Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senators Brownback, Clinton, Santorum, Landrieu, Ensign and Durbin, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, or CAMRA Act. We believe there is an urgent need to establish a federal role for targeting research on the impact of media on children. From the cradle to the grave, our children now live and develop in a world of media--a world that is increasingly digital, and a world where access is at their fingertips. This emerging digital world is well known to our children, but its effects on their development are not well understood. Young people today are spending an average of 6 and a half hours with media each day. For those who are under age 6, two hours of exposure to screen media each day is common, even for those who are under age 2. That is about as much time as children under age 6 spend playing outdoors, and it is much more time than they spend reading or being read to by their parents. How does this investment of time affect children's physical development, their cognitive development, or their moral values? Unfortunately, we still have very limited information about how media, particularly the newer interactive media, affect children's development. Why? We have not charged any Federal agency with ensuring an ongoing funding base to establish a coherent research agenda about the impact of media on children's lives. This lack of a coordinated government-sponsored effort to understand the effects of media on children's development is truly an oversight on our part, as the potential payoffs for this kind of knowledge are enormous. Consider our current national health crisis of childhood obesity. The number of U.S. children and teenagers who are overweight has more than tripled from the 1960's through 2002. We think that media exposure is partly the cause of this epidemic. Is it? Is time spent viewing screens and its accompanying sedentary lifestyle contributing to childhood and adolescent obesity? Or is the constant bombardment of advertisements for sugar-coated cereals, snack foods, and candy that pervade children's television advertisements the culprit? How do the newer online forms of ``stealth marketing'', such as advergaming where food products are embedded in computer games, affect children's and adolescents' purchasing patterns? What will happen when pop-up advertisements begin to appear on children's cell phones that specifically target them for the junk food that they like best at a place where that food is easily obtainable? The answer to the obesity and media question is complex. A committee at the National Academy of Sciences is currently charged with studying the link between media advertising and childhood obesity. Will the National Academy of Sciences panel have the data they need to answer this important question? A definitive answer has the potential to save a considerable amount of money in other areas of our budget. For example, child health care costs that are linked to childhood obesity issues could be reduced by understanding and altering media diets. Or take the Columbine incident. After two adolescent boys shot and killed some of their teachers, classmates, and then turned their guns on themselves at Columbine High School, we asked ourselves if media played some role in this tragedy. Did these boys learn to kill in part from playing first-person shooter video games like Doom where they acted as a killer? Were they rehearsing criminal activities when playing this game? We looked to the research community for an answer. In the violence and media area, Congress had passed legislation in the past so that research was conducted about the relationship between media violence and childhood aggression, and as a result, we knew more. Even though much of this data base was older and involved the link between exposure to violent television programs and childhood aggression, some answers were forthcoming about how the Columbine tragedy could have taken place. Even so, there is still a considerable amount of speculation about the more complex questions. Why did these particular boys, for example, pull the trigger in real life while others who played Doom confine their aggressive acts to the gaming context? We need to be able to answer questions about which children under what circumstances will translate game playing into real-life lethal actions. Investing in media research could potentially reduce our budgets associated with adolescent crime and delinquency as well as reduce real-life human misery and suffering. Many of us believe that our children are becoming increasingly materialistic. Does exposure to commercial advertising and the ``good life'' experienced by media characters partly explain materialistic attitudes? We're not sure. Recent research using brain-mapping techniques finds that an adult who sees images of desired products demonstrates patterns of brain activation that are typically associated with reaching out with a hand. How does repeatedly seeing attractive products affect our children and their developing brains? What will happen when our children will be able to click on their television screen and go directly to sites that advertise the products that they see in their favorite programs? Or use their cell phones to pay for products that they want in the immediate environment? Exactly what kind of values are we cultivating in our children, and what role does exposure to media content play in the development of those values? A report linked very early television viewing with later symptoms that are common in children who have attention deficit disorders. However, we don't know the direction of the relationship. Does television viewing cause attention deficits, or do children who have attention deficits find television viewing experiences more engaging than children who don't have attention problems? Or do parents whose children have difficulty sustaining attention let them watch more television to encourage more sitting and less hyperactive behavior? How will Internet experiences, particularly those where children move rapidly across different windows, influence attention patterns and attention problems? Once again, we don't know the answer. If early television exposure does disrupt the development of children's attention patterns, resulting in their placement in special education programs, actions taken to reduce screen exposure during the early years could lead to subsequent reductions in children's need for special education classes, thereby saving money while fostering children's development in positive ways. We want no child left behind in the 21st century. Many of us believe that time spent with computers is good for our children, teaching them the skills that they will need for success in the 21st century. Are we right? How is time spent with computers different from time spent with television? What are the underlying mechanisms that facilitate or disrupt children's learning from these varying media? Can academic development be fostered by the use of interactive online programs designed to teach as they entertain? In the first six years of life, Caucasian more so than African American or Latino children have Internet access from their homes. Can our newer interactive media help ensure that no child is left behind, or will disparities in access result in leaving some behind and not others? The questions about how media affect the development of our children are clearly important, abundant, and complex. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are in short supply. Such gaps in our knowledge base limit our ability to make informed decisions about media policy. We know that media are important. Over the years, we have held numerous hearings in these chambers about how exposure to media violence affects childhood aggression. We passed legislation to maximize the documented benefits of exposure to educational media, such as the Children's Television Act which requires broadcasters to provide educational and informational television programs for children. Can we foster children's moral values when they are exposed to prosocial programs that foster helping, sharing, and cooperating like those that have come into being as a result of the Children's Television Act? We acted to protect our children from unfair commercial practices by passing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which provides safeguards from exploitation for our youth as they explore the Internet, a popular pastime for them. Yet the Internet has provided new ways to reach children with marketing that we barely know is taking place, making our ability to protect our children all the more difficult. We worry about our children's inadvertent exposure to online pornography--about how that kind of exposure may undermine their moral values and standards of decency. In these halls of Congress, we acted to protect our children by passing the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act, and the Children's Internet Protection Act to shield children from exposure to sexually-explicit online content that is deemed harmful to minors. While we all agree that we need to protect our children from online pornography, we know very little about how to address even the most practical of questions such as how to prevent children from falling prey to adult strangers who approach them online. There are so many areas in which our understanding is preliminary at best, particularly in those areas that involve the effects of our newer digital media. In order to ensure that we are doing our very best for our children, the behavioral and health recommendations and public policy decisions we make should be based on objective behavioral, social, and scientific research. Yet no Federal research agency has responsibility for overseeing and setting a coherent media research agenda that can guide these policy decisions. Instead, Federal agencies fund media research in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a patch work quilt of findings. We can do better than that. The bill we are introducing today would remedy this problem. The CAMRA Act will provide an overarching view of media effects by establishing a program devoted to Children and Media within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This program of research, to be vetted by the National Academy of Sciences, will fund and energize a coherent program of research that illuminates the role of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development. The research will cover all forms of electronic media, including television, movies, DVDs, interactive video games, cell phones, and the Internet, and will encourage research involving children of all ages--even babies and toddlers. The bill also calls for a report to Congress about the effectiveness of this research program in filling this void in our knowledge base. In order to accomplish these goals, we are authorizing $90 million dollars to be phased in gradually across the next five years. The cost to our budget is minimal and can well result in significant savings in other budget areas. Our Nation values the positive, healthy development of our children. Our children live in the information age, and our country has one of the most powerful and sophisticated information technology systems in the world. While this system entertains them, it is not harmless entertainment. Media have the potential to facilitate the healthy growth of our children. They also have the potential to harm. We have a stake in finding out exactly what that role is. We have a responsibility to take action. Access to the knowledge that we need for informed decision-making requires us to make an investment: an investment in research, an investment in and for our children, an investment in our collective future. The benefits to our youth and our nation's families are immeasurable. By passing the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, we can advance knowledge and enhance the constructive effects of media while minimizing the negative ones. We can make future media policies that are grounded in a solid knowledge base. We can be proactive, rather than reactive. In so doing, we build a better nation for our youth, fostering the kinds of values that are the backbone of this great nation of ours, and we create a better foundation to guide future media policies about the digital experiences that pervade our children's daily lives. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. s. 579 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senators Brownback, Clinton, Santorum, Landrieu, Ensign and Durbin, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, or CAMRA Act. We believe there is an urgent need to establish a federal role for targeting research on the impact of media on children. From the cradle to the grave, our children now live and develop in a world of media--a world that is increasingly digital, and a world where access is at their fingertips. This emerging digital world is well known to our children, but its effects on their development are not well understood. Young people today are spending an average of 6 and a half hours with media each day. For those who are under age 6, two hours of exposure to screen media each day is common, even for those who are under age 2. That is about as much time as children under age 6 spend playing outdoors, and it is much more time than they spend reading or being read to by their parents. How does this investment of time affect children's physical development, their cognitive development, or their moral values? Unfortunately, we still have very limited information about how media, particularly the newer interactive media, affect children's development. Why? We have not charged any Federal agency with ensuring an ongoing funding base to establish a coherent research agenda about the impact of media on children's lives. This lack of a coordinated government-sponsored effort to understand the effects of media on children's development is truly an oversight on our part, as the potential payoffs for this kind of knowledge are enormous. Consider our current national health crisis of childhood obesity. The number of U.S. children and teenagers who are overweight has more than tripled from the 1960's through 2002. We think that media exposure is partly the cause of this epidemic. Is it? Is time spent viewing screens and its accompanying sedentary lifestyle contributing to childhood and adolescent obesity? Or is the constant bombardment of advertisements for sugar-coated cereals, snack foods, and candy that pervade children's television advertisements the culprit? How do the newer online forms of ``stealth marketing'', such as advergaming where food products are embedded in computer games, affect children's and adolescents' purchasing patterns? What will happen when pop-up advertisements begin to appear on children's cell phones that specifically target them for the junk food that they like best at a place where that food is easily obtainable? The answer to the obesity and media question is complex. A committee at the National Academy of Sciences is currently charged with studying the link between media advertising and childhood obesity. Will the National Academy of Sciences panel have the data they need to answer this important question? A definitive answer has the potential to save a considerable amount of money in other areas of our budget. For example, child health care costs that are linked to childhood obesity issues could be reduced by understanding and altering media diets. Or take the Columbine incident. After two adolescent boys shot and killed some of their teachers, classmates, and then turned their guns on themselves at Columbine High School, we asked ourselves if media played some role in this tragedy. Did these boys learn to kill in part from playing first-person shooter video games like Doom where they acted as a killer? Were they rehearsing criminal activities when playing this game? We looked to the research community for an answer. In the violence and media area, Congress had passed legislation in the past so that research was conducted about the relationship between media violence and childhood aggression, and as a result, we knew more. Even though much of this data base was older and involved the link between exposure to violent television programs and childhood aggression, some answers were forthcoming about how the Columbine tragedy could have taken place. Even so, there is still a considerable amount of speculation about the more complex questions. Why did these particular boys, for example, pull the trigger in real life while others who played Doom confine their aggressive acts to the gaming context? We need to be able to answer questions about which children under what circumstances will translate game playing into real-life lethal actions. Investing in media research could potentially reduce our budgets associated with adolescent crime and delinquency as well as reduce real-life human misery and suffering. Many of us believe that our children are becoming increasingly materialistic. Does exposure to commercial advertising and the ``good life'' experienced by media characters partly explain materialistic attitudes? We're not sure. Recent research using brain-mapping techniques finds that an adult who sees images of desired products demonstrates patterns of brain activation that are typically associated with reaching out with a hand. How does repeatedly seeing attractive products affect our children and their developing brains? What will happen when our children will be able to click on their television screen and go directly to sites that advertise the products that they see in their favorite programs? Or use their cell phones to pay for products that they want in the immediate environment? Exactly what kind of values are we cultivating in our children, and what role does exposure to media content play in the development of those values? A report linked very early television viewing with later symptoms that are common in children who have attention deficit disorders. However, we don't know the direction of the relationship. Does television viewing cause attention deficits, or do children who have attention deficits find television viewing experiences more engaging than children who don't have attention problems? Or do parents whose children have difficulty sustaining attention let them watch more television to encourage more sitting and less hyperactive behavior? How will Internet experiences, particularly those where children move rapidly across different windows, influence attention patterns and attention problems? Once again, we don't know the answer. If early television exposure does disrupt the development of children's attention patterns, resulting in their placement in special education programs, actions taken to reduce screen exposure during the early years could lead to subsequent reductions in children's need for special education classes, thereby saving money while fostering children's development in positive ways. We want no child left behind in the 21st century. Many of us believe that time spent with computers is good for our children, teaching them the skills that they will need for success in the 21st century. Are we right? How is time spent with computers different from time spent with television? What are the underlying mechanisms that facilitate or disrupt children's learning from these varying media? Can academic development be fostered by the use of interactive online programs designed to teach as they entertain? In the first six years of life, Caucasian more so than African American or Latino children have Internet access from their homes. Can our newer interactive media help ensure that no child is left behind, or will disparities in access result in leaving some behind and not others? The questions about how media affect the development of our children are clearly important, abundant, and complex. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are in short supply. Such gaps in our knowledge base limit our ability to make informed decisions about media policy. We know that media are important. Over the years, we have held numerous hearings in these chambers about how exposure to media violence affects childhood aggression. We passed legislation to maximize the documented benefits of exposure to educational media, such as the Children's Television Act which requires broadcasters to provide educational and informational television programs for children. Can we foster children's moral values when they are exposed to prosocial programs that foster helping, sharing, and cooperating like those that have come into being as a result of the Children's Television Act? We acted to protect our children from unfair commercial practices by passing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which provides safeguards from exploitation for our youth as they explore the Internet, a popular pastime for them. Yet the Internet has provided new ways to reach children with marketing that we barely know is taking place, making our ability to protect our children all the more difficult. We worry about our children's inadvertent exposure to online pornography--about how that kind of exposure may undermine their moral values and standards of decency. In these halls of Congress, we acted to protect our children by passing the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act, and the Children's Internet Protection Act to shield children from exposure to sexually-explicit online content that is deemed harmful to minors. While we all agree that we need to protect our children from online pornography, we know very little about how to address even the most practical of questions such as how to prevent children from falling prey to adult strangers who approach them online. There are so many areas in which our understanding is preliminary at best, particularly in those areas that involve the effects of our newer digital media. In order to ensure that we are doing our very best for our children, the behavioral and health recommendations and public policy decisions we make should be based on objective behavioral, social, and scientific research. Yet no Federal research agency has responsibility for overseeing and setting a coherent media research agenda that can guide these policy decisions. Instead, Federal agencies fund media research in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a patch work quilt of findings. We can do better than that. The bill we are introducing today would remedy this problem. The CAMRA Act will provide an overarching view of media effects by establishing a program devoted to Children and Media within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This program of research, to be vetted by the National Academy of Sciences, will fund and energize a coherent program of research that illuminates the role of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development. The research will cover all forms of electronic media, including television, movies, DVDs, interactive video games, cell phones, and the Internet, and will encourage research involving children of all ages--even babies and toddlers. The bill also calls for a report to Congress about the effectiveness of this research program in filling this void in our knowledge base. In order to accomplish these goals, we are authorizing $90 million dollars to be phased in gradually across the next five years. The cost to our budget is minimal and can well result in significant savings in other budget areas. Our Nation values the positive, healthy development of our children. Our children live in the information age, and our country has one of the most powerful and sophisticated information technology systems in the world. While this system entertains them, it is not harmless entertainment. Media have the potential to facilitate the healthy growth of our children. They also have the potential to harm. We have a stake in finding out exactly what that role is. We have a responsibility to take action. Access to the knowledge that we need for informed decision-making requires us to make an investment: an investment in research, an investment in and for our children, an investment in our collective future. The benefits to our youth and our nation's families are immeasurable. By passing the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, we can advance knowledge and enhance the constructive effects of media while minimizing the negative ones. We can make future media policies that are grounded in a solid knowledge base. We can be proactive, rather than reactive. In so doing, we build a better nation for our youth, fostering the kinds of values that are the backbone of this great nation of ours, and we create a better foundation to guide future media policies about the digital experiences that pervade our children's daily lives. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. s. 579 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to bring my colleagues' attention to the death of Professor D. Allan Bromley, a renowned nuclear physicist, a great Connecticut citizen and a friend, on February 10 at age 78. Dr. Bromley had an extraordinary life beginning in Westmeath, Ontario, Canada where he was born. He received a B.S. degree with highest honors in 1948 in the Faculty of Engineering at Queen's University in Ontario where he continued his studies receiving a M.S. degree in nuclear physics. In 1952, he earned a Ph.D. degree from the University of Rochester and subsequently has been awarded 32 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. In 1960, he moved to Connecticut where he joined the Yale faculty as an associate professor of physics. He founded and directed the A.W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale from 1963 to 1989 where he carried out pioneering studies on both the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei, and he was considered the father of modern heavy ion science. From 1972 to 1993, he held the Henry Ford II Professorship in Physics at Yale and chaired the physics department from 1970 to 1977. He received numerous honors and awards, and I would specifically like to recognize that in 1980 he received the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor awarded by the U.S. Not only was he an outstanding physicist, clearly shown by the 500 published papers and the 20 books he authored or edited, but he was an outstanding teacher, and his program at Yale graduated more doctoral students in experimental nuclear physics than any other institution in the world. This is truly an admirable accomplishment especially given the overall drop in U.S. students pursuing degrees in the physical sciences. As the president of the American Physical Society and as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he was a significant, influential leader in the science policy community. He served as a member of the White House Science Council during the Reagan administration and as a member of the National Science Board in 1988 to 1989, and he was the first person to hold Cabinet-level rank as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, serving the first President Bush. In this role from 1989 to 1993, he oversaw a five fold increase in staff and budget of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. At OSTP, he established an Industrial Technology Directorate, was the first to name four assistant director Presidential appointees, an increase from the one or two appointees made by his predecessors, and also within OSTP, was the first to elevate the social sciences for full recognition. His strong passion for science was clearly evident as he reinvigorated both the Federal Coordinating Committees on Science, Engineering and Technology, now named the National Science and Technology Council NSTC, and the President's Council of Advisory for Science and Technology PCAST. He established the ``crosscut'' process that helped our science agencies to more effectively interact and develop coherent policy. He was responsible for the first formal published statement of U.S. technology policy and specifically played a key role in expanding the cooperation and partnership between government and private industry in science and research and development. His efforts extended beyond the borders of the U.S. as he established an annual Carnegie informal meeting of science advisors from the G7 and G8 countries where international science cooperation was promoted and established. Clearly, he made OSTP a powerful voice for strong U.S. science during his tenure. Dr. Bromley served the President during a period of intense debate over U.S. competitiveness, as we confronted tough competitors in Japan and Europe. He helped in the formulation of what became a bipartisan competitiveness agenda, building on and implementing many of the recommendations of the Young Commission that served President Reagan, and the subsequent trade and competitiveness legislation that grew out of those proposals. He stood for an activist role for government- supported science and research and development, working in cooperation with the private sector and our universities to build up our innovation system. While at OSTP, he established a strong collaboration with OMB to strengthen American research and development investment, and science education. He well understood that our Nation's growth and well being were directly tied to our technological progress, and worked hard from the White House to expand that understanding. Dr. Bromley was one of our most effective Presidential science advisors. Returning to Yale, he worked with President Richard C. Levin on the revival of strong science, especially physical science, at Yale. He helped the university to fashion a billion-dollar reinvestment in science, driven by his understanding that growing innovation capacity at Yale will be crucial to the University's and Connecticut's future, as well as important to the Nation. I am so glad that he was able to see the fruit of President Levin's and his labor start to unfold at Yale in the form of new science programs, science buildings, and science talent. During these years after he returned to Yale, he remained very active on national science policy. I had the privilege to work with him, and with our current majority leader, Senator Frist, and former Senator Phil Gramm, on legislation to double on a step-by-step basis our Federal science investment. While we were never able to persuade the House to pass our Senate bill, support for science increased significantly. Additionally, Dr. Bromley was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Royal South African Academy of Sciences, and the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He was a member of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics and a Benjamin Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. Dr. Bromley was not a shy and retiring figure, he was a forceful, ``it must be done'' gentleman, generally attired in fine suits and elegant bow ties. He also always had an eye on the big picture. I like to think of him in his large corner office in the Old Executive Office Building while at OSTP, gazing at his stunning view of the White House and Blair House. That a scientist wrestled this office out of the hands of the Federal bureaucracy speaks about his insistence on the big picture. And he definitely had a big picture view of U.S. science. He was a team member and team leader in a great generation of U.S. science that successfully faced a new kind of economic competition over innovation, that brought an information technology revolution to the forefront of our society, that pushed for quality in advanced U.S. manufacturing processes, that began to work on the application of technology to environmental problems, and that made astounding advances in fundamental science. He was a direct participant in some of these tasks, a supporter in others, but always an insistent, indefatigable advocate for science advance. In the words of President Levin of Yale, ``in three successive careers, he built our physics department, served the nation with distinction, and thoroughly revitalized engineering at Yale.'' Dr. Bromley may have physically left our world, but his accomplishments and influences are here with us. I will always remember my friend. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with my colleague Senator Dodd that requires that the helicopter fleet built for the President of the United States be made entirely in the United States by American workers using American parts. This is how it has always been. And this is the way it should stay. Since President Eisenhower first flew in 1957, American Presidents have logged more than a quarter of a million hours in American helicopters designated Marine One with an unblemished record of safety and performance. But recently, the Navy chose a new helicopter to replace the current Presidential fleet that was designed overseas and will have substantial portions built overseas. This model was chosen over another model that would have been wholly built in the United States. This decision is a blow to the pride of the American aviation industry and blows a hole in the wallet of American workers and taxpayers. Let me make clear that with this bill we are not asking the Navy to pick a helicopter solely because it is American. The Presidential fleet must be made up of helicopters that offer superb performance and safety standards. But when an American model meets those standards, as was the case with the bids for Marine One, common sense dictates that we ``Buy American.'' With this contract we are putting the American aviation industry at a long-term competitive disadvantage. The Marine One contract comes with millions of dollars in research money to develop new helicopter technologies. With the Navy's selection of a foreign competitor, these research dollars will now go overseas. By subsidizing foreign aviation research--mostly in Europe, which already heavily subsidizes its aviation industry--we will be using American taxpayer dollars to make it harder for U.S. companies to stay competitive and compete in domestic and world markets. With these kinds of disadvantages, we run the risk that we will become increasingly reliant on overseas suppliers of important military equipment, jeopardizing our national security. Insisting that the American President fly in an American-made helicopter is not a unique or unusual consideration for a national leader. The Prime Minister of Great Britain doesn't fly in an American helicopter, nor does the Prime Minister of Italy. They both fly in European helicopters. That's fine. They are supporting their workers, helping to sustain their industrial base, and sending a clear signal of national pride to their people. We should do no less. Let me stress, I am not seeking to exclude overseas companies from competing in U.S. markets or to exclude them from all military contracts. The United States has a long history of open markets and free and fair competition, and we should not back away from that. But this is a unique case. We are talking about the most famous helicopter in the world. What message do we send when we outsource such a visible symbol of national pride to others? We send a message that ``Built in America'' is second-best. This is just wrong. American workers have been building and maintaining Presidential helicopters for over half a century. Their performance has been outstanding. We should not punish this service and dedication by using taxpayer dollars to send their jobs to someone else. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with my colleague Senator Dodd that requires that the helicopter fleet built for the President of the United States be made entirely in the United States by American workers using American parts. This is how it has always been. And this is the way it should stay. Since President Eisenhower first flew in 1957, American Presidents have logged more than a quarter of a million hours in American helicopters designated Marine One with an unblemished record of safety and performance. But recently, the Navy chose a new helicopter to replace the current Presidential fleet that was designed overseas and will have substantial portions built overseas. This model was chosen over another model that would have been wholly built in the United States. This decision is a blow to the pride of the American aviation industry and blows a hole in the wallet of American workers and taxpayers. Let me make clear that with this bill we are not asking the Navy to pick a helicopter solely because it is American. The Presidential fleet must be made up of helicopters that offer superb performance and safety standards. But when an American model meets those standards, as was the case with the bids for Marine One, common sense dictates that we ``Buy American.'' With this contract we are putting the American aviation industry at a long-term competitive disadvantage. The Marine One contract comes with millions of dollars in research money to develop new helicopter technologies. With the Navy's selection of a foreign competitor, these research dollars will now go overseas. By subsidizing foreign aviation research--mostly in Europe, which already heavily subsidizes its aviation industry--we will be using American taxpayer dollars to make it harder for U.S. companies to stay competitive and compete in domestic and world markets. With these kinds of disadvantages, we run the risk that we will become increasingly reliant on overseas suppliers of important military equipment, jeopardizing our national security. Insisting that the American President fly in an American-made helicopter is not a unique or unusual consideration for a national leader. The Prime Minister of Great Britain doesn't fly in an American helicopter, nor does the Prime Minister of Italy. They both fly in European helicopters. That's fine. They are supporting their workers, helping to sustain their industrial base, and sending a clear signal of national pride to their people. We should do no less. Let me stress, I am not seeking to exclude overseas companies from competing in U.S. markets or to exclude them from all military contracts. The United States has a long history of open markets and free and fair competition, and we should not back away from that. But this is a unique case. We are talking about the most famous helicopter in the world. What message do we send when we outsource such a visible symbol of national pride to others? We send a message that ``Built in America'' is second-best. This is just wrong. American workers have been building and maintaining Presidential helicopters for over half a century. Their performance has been outstanding. We should not punish this service and dedication by using taxpayer dollars to send their jobs to someone else. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today, along with my good friend Senator McCain, to speak about a resolution that is of great importance to the cause of democracy which we have devoted America to advance at home and around the world. In November 2003 Senator McCain and I were moved by Russia's failure to adhere to democratic principles to submit a resolution to hold Russia accountable for the commitments Moscow made when first invited to participate in what became known as the G8. Since then, the situation in Russia has deteriorated. I am particularly pleased that Senators Bayh, Burns, Chambliss, Smith, and Durbin have joined as original co-sponsors of this resolution indicating the increasing Senatorial concern over the accelerating erosion of democratic and economic freedom in Russia. As President Bush returns from his meeting with President Putin at the summit in Bratislava, we call once again on the President of the United States and the Secretary of State to work with our partners in the G7 to condition Russia's continued participation in the G8 on Russia's compliance with basic standards of democracy and rule of law. We have a real stake in Russia's adherence to democratic norms because our commitment to Russia's transition toward democracy is critical to secure a peaceful future with Russia. The G7 nations are highly industrialized countries bound together by fundamental principles of democracy, rule of law, a free market system, and respect for human rights. The actions of President Putin over the past few years have raised serious concerns about Russia's commitment to these principles. There is a long list of well-documented antidemocratic developments in Russia. The Putin administration has limited freedom of expression in Russia by seizing independent media organizations and suppressing the activities of independent journalists, religious organizations, and nongovernmental organizations that are all integral components of a healthy civil society. The Russian government's dismantling of Yukos and the arrest of its founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky 16 months ago raised serious doubts about Russia's commitment to free market principles and rule of law as well as respect for property and shareholder rights. The Federal Security Services, FSB, play a strong role in Russia's power structures in a manner reminiscent of the KGB in the old regime. President Putin's support for the first fraudulent results in the Ukrainian presidential elections last year exhibited disregard for basic democratic principles. Fortunately, a democratic outcome prevailed in a new vote and Yushchenko's victory--a very positive development for Ukraine's and Russia's democrats. We were all moved by the horrific attack on the schoolchildren and families of Beslan school last September. There can be no justification for such brutal acts and we condemn them with every fiber of our soul. Our hearts and sympathy go out to the families of these victims as they continue to cope with the loss of their loved ones. The United States condemns terrorism in all forms. But the tragedy of the Beslan school should not be used by President Putin to retreat from democratic reforms. In the wake of the Beslan crisis, President Putin abolished the popular election of regional governors in favor of presidential appointees. These changes to the Russian political system enhance the power of the executive branch, while reducing the checks and balances that make democracies work. As former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, ``We understand the need to fight against terrorism . . . but in an attempt to go after terrorists I think one has to strike a proper balance to make sure that you don't move in a direction that takes you away from the democratic reforms or the democratic process.'' Allowing Russia to continue its involvement in the G8 and to host the 2006 G8 Summit while continuing to undermine democracy makes mockery of the very principles that bind the G8 countries together. This resolution is not anti-Russian; it is a strong show of support for Russia's democrats who have long urged the United States to not turn a blind eye to undemocratic developments in Russia. Sharing a deeply personal moment from his time in Soviet Gulag, Natan Sharansky recently told a group of Senators how deeply supported he felt when President Reagan gave his famous ``evil empire'' speech that honestly addressed the oppression of the Soviet system. Since then Russia has come a long way, but we must speak openly in the face of the backsliding we are seeing. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said, ``The real deepening of our relations can only take place on the basis of common values.'' To do otherwise would be to shirk our responsibilities as a leader of the democratic world. And as President Bush said so eloquently in his inaugural and State of the Union addresses, America's security is advanced by the advancement of freedom. This resolution puts those sentiments into concrete action and I urge my fellow Senators to support it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation that is a first step in giving the Upper Housatonic Valley, a nationally significant area, the acknowledgment and resources it deserves. Designation of the upper Housatonic Valley as a national heritage area will enhance and foster public-private partnerships to educate residents and visitors about the region; improve the area's economy through business investment, job expansion, and tourism; and protect the area's natural and cultural heritage. The Upper Housatonic Valley is a unique cultural and geographical region that encompasses in the Housatonic River watershed, extending 60 miles from Lanesboro, MA to Kent, CT. The valley has made significant national contributions through literary, artistic, musical, and architectural achievements; as the backdrop for important Revolutionary War era events; as the cradle of the iron, paper, and electrical industries; and as home to key figures and events in the abolitionist and civil rights movements. It includes five National Historic Landmarks and four National Natural Landmarks. The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area Act would officially designate the region as part of the National Park Service system. It would also authorize funding for a variety of activities that conserve the significant natural, historical, cultural, and scenic resources, and that provide educational and recreational opportunities in the area. The Upper Housatonic Valley is part of our national identity. Making it a National Heritage Area will preserve and develop the experiences that connect us to our history and heritage as Americans. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation that is a first step in giving the Upper Housatonic Valley, a nationally significant area, the acknowledgment and resources it deserves. Designation of the upper Housatonic Valley as a national heritage area will enhance and foster public-private partnerships to educate residents and visitors about the region; improve the area's economy through business investment, job expansion, and tourism; and protect the area's natural and cultural heritage. The Upper Housatonic Valley is a unique cultural and geographical region that encompasses in the Housatonic River watershed, extending 60 miles from Lanesboro, MA to Kent, CT. The valley has made significant national contributions through literary, artistic, musical, and architectural achievements; as the backdrop for important Revolutionary War era events; as the cradle of the iron, paper, and electrical industries; and as home to key figures and events in the abolitionist and civil rights movements. It includes five National Historic Landmarks and four National Natural Landmarks. The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area Act would officially designate the region as part of the National Park Service system. It would also authorize funding for a variety of activities that conserve the significant natural, historical, cultural, and scenic resources, and that provide educational and recreational opportunities in the area. The Upper Housatonic Valley is part of our national identity. Making it a National Heritage Area will preserve and develop the experiences that connect us to our history and heritage as Americans. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today, February 15, 2005, I rise to introduce a bill, proposing we enact the Fair Currency Enforcement Act of 2005. The present legislation addresses the practice of some governments to intervene aggressively in currency markets, or to peg their currencies at a fixed--artificially low--exchange rate, thus subsidizing their export sales and raising price barriers to imports from the United States. I introduced similar legislation last Congress, yet the problem remains unsolved. In recent years, particularly China has been pressed to float their currency upward. Specifically, the Europeans, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements have put pressure on the Chinese to at a minimum repeg their currency to a higher dollar value. The Administration has talked about this idea, but has been ineffective. As a consequence there has been no movement on the part of the Chinese. As a result of the heavy dollar buying, the Asian Central banks have allowed their foreign-exchange reserves to swell from less than $800 billion at the start of 1999 to over $1.5 trillion in 2003. This is almost two-thirds of the global total. The world's seven biggest holders of foreign-exchange reserves are all in Asia. This legislation proposes that our Administration promptly open negotiations with the four Asian countries that exemplify this practice, with the intent to put a stop to it. These countries are: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. This practice hurts American manufacturers: it impedes their ability to introduce new products and technologies and provide Americans with quality jobs. It has caused and continues to cause the current economic recovery to be a jobless one, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Experts indicate that the United States has the right and the power to address unfair competitive practices under the following laws, rules and agreements: 1. Section 3004 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 2. Article IV of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund Article 3. XV of the Exchange Agreements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 4. The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures of the World Trade Organization (as described in section 101(d)(12)) of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. 5. Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. 6. Sections 301 and 406 of the Trade Act of 1974. 7. The provisions of the United States-China Bilateral Agreement on World Trade Organization Accession. These laws, rules and agreements provide us with ample process to do this right and it is important we act now. Therefore, beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the President will be required to start a 90 day period of negations. If these negotiations fail to bear fruit, he is required to seek redress through the various international trade laws by instituting appropriate proceedings, or report to congress in detail why this is not a proper course of action. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today, February 15, 2005, I rise to introduce a bill, proposing we enact the Fair Currency Enforcement Act of 2005. The present legislation addresses the practice of some governments to intervene aggressively in currency markets, or to peg their currencies at a fixed--artificially low--exchange rate, thus subsidizing their export sales and raising price barriers to imports from the United States. I introduced similar legislation last Congress, yet the problem remains unsolved. In recent years, particularly China has been pressed to float their currency upward. Specifically, the Europeans, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements have put pressure on the Chinese to at a minimum repeg their currency to a higher dollar value. The Administration has talked about this idea, but has been ineffective. As a consequence there has been no movement on the part of the Chinese. As a result of the heavy dollar buying, the Asian Central banks have allowed their foreign-exchange reserves to swell from less than $800 billion at the start of 1999 to over $1.5 trillion in 2003. This is almost two-thirds of the global total. The world's seven biggest holders of foreign-exchange reserves are all in Asia. This legislation proposes that our Administration promptly open negotiations with the four Asian countries that exemplify this practice, with the intent to put a stop to it. These countries are: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. This practice hurts American manufacturers: it impedes their ability to introduce new products and technologies and provide Americans with quality jobs. It has caused and continues to cause the current economic recovery to be a jobless one, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Experts indicate that the United States has the right and the power to address unfair competitive practices under the following laws, rules and agreements: 1. Section 3004 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 2. Article IV of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund Article 3. XV of the Exchange Agreements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 4. The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures of the World Trade Organization (as described in section 101(d)(12)) of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. 5. Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. 6. Sections 301 and 406 of the Trade Act of 1974. 7. The provisions of the United States-China Bilateral Agreement on World Trade Organization Accession. These laws, rules and agreements provide us with ample process to do this right and it is important we act now. Therefore, beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the President will be required to start a 90 day period of negations. If these negotiations fail to bear fruit, he is required to seek redress through the various international trade laws by instituting appropriate proceedings, or report to congress in detail why this is not a proper course of action. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to rise today to express my support for the nomination of the Honorable Michael Chertoff to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I do so as the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the committee that had the responsibility, opportunity, and honor to bring forward the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security just a few years ago in the aftermath of the attack against America of September 11, 2001. So any nomination of an individual to head this Department is taken with real seriousness by our Committee in general and by this Senator in particular. Judge Chertoff has an impressive record of public service and an impressive record in the private sector as well. He has served his country as a prosecutor, an assistant attorney general, and a Federal judge. He comes to this moment in his career and to this responsibility with a reputation as a strong, intellectually demanding leader who works very hard. Those are characteristics that will serve him well if and when he is confirmed for this job for which he has been nominated. Judge Chertoff's dedication to public service surely is illustrated by his willingness to give up a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench to take on the challenge--and it is a real challenge--of heading this critically important Department. I respect him for that. I appreciate his patriotism, and his dedication to our country and to the security of the American people. The Secretary of Homeland Security is clearly one of the most difficult jobs in our Federal Government today, not only for the awesome responsibility it carries to safeguard the American people from terrorist attack--or in some cases natural catastrophe--but also because of the serious work that still needs to be done to make the Department, still young, the success it needs to be. Since it was created two years ago, the Department has become the leader among Government agencies protecting the American people at home, which, of course, is exactly why Congress created it. Secretary Tom Ridge launched this process and admirably led the Department through the initial steps of merging 22 separate agencies and programs, each with a different culture, a different structure, and different priorities. This was a tough, sometimes painful, job. After all, to the best of our knowledge, it is the largest governmental reorganization in half a century. We knew this transformation would be a monumental task and that it would take time for the Department to emerge as a coordinated, focused agency, even more so after-- unfortunately--it became clear that the Administration was not providing the resources to this Department that it needed. Understandably, the Department and its 180,000 employees--it is a large department--still face significant challenges in many areas, everything from its strategic vision to its day-to-day operations. But I will stop here on the Senate floor, as I have done in our committee, and thank Tom Ridge for the excellent job he did in getting this Department up and running. It still has a way to go. It is probably no longer in its infancy, it is in its childhood now, but it needs somebody to bring it to full maturity. It needs support from the Administration and Congress to enable the new Secretary to do exactly that. The lack of a focused, long-term homeland security strategy is one of the greatest omissions thus far with this Department. No organization, especially one as large