewer calves are born to caribou cows on developed lands as opposed to undeveloped lands, with a 2-percent margin of error. His study also documented that caribou cows miss yearly calving at a 36-percent rate in developed areas, versus only 19 percent in undeveloped areas. Even a small change in calving success can lead to long-term population declines. A study by the State of Alaska showed that the Arctic caribou herd at Prudhoe Bay declined from 23,400 to 18,100--23 percent--since 1992. All the population decline occurred in habitat affected by oil development, while herds in undeveloped areas grew slightly. Biologists fear that development impacts would be proportionately greater on the herd that uses the Arctic Refuge. The amount of oil that potentially can be recovered from the Arctic Refuge is simply too small to affect our energy security, and too destructive to the environment to be worth it. A 1995 assessment of petroleum reserves by the U.S. Geological Survey reported that there is a 95-percent chance that only 148 million barrels of oil exist in the refuge. This would amount to a drop in the national oil bucket--an 8- day supply. Even if the USGS high estimate were correct, the refuge would hold at most a 290-day supply for the United States. We can all hope for another strike like Prudhoe Bay. But the simple reality, based on the very best geological science and economics available today, is that alternative energy supplies, as well as the real energy savings from national energy conservation programs, are far more reliable, tangible, and less destructive energy sources than a wild gamble with the Alaskan wilderness. The remaining 90 percent of the Alaskan North Slope is already open to oil and gas leasing. Is it too much to protect what little we have left? Every reliable national poll conducted on this issue shows Americans of all political persuasions are against development in the refuge by a more than three to one margin. Let's honor our history of conservation and protect the future for generations to come, by saving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to join again with Senator Roth in this effort to designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area. This legislation would save the American people the huge social and environmental costs of unwise and unnecessary development of one of nature's crown jewels. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the last complete Alaskan wilderness with elements of each tundra ecosystem, the biological heart of the North Slope of Alaska. It is on a par with our other great national resources, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, the Badlands, Glacier Bay, and Denali. This is a unique piece of God's Earth that must be preserved for our entire Nation for centuries to come. Make no mistake, environmental impacts to the Arctic National Refuge from oil development would be severe and irreversible. The refuge includes the calving grounds for one of the largest caribou herds in North America, the Porcupine herd--152,000 strong. Native American customs have centered around the herd's annual migration for at least 20,000 years. The refuge is a treasure chest of plants, animals, and wilderness unique to the world in terms of abundance, diversity, and value to humankind. Over 200 species of plants and animals thrive in the refuge, including muskoxen, snow geese, Arctic foxes, Arctic grayling, and Arctic char. It is the only natural area in the United States with all three species of North American bears--the black bear, the grizzly bear and the polar bear. It is one of the most natural areas in our Nation, untouched by development, and the last of its kind. Many environmental studies demonstrate that the negative environmental effects of opening the Arctic Refuge to development will be severe. Biologists from Federal and State agencies and universities have concluded that oil development will harm the calving of the caribou herd, and reduce its long term numbers very significantly. The Office of Management and Budget has stated that ``exploration and development activities would bring physical disturbances to the area, unacceptable risks of oil spills and pollution, and long-term effects that would harm wildlife for decades.'' Raymond Cameron, formerly of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, documented that 19 percent fewer calves are born to caribou cows on developed lands as opposed to undeveloped lands, with a 2-percent margin of error. His study also documented that caribou cows miss yearly calving at a 36-percent rate in developed areas, versus only 19 percent in undeveloped areas. Even a small change in calving success can lead to long-term population declines. A study by the State of Alaska showed that the Arctic caribou herd at Prudhoe Bay declined from 23,400 to 18,100--23 percent--since 1992. All the population decline occurred in habitat affected by oil development, while herds in undeveloped areas grew slightly. Biologists fear that development impacts would be proportionately greater on the herd that uses the Arctic Refuge. The amount of oil that potentially can be recovered from the Arctic Refuge is simply too small to affect our energy security, and too destructive to the environment to be worth it. A 1995 assessment of petroleum reserves by the U.S. Geological Survey reported that there is a 95-percent chance that only 148 million barrels of oil exist in the refuge. This would amount to a drop in the national oil bucket--an 8- day supply. Even if the USGS high estimate were correct, the refuge would hold at most a 290-day supply for the United States. We can all hope for another strike like Prudhoe Bay. But the simple reality, based on the very best geological science and economics available today, is that alternative energy supplies, as well as the real energy savings from national energy conservation programs, are far more reliable, tangible, and less destructive energy sources than a wild gamble with the Alaskan wilderness. The remaining 90 percent of the Alaskan North Slope is already open to oil and gas leasing. Is it too much to protect what little we have left? Every reliable national poll conducted on this issue shows Americans of all political persuasions are against development in the refuge by a more than three to one margin. Let's honor our history of conservation and protect the future for generations to come, by saving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Congregation Kol Haverim of Glastonbury, CT, in recognition of the groundbreaking for its new synagogue building held on April 13, 1997. Through sheer determination, a singleness of purpose and spirit, as well as the considerable generosity of its members and the community at large, this congregation of 200 families is now realizing a dream that no one would have thought possible only a few short years ago. Congregation Kol Haverim was formed only 13 years ago by a handful of Jewish families in the Glastonbury area, worshiping initially in the back-room of a local grocery store, and later purchasing a former Knights of Columbus hall that serves as its present one room home. Over the past 2 years, the congregation has raised over $1.3 million and its architects have designed a new building, to be added as an addition to the existing facility, that has been praised by local town planning and zoning officials as a model of design for new construction in the area. In addition to attending to the spiritual needs of its members through worship services and its ever-growing religious school, Congregation Kol Haverim has always tried to attend to the needs of the local community and Greater Hartford, as well, through its various adult education, community outreach, and other programs. Whether through sponsoring a lecture or the volunteers it regularly provides to local soup kitchens or its participation in area-wide food or clothing drives, Congregation Kol Haverim, like other houses of worship in the area, has always strived to give of itself to the surrounding communities from which it draws its strength. The new building will provide a pleasant and welcoming new home for sacred study, communal worship, and social action. I congratulate Congregation Kol Haverim, as it begins this new chapter in its existence. I thank its members for their initiative and all the good work they have done over the past 13 years, and I encourage them to continue to address all the good work that remains to be done.