Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, it is with continued concern that my respected colleagues and I bring to the Senate's attention for the ninth time in 21 years the continuing persecution of a minority religious group in Iran, the Baha'i, by submitting today the Baha'i Emancipation Act of 2003. I fervently believe that the persistent maltreatment of the Baha'i as well as other minority religious groups in Iran epitomizes the perilous state of affairs in the country of Iran. Thus, it is with a genuine compassion for all of the people of Iran but particularly for the followers of the Baha'i faith that my colleagues and I are submitting this resolution highlighting the continuing abuse of this segment of the Iranian population. We are urging that the Baha'i not only remain at the center of our attention, but that we join forces with other like-minded nations to put pressure on the Government of Iran to make permanent and lasting changes that will allow not only the followers of the Baha'i faith but all people to live in peace and prosperity in Iran. Consistent attention of the nature represented by this resolution and its predecessors is necessary in order to achieve full emancipation for this peaceful, law-abiding community. Although it appears that the overt measures used by the Government of Iran to harass and oppress the members of the Baha'i faith since 1979 have diminished, research by my staff indicates that a multitude of covert practices have been sustained and in many cases heightened over the past few years. Members of the Baha'i community continue to be subject to various forms of harassment including arbitrary arrest and short- term detainment, confiscation of their public and private property, and disruption of their educational and religious gatherings. Moreover, the Baha'i community continues to be deprived of many rights such as the right to elect their leaders, assemble as a community, access higher education, acquire government employment, receive due legal process, and practice the faith of their preference. As of June of this year, four Baha'i practitioners were in Iranian prisons solely because of their religious beliefs: one on charges of apostasy who is serving a life sentence, one on charges of participation in Baha'i activities who is serving four years, and two on charges of associations with Baha'i institutions who have been sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. This was unacceptable in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and it certainly is unacceptable in the 21st century. I would like to emphasize the idea of religious freedom because I strongly feel that each human being should have the right to choose and practice the faith of his or her choice. Iran has traditionally been designated a Country of Particular Concern in the Congressionally- mandated annual report as required by the International Religious Freedom Act. But, rather than being satisfied that the Government of Iran is reprimanded in this report, we need to take proactive steps to publicize the continued mistreatment of the Baha'i faithful in Iran and to urge the Government of Iran to make the necessary changes. Legislation such as this is an important first step, but we must also work with others, including the European Union, to push for this objective. This legislation urges that the Administration do just that. I would also like to take this opportunity to bring to the Senate's attention two related pieces of legislation, both of which I have joined as a co-sponsor. The first is S. Res. 244 submitted by Senator Boxer that congratulates Shirin Ebadi for winning the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and commending her for a lifetime of work promoting democracy and human rights. Shirin Ebadi is a very courageous woman who has risked her life to advocate for universal human rights and on many occasions specifically advocated equal rights for the Baha'i community in Iran. I commend her global efforts and encourage the spreading of her convictions in order to attain a world of equal rights for all. The second related piece of legislation that I am co-sponsoring is S. Con. Res. 73 submitted by Senator Feinstein that expresses Congress's deep concerns over Iran's apparent efforts to develop nuclear weapons in contravention of its Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty obligations and urging international pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. I am aware of the progress that has been made in recent days with the Iranian government's statements of intended cooperation with both the International Atomic Energy Agency's request that Iran sign an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the recent negotiations involving the European Union but I remain wary of their actual intentions and I believe that we should not rest until the words that have been spoken have been followed up with concrete action. Iran needs to be aware that it must make significant changes in the way it treats its own population and in the manner in which it conducts itself internationally if it wants to become a respected member on the world stage. These requests include but are not limited to cooperating with the European Union and potentially the United Nations, dealing appropriately with the infiltration of suspected terrorists and criminals along their border, halting all forms of terrorist support, cooperating with the U.S. and others on suspected terrorists and intelligence in conjunction with the global war on terror, and especially to provide human rights for each man, woman, and child in Iran regardless of creed or color. Iran must alter their enduring ways in order to earn international respect and to create better lives for all Iranians. A world where Iran is a respected and integral participant, where its inhabitants can co-exist and pursue happiness without constraint is not beyond our grasp but it will take continued focus and determination. I urge passage of the Baha'i Emancipation Act of 2003 and recommend this administration to use all of the tools in its diplomatic toolbox to work through the United Nations, the IAEA, and with our friends and allies to strongly advise the government of Iran to exploit its full potential as a member of the international community.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Oklahoma. With all respect, I say the Senator and others opposing our amendment may continue to talk about the original McCain-Lieberman bill, but that is not the one before us. We announced at a Commerce Committee hearing on October 1 that in an attempt to achieve consensus and find common ground, we were pulling back the second part of our proposal. The first part sets a goal of achieving the standards of emission of 2000 by 2010. The second part would have taken us back to 1990 standards by 2016. We pulled that back. This is an attempt to try to see if we can move forward together. It has been out there for some period of time now, and the estimate we have seen of its effects comes from MIT, which I submitted for the Record earlier. We will continue to debate whether the facts being presented are relevant to our amendment. I say respectfully they are not.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Alabama for smiling his way through that intensive interrogation by the Senator from Arizona. I now yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New York whose support for our amendment I greatly appreciate.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I have an amendment on behalf of the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, myself, and several other Senators, which I send to the desk at this time.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Would the Chair advise us how much time remains?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am very proud to speak on behalf of this amendment, which I am delighted to cosponsor with my good friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain. We have worked on this for a long time. We have worked on it with environmentalists, leaders in the business community, thinkers about this problem, and public health officials, and with just plain citizens who are worried about global warming. Global warming is one of the great challenges of our time. It challenges us in many ways. Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels threaten our environment, of course, but they also threaten our economy and our public health. They also represent a challenge to political leadership, which is whether we are going to be prepared to look at the science, to face the facts, and to do something about a problem that is appearing but its most difficult, and potentially devastating, consequences are yet over the horizon. Should we continue to allow unabated our current rate of greenhouse gas pollution, we threaten to disrupt the delicate ecological balance on which our lives and our livelihoods depend. Global warming is not just a global challenge; it is also a very local one, impacting lives of Americans in critical and potentially disastrous ways. Every family has reason to fear the effects of global warming. Scientists predict that rising temperatures and rising sea levels through global warming will lead to damaged water supplies, increased flooding, depleted fisheries, sunken wetlands, devastating droughts, intensified forest fires. The parched conditions that are contributing to the ravaging fires raging now in southern California could become more widespread if the Earth's temperature increases. Over the long term, in a much more personal way, global warming will spell higher energy bills, increased insurance premiums, and lost jobs. I know that over the course of the debate this evening and tomorrow several of our colleagues will speak to the local physical and biological impacts of global warming. I want to tell one story that I heard about a year ago, which made this all real to me. It comes from the Native American population of Alaska and northern Canada. In the past few years, a robin appeared in one of the Native American villages in Alaska. The elders there, despite a very intimate awareness of their 10,000-year-old language, did not know what to call the bird. There is no word for robin in their language. Robins, by virtue of the climate of that area, for thousands of years preceding, felt--if I can put it this way--unwelcome there. The second example comes from Tanana in Alaska, which has an annual lottery to determine when a tripod placed on the frozen Tanana River would break through the ice. Over the past 50 years, the breakthrough has continued to occur earlier and earlier. So it is not only in the language of science and statistics that climate change and global warming is occurring, it is in the language of everyday life. The American public clearly understands this and, in fact, there is a gap between the public and our political leadership that Senator McCain and I hope we can close with this amendment. According to a recent Zogby poll, 75 percent of Americans support this legislation, this amendment, we are debating this evening. My colleagues now have to choose between meeting the public's support for action, demand for action, or siding with the minority who would ignore the scientific consensus and delay action on this critical problem. Meeting this monumental challenge and addressing this growing environmental threat demands strong leadership. I am afraid that, to date, such leadership has been lacking in the current administration. Today's Senate debate represents the first of its kind since 1998, which testifies, I am afraid, to a lack of leadership here. This debate provides us with an excellent opportunity to take action before it costs us so much more to deal with the consequences of inaction. I must say that even more dramatic has been the Bush administration's failure of responsible leadership on global warming. President Bush and his Environmental Protection Agency have not only offered no meaningful proposals to deal with global warming, they have tried to deny the very existence of the problem. Last summer the White House called for yet another study. This time it focused on whether global warming is caused by human behavior. Let me speak directly. That call is a shameless stalling tactic. As the New Orleans Times-Picayune described, ``It calls for further investigation of what the scientific community already widely accepts.'' In fact, as Don Kennedy, chief editor of the International Journal of Science, argued: Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic [climate change] is rare in science. . . . There is little room for doubt about the seriousness of the problem the world faces, and other nations, including most of our trading partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, understand that. Yet in the face of these facts, President Bush has given us only a call to action, a call for more study and not action on global warming. I cannot resist saying this President has fiddled while the globe continues to warm. The plan the administration has put out would allow emissions of global warming pollutants to continue to grow at exactly the same alarming rate as they have grown over the past decade. Earlier this month, the General Accounting Office found that the plan of the administration would do nothing to reduce our emissions growth. In fact, the GAO was even unable to discern the extent to which the administration's identified methods and tools would contribute to reducing emissions. They found that the administration was not going to evaluate whether they had made progress toward their goals until 2012. Too late. This deny-and-delay approach to meeting the real threat of global warming is no longer acceptable. It is an abdication of leadership-- environmental leadership, public health leadership, economic leadership, international diplomatic leadership. Senator McCain and I offer our bill, the Climate Stewardship Act, to confront this growing threat in a systematic and serious way. It is patterned after the highly successful market-based acid rain program of the Clean Air Act. The amendment was crafted in close consultation with industry leaders and, I am so pleased to say, enjoys strong support of many of them and leaders within the environmental community. It represents the most serious and balanced attempt at solving the crisis before us, and it does so by harnessing market forces and directing them to new economic opportunities in the future. Our bill limits emissions of global warming pollutants by electric utilities, major industrial and commercial entities, and refiners of transportation fuels. Those sectors represent about 85 percent of U.S. emissions of global warming pollutants. The amendment does not apply to farmers, individual residences, or to automobile manufacturers for the cars they sell. Because our current emissions are now at 2000 levels from a practical standpoint, our legislation simply holds them at those current levels in some ways, a modest goal--but a very significant step forward in American responsibility for the global problem of global warming. That is the full extent of national action that our amendment would require. More modest, yes, than the cuts envisioned by the Kyoto protocol, but a significant step forward, one that I think will not only get us on the road to protecting the public's health and the great environmental treasures of the United States of America but will reestablish our credibility and responsibility in the world. As the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, we will show that we are accepting our responsibility to be part of the global solution to this global problem. Our amendment achieves these significant reductions while embracing free market principles. By setting reasonable caps on emissions and permitting industry to trade in pollution allowance, we create a new market for reducing greenhouse gases. In this way, we hope and believe our amendment will change the fundamental terms of the debate because for too long the national dialog on global warming has seemed to be deadlocked, pitting business leaders on one side against environmentalists on the other in a zero sum struggle. It ought not to be. We ought to find common ground, and that is what this amendment attempts to do. The debate for too long has itself been overheated with acrimony and polluted with misinformation. Our hope is that this amendment will break through both of those obstacles. Environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive; they are mutually reinforcing over the long run. Measured steps to curb global warming in a business-friendly way promise to not only save us from environmental degradation but to open new opportunities and to spur innovative new technologies for American business to seize. In a July 25 letter this year, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy endorsed the concept that market-based climate policies can reduce gas emissions while promoting technology-based solutions, reduce energy dependence, and bolster the competitiveness of U.S. industry. In a July 18 letter to my office, a group called