and complicated as this one, can succeed without a clear strategy and priorities. Given the importance of the Department's mission, the new Secretary will immediately need to develop an updated strategy that clarifies not only the Department's priority, roles, and responsibilities but those of other key partners as well. Consultation will have to occur with others in the administration--for instance, at the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice to ensure an integrated and overarching vision, a kind of to-do list of how our government will tackle every dimension of defending our homeland and the American people. One of the changes recommended by experts that our Committee has heard is the creation of an Undersecretary for Policy and Planning to perform the kind of long-range thinking within the Department of Homeland Security that has been needed. I am pleased that this Department is underway and it should ease the new Secretary's burden considerably. I know the chairman of the Committee--who is in the chamber, I am glad to note--is focused on the possibility that we may, through our Committee's work, assist the Department in doing just that. If confirmed, Judge Chertoff and his deputies will need to have some basic tools that the Secretary is now lacking--here I am talking as fundamentally as adequate professional staff. The Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of the Department must have sufficient numbers of assistants to adequately manage 180,000 employees. We heard testimony before our Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the Deputy Secretary's Office currently has five staff members. Our distinguished colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner, a member of the committee, former Deputy Secretary of the Navy, recalled that when he was Secretary of the Navy he had a staff of well over 100 and therefore wondered how the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security could manage with just five. DHS employees must also be adequately trained to perform new and more complex tasks than they performed before the challenge rose on 9/11, and we must help them do that. Looking beyond these internal problems, the Department also has to step up its efforts to eliminate persistent vulnerabilities in a variety of areas of activity, both public and private. The security of our borders and ports, for instance--they are still vulnerable. There are vulnerabilities within our rail and transit systems and at the Nation's core: energy, telecommunications, water, transportation, and financial networks. Those systems, those pieces of our national life, are not protected as well as they should be and need to be, three years after September 11, 2001. The Coast Guard, a proud, historic agency, a service of our Government, is in dire need of having its fleet modernized. At the current rate of funding it is going to take 20 years to complete the upgrades that the Coast Guard believes it needs to take on the additional responsibilities beyond its traditional ones which it has so long performed so well, of protecting our coastlines from terrorism. The administration must do more and we must do more with it to prepare the Nation, also, for a bioterrorist attack. This is one of those areas of vulnerability that keeps a lot of us up at night. We must also do a better job of enlisting the private sector as a necessary partner in our shared security, since the private sector controls 85 percent of our critical infrastructure. When we think about security from terrorism, we tend to think about public infrastructure. But 85 percent of our critical infrastructure is controlled by the private sector. We need to engage them more. We know, for example, that an attack on a chemical facility could put the lives of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens at risk. One estimate that I saw recently--and this is the number most often cited but it is not the total number--noted that there are 123 chemical plants in our country. If there were an accident or an attack, the resulting problem could endanger the lives of a million Americans. Then you have to go one step beyond that. There are 700 chemical facilities, smaller than the first 123, that if there were an attack on them by terrorists, it would injure 100,000 people living around them. Then there are 3,000 additional chemical facilities, smaller still, but nonetheless an attack on them would endanger 10,000 people living around them. Those are jarring numbers, and all the more so because we know from published information that al-Qaida has examined and sought information about chemical facilities here in this country. Yet according to testimony given to our committee by Richard Falkenrath, who served as deputy homeland security adviser to the President, now at a think tank here in Washington, he said: ``We have done essentially nothing''--and that is the word he used--``to reduce the inherent insecurity of our chemical facilities.'' We have the most advanced and powerful and effective military in the world, in the history of the world. One of the reasons is that we have the most extraordinary trained, patriotic, brave soldiers, military service men and women. But another reason is that we have invested hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars--trillions of dollars-- over the years, to give us the most powerful military in the history of the world to protect our security around the world. On September 11, 2001, we found that notwithstanding all of that protection, we could be attacked right here at home. So we must invest in our homeland security if it, too, is to be the best in the world, particularly since those fanatics, as someone else has said, hate us Americans more than they love their own lives. They hate us more than they love their own lives and so are prepared to give their lives as we saw on September 11 to take some of ours. They are so focused on America that we need the best homeland defense in the world. Last year, I believe--in a budget that was in some ways shocking--the administration proposed cuts for first responders. Now those cuts are increased. That is, funding for first responders, believe it or not, is further reduced in the budget submitted by the President last week for fiscal year 2006. That is wrong. We are all aware of the funding realities and the deficit situation of our Government. We also know that it is impossible to protect every potential terrorist target. But our first responders in particular, who risk their lives so the rest of us may be safe--in many ways the first preventers of terrorist attacks--they deserve the training and equipment they need to do their jobs for us. They have to have the basic capability to talk to one another. We saw this most painfully in the World Trade Center, that the inability for law enforcers, first responders, to talk to each other led--according to independent experts--to the loss of too many lives of first responders who were on the scene. That was not the first time that happened. We really need to do all we can from the Federal Government to enable our first responders-- police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel--to have interoperable communications equipment. What does that mean? In a crisis, quite simply, to be able to talk to one another. We have to explore technological breakthroughs that can enable us to make that possible at the lowest possible cost. This is a daunting list of responsibilities, of work on homeland defense yet undone, that will face the new Secretary of Homeland Security. But it is real, and I do believe, to help Judge Chertoff achieve these aims quickly, all of us need to regain that sense of anger, hurt, resolve, urgency that propelled us forward as one in the aftermath of September 11. I am confident Judge Chertoff, too, feels that sense of urgency and will act upon it. That is most certainly the conclusion I reached when he appeared before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to answer quite an array of questions from committee members, including several on his role in the prosecution of the war on terror and the advice he provided on anti-torture laws when he was head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. Judge Chertoff assured us that he was mindful of the historic tension between two values, two attributes that define us as a nation, which is to say life and liberty, and the need to protect ourselves against those who would deny us either one. I thought his exact words were eloquent and right to the point and very reassuring, so I quote Judge Chertoff. He said: I believe that we cannot live in liberty without security, but we would not want to live in security without liberty. Striking the right balance will be an ongoing challenge. I am pleased that those who know him best say Judge Chertoff is more than up to the task. His background in the law prepares him to balance security and liberty. His record, not just as a law enforcer but as a law clerk for former Supreme Court Justice Brennan, certainly prepared him to protect our liberty while enhancing our security. When our colleague and friend from New Jersey, Senator Corzine, introduced Judge Chertoff, his friend, before our committee at the hearing we held on this nomination, he referred to Judge Chertoff's work with the New Jersey State Senate investigating and legislating against racial profiling. Senator Corzine described that experience as, ``a test of balancing the protection of the American public or protecting the New Jersey public and our civil liberties.'' No one, he said, could have balanced those competing interests ``more intelligently'' than Judge Chertoff had. I also welcomed Judge Chertoff's expression of his belief on the Office of Legal Counsel's definition of torture from the August 2002 memo written by Assistant Attorney General Bybee--as discussed during the nomination proceedings for Attorney General Gonzales--Judge Chertoff expressed before our committee that he felt the Bybee definition of torture was too narrow. Of course, I and others are troubled by how the Justice Department handled the detention of numbers of Muslim men and Arabic men who were rounded up in the aftermath of September 11. It has been extensively documented and validated and backed up by an Inspector General report that many of the detainees were held under the flimsiest of pretexts, were incarcerated for a long time without having their cases investigated, and often denied access to lawyers and family members. According to the Inspector General's report, some of them were actually physically abused by guards in the prisons where they were held. Judge Chertoff, in his testimony before our committee, said he felt that mistakes were clearly made in the detention and treatment of those detainees. I wish the Department of Justice had acknowledged the same failures when the Department of Justice Inspector General released its report in 2003. I hope and have confidence that the Department of Justice has learned the same lesson that Judge Chertoff told us before our committee that he has learned from that experience. Judge Chertoff said when he appeared before us that while the PATRIOT Act has engendered great public opposition, the evidence does not back up the fear that it would be used to deprive large numbers of people in this country of their fundamental liberties. On the other hand, the apprehension and taking into prison of more than 700 Arabic and Muslim men in the aftermath of September 11 and the way in which they were not just taken into custody but the denial in a very un-American way of basic due process guaranteed by the Constitution proves something to us--that some of those so concerned about the PATRIOT Act also ought to look at the absence of due process protection in our immigration laws, which have been used to deprive people of their constitutional rights. We ought to act to close those gaps in those immigration laws. There are also lessons that I know others can take and will take from the episode, as Judge Chertoff did in his previous position at the Department of Justice. As Secretary of Homeland Security, Judge Chertoff will be running a department with many different agencies with many different missions. Included within the Department are the agencies that deal with our Nation's immigrant community. That relationship must not--and according to law should not--be based primarily on prosecution and law enforcement. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. Those of us who ourselves, our parents, or our grandparents, or our great-grandparents were lucky enough to come to this country ought not to forget that history, and ought to treat immigrants today with the same respect our families expected as well. I have every confidence Judge Chertoff understands that and will conduct this Department accordingly. I am voting for Judge Chertoff, as I have said, because I believe he is the right man for this job. But I do not want that decision to obscure the fact that I share some of the concerns--more specifically, objections--that Senator Levin has expressed this afternoon and previously to the Justice Department's and the FBI's unwillingness to share with members of the Committee an uncensored version of the document Senator Levin referred to earlier, which says that certain employees of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department were at a meeting with representatives of the FBI in which the FBI members who had been at Guantanamo expressed concern about the way in which detainees were being treated there. This is in part the ongoing dialog between Administrations and Congress over most of our history about the sharing of information. But I must say it is the latest chapter or episode in a rather intense series of conversations between this particular Administration and Congress because of its reluctance to share information with Congress that I believe, as representatives of the people, we have a right to expect. This has particularly been the case with our Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--during the time I was chairman of the committee as well as ranking member--when we conducted oversight, or were considering nominations. Senators duly elected by their States certainly have a right to see the material they believe necessary to carry out their constitutional duty regarding advice and consent, unless there is a Presidential invocation of executive privilege, or some other clear statutory prohibition on sharing the particular information which Members of the Senate feel they need to carry out their responsibilities. In this case, the President does not claim privilege. The statute which the Justice Department cites for being unwilling to share the names currently redacted from this document of FBI personnel who were at this meeting pertaining to what has been happening at Guantanamo--the Privacy Act--in my opinion simply doesn't apply. The Privacy Act, I have always believed, was there to protect the privacy of individual Americans, not the names of Federal employees whom Senators believe they needed to know to carry out our constitutional duties of advice and consent. Indeed, as the Senator from Michigan has pointed out, the Justice Department's position that the Privacy Act requires the administration to withhold the names of high-level Government officials from a document and from simply mentioning the officials attending an official meeting, would be to allow for a stunning expansion of the Privacy Act that could thwart even the most basic of congressional oversight activities. In other words, in any number of areas where Congress might want to exercise our responsibility to oversee our Government, perhaps to prevent fraud or the waste of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, to say that you cannot get the name of an individual at a meeting because of the Privacy Act would be truly unbelievable, and unacceptable, unsustainable expansion of the Privacy Act. Therefore, I associate myself with that part of Senator Levin's expression of concerns. I hope every Member of the Senate will pay some attention to what Senator Levin has said regarding this because it undercuts the authority of the Members of the Senate to act. The Privacy Act was not meant to do that. Having said that, why do I nonetheless go ahead and strongly support Judge Chertoff? I believe Judge Chertoff in his testimony before the committee responded to concerns that something in that redacted document might disqualify him for this position. In the first place, he was not at the meeting. Second, in response to questions filed with him after the hearing and general statements he made at the hearing, he specifically said under oath to the best of his recollection he was never informed while head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department that there was any mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo. I accept that statement given by a Federal judge under oath. I truly resent the withholding of the names of the people who were at that meeting from the Senate. I conclude, nonetheless, that this document does not at all go against Judge Chertoff's otherwise extraordinary qualifications to lead this Department. These are, obviously, not ordinary times. We are in a new chapter of our history. In some sense every American feels insecure, more insecure than before September 11. We have done a lot of things to raise people's sense of security, including the capture of so many members of al-Qaida, our victories militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the setting up of the Department of Homeland Security. This is, nonetheless, a department whose leadership demands an extraordinary commitment. Judge Chertoff has made that commitment, and he will bring to this position an admirable record. He is a very strong choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security's continuing transformation into a strong, cohesive, well-operating force to secure the safety of the American people; therefore, I urge all of my colleagues to support this nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am honored to rise with my friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, to introduce the Climate Stewardship Act. It is an urgent matter. I was thinking of one clause that I could remove from Senator McCain's comments. He said: Suppose Senator Lieberman and I are deluded. It struck me that probably many times in the battles that we have fought together or individually, people have thought we were deluded. If I was going to be deluded, I would rather be deluded in the company of John McCain than anybody else I can think of. But let me say this: We are not deluded in our battle to get the U.S. Government to assume a leadership role in stopping this planet of ours from warming, with disastrous consequences for the way we and certainly our children and grandchildren will be forced to live if we do not do something. When Senator McCain and I first started to work with people in the field, the scientists, the businesspeople, the environmentalists, we had a pretty clear picture of what was coming, but very often we had to rely on scientific models and assume their accuracy in terms of the worst consequences. That is over. As Senator McCain's charts and pictures show, we can see with our eyes the effects of global warming already. The planet is warming. The polar ice caps are melting. One can see that with their own eyes. The sea level is rising in coastal areas already, and in other areas the water is diminishing, declining, as in the great State of my cosponsor, Arizona, and the State of the distinguished occupant of the Chair, Nevada. Forest fires are increasing. The evidence is clear that the problem is here, and that is why we have to do something about it. Doing nothing is no longer an option. We have reached a point where the intractable must yield to the inevitable. The evidence that climate change is real and dangerous keeps pouring in and piling up. What this legislation is all about is pushing, cajoling, and convincing the politics to catch up with the science. I will give real market-based evidence to back up what Senator McCain and I are saying about how compelling the science is. The leading insurance companies in the world--we are not talking about environmentalists--are now predicting that climate-driven disasters will cost global financial centers an additional $150 billion a year within the next 10 years. That is $150 billion of additional costs for the world as a result of climate-driven disasters. Just a couple of weeks ago, at an international conference, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. R. K. Pachauri, said that we are already at ``a dangerous point'' when it comes to global warming, and ``immediate and very deep cuts in greenhouse gases are needed if humanity is to survive.'' Let me repeat those last words: ``If humanity is to survive.'' It should be noted that Dr. Pachauri is no wild-eyed environmental radical. In fact, the administration lobbied heavily for Dr. Pachauri's appointment to the IPCC leadership because it considered him a more cautious and pragmatic scientist than the other leading candidate. To call global warming simply an environmental challenge is almost to diminish it or demean it with a kind of simplicity that puts it alongside a host of other environmental challenges that we face. Global warming is both a moral and an economic security challenge, as well as an environmental challenge. I start with what I mean by calling it a moral challenge. Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for about 100 years, so failure to take the prudent actions that our bill calls for--market-based, moderate, with caps--will force children still unborn to take far more drastic action to save their world as they know it and want to live in it. There is just no excuse for this. We know it is real. I cited the melting glaciers, the coastal communities damage, the increased rate of forest fires. Previously, on this floor I have talked about the fact that a robin appeared in the north of Alaska and Canada among the Inuits native tribe, and they had no word in their 10,000-year-old civilization and vocabulary for robin. Robins now linger longer into the winter in Connecticut, my State. Why? Because it is getting warmer. Polar bears may soon be listed as an endangered species. Let me put it another way. We know that a petition will be filed soon to ask that polar bears be listed as an endangered species. Why? Because global warming is removing their habitat. It is wreaking havoc in the arctic climates where they live and grow. So to spoil the Earth for generations to come when we knew what we were doing and could have stopped it would be a moral failing of enormous and, I might add, Biblical proportions. This time, it would be mankind that condemned itself, if I may put it again this way, to no longer living in the garden. The challenge of solving global warming also presents our Nation with untold opportunities to reshape our world and assert our moral, economic, and environmental leadership. There is always opportunity in change. The world will transition to a world with limited greenhouse gas emissions, and the United States needs a program like the one we offer today to seize the new markets, as well as the environmental challenge. In particular, Senator McCain and I are seeking now to develop additional provisions to this legislation that will provide American innovators and businesspeople with the technological incentives they need to make our bill work for them. Looking at the recommendations of the International Climate Change Task Force, the National Commission on Energy Policy, and the Pew Center Workshop on Technologies and Policies for a Low Carbon Future, there are a number of consensus provisions that could help the U.S. transition to these technologies of the future. These technologies are here. A recent paper in Science magazine showed that the scientific, technological, and industrial know-how already exists to limit carbon dioxide emissions substantially in the next 50 years. So we do not have to invent them. We just need the incentives and the motivation for industry, innovators, and individuals to deploy this knowledge and start us on the path toward a healthier, more sustainable future. That is what the Climate Stewardship Act that Senator McCain and I are introducing today will do. It will provide the incentives. It will create a cap and let the market do the rest of the work, a real opportunity for change. I am very pleased that one study being released today by the NRDC applying a method of evaluating which is advocated by the Energy Information Administration of our own Government says the Climate Stewardship Act will add 800,000 jobs to our economy by the year 2025. So it will not cost jobs, it will add them. Over the last few years, we have seen our colleagues grappling with the challenge of global warming. So many of them seem to be of the same mind, feeling that something needs to be done but still unsure what should be done and how. Senator McCain and I want our legislation to work for them so they can come forward and join us in this effort. This is an opportunity to invest in our future to face this challenge, an opportunity to enhance our energy security, and therefore our national security, by placing a price on greenhouse gas emissions, which is what our legislation will do. Our Nation's best energy options will become more cost competitive with foreign oil. It will make economic sense for dramatic growth in clean coal, alternative energy, and energy efficiency. It will be an opportunity for economic development in rural communities. By placing a price on carbon, it will create new value for range lands, farms, and forests by compensating landowners for the carbon they can store. It is an opportunity to innovate clean energy technologies for a growing global market. By placing this price that the cap and market will do on greenhouse gases, we will push demand for clean technologies, promoting innovation through both public and private enterprise and making that innovation profitable. It is an opportunity for our country to control the development of our own carbon market that will inevitably become part of a global market someday soon. It is an opportunity, as Senator McCain said, to improve our relations with our allies and the rest of the world and gain a stronger voice and ability to bring in developing nations. Without a price for carbon, these opportunities disappear. Our bill provides that price for carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. We know it is not the entire answer. A lot of people think it is too moderate and holds greenhouse gas emissions at today's levels. By the end of the decade, it is less demanding than the Kyoto Protocol, which goes into effect as a result of Russia's ratification next week, but it is a cap that major utilities have told us they could meet. It may not be strong enough to reduce U.S. emissions as much as some would like, but it will be strong enough to start turning America around in the direction of dealing with global warming, reasserting our world environmental leadership, and moving our economy in the right direction. We cannot afford to be as shortsighted as we have been up until now. We cannot afford anymore to allow the special interests, who will also resist change because change is unnerving and sometimes more costly, to prevail. We have to assert the public interest of ourselves and all those who will follow us on this Earth and in this great country to do something about global warming while we still can, before its consequences are disastrous. This is an enormous political challenge. I go back to where I began. When we started, we had just models, so we were trying to portray what might happen over the horizon and ask our colleagues to join us in doing something now. It is not easy to do that because the crisis always seems further away than the immediacy of the changes a solution requires, but now we can see it. Shame on us if we do not do something about it. I begin this battle today with Senator McCain and other cosponsors with not only a sense of commitment but a sense of encouragement and optimism that people ultimately are too reasonable and responsible to ignore the facts and do nothing about this looming disaster for humankind. Senator McCain and I begin this battle again, and we are not going to stop until it is won. I ask unanimous consent that several articles on climate be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am honored to rise with my friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, to introduce the Climate Stewardship Act. It is an urgent matter. I was thinking of one clause that I could remove from Senator McCain's comments. He said: Suppose Senator Lieberman and I are deluded. It struck me that probably many times in the battles that we have fought together or individually, people have thought we were deluded. If I was going to be deluded, I would rather be deluded in the company of John McCain than anybody else I can think of. But let me say this: We are not deluded in our battle to get the U.S. Government to assume a leadership role in stopping this planet of ours from warming, with disastrous consequences for the way we and certainly our children and grandchildren will be forced to live if we do not do something. When Senator McCain and I first started to work with people in the field, the scientists, the businesspeople, the environmentalists, we had a pretty clear picture of what was coming, but very often we had to rely on scientific models and assume their accuracy in terms of the worst consequences. That is over. As Senator McCain's charts and pictures show, we can see with our eyes the effects of global warming already. The planet is warming. The polar ice caps are melting. One can see that with their own eyes. The sea level is rising in coastal areas already, and in other areas the water is diminishing, declining, as in the great State of my cosponsor, Arizona, and the State of the distinguished occupant of the Chair, Nevada. Forest fires are increasing. The evidence is clear that the problem is here, and that is why we have to do something about it. Doing nothing is no longer an option. We have reached a point where the intractable must yield to the inevitable. The evidence that climate change is real and dangerous keeps pouring in and piling up. What this legislation is all about is pushing, cajoling, and convincing the politics to catch up with the science. I will give real market-based evidence to back up what Senator McCain and I are saying about how compelling the science is. The leading insurance companies in the world--we are not talking about environmentalists--are now predicting that climate-driven disasters will cost global financial centers an additional $150 billion a year within the next 10 years. That is $150 billion of additional costs for the world as a result of climate-driven disasters. Just a couple of weeks ago, at an international conference, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. R. K. Pachauri, said that we are already at ``a dangerous point'' when it comes to global warming, and ``immediate and very deep cuts in greenhouse gases are needed if humanity is to survive.'' Let me repeat those last words: ``If humanity is to survive.'' It should be noted that Dr. Pachauri is no wild-eyed environmental radical. In fact, the administration lobbied heavily for Dr. Pachauri's appointment to the IPCC leadership because it considered him a more cautious and pragmatic scientist than the other leading candidate. To call global warming simply an environmental challenge is almost to diminish it or demean it with a kind of simplicity that puts it alongside a host of other environmental challenges that we face. Global warming is both a moral and an economic security challenge, as well as an environmental challenge. I start with what I mean by calling it a moral challenge. Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for about 100 years, so failure to take the prudent actions that our bill calls for--market-based, moderate, with caps--will force children still unborn to take far more drastic action to save their world as they know it and want to live in it. There is just no excuse for this. We know it is real. I cited the melting glaciers, the coastal communities damage, the increased rate of forest fires. Previously, on this floor I have talked about the fact that a robin appeared in the north of Alaska and Canada among the Inuits native tribe, and they had no word in their 10,000-year-old civilization and vocabulary for robin. Robins now linger longer into the winter in Connecticut, my State. Why? Because it is getting warmer. Polar bears may soon be listed as an endangered species. Let me put it another way. We know that a petition will be filed soon to ask that polar bears be listed as an endangered species. Why? Because global warming is removing their habitat. It is wreaking havoc in the arctic climates where they live and grow. So to spoil the Earth for generations to come when we knew what we were doing and could have stopped it would be a moral failing of enormous and, I might add, Biblical proportions. This time, it would be mankind that condemned itself, if I may put it again this way, to no longer living in the garden. The challenge of solving global warming also presents our Nation with untold opportunities to reshape our world and assert our moral, economic, and environmental leadership. There is always opportunity in change. The world will transition to a world with limited greenhouse gas emissions, and the United States needs a program like the one we offer today to seize the new markets, as well as the environmental challenge. In particular, Senator McCain and I are seeking now to develop additional provisions to this legislation that will provide American innovators and businesspeople with the technological incentives they need to make our bill work for them. Looking at the recommendations of the International Climate Change Task Force, the National Commission on Energy Policy, and the Pew Center Workshop on Technologies and Policies for a Low Carbon Future, there are a number of consensus provisions that could help the U.S. transition to these technologies of the future. These technologies are here. A recent paper in Science magazine showed that the scientific, technological, and industrial know-how already exists to limit carbon dioxide emissions substantially in the next 50 years. So we do not have to invent them. We just need the incentives and the motivation for industry, innovators, and individuals to deploy this knowledge and start us on the path toward a healthier, more sustainable future. That is what the Climate Stewardship Act that Senator McCain and I are introducing today will do. It will provide the incentives. It will create a cap and let the market do the rest of the work, a real opportunity for change. I am very pleased that one study being released today by the NRDC applying a method of evaluating which is advocated by the Energy Information Administration of our own Government says the Climate Stewardship Act will add 800,000 jobs to our economy by the year 2025. So it will not cost jobs, it will add them. Over the last few years, we have seen our colleagues grappling with the challenge of global warming. So many of them seem to be of the same mind, feeling that something needs to be done but still unsure what should be done and how. Senator McCain and I want our legislation to work for them so they can come forward and join us in this effort. This is an opportunity to invest in our future to face this challenge, an opportunity to enhance our energy security, and therefore our national security, by placing a price on greenhouse gas emissions, which is what our legislation will do. Our Nation's best energy options will become more cost competitive with foreign oil. It will make economic sense for dramatic growth in clean coal, alternative energy, and energy efficiency. It will be an opportunity for economic development in rural communities. By placing a price on carbon, it will create new value for range lands, farms, and forests by compensating landowners for the carbon they can store. It is an opportunity to innovate clean energy technologies for a growing global market. By placing this price that the cap and market will do on greenhouse gases, we will push demand for clean technologies, promoting innovation through both public and private enterprise and making that innovation profitable. It is an opportunity for our country to control the development of our own carbon market that will inevitably become part of a global market someday soon. It is an opportunity, as Senator McCain said, to improve our relations with our allies and the rest of the world and gain a stronger voice and ability to bring in developing nations. Without a price for carbon, these opportunities disappear. Our bill provides that price for carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. We know it is not the entire answer. A lot of people think it is too moderate and holds greenhouse gas emissions at today's levels. By the end of the decade, it is less demanding than the Kyoto Protocol, which goes into effect as a result of Russia's ratification next week, but it is a cap that major utilities have told us they could meet. It may not be strong enough to reduce U.S. emissions as much as some would like, but it will be strong enough to start turning America around in the direction of dealing with global warming, reasserting our world environmental leadership, and moving our economy in the right direction. We cannot afford to be as shortsighted as we have been up until now. We cannot afford anymore to allow the special interests, who will also resist change because change is unnerving and sometimes more costly, to prevail. We have to assert the public interest of ourselves and all those who will follow us on this Earth and in this great country to do something about global warming while we still can, before its consequences are disastrous. This is an enormous political challenge. I go back to where I began. When we started, we had just models, so we were trying to portray what might happen over the horizon and ask our colleagues to join us in doing something now. It is not easy to do that because the crisis always seems further away than the immediacy of the changes a solution requires, but now we can see it. Shame on us if we do not do something about it. I begin this battle today with Senator McCain and other cosponsors with not only a sense of commitment but a sense of encouragement and optimism that people ultimately are too reasonable and responsible to ignore the facts and do nothing about this looming disaster for humankind. Senator McCain and I begin this battle again, and we are not going to stop until it is won. I ask unanimous consent that several articles on climate be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Joe Helble and Lydia Olander, both science fellows in my office, during consideration of the Climate Stewardship Act of 2005.