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to make a few remarks concerning Arnold Aronson. For some Americans, civil rights is a cause. For others, civil rights has been a crusade. For Arnold Aronson, civil rights has been his life. In his quiet, effective, persistent way, Arnold Aronson fought the battles that too many Americans simply talked about. It made no difference whether the victims were Jewish workers or Protestant pastors, black adults or white children, Arnold Aronson knew that there was only one American dream and that it applied to all Americans. Arnold Aronson has over the last half century worked with all the big names in civil rights, Americans like A. Philip Randolph and Roy Wilkins. But Arnold Aronson should not be honored for the big names for whom he worked but for the countless millions who he worked so hard to help. Arnold Aronson once said: ``The struggle for civil rights cannot be won by any one group acting by or for itself alone but only through a coalition of groups that share a common commitment to equal justice and equal opportunity for every American.'' For Arnold Aronson, opportunity knew no boundaries of age, race, or religion. Opportunity was simply a principle to be lived and practiced, consistently, lovingly, and most of all, together. From his work with the Bureau on Jewish employment in Chicago in 1941 to his presidency of the Leadership Conference Education Fund for the past decade, Arnold Aronson has turned that principle of opportunity for all into his life's mission.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud today to join with my colleagues Senator Brownback, DeWine, and Kohl in introducing the Television Program Improvement Act of 1997, a bill we believe will help directly address the public's concerns about the declining standards of television and that will hopefully lead the television industry to exercise more responsibility for the programming it puts on the air. The industry has tried in part to respond to the concerns of parents about the negative influence television is having on children by creating a rating system for sex, violence, and vulgar content. This system is a good start, but there is a general consensus it does not go far enough in providing parents with the information they need to make wise choices for their children. When I recently testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on this issue, I tried to get this point across by comparing the industry's system to putting up a sign in front of shark-infested waters that said ``Be careful when swimming.'' That is to say that, while these ratings provide a warning to the viewer, they don't tell us why we need to be warned. But I also used this metaphor to make a larger point, which is regardless of how informative the ratings are, what parents really want is to get the sharks out of the water, to improve the quality of programming on the air, and make it safe for their kids to go swimming again. The intent of the legislation we are introducing today, the Television Program Improvement Act of 1997, is to reiterate that message and to urge the industry to focus on what's at the heart of this debate over the TV rating system--a very real, broadly-felt concern that television has become a destructive force in our society and it is doing substantial damage to the hearts, minds, and souls of our children. This bill really amounts to a plea on our part to the industry for their help. Moreover, it is an attempt to move this debate beyond the question of rights, which we all accept, acknowledge and support, and begin talking more about responsibilities. Specifically, the kind of responsibility that broadcasters once embraced through a comprehensive code of conduct, in which they acknowledged the enormous power they commanded and the need to wield it carefully, and in which they recognized that they had an obligation under the law to serve the public interest. I would urge my colleagues to take a look at some of the standards the Nation's broadcasters set for themselves in the old NAB TV Code, which we've excerpted in the findings of our legislation, and you'll see that they are quite remarkable statements of responsibility. After reading these principles, I would urge my colleagues to compare them to some of the comments made recently by industry leaders, such as the network official who proclaimed ``it is not the responsibility of network television to program for the children of America,'' or the MTV executive who said his network ``is not safe for kids'' but markets it directly to them anyway. Watch what these programmers are bringing into our homes today, and it is clear that the face of television has changed dramatically since the industry abandoned the old NAB Code in 1983 and abandoned the ethic undergirding it. It is also clear that while the networks have profited from the resulting competition downward, it is the American family who is paying the price--in the form of the awful daytime talk shows that parade the most perverse forms of behavior into our living rooms and teach our children the worst ways to settle conflicts, and the excesses of prime-time comedies that amount to little more than what we used to call dirty jokes. The rise of these programs leave little doubt that this debate is about much more than the threat of violence--which was the reason for the original Television Program Improvement Act sponsored by Senator Simon in 1990--although this threat remains a serious problem. What is driving so much of the public's concern is the deluge of casual sex and vulgarities that characterizes so much of television today. The collective force of these messages leaves parents feeling as if they are in a losing struggle to raise their own children, to give them strong values, to teach them right from wrong and guide them to acceptable forms of behavior. With the bill we're introducing today, we are asking the television industry to do no more than what it did as recently as the early 1980's, and that is to draw some lines that they will not go below, to declare, as author and noted commentator Alan Ehrenhalt has said, ``that some things are too lurid, too violent, or too profane for a mass audience to see.'' If the industry is not willing to refill that responsible role, there will be increasing pressure on the Government to do it for them. One of the most telling polls I've seen recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which showed that 46 percent of Americans favor more Government controls on television to protect children. It's not a coincidence that there are bills being prepared in Congress that would in fact censor what is on the air. Our legislation is designed to help us avoid reaching that point. It will ideally remind the industry of its obligations to the public we both serve, and that changing the subject, as some in the industry prefer to do, won't change the minds of the millions of American families who want programming that reflects rather than rejects their values. Again, to return to my metaphor, we are simply making a plea to the industry to take the sharks out of the water, and make it safe for our kids to go swimming, or perhaps more aptly, to go channel-surfing again. Mr. President, in closing, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of my remarks be included in the appropriate place in the Record to accompany this legislation. I also ask unanimous consent that a summary of the Television Program Improvement Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. And to provide my colleagues with some additional background on the old NAB Television Code and what has happened to television since it was abandoned, I ask unanimous consent that a factsheet my staff has prepared be included in the Record. This factsheet helps summarize the bill's findings and put them into some historical context.