Environmental Entrepreneurs, which represents over $20 billion in investment capital, wrote that the bill will stimulate economic growth and give the United States a competitive edge in bringing these products to market. Finally, a letter of July 24 of this year from several of our Nation's most prominent investors encouraging the efforts Senator McCain, the other cosponsors, and I are making says: By employing strict goals and flexible means, we expect your proposal will unleash the power of competition and spur innovation to protect the environment. A healthy economy and a healthy environment are not mutually exclusive; they go hand in hand. I ask unanimous consent that all three of those letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, corporate America, fortunately, has already given us some models of companies that are dealing with global warming and, I believe, profiting from doing so. Companies such as Alcoa, British Petroleum, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and Nike have all accepted targets for greenhouse gas pollution reduction that meet or exceed this amendment's requirements. These and other companies have cut their emissions of greenhouse gases not just because they sought to be good environmental citizens, which they are, but because their boards of directors and their senior management are convinced that a proactive stance on climate change makes good business sense. Perhaps the most compelling examples of that new corporate mindset on global warming come from American Electric Power and Cinergy, the biggest burners of coal by tonnage and percentage in our country. Both companies have now announced enforceable obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels that are below what our proposal requires. And Cinergy has said it can make these reductions for no increased cost and with no additional fuel switching. It is quite remarkable that they say they can make the reductions at no increased cost. But for every BP and DuPont, IBM and Cinergy, there are scores of other enterprises that I fear are inefficient, that are refusing to rise to new environmental standards and curb their greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we must pass this amendment. We must set standards. We must exercise responsible leadership. I understand that taking action to combat global warming is not without cost, but it is worth the cost. The sacrifice of the Climate Stewardship Act is a minimal sacrifice. The cost of our amendment is reasonable and affordable by any measure and under any economic model employed to date. A recent MIT study estimated that our amendment would annually cost less than $20 per household. That is not a lot to ask for stemming the warming of the planet and all the devastating consequences it could bring. A second independent study released this summer by the Tellus Institute reaffirms that same conclusion. Tellus, in fact, found that net savings to consumers of $48 billion would be realized by 2020 and household electricity bills would decrease because of reduced energy demand. Finally, the recent study of the Bush administration's Department of Energy of our entire proposal found similar minimal economic impacts overall, but did find some spikes in natural gas usage at the expense of the coal industry. We feel very strongly that was a flawed study. Its assumptions only allowed compliance with the program through fuel switching. So the outcome was preordained. In fact, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change has examined this analysis and believes the study's structure, combined with unrealistic input assumptions, results in unrealistically high cost projections. Senator McCain and I have worked very hard on this proposal. We have worked hard to achieve common ground on it, both among businesses and industries that are involved in emitting greenhouse gases, environmentalists, citizens, and among Members of the Senate. We are seeking a consensus position that will allow our Nation to move forward to take action on this critical challenge. As a result, we have modified our original bill to drop the second phase of its requirements. As time goes on, we will look forward to bringing that back up and convincing the Senate to adopt the entire program, but let's deal with the first phase amendment. It does not require or create a significant fuel switching, even according to the administration's own Energy Information Agency, and has a very low economic impact. It is a beginning in dealing with this problem. The true cost comparison is not between the cost of doing business now versus the cost of new regulations. It is between the cost of action now and the cost of inaction in the future, because the fact is the carbon we emit to the atmosphere today will remain there for a century. Every extra ton of emissions means we are going to need tighter controls. It will be more costly and more difficult to protect the environment and public health later on. A recent study calculated every ton of pollutants needlessly emitted into our atmosphere costs Americans $160, and we are currently emitting billions of tons each year. Property lost to rising sea levels, cropland lost to drought, revenue lost to dwindling fishing stocks caused by global warming, all represent real costs, not to mention the ultimately immeasurable damage to our health and quality of life. It is very interesting to follow the judgments of the insurance industry on this question if we want to gauge the cost of inaction. Uncertain about the potential increased liability from severe weather events and other costly side effects of global warming, insurers are now charging higher premiums to businesses and homeowners to cover higher expected costs. SwissRe, North America's leading reinsurer, says that ``global warming is a fact'' which ``has the potential to affect the number and severity of these natural disasters and result in a very significant impact on our business.'' This reinsurance company projects that climate-change-driven natural disasters could cost global financial centers more than $150 billion per year within the next 10 years. Just think of that. We are making a proposal that the MIT study says will cost every American family $20 a year, compared to $150 billion a year within 10 years globally. Wall Street is also concerned about the future if we fail to act. A number of institutional investors recently joined with several utilities to call for the kind of market-based approach to global warming that is part of our amendment. There is also an opportunity for our American enterprise and innovation to produce the products that will respond to the global warming challenge, and in that sense to be ready to meet the global demand for such products. According to one reputable estimate I have seen, over the next 20 years, $10 trillion to $20 trillion will be spent globally on new energy technologies. Our Asian and European competitors see this potential and, by complying with Kyoto protocol standards, are adapting their practices to seize that enormous international market. I want to say a special word about farmers and ranchers under our plan. They will be able to make money by adopting pro-environment practices. That would include increasing carbon levels in their land and selling emission credits to polluters. Rough estimates show that new, more sustainable management practices will sequester approximately one-half ton of carbon per acre for a farmer with a 5,000-acre farm. This would represent thousands of additional dollars a year. Many of those practices are better for the long-term health of our farms but, of course, can be of great benefit to cash-strapped farmers. Global warming is, of course, about more than the numbers about which I have talked. It is about our values. Do we take action to protect our children and grandchildren from having to bear the full cost and health risks and life changes from the pollution we are generating today or do we, as leaders of the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, duck our responsibility and let the next generation take it? I am particularly pleased by the strong support Senator McCain and I have received from a broad and diverse coalition of religious organizations that affirms the moral imperative for action now on global warming. I cite the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, representing an alliance of faith groups, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. I am reminded of the words from Scripture that the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, which is surely the truth and reminds us we are only visitors. We do not own the Earth. We are blessed to live on it for some period of time. With that time comes a responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth. I always remember the words from the story of creation, Adam and Eve, where it says in the Bible they were put there to work and guard the garden. In a very direct sense, that responsibility to work, enjoy, and develop is combined with a responsibility that we have to guard the garden, guard the Earth. We have failed in that responsibility. This amendment is an attempt to accept that responsibility and do something about it. This is an historic debate. It is a debate I believe our children and grandchildren and perhaps historians will look back on and ask, as the votes are counted, did the Senate of the United States rise to a challenge almost everyone sees is coming or did we wait until the consequences, the effects of global warming, were so serious that it was too late? It was certainly too late to deal with those consequences without drastic effects on our environment, on our health, on our economy, and on the way we live.