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in regard to the nomination of Judge Gonzales to be the Attorney General of the United States. Since this is about justice, in reviewing the record on Judge Gonzales and in considering what my own conclusion about it would be, particularly since it was all about justice, I thought I should try to reach a result that seemed just to me. Each of us, in the fullness of our heads and hearts, has to decide what is appropriate. I was reminded of that famous saying from the Bible: Justice, justice shalt thou seek. I remember asking a teacher of mine once why the repeat of the word ``justice,'' and I was told, well, it not only means you should pursue justice but you should pursue it in a just way. I have had that in mind as I have considered this nomination and others over my 16 years in the Senate. Throughout my tenure I have voted on hundreds of Presidential nominations. In each case I have adhered to a broadly deferential standard of review. To me, that seems to be the just process to follow. As I explained in my very first speech on the Senate floor which, for better or worse, was in regard to the nomination of John Tower to serve as Secretary of Defense, a nomination which I opposed, the history of the debates of the constitutional convention makes clear to me that the President is entitled to the benefit of the doubt in his appointments to his Cabinet. The question I concluded I should ask myself in considering nominees is not whether I would have chosen the nominee but, rather whether the President's choice is acceptable for the job for which the nominee has been chosen. That, obviously, does not mean the Senate should always confirm a President's nominees. Were that the case, the Framers would have given the Senate no role in the appointments process, no power to advise and consent. Instead, the Senate's constitutional advice and consent mandate obliges us to serve, if you will, as a check, in my opinion, at the margins on the President's power to appoint, a power that a sitting President wins by virtue of his selection by the people of the country. As I put it in my statement on Senator Tower's nomination, I believe this requires this Senator to consider several things: First, the knowledge, experience, and qualifications of the nominee for the particular position for which he or she has been nominated; second, the nominee's judgment as well as his personal behavior; third, the nominee's ethics. In unusual circumstances Senators can also, it seems to me, consider fundamental and potentially irreconcilable differences of policy between the nominee and the mission of the agency he or she is called upon to serve. As a result of that personal process that I follow in nominations, on a very few occasions--I would guess, although I haven't looked back, maybe just over 5 during my 16 years in the Senate--I have determined that the views of certain nominees, usually on one end of the political spectrum or the other, fell sufficiently outside the mainstream to compel me to oppose their nominations. In other words, I give a presumption in favor of the nominee unless there is a reason to decide otherwise. In this case I have met with Judge Gonzales, I have reviewed his record throughout his career, I am familiar with his life story, I have reviewed the proceedings before the Judiciary Committee, the comments made by many on the committee in describing their votes, his testimony there, and I have concluded that this nominee deserves to be confirmed and therefore I will vote to confirm the nominee. I need not labor on the details of the first three points--knowledge, experience, qualifications, judgment and personal behavior, and nominee's ethics. I believe this nominee, as everyone said, including those who are opposed to the nomination, has a remarkable life story that speaks to his strength, to his balance, to his values. He has acted under pressure and gives me the confidence that he would do the same as Attorney General. He has spoken quite eloquently in his testimony before the Judiciary Committee that he understands his accountability, his first accountability as Attorney General will be to the Constitution and to the people of this country. I know there are some who question his independence of opinion and judgment because he has had a close relationship with the President of the United States. But, as others before me in this debate on the Senate floor about this nomination have said, more often than not a President chooses as Attorney General someone close to him. President Kennedy obviously chose his brother Robert, who was a great Attorney General. President Reagan, if I remember correctly, chose his personal lawyer to be his Attorney General. President Carter chose Griffin Bell, who was extremely close to him, from Atlanta. And so it goes throughout most of our history. It seems to me, as I followed the debate in the committee and on the floor, that there are two or three elements that have troubled my colleagues enough to decide to vote against this nomination. I believe in fairness I have to consider these seriously, but consider them in the context of Judge Gonzales's entire career. The two most significant points of contention are Judge Gonzales's work as White House Counsel early in 2002, in the memo he wrote and the involvement he had in the policy with regard to the application of the Geneva Conventions; and, second, what relationship he had with the memo of Mr. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, with regard to the definition of torture under the Convention Against Torture. In both of these cases, it seems to me, as I listen to my colleagues who are opposed to the nomination, they take Judge Gonzales's work in both of these areas to be indications of perhaps his lack of independence, lack of good judgment which they believe disqualifies him for this position. And some--I am trying to be fair here--raise questions about whether both of these memos, certainly the second one, the Bybee memo, in any way or in some way contributed to the horrific behavior we saw in the prison abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. I want to briefly speak to both. The first is the work that Judge Gonzales did early in 2002, within months after the attack against us of September 11 and the initiation of our own war against terrorism in Afghanistan. I know people have quoted from the memo he wrote with some derision. I think you have to appreciate the context. As I look back post- September 11, it seems to me in Judge Gonzales's memo and the memos submitted by the State Department, by the Defense Department and others, there is a very serious and classical American debate going on about how to handle al-Qaida and the Taliban, and prisoners taken from their membership, and what is the relevance of the Geneva Convention to those people. It is an argument by a nation that cares about the rule of law. You can agree with Judge Gonzales's position in this matter or not. I happen to agree with the ultimate decision made. And the decision was, in my opinion, a reasonable one and ultimately a progressive one. The decision was that under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, al-Qaida simply is not a state party to a convention, it is a terrorist group, and as such its members were not entitled to prisoner-of-war status. There is a sentence in Judge Gonzales's letter that was quoted with great derision, laughter, as if it were over the edge. ``In my judgment, this new paradigm,'' which is the post-September 11 war on terrorism, ``renders quaint some of the provisions requiring that captured enemy''--we are talking here about al-Qaida--``be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip advances of monthly pay, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.'' I think, respectfully, Judge Gonzales was being restrained and diplomatic in using the word ``quaint.'' To offer these benefits-- access to a canteen to purchase food, soap and tobacco, a monthly advance of pay, and the ability to have and consult personal financial accounts, the ability to receive scientific equipment, musical instruments or sports outfits--to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who planned the attacks against us on September 11, would not be quaint, It would be offensive. It would be offensive. It would be ridiculous. It would be ultimately unjust. A different conclusion was reached about the Taliban. A summary of the opinion says, although we never recognized the Taliban as a legitimate Afghan government, Afghanistan is a party to the Geneva Conventions, and therefore the President has determined that the Taliban is covered by the conventions. But then they cite that under the terms of the conventions, Taliban detainees do not qualify for prisoner-of-war status. Then the progressive part of this opinion, coming out in February 2002, says that even though the detainees are not entitled to prisoner- of-war privileges, they will be provided many POW privileges as a matter of policy. All detainees in Guantanamo are being provided three meals a day that meet Muslim dietary laws, water, medical care, clothing and shoes, shelter, showers, soap and toilet articles, foam sleeping pads, blankets, towels, washcloths, the opportunity to worship, correspondence materials and a means to send mail, and the ability to receive packages of food and clothing subject to security screening. Detainees will not be subjected to physical or mental abuse or cruel treatment. That is the policy that Judge Gonzales helped them form. That is the policy that our Government issued. To me, it is a remarkably just policy. I see no basis in anything in the record of Judge Gonzales's participation in this that would lead me to override presumption in his favor. The Bybee memo--the memo from the Office of Legal Counsel in August of 2002 interpreting the Convention Against Torture and the American statute implementing the conventions--is a separate matter. It is very important to say that this memo was written by the independent Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice with a proud record of independence of opinion. You may disagree with its conclusions. I disagree with a lot of its content and conclusions. But it is a lengthy, 50-plus pages, single- spaced document, quite scholarly, with over 25 footnotes, as I recall-- and offered to Judge Gonzales in his role as Counsel to the President. I want to repeat again: This was not Judge Gonzales's memo. It was the Office of Legal Counsel's memo. It is not clear what Judge Gonzales did with this memo. He refused at his hearing before the Judiciary Committee to reveal exactly what he advised the President about the memo. That was frustrating to the committee members, and I understand that. But I must say as a former attorney general, as a lawyer, I respect the right of the Counsel to the President to keep private for reasons of precedent and executive privilege the private counsel he gives to the President of the United States. I repeat that there are parts of that Bybee memo which I find profoundly offensive. But it was not the Gonzales memo. On the record, we do not know what he advised the President as a result of it. In questions and answers before the committee, he said he agreed with the conclusion but not all of the analysis in it. It is hard to know what that means. What we do know is that in June of last year, presumably after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the Attorney General and White House Counsel were asked to reconsider and withdraw the opinion of August 2002, and reissued the opinion in December of 2004 with just about all of the objectionable matter--to me objectionable--being taken out of it and presumed objectionable to most others. So it is no longer a prevailing memo. Again, Judge Gonzales said repeatedly at the hearing he would not countenance torture--repeated what is the fact; that the administration made very clear, presumably with his counsel, that the rules of the Geneva Conventions applied to the Iraq war because Iraq was a duly formed government, a sovereign state, and a party to the Geneva Conventions. What happened at Abu Ghraib was embarrassing, was hurtful to our cause in the world, was offensive, and it is being dealt with within the military justice system as we have seen. Questions are raised about the connection, I suppose, between the Bybee memo and whatever involvement Judge Gonzales had entered in the events of Abu Ghraib. There is simply no evidence to make the connection, certainly between Judge Gonzales and what happened at Abu Ghraib in any of the independent reviews that have gone on, most particularly Mr. Schlesinger's independent review which said there was no connection between so-called higher-ups and what happened at Abu Ghraib. In the end, I have to ask myself, because of a memo written by somebody else, Mr. Bybee at the Office of Legal Counsel, which has in it material that I find, as I said, profoundly offensive, that Judge Gonzales received and did something with, am I prepared to vote to deny him confirmation as Attorney General of the United States? To me personally that would be an unjust result. That is why I will vote to confirm. I understand the frustration of members of the Judiciary Committee about some of the answers--many of the answers that Judge Gonzales gave at the hearing. Some of them were evasive and some were legalistic. But that wouldn't be, would it, the first time the committee had a witness before it that proceeded in that particular way, particularly one who has privileges that he occupies and lives under as Counsel to the President of the United States. That is why I am going to vote for Judge Gonzales--to confirm his nomination. Nothing that I see in the report rises to a level high enough to overcome the presumption in favor of him as a nominee of the President. He has many outstanding qualities. I don't know if others have mentioned this in this debate. He has a certain independence of spirit which I don't think has been very much commented on. I remember reading in the press a moment ago when his name was mentioned as a potential nominee for Supreme Court, some people--I will be explicit--thought he wasn't a likely nominee because there were people in the Republican Party who thought he had too much independence on some issues that were central. I think that should be remembered as we cast the vote. The final point I wanted to make is this: I would like to believe this. I will state that it has nothing to do with the standard that I apply to voting on confirmation of a nomination, but to me it is a kind of bonus associated with this nomination. Judge Gonzales, if confirmed, will be the first Hispanic Attorney General in the history of the United States. That is a fact. It is not reason, of course, to vote for him, nor is it a reason to vote against him. But to me it is both a bonus and an extra measure of encouragement about the kind of Attorney General he will be. I have been in positions myself when I have had the chance in the true spirit of the American dream to break some barriers. I probably have a special sensitivity to others who have had the opportunity to break barriers. When I had that opportunity myself, somebody said to me of another ethnic group--in fact, another racial group--that they were thrilled about what had just happened to me because they believed in America when a barrier falls for one group, the doors of opportunity would open wider for every other American. I believe that. I think that is the bonus that comes with this nomination. I can't help but also note the broad base of support that Judge Gonzales has received from the Hispanic community, from elected officials, and generally nonpartisan Hispanic organizations. They speak to the significance beyond the merits, but build on the merits that this nomination has to a group of Americans who are playing an increasingly important role in the life of this country. It encourages me about the kind of job he will do, because I think the experiences he has had, the road he walked to get to where he is, the extraordinary hard work he did to do that, the pride he has in his family, in his heritage, will quite simply make him sensitive to the most fundamental values of equal opportunity, of the rule of law, of an absence of discrimination of any kind. For all of those reasons, I shall vote yea on the nomination of Judge Gonzales to be our next Attorney General. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, yesterday I came to the Senate floor to announce my support for the nomination of Dr. Rice to be our Secretary of State and explained why I thought she was more than qualified to take on this critical position at this critical stage in our Nation's history. In the time and the hours that followed, several of my colleagues came to the floor and announced that they would not support this nomination and explained why. I wanted to return very briefly this morning to simply say that I considered the arguments made against her nomination and they do not alter my conclusion that Dr. Condoleezza Rice is more than qualified to be Secretary of State at this time in our Nation's history. Some of the criticisms of the administration's policy, particularly post-Saddam in Iraq, I agree with. Others about Dr. Rice personally, I vehemently disagree with. But as I see our role here in advising and consenting, the question is not whether we agree with everything the nominee has ever done or said but whether the nominee is qualified to be Secretary of State. This nominee is more than qualified. Implicit in this, of course, is that the President has won the right, by virtue of his election, to have around him people who have his confidence. This nominee certainly does. Secondly, I want to make a statement about how I read the criticisms that have been expressed. They are all about the past, either about past behavior of Dr. Rice or, more particularly, about past administration judgments or actions with regard to foreign policy generally and particularly about the war in Iraq. I want to make clear that I don't hear criticisms about where we are now or where we should go in the future. It is important that the American people understand that but more important that our friends and foes in Iraq, throughout the Islamic world, and the world generally understand that. There is not substantial dissent in the Senate of the United States about the policy we are following in Iraq today. It is to train the Iraqis to better secure themselves. It is to give them the opportunity, which they will exercise bravely and I believe successfully this Sunday, to elect their own leaders. It is to invest in their own economic well- being so they can create a model within the Arab world of not only a self-governing state but a modernizing state connected to the modern world. I have listened to my colleagues who oppose this nomination, and I have spoken to them off the floor. I want to make clear to people around the world, there is not a single one of these colleagues who wants us to cut and run from Iraq. There is not a single one of these colleagues who does not fully support our troops there. I want our troops to understand that. There is not a single one of these colleagues who is not supportive of the election this Sunday and hopeful that people will turn out in large numbers. There is no question about which side we are on. We are on the side of the people of Iraq, struggling bravely for a better future, and we are against that minority there, composed largely of leftovers from Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorists associated with al-Qaida, who are killers, murderers, fascists, who want to stop 25 million Iraqis from having a better life. Finally, if my colleagues believe that Condoleezza Rice is not qualified to be Secretary of State of the United States, then, of course, they must vote against her. But if they are--I hate to use the word ``just''--just upset about some of the things this administration has done in Iraq, but if they believe otherwise, that what we are doing now is all we can do to make the situation better, then I appeal to them to vote for Dr. Rice. Give her the benefit of the doubt. In some sense, give the President the benefit of the doubt that I believe the Constitution entitles him. Give America's national interests the benefit of the doubt. Give our soldiers fighting in Iraq the benefit of the doubt. This nominee has the President's confidence. I want people around the world to know--and I hope with a resounding vote--that though there are disagreements about what the administration has done in regard to our Iraq policy and other elements of foreign policy, that in the final analysis we are together. We are together for what we are pursuing, which is the successful conclusion to our involvement in Iraq and to the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the world. I thank the Chair and urge a strong vote for Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be our next Secretary of State.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Alabama for his kind words. I thank him for his leadership on this issue and so many other matters to our Nation's security and for those who fight and serve in uniform to protect us. Senator Sessions and I have worked together as members of the Armed Services Committee. He was chair, and I was ranking Democrat on the Airland Subcommittee. In some ways, the public, after listening to the chatter and the noise, would be surprised to hear we work so often in these committees with total nonpartisanship in the national interest, which is the way it ought to be. I forgot the moment, but we were considering the question of what kinds of benefits there are for our men and women in uniform, and we came to death benefits. We were both, frankly, shocked and embarrassed and ultimately outraged that it had been $6,000, just raised to $12,000. When you think of death benefits generally and the impact on a family, the loss of a loved one, it just cried out for some kind of change. That is what this proposal, the HEROES Act, is all about and why I am so proud to join with Senator Sessions and the other cosponsors in introducing it and why I am grateful Senator Frist included this as one of his priority items on his leadership list of measures introduced. I had one of those moments we all have--I guess all Members of the Senate do this--where I got word today of a loss of another Connecticut soldier, SGT Thomas Vitagliano. If I am not in the State because we are in session, I always reach out to call the family. I spoke with his mother earlier today. These are extraordinary people. She spoke with a strength that I must say was inspiring. I said: There is nothing I can say to fill the gap that is there because of the loss of a loved one in service of country. All I can say to you is, thank you on behalf of myself and a grateful nation and please know that your son is a hero. She said to me: He loved his service in the military. He was a big guy and he had a great sense of humor, but he was really serious about his service in the military. I know that he was killed by an improvised explosive device, IED, basically a bomb. She said to me: I know that he died in service of his country, he died doing what gave his life meaning. She also said to me: Senator, I am really thinking now in just the words you said, as the mother of a hero. There will be a time after his burial when I will think as a mother, and it will be a very hard time. But today I am thinking as the mother of a hero. That is what this HEROES Act is all about, Honoring Every Requirement of Exemplary Service Act, the HEROES Act of 2005. We could not come up with any sum of money to reimburse a family for the loss of a loved one, but the fact is that these folks put their lives on the line for us. They are there, more specifically, as a result of our decision and the President's as Commander in Chief. The least we can do for them is $100,000 in a death benefit. I am very pleased, also, as I believe Senator Sessions said, that under this HEROES Act we are going to increase the Servicemen's Group Life Insurance, or SGLI as it is called. That is a benefit that is now at $250,000. It is basically term insurance. It is a pretty good plan. It is not a typical death benefit that we are offering for those who are killed in action, but it certainly, obviously, goes to the survivors of those killed in action. By the HEROES Act, we are adding $150,000 of life insurance for troops serving in a combat zone, and the premium for that $150,000 will be paid by the U.S. Government. So we have a circumstance where if a soldier has bought the SGLI, the Servicemen's Group Life Insurance, their family will receive the $250,000, for which the soldier pays, $150,000 which we pay, and $100,000 that will now be the death benefit, and that will be a half million dollars, which in these days is not a lot of money for families left without a parent, a spouse, children who are going to have to be sent through college and all the expenses related thereto. The $12,000 that is the existing death benefit is so shockingly paltry, but all the more so when you focus on the fact--and this earlier $6,000 goes way back when it was first set--that the military has changed. Our military, as all of us know who serve on the service committees or visit our military or just see our Guard and Reserve at home, is no longer primarily a group of 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old single men. More than 60 percent of our service men and women on Active Duty have a family. If my colleagues have visited, they know in Iraq about 40 percent of the Americans there in uniform are Guard and Reserve. Those folks are in their thirties, forties, and during my visit at the end of December I saw a few who were in pretty good shape but looked as though they were in their fifties. So these are people who have families, and if killed, it will leave a terrible void in the life of those families. And in some small way we hope to fill that void monetarily by providing this increase in support. Incidentally, the HEROES Act will also direct the military to discuss the level of insurance selected with a spouse or other beneficiary to ensure that family members are informed and fully participating in these important decisions. The great President Theodore Roosevelt once said: A man who is good enough to shed blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterward. I would attempt to update the great TR's wisdom and words by saying that a man or a woman who is good enough to shed blood and risk life for our country should know when doing so that their families will be taken care of no matter what happens. That is the purpose of the HEROES Act. I do not think I have ever introduced legislation that I have felt better about or, frankly, felt more optimistic about. I cannot believe this is not going to pass overwhelmingly and be supported overwhelmingly. When we think of all we are spending--incidentally, it is retroactive so anyone who has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan will receive these full death benefits. What it will amount to in total is a fraction of one percentage point of what we are spending every month, probably every day, in Iraq. It is the least we can do. I am proud to be part of it with Senator Sessions. I thank him again for his leadership. He and I and all the others are going to stick with it until we get this done and the checks start to go out to those who have given their all to protect our security and advance the cause of freedom. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2005 in an effort to right a persistent injustice experienced by the 600,000 citizens of the District of Columbia, who have historically been denied voting representation in Congress. This injustice is felt directly by District residents, but it is also a shadow overhanging the democratic traditions of our Nation as a whole. It is absurd that, in this day and age, ours is the only democracy in the world in which citizens of the capital city are not represented in the national legislature with a vote. The right to vote is a civic entitlement of every American citizen, no matter where he or she resides. It is democracy's most essential right. I am proud to be the chief Senate sponsor of this bill, which Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is introducing today in the House, because it makes us the fully representative democracy we claim to be. And I am delighted that Senators Obama, Schumer, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Feingold, Dayton, Corzine, Dodd and Durbin are joining me as original co-sponsors. The point of the legislation is simple: It would provide the residents of the District with full voting representation by two Senators and a House Member, guaranteeing the residents of the Nation's capital with the same right to partake in our democracy that the citizens of all 50 States enjoy. Despite this bill's title, it would not exempt residents of the District from paying taxes. In May 2002, the Governmental Affairs Committee, which I then chaired, held the first hearing since 1994 on this issue. Five months later, in October, the committee reported out legislation similar to the bill we introduce today. I was and am still proud of that accomplishment. Unfortunately, it was not enough. The bill died on the Senate floor, and with it, the hope of D.C. residents for equal voting rights. The people of this city literally fight and die for their country. They help pay for the benefits to which all Americans are entitled. And yet, they are denied voting representation. It is painfully ironic that we are introducing this legislation even as the young men and women, including many from the District of Columbia, are dying in Iraq so that Iraqis may live and vote in a representative democracy. About 1,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen and women from the District have been called upon to help fight the war on terrorism. Three have died in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Yet, to our shame, these brave men and women cannot choose representatives to the Federal legislature that governs them and thus have no say in when or whether the nation should go to war. The people of this city, more than most, live under the near constant threat of terrorism, and have been mightily inconvenienced by security precautions because of that threat. And despite Congresswoman Norton's ability to vote in committee, residents of D.C. have no one who can vote when homeland and national security policies are being crafted. A representative without the power to vote on the floor of the House simply isn't a real representative. Furthermore, the citizens of Washington, D.C., pay income taxes just like everyone else. Only, they pay more. Per capita, District residents have the third highest Federal tax obligation. And yet they have no voice in how high those taxes will be nor how they will be spent. The vast majority of Americans believe that D.C. residents have voting representation in the Congress. When informed that they don't, 82 percent of Americans, according to one poll, by the advocacy group D.C. Vote, say that they should. In righting this wrong, we won't only be following the will of the American people. We will be following the imperative of our history. When they placed our Capital, which was not yet established in their day, under the jurisdiction of the Congress, the Framers of our Constitution in effect placed with Congress the solemn responsibility of assuring that the rights of D.C. citizens would be protected in the future, just as it is our responsibility to protect the rights of all citizens throughout this great country. Congress has failed to meet this obligation for more than 200 years, and I, for one, am not prepared to make D.C. citizens wait another 200 years. In the words of this city's namesake, our first President, ``Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: If defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.'' The people of D.C. have suffered from this Constitutional defect for far too long. Let's reprehend it and amend it together. I urge all of my colleagues to support this essential legislation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2005 in an effort to right a persistent injustice experienced by the 600,000 citizens of the District of Columbia, who have historically been denied voting representation in Congress. This injustice is felt directly by District residents, but it is also a shadow overhanging the democratic traditions of our Nation as a whole. It is absurd that, in this day and age, ours is the only democracy in the world in which citizens of the capital city are not represented in the national legislature with a vote. The right to vote is a civic entitlement of every American citizen, no matter where he or she resides. It is democracy's most essential right. I am proud to be the chief Senate sponsor of this bill, which Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is introducing today in the House, because it makes us the fully representative democracy we claim to be. And I am delighted that Senators Obama, Schumer, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Feingold, Dayton, Corzine, Dodd and Durbin are joining me as original co-sponsors. The point of the legislation is simple: It would provide the residents of the District with full voting representation by two Senators and a House Member, guaranteeing the residents of the Nation's capital with the same right to partake in our democracy that the citizens of all 50 States enjoy. Despite this bill's title, it would not exempt residents of the District from paying taxes. In May 2002, the Governmental Affairs Committee, which I then chaired, held the first hearing since 1994 on this issue. Five months later, in October, the committee reported out legislation similar to the bill we introduce today. I was and am still proud of that accomplishment. Unfortunately, it was not enough. The bill died on the Senate floor, and with it, the hope of D.C. residents for equal voting rights. The people of this city literally fight and die for their country. They help pay for the benefits to which all Americans are entitled. And yet, they are denied voting representation. It is painfully ironic that we are introducing this legislation even as the young men and women, including many from the District of Columbia, are dying in Iraq so that Iraqis may live and vote in a representative democracy. About 1,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen and women from the District have been called upon to help fight the war on terrorism. Three have died in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Yet, to our shame, these brave men and women cannot choose representatives to the Federal legislature that governs them and thus have no say in when or whether the nation should go to war. The people of this city, more than most, live under the near constant threat of terrorism, and have been mightily inconvenienced by security precautions because of that threat. And despite Congresswoman Norton's ability to vote in committee, residents of D.C. have no one who can vote when homeland and national security policies are being crafted. A representative without the power to vote on the floor of the House simply isn't a real representative. Furthermore, the citizens of Washington, D.C., pay income taxes just like everyone else. Only, they pay more. Per capita, District residents have the third highest Federal tax obligation. And yet they have no voice in how high those taxes will be nor how they will be spent. The vast majority of Americans believe that D.C. residents have voting representation in the Congress. When informed that they don't, 82 percent of Americans, according to one poll, by the advocacy group D.C. Vote, say that they should. In righting this wrong, we won't only be following the will of the American people. We will be following the imperative of our history. When they placed our Capital, which was not yet established in their day, under the jurisdiction of the Congress, the Framers of our Constitution in effect placed with Congress the solemn responsibility of assuring that the rights of D.C. citizens would be protected in the future, just as it is our responsibility to protect the rights of all citizens throughout this great country. Congress has failed to meet this obligation for more than 200 years, and I, for one, am not prepared to make D.C. citizens wait another 200 years. In the words of this city's namesake, our first President, ``Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: If defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.'' The people of D.C. have suffered from this Constitutional defect for far too long. Let's reprehend it and amend it together. I urge all of my colleagues to support this essential legislation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise according to the order to speak as in morning business, but I will be addressing my remarks to the nomination of Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State. First, in supporting Dr. Rice's nomination, I wish to set this in context. President Bush was reelected last November. He took the oath of office last Thursday and swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution and the laws give him the authority to nominate people who he wants to take leadership positions in his administration. We, now, have our constitutional responsibility in the Senate of the United States to advise and consent. But I have always believed that our responsibility to advise and consent does not mean we have to agree with every opinion or every action the nominee has ever taken, but that nominee deserves the benefit of the doubt and our responsibility is to determine whether the nominee is fit for the position for which the President has nominated him or her, and whether the nominee, in our judgment, will serve in the national interest. Of course, I conclude that Dr. Condoleezza Rice met that standard at least and much more. Second, this element of the context in which this nomination is put before us. We are at war. It is a war unlike any we have ever fought before. Here I speak of the world war with Islamic terrorism. It is joined on battlefields in places like Iraq, of course, but it is being fought in the shadows and corners against an enemy that is driven by fanaticism and acts without regard to human life--others or their own. I embrace the best tradition of American foreign policy that says and always has said that partisanship should end at the Nation's shores. Note this: It doesn't say policy differences should end; it doesn't say ideological differences should end; it says partisanship should end at the Nation's shores, particularly so when our Nation is engaged in war, a global war on terrorism, a war in Iraq in which Americans have lost their lives in the cause of freedom and in protection of our security. What I wish to say here is that the nomination of Secretary of State in a second term of a President naturally is an opportunity, appropriately, for people to raise questions about the foreign policy of that administration. But in the final analysis, I hope it is also an opportunity around this very qualified nominee for us to come together and say to one another and to the world, both our enemy and our allies, that in the final analysis Americans will stand shoulder to shoulder against terrorism, against the enemy in pursuit of the freedom and liberty and opportunity that Dr. Rice spoke about in her opening statement before the Foreign Relations Committee and that President Bush spoke about in his inaugural address last week. One of the great strengths which Condoleezza Rice will bring to the office of Secretary of State is that the world knows she has the President's trust and confidence. I respect the right of any of my colleagues, of course, to reach a different decision today and to oppose this nomination, but I hope and believe that the Senate today across partisan lines will resoundingly endorse this nomination and send the message to friend and foe alike that while we have our disagreements, ultimately what unites us around this very qualified nominee in this hour of war is much greater than that which divides us. In times like these, it is important that the world not only know that this Secretary of State has the ear of the President, but that she has, if you will allow me to put it this way, America's heart--a heart that beats with the freedom and security and opportunity that we dream of for our own people and for the people of the world. In the world today, we face a time of grave peril but also great promise. It is in many ways, it seems to me, like the time our predecessors faced after the Second World War at the outbreak of the Cold War. As then, now it is a hostile ideology which threatens freedom around the world as terrorism has replaced communism as liberty's foremost foe. Now, as then, it is the United States that must show leadership and resolve as the world's strongest nation in the face of this danger from terrorism to life and liberty--not just ourselves but everyone who does not exactly agree with the terrorists. Now, as then, the President and Members of Congress must depend on the advice and counsel of the Secretary of State as we craft the policies with an unblinking resolve that will rally our friends and rattle our enemies, that will diminish--we pray, eliminate--the perils we face and realize the extraordinary promises of our time. The very first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, once wrote: We confide in our strength without boasting of it. We respect that of others without fearing it. Jefferson's 18th century insights will serve us well in the face of the 21st century threats we confront. I know Dr. Rice understands and appreciates that well. Economic development and trade and foreign direction investment and the spread of modern technology and telecommunications have raised the standard of living throughout the world and connected people of the world as never before. But too many nations and people have been left behind because of failed governments or failed economies. They have become breeding grounds for terrorists who threaten us all. Today, there is hope. Members of democracy are beginning to glow where that powerful light has existed little or none before. The Afghans and the Palestinians have recently held successful elections. This Sunday, Iraq will hold a historic democratic election. I know the circumstances are difficult there, but having been there myself just a few weeks ago I can speak with some confidence that the turnout will be large and the affirmation of the Iraqi people for a better and freer future will be clear. Whether these embers grow into beacons for the rest of the Arab world or fade into dark and cold will depend uniquely upon strong, skillful American leadership and diplomacy. I conclude that Dr. Condoleezza Rice is capable of such leadership. Nuclear proliferation threatens the world as Iran and North Korea and others strive to develop deadly weapons which will make the arms race of the Cold War look sane in comparison. In response to these dangers, President Bush in his inaugural address and Dr. Rice in her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week have set down some basic principles which will guide our foreign and defense policy. They are based on values and hopes that have defined America: freedom, opportunity, faith, and community. Let me read a paragraph of Dr. Rice's opening statement before the Foreign Relations Committee last Tuesday: In these momentous times, American diplomacy has three great tasks. First, we will unite the community of democracies in building an international system that is based on our shared values and the rule of law. Second, we will strengthen the community of democracies to fight the threats to our common security and alleviate the hopelessness that feeds terror. Third, we will spread freedom and democracy throughout the globe. That is the mission that the President has set for America in the world--and a great mission of American diplomacy today. Let me read a few words from President Bush's inaugural last Thursday: We are led by events and common sense to one conclusion. The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom by its nature must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. Democratic reformers facing oppression, prison or exile can know America sees you for who you are--future leaders of your free country. The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe, as Abraham Lincoln did, that those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under the rule of a just God cannot long retain it. These principles and policies are neither Republican nor Democratic; they are American. In fact, the words spoken by President Bush last Thursday could just as easily have been spoken by some of the great Democratic Presidents such as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy. In fact, similar words were spoken by each of those Democratic Presidents at times of crisis--times of crisis similar in many ways to our own. I hope, therefore, that we will now come together to implement those principles and policies in a way that will spread hope and security and build bridges throughout the world, that the President will reach out to Members of both parties in Congress, and we in turn will reach out halfway at least and meet him to implement these stirring, uniquely American goals and policies and principles with real programs that are effective public diplomacy and outreach of economic development of trade, of rule of law, of ultimately, most importantly, the spread of freedom and democracy. I conclude that Dr. Condoleezza Rice is uniquely prepared by ability and experience to lead this effort as Secretary of State. I want to say a final word about Dr. Rice herself, whom I have come to know over the years. President Bush has clearly nominated Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State because he values her experience, he knows her skill, and he trusts her counsel. No one believes this President chose this nominee for Secretary of State for reasons of gender or race. No one here will vote for her in this Senate for reasons of gender or race. But the fact is that Dr. Condoleezza Rice is an African-American woman. I believe, in addition to every other standard by which we judge and respond to this nomination, we should celebrate the fact that when she is confirmed, another barrier will be broken in American life. We should celebrate this fact because Dr. Rice's life speaks to the promise of America, and in very personal terms says to people throughout the world what America is about and what we hope for them. Let us speak directly. Dr. Rice, born in 1954 in the then racially segregated South, knew the sting of bigotry. No one on the day of her birth could have rationally predicted she would grow up to be the Secretary of State of the United States of America. But she was blessed with great natural abilities, with a strong family, with an abiding faith in God. She worked hard, as others worked in her time, to break the barriers of segregation to establish the rule of law to create opportunities. She has earned the nomination the President has given her. Just as no one in Birmingham, when this African-American girl was born in 1954, could have dreamed she would grow up to be Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world, there are babies being born today in Baghdad and Ramallah and Kabul and Riyadh and in countries and cities throughout the world where no one could dream they might grow up to be President of their nation or Prime Minister or Foreign Minister or president of a high-tech enterprise or a professor at a great university. They will if we, working with the people of their countries, will it. A great man once said if you will it, it is no dream. In this hour when our security is being threatened, the promise of opportunity can, in response to the source of those threats, become real for tens of millions of children being born and growing up in places today where there is no freedom and no hope. That is the great mission our country has today. Dr. Rice understands that. Her life, as I said, speaks to brave men and women of color who, like Dr. Rice, have worked to change our Nation. Now she can, and I believe will, help lead our Nation to change the world, and in doing so enhance our values and protect our security for our children and grandchildren, as well. I urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to re-introduce legislation that would establish a new system to preserve the environmental quality of Long Island Sound by identifying, protecting, and enhancing sites within the Long Island Sound ecosystem that have significant ecological, educational, open space, public access, or recreational value. With this legislation, we hope to preserve the natural beauty and ecological wonder of the majestic waterway between New York and Connecticut, which my New York and Connecticut colleagues and I have worked hard together to improve. We have come a long way in restoring the Sound and its rich biodiversity over the past several decades, but our progress may be in jeopardy if we do not take measures now to protect remaining sites of biological diversity. Despite our best efforts, we are continuing to lose unprotected open sites along the shore. That is why this Act is so important. One of the important features of the Stewardship Act I am introducing is that it will use new approaches to address an old problem, the proper conservation of our resources. The legislation includes novel conservation techniques that are designed to accomplish their goals at the least cost. First, it involves purchasing property or property rights or entering into binding legal agreements with property owners, but does so through a process that is voluntary and that explicitly respects the interests and rights of private property owners. It also uses established scientific methods for identifying potential coastal sites. Finally, it incorporates a flexible management system that institutionalizes learning and ensures efficiency in the identification and acquisition of conservation and recreation sites. The value of this legislation, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent during the last Congress, is clear. I look forward to working with my co-sponsors from Connecticut and New York, Senators Dodd, Clinton, and Schumer, and a bipartisan group of our Connecticut and New York House colleagues to enact this legislation and ensure that we can take necessary common-sense steps to protect and preserve Long Island Sound for generations to come. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to re-introduce legislation that would establish a new system to preserve the environmental quality of Long Island Sound by identifying, protecting, and enhancing sites within the Long Island Sound ecosystem that have significant ecological, educational, open space, public access, or recreational value. With this legislation, we hope to preserve the natural beauty and ecological wonder of the majestic waterway between New York and Connecticut, which my New York and Connecticut colleagues and I have worked hard together to improve. We have come a long way in restoring the Sound and its rich biodiversity over the past several decades, but our progress may be in jeopardy if we do not take measures now to protect remaining sites of biological diversity. Despite our best efforts, we are continuing to lose unprotected open sites along the shore. That is why this Act is so important. One of the important features of the Stewardship Act I am introducing is that it will use new approaches to address an old problem, the proper conservation of our resources. The legislation includes novel conservation techniques that are designed to accomplish their goals at the least cost. First, it involves purchasing property or property rights or entering into binding legal agreements with property owners, but does so through a process that is voluntary and that explicitly respects the interests and rights of private property owners. It also uses established scientific methods for identifying potential coastal sites. Finally, it incorporates a flexible management system that institutionalizes learning and ensures efficiency in the identification and acquisition of conservation and recreation sites. The value of this legislation, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent during the last Congress, is clear. I look forward to working with my co-sponsors from Connecticut and New York, Senators Dodd, Clinton, and Schumer, and a bipartisan group of our Connecticut and New York House colleagues to enact this legislation and ensure that we can take necessary common-sense steps to protect and preserve Long Island Sound for generations to come. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would close the gaps in our present tsunami warning system and establish a global network that will give all the world's coastal communities a chance to evacuate--much like the hurricane and typhoon warning system works today across international boundaries. Although the probability is slim, the United States, like all coastal nations, is vulnerable to tsunamis. The threat to the Pacific is greatest because of its relatively extensive seismic activity. But while the threat is less in the Atlantic, it also does exist. Tsunamis early in the last century struck coastal Newfoundland and regions of the Caribbean including Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. As events last month in the Indian Ocean have shown, a large tsunami can be catastrophic when it catches a coastal population unwarned and unprepared. Existing technology, however, can detect tsunamis and with the right forecasting models, be used to predict potential landfall of a tsunami and provide the warning needed for those in the path of the destructive waves. The United States has been a leader in developing instrumentation for detecting tsunamis and developing forecasting models used for predicting tsunami landfall. Such technology is used in two existing tsunami warning centers, one in Alaska and one in Hawaii. The recent tsunami in South Asia has alerted the world to the dangers of these destructive waves, and has caused many of us to seek ways that the United States can help the world avoid such tragic loss again. The legislation I am introducing today builds on the existing United States model. It authorizes funding that will enable us to expand our existing capabilities, completes our network of seismic and tsunami sensors, and directs us to work in partnership with other nations as needed to build additional centers and the necessary network for disseminating warnings to the appropriate local officials. Similar efforts are being put forth by Senators Stevens and Inouye as leaders of the Commerce Committee, and by the Administration. I look forward to working with them to enact legislation which, at relatively low cost, will allow us to partner with other nations and complete a global detection and warning system. This will help ensure that the kind of tragedy that befell the nations of the Indian Ocean region never happens again. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.