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. I thank my distinguished colleague from South Carolina. Mr. President, I am here to express my support for Senate Joint Resolution 18, introduced by the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from Pennsylvania. If I may, let me just briefly respond to the statement made by my friend from Kentucky that there are not any interest groups supporting this amendment on the left or on the right. I am not surprised by that. Do you know who is supporting this amendment? The unorganized mass of the American people who do not belong to special interest groups of the left or the right and who know that something fundamentally wrong is happening in our democracy that is depriving them of their equal and individual right to affect their government. What is happening is the unlimited, and I am afraid corrupting, use of money in America politics. Mr. President, I do not come to supporting a constitutional amendment of any kind, certainly one affecting the first amendment, lightly. I do not believe that I have ever supported any other amendment to the Constitution that would alter the first amendment. But I think that the threat to our democracy from the excess of money in politics is so serious that it merits--in fact, it calls out for--support of this constitutional amendment. Let's remember what we are doing here when we talk about the Buckley decision. To pass this constitutional amendment is not to contradict what the Framers of the Constitution did in their great work more than 200 years ago. It is to contradict five of the Members of the U.S. Supreme Court, who gave a rendering of the first amendment that I cannot imagine the Framers of our Constitution had in mind, which is that money is speech. It is hard to believe. The consequences are serious. So it is only by supporting this amendment and giving us the right to limit the amount of money in politics that I think we can restore a sense of integrity and sanity to our campaign finance system and, if I do say so, to our democracy. Mr. President, much of the debate over this proposed constitutional amendment has centered on this question of the threat to the principle of free speech. Of course, we all hold that principle dear. But free speech is not what is at issue here. Free speech is about the inalienable God-given right of all of us to express our points of view without governmental interference. That simply is not at issue here in this proposed amendment, or in our campaign finance system. Mr. President, nothing in this amendment or in any campaign finance reform package that I have seen that could be passed here would diminish or threaten individual Americans' rights to express their views about candidates running for office, or about any problem or issue in American life. What would be threatened by this constitutional amendment is what should be threatened by it, and that is something entirely different--the ever-increasing and disproportionate power that those with money have over our political system. As everyone in this Chamber knows, the spiraling costs of running for office require all of us to spend more and more time raising money and more and more time with those who give it. Barely a day goes by in which we do not learn of an event or a meeting with elected officials attended only by those who could afford to give $5,000 or $10,000 or $100,000 or more--sums of money that are obviously beyond the capacity of the overwhelming majority of the American people. And that is threatening a principle all of us also hold dear, as dearly as the principle of free speech, which is the fundamental underlying principle of our democracy. It is a sacred principle. I say it is sacred because of that line in the beginning of the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal and we, men and women of America, are endowed not by Congress, not by some committee but by our Creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That principle guarantees that every person has one vote and each and every one of us, rich or poor or in between, has an equal right and an equal ability to influence the workings of our Government. As it stands now, it is that sacred principle, the underlying principle of all of the rights expressed in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, that is under attack from our campaign finance status quo system, and that sacred principle that promises to remain under attack until we do something to save it and protect it, and that something, I submit, is quite simply to limit the influence of money in politics. I do not see a way to do that without limiting the amount of money spent in political campaigns, and I do not see a way to do that constitutionally without passing this constitutional amendment. Mr. President, nothing less than the future of our great democracy is at stake here. Unless we act to reform our campaign finance system, people with money will continue to have disproportionate influence in our system. People who are not even citizens of the United States will try to influence our Government's decision by their use of money. And the genius of America--that our citizenship based on our common creation by God, not our pocketbook, gives us each equal power to play a role in our governance--that genius will continue to be under seige. Mr. President, I support the constitutional amendment. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I join my friend and colleague, Senator Domenici in cosponsoring a resolution to designate a week in October as ``National Character Counts Week.'' This will mark the fourth consecutive year that we have considered such a resolution to honor the Character Counts movement. It is small gesture, but a meaningful one all the same. By recognizing this program, Congress is making an important statement about both the value of character education and the state of our values. We are saying affirmatively that our public schools can and must play a central role in shaping the character and values of our children. And we are saying that this kind of commitment, a commitment to the principles undergirding the Character Counts Program, is needed now more than ever. The reality, Mr. President, is that the state of our values is not well. The American people are deeply concerned about the abundant evidence they see of a real moral breakdown in our society--so much so that polls taken over the last few years routinely show that the public is more worried about the country's moral decline than its economic decline. What's driving this concern, which many of us in this Chamber share, is an understanding that our growing inability to make moral distinctions, to draw lines about right and wrong and set boundaries about what is acceptable behavior, is having real consequences. We are recognizing that this moral breakdown is contributing to and exacerbating some of our society's most profound social ills, such as the rising tide of ever more random and vicious violence committed by ever more younger killers, the disintegration of the family, the crisis of teenage illegitimacy, the coarsening of our culture, and the loss of civility in our polity and our everyday lives. More and more these days there is a sense that our country is spiraling out of control, and at the root of that feeling is what might be called a values vacuum. The traditional transmitters of values that we have depended on for generations to build character and bind our moral safety net have lost much of their power. One of those transmitters is the family, which is under enormous economic pressure these days and is prey to divorce and other forms of breakdown. Another transmitter is the community and the loose connection of local civic institutions we refer to as civil society, which has