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I just want to, very briefly, respond to a few of the remarks of my friend from Ohio. My friend from Ohio is talking about a bill that is not the one before us. The EIA estimate was of the original McCain-Lieberman bill. In an attempt to achieve consensus, we took off the second set of requirements. So now the bill says, to put it simply, that the Nation has to reach the 2000 level by 2010 of greenhouse gas emissions. No EIA study has been done on this bill. We have a study from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Just to put the minds of viewers at ease about what the impact of this will be on the cost of energy, MIT estimates that the bill before us will have a positive effect on coal prices, in fact, dropping them by 5 percent, natural gas prices by 5 percent, and crude oil prices by 2 percent. Secondly, there has been some reference to Cinergy and American Electric Power. I want to make clear, I did not say--I certainly did not intend to say; I do not believe I did say--that those companies endorsed our proposal. But the fact is, Cinergy did testify that they could live by the amendment without additional cost. And that is the relevant part of it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Arizona. He is known globally, I might say, as a straight talker. He is basing that straight talk in this debate on scientific fact that is widely accepted--he is absolutely right--by international panels of scientists, by the independent National Academy of Sciences, and the National Research Panel. I want to quote again from Don Kennedy, chief editor of the international, very reputable journal, Science. He says: Consensus strong as the one that has developed around the topic of climate change is rare in science. There is little room for doubt about the seriousness of the problem the world faces. I expect, unfortunately, that we will debate the science here. You and I, I know, are prepared to debate the science. But the fact is, we ought to be debating what we are going to do about it. We might argue, and some presumably will argue, that our proposal costs more than the American people are willing to spend. I don't think so. The polls don't show that to be true. People I talk to are ready to be part of solving a problem before it gets out of hand. Some may say our methods are wrong, although a market-based system, such as the one that worked to deal with acid rain in the Clean Air Act amendments, proposed and signed by the first President Bush, has a pretty good track record. But let's have that debate. It really takes us back way beyond where the science is to have a debate whether this is a real problem. I say again, to have a debate about what we should do about it, that might get our blood going, but that is a reasonable debate. But to see the administration ask for yet another study, I just can't see that as anything more than a stalling tactic. That is why I regret to say that this President really is fiddling while the globe is warming. We better do something about it before it gets so serious that we are going to look back and say: Why didn't we act? This is a chance to have debate, the first debate in 5 years in the Senate Chamber on this critical problem. Let's have a healthy debate. Let's try to find common ground. Senator McCain and I have worked very hard to reach a consensus. This is not a sharp-edged bill. It is a bill that is progressive and builds toward common ground. And then let's move forward together so we can say to our children and grandchildren: We saved you from a result that we saw coming that many were not willing to do anything about, but we finally got together and did something about it. I thank my friend from Arizona for his very good questions. I thank him for his principled partnership in this effort, and I look forward to the remainder of the debate. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I expect that will be true.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would yield.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, we did distribute a draft of this amendment last week, according to staff. I suppose in some sense we are progressing in this disagreement. I would rather disagree about the impact of the bill than disagree about the science that I think says so clearly the world has a problem. The globe is warming. It is the result of human activity, and we ought to figure out what to do about it. We will continue this debate. I thank the Senator from Maine for her very eloquent statement on behalf of the amendment. I am very proud of the bipartisan support for the amendment. The truth is, this is a nonpartisan amendment, as the public support for doing something about global warming is truly nonpartisan. Mr. President, I also thank my friend and colleague, the very distinguished Senator from Hawaii, for his patience and support of the bill. His experience as a Senator from Hawaii with the evidence of global warming is real. It goes beyond statistics and arguments. They have begun to see it with their own eyes. It is, therefore, with a real sense of gratitude I yield whatever time the Senator from Hawaii needs to make his statement.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I believe the Senator from Maine is next on our side. I yield to her at this time.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Arizona. I will yield the floor, but I ask unanimous consent that a summary of this MIT study of the bill before us and its cost impacts be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Wendy Miller, an environmental fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of our consideration of this bill.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Bill Roma, who is a fellow working for Senator Clinton, be given the privilege of the floor for the debate on the McCain-Lieberman amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, in September I issued a major report on restoring U.S. manufacturing. I commend this report to my colleagues. It can be found at www.Lieberman.Senate.gov. The collapse of our manufacturing sector is heart breaking. We have lost 14,00 manufacturing jobs in the last 3 months and 2.8 million since July of 2000. And this is during what is supposed to be an economic recovery. In terms of jobs, the U.S. manufacturing sector has slipped every month for the last 38 months. In my own State of Connecticut we have lost more than 14 out of every 100 manufacturing jobs in the past 3 years, and it is cold comfort that we are not the worst. Our manufacturing sector is hemorrhaging jobs at a dismaying rate. And not just jobs but industries. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published an analysis of the current ``jobless recovery.'' Their conclusion is stark: ``Our inquiry into the reasons for the current labor market slump suggests that structural change has played an important role. Industries that lost jobs during the recession have continued to shrink during the recovery, and permanent job losses have eclipsed temporary layoffs.''