weakened to the point that an entire movement has sprung up to renew it. Then there are our public schools. For generations the public school system was the backbone of our democracy, where children were not just taught what is good grammar but what it means to be a good citizen, and where children of all backgrounds were versed in a common set of core values. But in recent years public schools have increasingly lost that mission, and too often shied away from questions of values and the formation of character. In the eyes of many families, some schools might as well had signs out front declaring them value-neutral zones. What is perhaps most disturbing about this trend is that the values vacuum the schools have helped create is being filled more and more these days by the electronic media and the frequently destructive messages it is bombarding our children with. The collective force of television, movies, music, and video games is so influential that many parents I talk to feel as if they are in a competition with the culture to raise their children and give them strong values. The character traits they are trying to instill in their children are being openly contradicted by the bulk of the messages kids are receiving about the acceptability and the inconsequentiality of casual sex, the contempt for all forms of authority, and the appropriateness of settling a dispute by putting a bullet through the other person's temple. The result is the prevalence of what one leading expert on child development calls the culture of disrespect. The media's inability to make moral distinctions and draw lines about right and wrong makes it all the more important for us to strengthen our traditional values transmitters. And that is why the Character Counts movement deserves all the support we can provide. Rebuilding our families and our communities will be a long, painstaking process. But reviving the role of schools in helping our children learn about the fundamentals of character is a challenge we can meet easily and quickly. In fact, the Character Counts program has already done the hard part, identifying the core values and principles that we can all agree that we want our schools to instill and reinforce in our children. The question of whose values? that is often asked has been answered, with a consensus behind our values--trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring for others, and citizenship. I am heartened to know that the Character Counts program is rapidly spreading through communities across the country, and I am particularly proud that my State of Connecticut has made a long-term commitment to bring character education into every school district in the State. With the aid of a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education last year, the State took the first major step toward that goal by selecting four communities for funding to introduce the Character Counts Program on a districtwide basis. Some Connecticut schools have already embraced this program on their own, and I can report to my colleagues that it is bearing fruit. Let me offer one compelling example. Last year a nine-year-old from the town of Torrington named Joshua Dy found an envelope on the ground that contained three $100 bills. Joshua said he initially thought of keeping the money for himself, but he then thought of what he learned in Character Counts at the Southwest School and from his father about honesty and integrity, and decided the right thing would be to turn the money over to the police. Joshua was rewarded for his honesty when the police returned the money to him after no one claimed it and when President Clinton saluted his good character with a letter of congratulations. Mr. President, I would encourage my colleagues to find their own ways to reward and recognize the good deeds that are germinating from the seeds of Character Counts. A good place to start is with this resolution, which will help raise public awareness of this valuable values program and make Character Counts really count. Let me close by praising Senator Domenici for his leadership on this issue, and by asking that my remarks be placed in the appropriate place in the Record to accompany the Character Counts resolution.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, from the time I came to the Senate in 1989, I have been proud to advocate enterprise zones for America's troubled neighborhoods. I think this issue is at the heart of the whole question of what America must do to redeem the promise of economic opportunity for all Americans. I was pleased to work with Jack Kemp on this issue when he was Secretary of HUD, for the past 2 years with Senator Abraham, and now with Representatives Watts, Flake, and Talent. We all believe that not enough is being done to empower those people who live, work, and want to start businesses in our poorest urban and rural areas of the country. Any response to the economic distress in urban and rural areas which does not include a mechanism to attract businesses and jobs back to these areas is a response that is destined to fail. We took a step toward empowering poor Americans and identifying and helping impoverished communities by passing 1993 legislation creating empowerment zones and enterprise communities in more than 100 neighborhoods across the country. With the passage of that legislation, Congress recognized something that our States have acknowledged for many years: Government loses the war on poverty when it fights alone. What we really need to do is figure out a way to pull the people and the places with little or no stake in our economic system, into our system. We need to answer ``yes'' to the question posed by Paul Pryde, coauthor of ``Black Entrepreneurship in America.'' That question is, ``Can we make the market work for the discouraged, isolated and frequently embittered underclass?'' We can, and need, to answer, ``yes.'' The 1993 legislation marked a fundamental change in urban policy, by recognizing that American business can and must play a role in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. Indeed, American business involvement is essential if we are to break the cycle of poverty and the related ills confronting too many cities and rural areas today--crime, drug abuse, illiteracy, and unemployment. The 1993 breakthrough was a good start, but we did not go far enough. That's why I am pleased to join with my colleague, Senator Spencer Abraham, on a bipartisan basis, in announcing the American Community Renewal Act of 1997. We want to help economically distressed urban and rural areas by creating 100 community renewal zones, including current empowerment zones and enterprise communities created by OBRA 1993, and additional communities meeting poverty and local commitment criteria. Specifically, these zones must have a 20 percent or more poverty rate, unemployment of at least 15 percent the national rate, and at least 70 percent of households with incomes below 80 percent median household income. Renewal communities will commit to reducing barriers to business, such as reductions in local taxes and fees, elimination of State and local sales tax, and waiver of local and State occupational licensing regulations except for those specifically needed to protect health and safety. This legislation will offer targeted, pro-growth tax and regulatory relief to encourage private sector job creation and economic activity in impoverished areas. To enhance business and community partnerships, we have included provisions to facilitate additional housing opportunities, encourage savings, and offer additional education and investment opportunities. The CRA credit will facilitate additional investment and lending to community development financial institutions, and family development accounts will encourage low-income families to save part of their income or EITC refund. Family development account funds will be deductible for tax purposes and can be withdrawn tax-free if used for qualified purposes. Family and community ties will be strengthened through new private investment opportunities and expanded access to drug treatment in these communities. We cannot give up on our inner cities and impoverished areas. Government, itself, cannot revitalize these areas. Communities must be strengthened through expanded economic opportunities, jobs, and private sector development in people's own local neighborhoods. Only then, can our communities save themselves from the vicious cycle of poverty and prepare our children for the future. Local partnerships and the commitment of business and communities to improving the economy of our poorest areas will provide the cornerstone of the future. Through limited government involvement, enhanced personal responsibility, and the economic freedom of business to grow and develop, poor communities can become players in our Nation's economy. The American Community Renewal Act helps poor Americans of all backgrounds pursue happiness, and escape from the trap of poverty that defines too many of their lives today.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Diversified Intergenerational Care, Inc., in recognition of the grand opening of their facility at the West Haven Medical Center on March 21, 1997. This facility, which is the first of its kind in the Nation, will provide child care services and care for the mildly ill and elderly. The sole principals of the company, Scott L. Shafer and Bernard L. Ginsberg, were able to make this facility a reality through a lease they were awarded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were selected for the Department's enhanced-use lease through a highly competitive process involving companies nationwide. Diversified Intergenerational Care, Inc., considers it an honor to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs. They intend to continue their partnership by developing other inter-generational facilities. Their goal is to satisfy the unmet need for child care services while also providing care for mildly ill children and the elderly at VA medical centers across the country. I congratulate Diversified Inter-generational Care, Inc., the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC, and the Connecticut Healthcare System for creating this very worthwhile facility, and thank them for working to make these vital services available to those in need.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, from the time I came to the Senate in 1989, I have been proud to advocate enterprise zones for America's troubled neighborhoods. I think this issue is at the heart of the whole question of what America must do to redeem the promise of economic opportunity for all Americans. I was pleased to work with Jack Kemp on this issue when he was Secretary of HUD, for the past 2 years with Senator Abraham, and now with Representatives Watts, Flake, and Talent. We all believe that not enough is being done to empower those people who live, work, and want to start businesses in our poorest urban and rural areas of the country. Any response to the economic distress in urban and rural areas which does not include a mechanism to attract businesses and jobs back to these areas is a response that is destined to fail. We took a step toward empowering poor Americans and identifying and helping impoverished communities by passing 1993 legislation creating empowerment zones and enterprise communities in more than 100 neighborhoods across the country. With the passage of that legislation, Congress recognized something that our States have acknowledged for many years: Government loses the war on poverty when it fights alone. What we really need to do is figure out a way to pull the people and the places with little or no stake in our economic system, into our system. We need to answer ``yes'' to the question posed by Paul Pryde, coauthor of ``Black Entrepreneurship in America.'' That question is, ``Can we make the market work for the discouraged, isolated and frequently embittered underclass?'' We can, and need, to answer, ``yes.'' The 1993 legislation marked a fundamental change in urban policy, by recognizing that American business can and must play a role in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. Indeed, American business involvement is essential if we are to break the cycle of poverty and the related ills confronting too many cities and rural areas today--crime, drug abuse, illiteracy, and unemployment. The 1993 breakthrough was a good start, but we did not go far enough. That's why I am pleased to join with my colleague, Senator Spencer Abraham, on a bipartisan basis, in announcing the American Community Renewal Act of 1997. We want to help economically distressed urban and rural areas by creating 100 community renewal zones, including current empowerment zones and enterprise communities created by OBRA 1993, and additional communities meeting poverty and local commitment criteria. Specifically, these zones must have a 20 percent or more poverty rate, unemployment of at least 15 percent the national rate, and at least 70 percent of households with incomes below 80 percent median household income. Renewal communities will commit to reducing barriers to business, such as reductions in local taxes and fees, elimination of State and local sales tax, and waiver of local and State occupational licensing regulations except for those specifically needed to protect health and safety. This legislation will offer targeted, pro-growth tax and regulatory relief to encourage private sector job creation and economic activity in impoverished areas. To enhance business and community partnerships, we have included provisions to facilitate additional housing opportunities, encourage savings, and offer additional education and investment opportunities. The CRA credit will facilitate additional investment and lending to community development financial institutions, and family development accounts will encourage low-income families to save part of their income or EITC refund. Family development account funds will be deductible for tax purposes and can be withdrawn tax-free if used for qualified purposes. Family and community ties will be strengthened through new private investment opportunities and expanded access to drug treatment in these communities. We cannot give up on our inner cities and impoverished areas. Government, itself, cannot revitalize these areas. Communities must be strengthened through expanded economic opportunities, jobs, and private sector development in people's own local neighborhoods. Only then, can our communities save themselves from the vicious cycle of poverty and prepare our children for the future. Local partnerships and the commitment of business and communities to improving the economy of our poorest areas will provide the cornerstone of the future. Through limited government involvement, enhanced personal responsibility, and the economic freedom of business to grow and develop, poor communities can become players in our Nation's economy. The American Community Renewal Act helps poor Americans of all backgrounds pursue happiness, and escape from the trap of poverty that defines too many of their lives today.