--``Has Structural Change Contributed to a Jobless Recovery?'' (Erica L. Groshen and Simon Potter) As the report highlights, there are many reasons behind these closed plants, these lost jobs, these devastated families. Fierce competition from overseas competitors--some of them playing on fields tilted distinctly in their favor--has played a major role. So did the severe recessions we are only now climbing out of. The collapse of the telecom industry had severe consequences for manufacturers that served the electronics and information technology industries. This report discusses a number of challenges and problems facing American industry. But the most imperative question remains, ``What does the Bush administration intend to do about it?'' Its recent acknowledgment of foreign country manipulation of their currencies is welcome, but the Administration is not utilizing its current authority to remedy this abuse; this is the key point of my legislation, S. 1592, the Fair Currency Enforcement Act of 2003, discussed in depth in this report. Creating an Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Office of Industry Analysis simply rearranges existing boxes, and submerges them deep in the Commerce Department. This report recommends making the Commerce and Defense Secretaries themselves responsible. Their plan remains lacking in content and vision. It is all about gestures, not actions. Forgive me, but the time has come to be blunt. Every sector of the American economy plays a role in the strength and security of our nation, but the role played by manufacturing is unique, and uniquely important. To do nothing, to roll over and play dead, is not the American way. Sadly, it seems to be the approach favored by the current Administration. The problems we face are complex, the response needs to be thorough, broad-based, and coordinated. That is what this report is really about. Here we present the broadest, most comprehensive and insightful plan to revitalize U.S. manufacturing yet proposed. We need to understand that trade is not the problem, it is part of the solution. And we need to deal with the obstacles raised in some countries to a free and fair trade in American goods. We need to invest in the future of manufacturing, in the research and development of new, path-breaking manufacturing processes. We need to invest in our workforce, in the training and education needed to excel and prosper in a world labor market. We need to reinvigorate partnerships between state and Federal Government, and between government and industry. Indeed, this is not a task for government alone. The proposals outlined in this report call upon industry and academia, upon labor and management, upon the private and public sectors to contribute to the solutions we need. It will require all of us, pulling together. I want to thank Michael Baum, along with William Bonvillian and Chuck Ludlam of my staff, for their efforts in preparing what I believe will be a useful and timely report.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today, a constituent of mine, Dennis Maxwell, will turn 75, and I would like to take this occasion to wish him a happy birthday. Dennis was born in New York City, but moved to Connecticut when he was six and grew up in Fairfield County. Dennis's mother, Marguerite Maxwell, was an accomplished classical pianist who founded the Westport School of Music, which thrives to this day. Dennis attended Yale University and received a bachelor's degree in Business Administration in 1950. Dennis married his childhood sweetheart, Robin Tucker, and the two of them headed to Texas, where he served in the Army as an intelligence officer during the Korean War. He and his wife contributed four children to the baby boom generation and lived for a time in Michigan. The Maxwells moved (back) to Connecticut in 1966. Dennis has had a successful business career, working for companies like Scovill Manufacturing, which was founded in Waterbury in 1802, and N.L. Industries. For the past several years, he has run his own water conditioning business. Andre Maurois wrote, ``Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form.'' If that's true, Dennis may be turning 75, but he's not growing old. In addition to running a company, he is an avid golfer and more important active in his community. At Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Westport, Dennis has been a vestry member, chaired the church's capital campaign, and served on several committees. When his beloved wife Robin became wheelchair-bound from emphysema, he raised the funds to put an elevator in the church. Sadly, she succumbed to the disease in 1997, after 46 years of marriage. In addition to his church-related duties, Dennis has served as president of the local Alcohol and Drug Dependency Council, and he has been on the board of Interfaith Housing, a not-for-profit ecumenical group that provides clothing and shelter for area homeless people. Thoreau admonishes us to ``Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.'' Over the course of his life, Dennis has been devoted to his family, his community, and his country. I think that counts as being ``good for something,'' and I would like to join his children--Anne, Linda, Lisa, and Gray (who has worked here in the Senate for 19 years and is currently Senator Lautenberg's legislative director)--and their families and Dennis' many friends in wishing him a very happy 75th birthday.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be joining today with Senator Levin in introducing the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 2003. With this bill, we hope to convince our colleagues that an improved independent counsel statute can serve an essential purpose. We want to convince our colleagues that our legislation will preserve the ideals that motivated the enactment of this statute in the years after Watergate, that no person is above the law, and that our highest government officials must be subject to our laws in the same way as any other person. If they are guilty, they must be held accountable. If they are not, they must be cleared. In these cases the American people are more likely to trust the findings of an independent counsel's investigation and conclusions. Officials who are wrongly accused will receive vindication that is far more credible to the public than when it comes from the Department of Justice. As a result, the public's confidence in its government is enhanced by the independent counsel statute. In 1999, as the independent counsel law was expiring, I joined with Senators Levin, Specter, and Collins in introducing the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999. That year, we drafted new provisions to curb the excesses we had seen in some of the investigations conducted under the prior incarnation of the law. The revisions ensure that there will be fewer Independent Counsel appointed, and that their actions will in many respects be constrained by the same sorts of guidelines and practical restraints that govern regular federal prosecutors. The bill we are introducing today retains these suggested reforms. In fact, it is virtually identical to the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999, with a single exception I will describe in a moment. We made those substantial changes after the Committee on Governmental Affairs had held five hearings on the Independent Counsel statute. During the hearings we heard from numerous witnesses who had served as Independent Counsel, and as Attorney General, from former prosecutors and from defense attorneys. Many witnesses supported the statute, even defense attorneys who had represented targets in Independent Counsel investigations. Both witnesses who opposed the statute outright, and those who advocated keeping it in some form, suggested a number of improvements to the statute. We carefully considered those recommendations before we sat down to draft a bill that retained the essential features of the old law while reducing its scope, limiting the powers of the Independent Counsel, and bringing greater transparency into the process. For example, the threshold for seeking the appointment of an Independent Counsel will be raised, so that a greater amount of evidence to back up allegations of criminal conduct will be required. The attorney General will also be entitled for the first time to issue subpoenas for evidence and convene grand juries during the preliminary investigation, and would be given more time to conduct preliminary investigations. This change responds to concerns that, in the past, the Attorney General's hands have been tied during the preliminary investigation stage. With our bill, the Department of Justice will be able to conduct a more substantial preliminary investigation. In another change that will reduce the number of Independent Counsel appointed, officials covered by the statute will be limited to the President, the Vice President, the President's Chief of Staff, and Cabinet