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the State of Connecticut, sports fans, and alumni of Yale University said goodbye to a true national coaching legend when Carm Cozza stepped down as coach of the Yale University football team last fall. Carm was Yale's head coach for 32 years, winning a school-record 179 games and coaching 1,300 players. He led the Elis to 10 Ivy League championships and coached future National Football League stars like Calvin Hill, who went on to win a championship with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970's and Gary Fencik, a member of the Super Bowl XX champion Chicago Bears. He is a Connecticut and American coaching icon. ``I think Cozza epitomizes the champion that all of us try to be, that we strive to be,'' said Fencik, an All-American in 1975, in a recent interview with the New Haven Register. ``You learn a lot more about a man under adversity and Carm had tremendous adversity that first year. My first year we didn't even have a winning record and he treated that season the same as the next two when we won league titles,'' said Hill in the same story. Cozza began his coaching career at Yale at a time when Ivy League football was truly top-notch college football. But as the prestige of Ivy League football faded, and Division I-AA football slipped in general, Carm stayed at Yale. He was offered jobs at the University of Virginia and Princeton, but elected to stay in Connecticut. And we're grateful for that, because he's touched the lives of so many Ivy League athletes and so many other people in our State. A true testament of how successful Cozza's former players have become is in the numbers--Seven NCAA post-graduate scholarship winners, seven GTE /CoSIDA District I academic All-Americans, five National Football Foundation Hall of Fame Scholar-Athletes, and five Rhodes Scholars. These numbers make Cozza the proudest and the best of leaders. His coaches have also gone on to bigger and better positions. Eleven of his assistant coaches became head coaches on the college level. Included on the list are Buddy Amendola, who led Central Connecticut State University, Jim Root--William & Mary--Bill Mallory--Indiana--Bill Narduzzi--Youngstown State. Cozza's football coaching career commenced at the high school level at Gilmour Academy and Collinwood High, both in Ohio, before he became the head freshman coach at Miami in 1956. Five seasons later, he joined the varsity as an assistant. He left Miami in 1963 to join John Pont's staff at Yale and after Pont resigned to become head coach at Indiana, Cozza became the Bulldogs' new head coach. The lives he touched--let's just say they all remember. They all are grateful. At a farewell dinner last fall, all but one of his captains came back to pay tribute. The only one who didn't appear was on business and couldn't get away. Each shared a story about him. Sending written tributes, congratulating the coach on an incredible career, were President Clinton and former Presidents Bush and Ford. Gov. John Rowland proclaimed the day he coached his final game Carm Cozza Day and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano did the same for the city. Carmen Louis Cozza was born on June 10, 1930, in Parma, OH. He earned 11 varsity letters in football, basketball, track, and baseball, while serving as class president his last 3 years, at Parma High and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1982. Cozza and his wife, the former Jean Annable, reside in Orange, not far from his beloved Yale. We'll all miss this living legend's presence on the football field. But his presence in our hearts and the memories of his great career will live on.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I have great confidence in our ranking Democrat. And I believe together we are going to go forward to cleanse and elevate the way campaigns are financed in America and to reestablish and rebuild the basic core of our Democratic system. I thank the Chair, and I thank the chairman of the committee and the ranking Democrat. I yield the floor. Mr. THOMPSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the chairman. Mr. President, this is serious business. There are some people, I think, who rightly say the American people do not really care about all this campaign finance trouble, maybe because they are numb to these kinds of revelations. Some say maybe, ``Oh, they all think it goes on anyways, so what's the difference. Everybody does it.'' I do not know whether the American people are listening or watching. I believe they really are. But I know that history is watching. And I know that we will be judged as to how we respond to this fundamental challenge to our democracy: the basic premise of equal access to Government, the basic premise of a Government in which one person has one vote and one person who may have a lot of money to put in politics does not have any more influence than that one person with one vote. But when people can walk in and give hundreds of thousands of dollars, and money moves from committees to committees, when people in politics, as we know because we are there, have to spend as much time as they do and feel the relentless pressure that they do to meet the competition, to raise the money to pay for the advertisements, then the standards of each one of us are tested and the standards of the system are challenged. A lot has been made in this debate and in the media about allegations that foreign countries or interests may have attempted to purchase influence, used campaign contributions. Mr. President, I will tell you that that is despicable behavior. But what we have to say to our ourselves is, they have done so because they believe, apparently, if these allegations are right, that American democracy is for sale. None of us want to leave that impression. And the way to correct it is by reforming our campaign finance laws. The way to begin that process is to do the kind of full and open investigation that the Senate, by this amendment, will now authorize. I have great confidence in the chairman of the committee.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Four minutes.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Perhaps, in the spirit of bipartisanship that is on the floor now, if I use the remaining 4 minutes of Senator Glenn's time, I may turn to Senator Thompson and ask him to yield a few. Mr. President, I want to thank everyone involved in what occurred here today. This is an extraordinarily significant accomplishment, not only on its face but in what it says about the willingness of the U.S. Senate to deal directly with the problem of too much money in American politics to deign to do something about it. This is a significant victory which is attributable in large measure to the leadership of the Senate, the majority leader, Democratic leader, and the leadership of the committee, the Senator from Tennessee, the chairman, and the Senator from Ohio. But it is, in truth, as has been said on other occasions, not a victory for any person or any party, it is truly a victory for the public interest. Mr. President, over the last couple of weeks there was a strange and troubling discontinuity between the growing avalanche of revelations about the impact of money on American politics and the impression it gives that American democracy is for sale, on the one hand, and the seeming movement here in the Senate, particularly in the vote in the Rules Committee last week. I am not saying this was the intention, but it certainly gave the impression of going into a kind of bunker of not being willing to have a full and open investigation of the problem of the way in which campaigns are financed in this country. By limiting the jurisdiction of the investigation to be performed by the Governmental Affairs Committee to illegal activities in association with the 1996 Federal elections, the impact would have been effectively to have crippled the investigation, in my opinion. Who would have decided what was illegal? Could not anyone subpoenaed by the committee have claimed that their client had not done anything illegal, and therefore the subpoena was improper? Of course, the basic purpose here, if we are serious about campaign finance reform, should be to investigate and reveal and inform, as the chairman of the committee said in one of his opening statements in this investigation, to inform the public about what is legal today but ought to be illegal, what is improper or unclear but ought to be illegal. That is what campaign finance reform is all about, taking some of the vagaries of the current system, some things that are not vague but are clearly improper, not illegal, and making them illegal. And as disappointing as the vote of the Rules Committee was last Thursday, I believe the vote of the Senate today, bipartisan as it is, is heartening. Reason has prevailed. I think Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle focused in on the impact of this constricting jurisdiction for the investigative committee and decided it was not right. And that resulted in the addition of these simple two words, ``or improper.'' But there is a world of difference in those. A significant step forward has been taken today on the road to campaign finance reform. What is most important is that we have done it together, Republicans and Democrats, acting not as Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans facing a very serious challenge to our democracy. Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask the Senator from Tennessee if he would yield me 2 minutes of his time?

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the Senate's wise decision to amend the scope provision of Senate Resolution 39, the funding resolution for the Governmental Affairs Committee investigation into campaign finance. I had planned to offer this afternoon an amendment virtually identical to what the Senate has now adopted. This amendment addresses what most deeply troubled me about that resolution: the restriction in the version that came to the Senate floor of the scope of the investigation that previously every member of the Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously agreed to. Each and every member of our committee--Republican and Democrat alike--had voted to authorize an investigation into both illegal and improper campaign finance activities. Unfortunately, before our funding resolution got to the floor it had been modified in the rules committee to preclude the Governmental Affairs Committee from exercising authority to look into ``improper'' activities, arguing that it was enough for us to look into only ``illegal'' activities. Mr. President, I applaud the bipartisan decision to reverse that decision and to return the term ``improper'' to the scope of the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation. Without the return of that authority, I was concerned that our committee's hopes of conducting a thorough and bipartisan investigation would have been dashed. We would have been forced to conduct an investigation that I feared would have failed to expose the ills of our campaign finance system and would have further undermined the public's confidence in the working of our political institutions. The continuing revelations about the state of our campaign finance system may not only shake the American people's confidence in the integrity of our political system, but our own confidence and self- respect. It is therefore our obligation in Congress to conduct a thorough investigation into the cause and scope of those problems, into the extent of any illegal and improper activities that occurred, and then, on the basis of those inquiries, to decide what action Congress must take to prevent these things from ever happening again and what activities should be illegal. For that reason, and like each and every one of my colleagues on the Governmental Affairs Committee--Republican and Democrat alike--I voted to conduct a broad-based inquiry into the problems that have plagued our campaign finance system. In a unified and strong voice, our Committee declared an intention to explore and expose all improper activities taken during recent Federal campaigns. If there were illegal activities taken by anyone, we declared--whether they be in the White House, in the national parties or in the Congress--we planned to investigate them. If there were activities taken that some would call illegal, but because of a technicality in the law, may not be--still, we declared, we want to investigate them. And, if there were activities taken that clearly were not illegal, but just as clearly were improper and so threatened to undermine the integrity of our political system, we declared, then we must be able to investigate those too, so that we could decide what behavior is now legal that we want to make illegal. That is what we mean by campaign finance reform. On January 30, 1997, I joined all of my colleagues on the Governmental Affairs Committee--Republicans and Democrats alike--in voting to authorize an investigation that would do all of those things. Unfortunately, some disagreed with the Governmental Affairs Committee's desire to expose all improprieties in our campaign finance system, not just acts that are illegal. In what I have been told is an unprecedented action, there was an effort to deny the Governmental Affairs Committee this jurisdiction. Accepting that vote and limiting the scope of the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation to merely ``illegal'' activities would have limited us in investigating what most people agree is wrong with the system; it would have damaged our ability to obtain evidence and subpoena witnesses; and it ultimately may have led to a partisan breakdown on the Governmental Affairs Committee over the meaning of the term ``illegal.'' The net effect clearly would have been to make it less likely for Congress to adopt campaign finance reform this session. Let me give just a couple of examples of how this restricted scope would have caused problems for the Governmental Affairs Committee investigation. Most people seem to agree that our committee should look into the influence of so-called foreign money. Those supporting the limitation of our investigatory scope to illegal activities argue that that limitation has no impact on our ability to investigate foreign money. And, it is true that we have a statute, section 441e of title 2 of the United States Code that makes it--and I quote--``unlawful for a foreign national * * * to make any contribution * * * in connection with an election to any political office * * * or for any person to solicit, accept, or receive any such contribution from a foreign national.'' This provision has been cited for the proposition that any and all contributions by non-U.S. citizens or greencard holders to political parties is a criminal offense. But as is often true with the law, not everything is as it seems. Instead, under the election law's own definition of the term ``contribution'' and the Supreme Court's previous interpretations of election law terms similar to ``in connection with an election,''-- provisions, I might add, that those seeking to limit our investigation seem not to want to change--under those laws it is highly likely that the Court would find that section 441e does not criminalize so-called soft money contributions to national parties by foreigners. Let me say that again: soft money donations from non-U.S. citizens likely are not ``illegal.'' That is because under the way our campaign laws now are drafted, soft money contributions are, by definition, not made in connection with an election, and only contributions made in connection with an election are illegal. Instead, ``soft money'' contributions go to fund party building and grassroots activities, as well as to help pursue issues advocacy, and apparently no statute says that foreign money cannot go to that. In fact, it is a similar statutory term that allows corporations and unions to give millions of dollars to the national parties, despite the fact that our Federal election laws make it illegal for those entities to make contributions in connection with elections for Federal office. In short, under a strict reading of the statute, if foreign money goes for issues advocacy or for grassroots activity or for practically anything else but to fund a particular candidate's direct campaign, it is likely not illegal, and therefore the Governmental Affairs Committee, absent this amendment, would not have been able to investigate it. Now I know that some will say that I am splitting legal hairs, and I would agree with you. It is splitting legal hairs. But, as a former State Attorney General, I can tell you that the splitting of legal hairs is precisely what often goes into making a determination of what is legal and what is illegal. For as long as our Bill of Rights has been in place, the enforcement of our laws--and particularly of our criminal laws--has not rested on what we think a criminal statute should have said or what we wish it did say. Instead, it rests with what Congress actually did say, regardless of whether you or I in hindsight wish we had said something different. And the reason for this is a very good one. Our Constitution requires that everyone of us have clear notice of what is and is not legal, and consequently requires us in Congress to say in precise and clear terms what is criminal and what is not. Whenever there is any doubt about whether a statute makes conduct criminal or not, the Supreme Court has told us on innumerable occasions, the law requires a finding against criminality. And I can say with confidence that that is precisely the finding our courts would make if asked whether foreign contributions for issues advocacy and grassroots activities violate our laws. So again, we would not have been able to investigate a critically important issue. Let me give you another example of what would not have been within our investigation's scope had we not expanded it to cover improper as well as illegal activities. There has been a lot of criticism about soliciting or receiving contributions in the White House. Some have claimed that there was a violation of the criminal law based on a statute that says that ``it shall be unlawful for any person to solicit or receive any contribution within the meaning of section 301(8) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties * * *.'' But, as Attorney General Reno declared the other day, and for reasons similar to the ones I just cited, that provision does not make it unlawful to receive all contributions in the White House. Instead, it only applies to what the campaign laws define as a contribution--what we usually call ``hard money.'' This, of course, does not mean that it is proper for anyone to solicit or receive any contributions in the White House. And, even more importantly, it clearly does not mean that foreigners should be able to contribute to the DNC or the RNC--I think that neither is proper and that we need to fully investigate whether our elections were in any way wrongly influenced by people who have no business being involved in our political system. What it does, of course, mean is that we need to reflect upon the fact that our laws don't make these things illegal and to change our laws to make sure it doesn't happen again. Now, none of this matters so long as the Governmental Affairs Committee can investigate both illegal and improper activities, because I can tell you for sure that foreign contributions--regardless of their legality--are improper and should be investigated and exposed. But had we not amended the Rules Committee's scope provision, we likely would not have been able to investigate these things because they are not illegal. The problems with limiting our committee's scope to just illegal activities would not have ended with being forced to exclude critical issues from our investigation. No--there were many more problems with this definition of our scope. For one, it would have seriously jeopardized our committee's ability to obtain evidence and get witnesses to testify, and it therefore would have threatened the very ability of our committee to proceed with its investigation. After all, our committee has authority to subpoena only those documents that are related to the legitimate scope of its inquiry. If the scope of our committee's investigation were limited to illegal activities alone, then I would suggest that any attorney representing a client whose documents have been subpoenaed would have responded by saying ``my client did nothing illegal and therefore you have no rights to these documents.'' Our investigation would have been stopped dead in its tracks right there. In sum, it would have been wrong on every level to limit our investigation to just illegal activities. It would have prevented us from investigating things that should be investigated, it would have led us to prolonged battles with witnesses who otherwise would be obliged to come forward and cooperate and it would have made it likely that the partisan rift we have thus far been seeing on the committee would grow wider rather than undergo the seriously needed repair we began making today. But the worst of it could have been the harm our institution will suffer in the minds of the public. Had we not expanded the scope of this investigation, the U.S. Senate would have gone on record, in full public view, opposing the investigation of unethical and improper campaign activities of Members of Congress. If that would not have been perceived as a stonewall and a coverup, I don't know what would be. Finally, let me say just a few words about one other issue: That the Rules Committee could have separately investigated the improprieties I wish to see exposed by our committee. With all due respect to the members of the Rules Committee, for whom I have tremendous respect, that simply is not a viable--or a rational--option. As the examples I gave above demonstrate, although some of what is now under scrutiny may be illegal, most of it probably is just improper. The task of investigating the massive universe of improper activities is therefore an enormous one, as is deciding what should be illegal. In light of the facts that many of the same people will have committed both improper and illegal activities and that much of the conduct under investigation arguably would fall into both categories, it just would not have made sense for the Rules Committee to conduct an investigation that will, in many ways, duplicate what our committee will be doing. In fact, it was this precise insight--that it did not make sense from a resource allocation standpoint to spend taxpayer funds on duplicative investigations--that led the majority at the beginning of this Congress to wisely decide to consolidate all investigations in the Governmental Affairs Committee. Mr. President, let me just close with a few thoughts on what the goal of this investigation should be. We're about to enter a long, dark tunnel, and the question of whether that tunnel has a dead end, or there is light at the other end, hinges entirely on whether we get serious about this campaign finance investigation and about campaign finance reform. The public didn't send us here to bicker; that's essentially what President's Bush and Clinton had to say in their inaugural addresses. They also didn't send us here to dicker endlessly, especially on matters of importance to them like investigating and straightening out our campaign finance laws. I hope that the showing of bipartisanship we made today in agreeing to return a broader scope to the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation can continue through the rest of our investigation and, I hope just as strongly, can bring us together to enact the reforms that our campaign finance system so sorely needs.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Diversified Intergenerational Care, Inc., in recognition of the grand opening of their facility at the West Haven Medical Center on March 21, 1997. This facility, which is the first of its kind in the Nation, will provide child care services and care for the mentally ill and elderly. The sole principals of the company, Scott L. Shafer and Bernard L. Ginsberg, were able to make this facility a reality through a lease they were awarded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were selected for the Department's enhanced-use lease through a highly competitive process involving companies nationwide. Diversified Intergenerational Care, Inc. considers it an honor to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs. They intend to continue their partnership by developing other intergenerational facilities. Their goal is to satisfy the unmet need for care for children, the elderly, and the mentally ill at VA medical centers across the country. I congratulate Diversified Intergenerational Care, Inc. and the Department of Veterans Affairs for creating this very worthwhile facility, and thank them for working to make these vital services available to those in need.