members. This is a major reduction compared to the number of officials covered by the Independent Counsel statute when it expired. The Attorney General will retain the discretionary authority to appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate non-covered individuals when the Attorney General determines that investigation or prosecution by the Department of Justice would result in a personal, financial or political conflict of interest. This discretionary authority was part of the Independent Counsel law from 1983 to 1999; although the provision was not included in the bill we introduced that year, it has been included in this bill because of the promulgation, after our bill was introduced, of new regulations by the Department of Justice. In many administrations, high level political advisers can have enormous influence, much more even than some Cabinet members. When we first introduced the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999, I hoped that criminal allegations against officials not covered by the statute could be handled either by the Department of Justice, or, in cases involving high-level officials or other conflicts of interest, through the appointment by the Attorney General of a Special Counsel. After our bill was introduced, however, then Attorney General Reno issued revised regulations for the appointment of Special Counsel, which provide that the Attorney General may block any investigative or prosecutorial action being pursued by the Special Counsel. The regulations also allow the Attorney General to shut down the investigation entirely, or starve it of funds. These revisions, and others, constituted a major reduction in a Special Counsel's autonomy. As Robert Fiske had testified during our committee hearings in 1999, he accepted his 1994 appointment to be the Whitewater Special Counsel only after satisfying himself that the regulations then in effect granted him the same powers as would have been available to an Independent Counsel. Now, with the variety of control mechanisms in place under the Department's 1999 regulations, it is far too easy for an Attorney General to stifle an investigation in ways less dramatic and less public than actually removing the Special Counsel. Under the legislation we are introducing today, each Independent Counsel will have to devote his full time to the position for the duration of his tenure. This will prevent the appearance of conflicts that may arise when an Independent Counsel continues with his private legal practice, and it will expedite investigations as well. The Independent Counsel will also be expected to conform his conduct to the written guidelines and established policies of the Department of Justice. The prior version of that requirement contained a loophole, which has been eliminated. There have been many complaints about runaway prosecutors, who continued their investigations longer than was necessary or appropriate. Our bill will impose a time limit of two years on investigations by Independent Counsel. The Special Division of the Court of Appeals will be able to grant extensions of time, however, for good cause and to compensate for dilatory tactics by opposing counsel. Imposing a time limit with flexibility allows Independent Counsel the time they genuinely need to complete their investigations, and deters defense counsel from using the time limit strategically to escape justice. But the time limit will also encourage future Independent Counsel to bring their investigations to an expeditious conclusion, and not chase down every imaginable lead. Our bill makes another important change that will prevent expansion of investigations into unrelated areas. Until now the statute has allowed the Attorney General to request an expansion of an Independent Counsel's prosecutorial jurisdiction into unrelated areas. This happened several times with Judge Starr's investigation, and I believe those expansions contributed to a perception that the prosecutor was pursuing the person and not the crime. An Independent Counsel must not exist to pursue every possible lead against his target until he finds some taint of criminality. His function, our bill makes clear, is to investigate that subject matter given him in his original grant of prosecutorial jurisdiction. We are bringing greater budgetary transparency to the process by directing the Independent Counsel to produce an estimated budget for each year, and by allowing the General Accounting Office to comment on that budget. This greater transparency will provide more incentive for Counsel to budget responsibly. Another correction we are making is to eliminate entirely the requirement that an Independent Counsel refer evidence of impeachable offenses to the House of Representatives. The impeachment power is one of Congress's essential Constitutional functions, and no part of that role should be delegated by statute to a prosecutor. Our bill was unsuccessful in the 106th Congress. Perhaps one of the reasons was that we were still too close to one or two controversial investigations that turned some against the statute; perhaps the wounds were still too raw. Now with a fresh perspective gained through the passage of time, Congress should reconsider what it has given up by allowing the Independent Counsel law to lapse for the past four years. Hopefully, occasions will be few and far between when serious and credible criminal allegations emerge against high-level officials. When this happens, however, the public will question how we can be certain that the incident is being appropriately investigated. Indeed, in the absence of an Independent Counsel law, some may even question whether allegations are as likely to surface in the first place. If people with knowledge of criminal wrongdoing suspect that their information may be covered up rather than acted upon, they would be less likely to take the risk of coming forward. The controversy that has enveloped the White House in the past week illustrates the need for an Independent Counsel law. According to news reports, two high-level Administration figures, which some reports have placed in the White House, willfully disclosed the name of a covert CIA operative. If true, this disclosure would be a serious criminal law violation, one that may well have endangered not just the covert operative, but the people abroad who worked with her in service to the United States. The disclosures were reportedly made to punish the agent's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for questioning the accuracy of comments made by the President about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The Department of Justice recently initiated an investigation, but according to a recent poll the public overwhelmingly prefers that the investigation not be handled by the Department. Although we do not yet know which individuals may be implicated as a result of a thorough investigation, many Americans question whether Attorney General Ashcroft can preside impartially over a probe that could prove very damaging to his close associates in the White House, and to the President. An Independent Counsel statute is absolutely essential so that we have an institutionalized means for addressing allegations such as these. We should not, as we are now, forced into an ad hoc and situationally driven discussion of whether the Department of Justice can investigate a particular case. I have always believed that the Independent Counsel statute embodies certain principles fundamental to our democracy. The alternative to an Independent Counsel statute is a system in which the Attorney General must decide how to handle substantive allegations against colleagues in the Cabinet, or against the President. Often the President and the Attorney General are long-time friends and political allies. The Attorney General will not be trusted by some to ensure that an unbiased investigation will be conducted. In other cases, many will question the thoroughness of an investigation directed from inside the Department. In a time of great public cynicism about government, the Independent Counsel statute guarantees that even the President and his highest officials will have to answer for their criminal malfeasance. In that sense, this statute upholds the rule of law and will help stem the distrust toward government. The Independent Counsel statute embodies the bedrock American principle that no person is above the law. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 2003 be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be joining today with Senator Levin in introducing the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 2003. With this bill, we hope to convince our colleagues that an improved independent counsel statute can serve an essential purpose. We want to convince our colleagues that our legislation will preserve the ideals that motivated the enactment of this statute in the years after Watergate, that no person is above the law, and that our highest government officials must be subject to our laws in the same way as any other person. If they are guilty, they must be held accountable. If they are not, they must be cleared. In these cases the American people are more likely to trust the findings of an independent counsel's investigation and conclusions. Officials who are wrongly accused will receive vindication that is far more credible to the public than when it comes from the Department of Justice. As a result, the public's confidence in its government is enhanced by the independent counsel statute. In 1999, as the independent counsel law was expiring, I joined with Senators Levin, Specter, and Collins in introducing the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999. That year, we drafted new provisions to curb the excesses we had seen in some of the investigations conducted under the prior incarnation of the law. The revisions ensure that there will be fewer Independent Counsel appointed, and that their actions will in many respects be constrained by the same sorts of guidelines and practical restraints that govern regular federal prosecutors. The bill we are introducing today retains these suggested reforms. In fact, it is virtually identical to the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999, with a single exception I will describe in a moment. We made those substantial changes after the Committee on Governmental Affairs had held five hearings on the Independent Counsel statute. During the hearings we heard from numerous witnesses who had served as Independent Counsel, and as Attorney General, from former prosecutors and from defense attorneys. Many witnesses supported the statute, even defense attorneys who had represented targets in Independent Counsel investigations. Both witnesses who opposed the statute outright, and those who advocated keeping it in some form, suggested a number of improvements to the statute. We carefully considered those recommendations before we sat down to draft a bill that retained the essential features of the old law while reducing its scope, limiting the powers of the Independent Counsel, and bringing greater transparency into the process. For example, the threshold for seeking the appointment of an Independent Counsel will be raised, so that a greater amount of evidence to back up allegations of criminal conduct will be required. The attorney General will also be entitled for the first time to issue subpoenas for evidence and convene grand juries during the preliminary investigation, and would be given more time to conduct preliminary investigations. This change responds to concerns that, in the past, the Attorney General's hands have been tied during the preliminary investigation stage. With our bill, the Department of Justice will be able to conduct a more substantial preliminary investigation. In another change that will reduce the number of Independent Counsel appointed, officials covered by the statute will be limited to the President, the Vice President, the President's Chief of Staff, and Cabinet members. This is a major reduction compared to the number of officials covered by the Independent Counsel statute when it expired. The Attorney General will retain the discretionary authority to appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate non-covered individuals when the Attorney General determines that investigation or prosecution by the Department of Justice would result in a personal, financial or political conflict of interest. This discretionary authority was part of the Independent Counsel law from 1983 to 1999; although the provision was not included in the bill we introduced that year, it has been included in this bill because of the promulgation, after our bill was introduced, of new regulations by the Department of Justice. In many administrations, high level political advisers can have enormous influence, much more even than some Cabinet members. When we first introduced the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 1999, I hoped that criminal allegations against officials not covered by the statute could be handled either by the Department of Justice, or, in cases involving high-level officials or other conflicts of interest, through the appointment by the Attorney General of a Special Counsel. After our bill was introduced, however, then Attorney General Reno issued revised regulations for the appointment of Special Counsel, which provide that the Attorney General may block any investigative or prosecutorial action being pursued by the Special Counsel. The regulations also allow the Attorney General to shut down the investigation entirely, or starve it of funds. These revisions, and others, constituted a major reduction in a Special Counsel's autonomy. As Robert Fiske had testified during our committee hearings in 1999, he accepted his 1994 appointment to be the Whitewater Special Counsel only after satisfying himself that the regulations then in effect granted him the same powers as would have been available to an Independent Counsel. Now, with the variety of control mechanisms in place under the Department's 1999 regulations, it is far too easy for an Attorney General to stifle an investigation in ways less dramatic and less public than actually removing the Special Counsel. Under the legislation we are introducing today, each Independent Counsel will have to devote his full time to the position for the duration of his tenure. This will prevent the appearance of conflicts that may arise when an Independent Counsel continues with his private legal practice, and it will expedite investigations as well. The Independent Counsel will also be expected to conform his conduct to the written guidelines and established policies of the Department of Justice. The prior version of that requirement contained a loophole, which has been eliminated. There have been many complaints about runaway prosecutors, who continued their investigations longer than was necessary or appropriate. Our bill will impose a time limit of two years on investigations by Independent Counsel. The Special Division of the Court of Appeals will be able to grant extensions of time, however, for good cause and to compensate for dilatory tactics by opposing counsel. Imposing a time limit with flexibility allows Independent Counsel the time they genuinely need to complete their investigations, and deters defense counsel from using the time limit strategically to escape justice. But the time limit will also encourage future Independent Counsel to bring their investigations to an expeditious conclusion, and not chase down every imaginable lead. Our bill makes another important change that will prevent expansion of investigations into unrelated areas. Until now the statute has allowed the Attorney General to request an expansion of an Independent Counsel's prosecutorial jurisdiction into unrelated areas. This happened several times with Judge Starr's investigation, and I believe those expansions contributed to a perception that the prosecutor was pursuing the person and not the crime. An Independent Counsel must not exist to pursue every possible lead against his target until he finds some taint of criminality. His function, our bill makes clear, is to investigate that subject matter given him in his original grant of prosecutorial jurisdiction. We are bringing greater budgetary transparency to the process by directing the Independent Counsel to produce an estimated budget for each year, and by allowing the General Accounting Office to comment on that budget. This greater transparency will provide more incentive for Counsel to budget responsibly. Another correction we are making is to eliminate entirely the requirement that an Independent Counsel refer evidence of impeachable offenses to the House of Representatives. The impeachment power is one of Congress's essential Constitutional functions, and no part of that role should be delegated by statute to a prosecutor. Our bill was unsuccessful in the 106th Congress. Perhaps one of the reasons was that we were still too close to one or two controversial investigations that turned some against the statute; perhaps the wounds were still too raw. Now with a fresh perspective gained through the passage of time, Congress should reconsider what it has given up by allowing the Independent Counsel law to lapse for the past four years. Hopefully, occasions will be few and far between when serious and credible criminal allegations emerge against high-level officials. When this happens, however, the public will question how we can be certain that the incident is being appropriately investigated. Indeed, in the absence of an Independent Counsel law, some may even question whether allegations are as likely to surface in the first place. If people with knowledge of criminal wrongdoing suspect that their information may be covered up rather than acted upon, they would be less likely to take the risk of coming forward. The controversy that has enveloped the White House in the past week illustrates the need for an Independent Counsel law. According to news reports, two high-level Administration figures, which some reports have placed in the White House, willfully disclosed the name of a covert CIA operative. If true, this disclosure would be a serious criminal law violation, one that may well have endangered not just the covert operative, but the people abroad who worked with her in service to the United States. The disclosures were reportedly made to punish the agent's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for questioning the accuracy of comments made by the President about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The Department of Justice recently initiated an investigation, but according to a recent poll the public overwhelmingly prefers that the investigation not be handled by the Department. Although we do not yet know which individuals may be implicated as a result of a thorough investigation, many Americans question whether Attorney General Ashcroft can preside impartially over a probe that could prove very damaging to his close associates in the White House, and to the President. An Independent Counsel statute is absolutely essential so that we have an institutionalized means for addressing allegations such as these. We should not, as we are now, forced into an ad hoc and situationally driven discussion of whether the Department of Justice can investigate a particular case. I have always believed that the Independent Counsel statute embodies certain principles fundamental to our democracy. The alternative to an Independent Counsel statute is a system in which the Attorney General must decide how to handle substantive allegations against colleagues in the Cabinet, or against the President. Often the President and the Attorney General are long-time friends and political allies. The Attorney General will not be trusted by some to ensure that an unbiased investigation will be conducted. In other cases, many will question the thoroughness of an investigation directed from inside the Department. In a time of great public cynicism about government, the Independent Counsel statute guarantees that even the President and his highest officials will have to answer for their criminal malfeasance. In that sense, this statute upholds the rule of law and will help stem the distrust toward government. The Independent Counsel statute embodies the bedrock American principle that no person is above the law. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Independent Counsel Reform Act of 2003 be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I wish to recognize a small group of heroes who are gathering this Saturday at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery to honor their fallen comrades and to ensure that future generations of Americans remember the tremendous sacrifices of those who served in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. These former heroes--prisoners of war all--will dedicate a plaque that marks a humble grave within the sea of headstones of those who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of a grateful nation. The inscription of the plaque reads: Victims of the Japanese Massacre, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, P.I., December 14, 1944 These U.S. prisoners of war of the Japanese were on the island of Palawan, P.I., as slave laborers building an airfield for the Japanese military. Believing that an invasion by the U.S. forces was imminent, the prisoners were forced into three tunnel air raid shelters, thus following orders from the Japanese High Command to dispose of prisoners by any means available. Buckets of gasoline were thrown inside the shelters followed by flaming torches. Those not instantly killed by the explosions ran burning from the tunnels and were machine gunned and bayoneted to death. Only a few survived this horror. Amongst those who did was Mr. Dan Crowley of Simsbury, CT. I thank Mr. Crowley for sharing his experiences with my staff and I, and educating all of us about an important event in U.S. history. Few words can truly express the horror that those 123 soldiers, sailors, and marines must have suffered as they were cut down in their service to their country. I stand today and offer my respects to the memories of these valiant men and their families. Their story serves to remind all of us of the price of freedom and the sometimes tragic fate of those who have paid its ransom for us all.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with Senators Kennedy, Chafee, Jeffords and many other colleagues as an original cosponsor of this important legislation, the Employment Non- Discrimination Act of 2003. By guaranteeing that American workers cannot lose their jobs simply because of their sexual orientation, this bill would extend the bedrock American values of fairness and equality to a group of our fellow citizens who too often have been denied the benefit of those most basic values. More than 225 years ago, Thomas Jefferson laid out a vision of America as dedicated to the simple idea that all of us are created equal, endowed by our creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As Jefferson knew, our society did not in his time live up to that ideal, but since his time, we have been trying to. In succeeding generations, we have worked ever harder to ensure that our society removes unjustified barriers to individual achievement and that we judge each other solely on our merits and not on characteristics that are irrelevant to the task at hand. We are still far from perfect, but we have made much progress, especially over the past few decades, guaranteeing equality and fairness to an increasing number of groups that traditionally have not had the benefits of those values and of those protections. To African- Americans, to women, to disabled Americans, to religious minorities and to others we have extended a legally enforceable guarantee that, with respect to their ability to earn a living at least, they will be treated on their merits and not on characteristics unrelated to their ability to do their jobs. It is time to extend that guarantee to gay men and lesbians, who too often have been denied the most basic of rights: the right to obtain and maintain a job. A collection of 1 national survey and 20 city and State surveys found that as many as 44 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual workers faced job discrimination in the workplace at some time in their careers. Other studies have reported even greater discrimination--as much as 68 percent of gay men and lesbians reporting employment discrimination. The fear in which these workers live was clear from a survey of gay men and lesbians in Philadelphia. Over three-quarters told those conducting the survey that they sometimes or always hide their orientation at work out of fear of discrimination. The toll this discrimination takes extends far beyond its effect on the individuals who live without full employment opportunities. It also takes an unacceptable toll on America's definition of itself as a land of equality and opportunity, as a place where we judge each other on our merits, and as a country that teaches its children that anyone can succeed here as long as they are willing to do their job and work hard. This bill provides for equality and fairness--that and no more. It says only what we already have said for women, for people of color and for others; that you are entitled to have your ability to earn a living depend only on your ability to do the job and nothing else. This bill would bring our nation one large step closer to realizing the vision that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently expressed 227 years ago when he wrote that all of us have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation.