Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. The Senator from Maine is quite correct in her observation and assessment that medical treatment, and specifically combat casualty care, particularly in a time of war, should not be overlooked. Further, the Department of Defense must consider all initiatives that could provide our military physicians and medical staff the tools necessary to save the lives of men and women whose service to our Nation puts them at risk of severe injury.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Chair. Madam President, I rise, as I said, in opposition to the Warner amendment. The Warner amendment calls for the elimination of about $814 million in the underlying bill that has been directed to much-needed investments in the Department of Defense to ward off the many threats that are facing our Nation today in a very responsible manner, I wish to add. I thank Chairman Levin, the Senator from Michigan, for his outstanding work on pulling together this underlying bill. I particularly thank our subcommittee chairman, Senator Jack Reed, who has worked very hard on this particular provision. I acknowledge their good work in this area. I rise in opposition to this amendment as a supporter of missile defense--not as one of its critics, not as a detractor for the missile defense system. The Warner amendment is unwise and unnecessary for two reasons, and I wish to comment about both reasons. First, the thrust of the amendment rests on very shaky fiscal parameters. Senator Conrad has spoken very well and clearly on this subject, but one of the problems--not substantive but technical problems--with this amendment is that it basically taps into revenues that do not exist. There is no ``real offset'' for this amendment. There is a claim of an offset, but it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to materialize that offset because of the thrust of this amendment. It says basically that this money is going to be found by anticipating fluctuations in the inflation rate, assuming that the inflation rate is going down when it is probably rising. Nonetheless, this money is not a real offset. It is based on very shaky fiscal principles, and that is one of the reasons I do not think we should support this amendment. The second reason, however, is a stronger argument, and it is more important, although the first argument is something to consider because if we do not consider it, then any Member of the Senate could offer any amendment to add $100 million, $50 million, $400 million, $600 million and say we are going to find an offset because we think inflation is going to move one way or the other, and so we are going to guess that the money may be available. It is a very bad precedent when we are talking about this much money in a time of tightening budgets and greater demands on the Federal budget, both domestic spending as well as military spending. I think it is a strong argument. The stronger argument is that it is wholly unnecessary to restore this amendment and claim that it in any way enhances or pushes forward and strengthens missile defense, because it does not. I would argue in some ways it will weaken our overall Defense bill, which is why I oppose it. Why do I say that? In the underlying bill, without the Warner amendment, we are spending 25 percent more for missile defense than we did 2 years ago, up to $6.8 billion, up from $5.1 billion when President Clinton was in his last year in office. Let me repeat, in the underlying bill, without the Warner amendment, there is a 25-percent increase in the Missile Defense Program. Democrats and Republicans on the committee, and Democrats in particular on this amendment, have supported a robust development of missile defense. We want to support the President in a strong Defense bill. We have met and exceeded the dollars he has asked for, but what we are saying and what I am suggesting is that the committee work has rewarded success in this program of missile defense. It acknowledges that it is important to develop a missile defense program for the United States, not undermining it, not cutting it, not trying to bury it, but to support it. That is what the underlying bill does: It rewards success, cutting out its redundancies and demanding the appropriate oversight that the American taxpayers deserve. This, after all, is a $7 billion program--not million; $7 billion. I have observed in my time in Congress--Madam President, perhaps you have observed this, too--that sometimes we give more scrutiny to a $164 welfare check or a $1,000 credit card charge or a $2,000 rebate that a small business might get from a subsidy, and we go over that with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that welfare mother, that small business owner, or that person just ``doesn't get away with murder'' with spending or mishandling $164 or the $2,000. Yet with a $7 billion program, we want to say: Let's not look at the details; this is what the President asked for; let's just do it that way exactly; they couldn't possibly be wrong even by a percentage point; they couldn't be off 1 penny. I think that is very hard, if not impossible, to accept as realistic. This bill looks carefully at the $7 billion program--and we did this in every program in the Defense bill--again, not undercutting it at all, matching the President's dollars, but shifting things around to make sure we can have a very good missile defense program. We could also address some immediate threats that everyone now in America, if they did not know it before September 11, knows now, and we all know as each week unfolds more and more clearly the other immediate threats, chemical, biological, nuclear threats, weapons of mass destruction, potentially poised against our Nation. The challenge is before our military to invest in their readiness, in their equipment, in their mobility, and in their restructuring. We know that we are not fighting the cold war anymore and we will not fight the cold war ever again, but we will be fighting this asymmetrical threat and so we want to have a strong military budget, a robust military budget, and allocate these funds accordingly. The underlying bill did that. It took a very small percentage of the overall missile defense, and as Senator Reed has so eloquently pointed out and let me restate, we reward success in the underlying bill. The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system has tested well against multiple targets. That is part of the Missile Defense Program. It does not pass every test. Sometimes the critics of missile defense will point out, no, we cannot have it; this test failed. Well, in every success there are failures. We will fail a time or two, but if we continue to invest, continue to be wise and spend our money well, watching our budgets carefully but not undercutting this program, we can develop an effective missile defense system not only for ourselves but our allies and protect America in the future. The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system has not passed every test, but its future to protect our allies and soldiers looks bright. Accordingly, the committee fully funds this part of the missile defense system, bringing it closer to deployment. Another part of the missile defense is the research program that we are doing in conjunction with Israel and others, but primarily Israel, the Arab program. It is a theater-wide missile defense system that we are developing. It has fared very well to date. Threats against Israel and U.S. forces in the Mideast certainly are real. Our committee increased funding for this project, again rewarding success, identifying what parts of the Missile Defense Program are successful and moving forward, using the money wisely and having success. We are supporting that. The subcommittee made some very smart recommendations. It looked at the whole $7 billion and it found in one instance--this is only one example--that the administration had asked for $371 million versus $202 million last year for systems engineering and integration. The request is more than the Pentagon can spend on system engineering. In committee, in a public hearing, DOD was unable to justify the request. Still, the committee added $29 million for a 13-percent increase to systems engineering and design, giving the benefit of the doubt but thought that would be a good place to move some money into some other important things in defense, which is our job as Members of Congress. I am proud we met the President's target on defense. I argued, let us not give one dollar less. If we can, let us give more. Some people have a different view, but I believe we need to support our defense in every way possible. I think moving this money to fund other activities in the Defense bill is not only wise, it sharpens our Missile Defense Program and sharpens our overall Defense bill and our budget. There are numerous examples like the one I gave about engineering and integration, which is what this committee did. The Warner amendment is unwise in a fiscal way. It is irresponsible to claim revenues that do not exist, to hope they materialize, and then, if they do not, the budget situation is made much worse. But on a deeper level and a more important level, the amendment is unwarranted and unjustified because there is a robust budget for missile defense in this Defense bill. We have shifted some of the money, and I will talk about why we have tried to shift the $814 million that we identified as unnecessary, redundant, or unjustified to other programs in the military because there are, in addition to the threat from a missile that might come to this country from Iran or Iraq or North Korea or one of the other rogue nations, there are real and immediate threats and, I would argue, more present threats. Not that I do not believe missile defense is a threat. I do. Not everyone in Congress does, but I do believe it could be a threat and we need to deploy a system that will be cost effective to the taxpayer as well as technologically effective. In moving the $814 million to sharpen our Missile Defense Program and to sharpen our overall budget, we invested $124 million into hardening nuclear facilities against terrorist attacks. We have many nuclear facilities in this Nation. We have labs committed to the development and exploration of nuclear materials. DOE asked for it in the budget submission, but it was turned down. We have all seen reports of threats against our nuclear facilities. We know that whether one is in New York, in Louisiana, in Arkansas, or in some other place where nuclear facilities are present, the community is concerned, as they should be. Is our Government doing everything it can to protect us, to harden these facilities against attack? I think every Member of this Senate would like to be able to say we have added over $120 million to our nuclear facilities to provide tougher perimeters and systems that will protect from a terror attack. We have heard testimony not just before my Emerging Threats Subcommittee but many of our subcommittees about the importance of that. We took part of the savings that we identified and redirected it to shipbuilding. Shipbuilding is important to Louisiana. It is not just important to Mississippi because Ingall's Shipyard is there. It is not just important to Maine because of our colleagues, Senator Snowe and Senator Collins. Shipbuilding, ship procurement, and the sustaining and maintenance of at least a 310-ship Navy is very important to our military strategy. There has not been one committee that I have attended since I have been on the Armed Services Committee, whether we are talking about the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, or other places in the world, that the admirals and the generals, the men and women in uniform, representing and protecting our Nation, have testified to anything other than a 310-ship Navy as an absolute minimum. There was a point in our history we had 900 ships. Now maybe we cannot afford 900 ships. Maybe we do not need 900 ships, but in this new world of asymmetrical threats, where we cannot wait for the enemy to come to us; we need to go to them, there are only two ways basically to get there: either by water or by air. We have to have both. We cannot rely only on our Air Force capabilities. We have to have a strong, robust Navy to fight on these battlefields wherever they might be, to transport our troops, to do it effectively, to do it safely. There is not a Member, I do not think, and particularly Senator Warner from Virginia, who comes from a huge Navy State, to argue that this was a poor or not thought-through reallocation of this money. Without it, we cannot build and continue to carry out our LPD-17s and other important shipbuilding and procurement that is underway right now with the Navy. Four thousand sorties have been flown from Navy ships in the Arabian Gulf. Our surveillance airplanes, our fighters, and our bombers get a lot of attention, but many of those sorties begin by lifting off from our aircraft carriers and from places that are bringing this equipment and these platforms and giving them a place to take off, refuel and take off again, to protect us from the threats of terrorism and other threats around the world. As we have seen in Afghanistan, we are in an age of war, fighting where we cannot forward-deploy our Armed Forces land-based near the theater. We are blocked by unfriendly nations from being able to fly over or to land at bases. Our Navy provides those places of security, those places for our armed men and women, our forces to regroup to get ready and take off for battle. At a time when the Navy is so vital to our war effort, the Navy could in this budget fall below 300 ships. This $690 million readjustment, or additional investment, taken from a program, while important, is not in the least bit delayed or undermined and will go a long way to strengthen our Navy. We add money for other counterterrorism priorities in this budget. We have moved some money--a good bit of money, but a very small percentage of the overall funding--from missiles to other parts of the budget that are crying out to be addressed: Our shortage of ships in the Navy, our need to secure our nuclear facilities, and there have been several other investments in counterterrorism. That was a wise decision. I was proud to support it in the committee. I urge my colleagues to reject the Warner amendment and to support Senator Levin and Senator Reid in this effort. I quote Gen. Henry Shelton, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on his view of threats posed by military ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. General Shelton is a very decorated leader of our armed services. His reputation is without question. He said within this last year there are other serious threats out there in addition to that posed by ballistic missiles. We know, for example, there are adversaries with chemical and biological weapons that can attack the United States today. They can do it with a briefcase, by infiltrating our territory across our shores or through our airports. This underlying bill is attempting to address this real, broad, and asymmetrical effect. It can come from missiles, it can come from a briefcase, it can come from a container through one of our ports, it can come through a bomb planted in the back of a U-haul pickup truck, against any number of targets. This city, Washington, DC, our Capital, is rich with targets, but so are all the cities, including the home State of Washington of the Presiding Officer and my State of Louisiana. The taxpayers want us to make sure we are not just spending a lot of money on defense but we are spending it wisely, in the right places, and we are not overspending in one area and leaving ourselves vulnerable in another. Protecting our nuclear powerplants and supporting missile defense we can do. Investing in counterterrorism and supporting missile defense we can do. Building a strong Navy and supporting missile defense we can do. But we have to be smart about it and not just with some political slogan that looks good at election time. I am afraid that is what this is all about. Let's have a strong Defense bill, a smart Defense bill, a bill that matches the President more than dollar for dollar but makes good and wise choices about how we are spending those dollars. As a supporter of missile defense, I argue strongly against the Warner amendment and urge my colleagues to support what the committee did. This will be a very important vote, along with some other tough votes we will have to take regarding transportation and setting good priorities in our Defense bill. As the article on the secrecy shield in the Washington Post suggests, if we are going to spend $7 billion--and I support building the program--let's do it in the right way and make sure there is full public disclosure. There could be some aspects we do not want on the front page of every newspaper, but give the taxpayers the best missile defense system. Spend their money wisely. By putting up a secrecy shield, which is what this article based on a recent report that has come out is claiming, I believe as we move forward with our missile defense system, it needs to be done with full disclosure, without jeopardizing those features that might have to be kept in a classified position, so the taxpayers can be sure we are spending their money wisely. In the words of General Shelton, there are many threats facing our Nation. The bill we are debating today is about preparing ourselves for all of those threats, allocating our resources wisely by making very good decisions. Lives depend on it. The strength of this Nation depends on it. Our future and the future of our allies depend on the decisions we make in the next few days on this very important bill. This is one of those decisions. Let's say we are going to shift money, strengthen missile defense, sharpen it, but also strengthen our other defenses so we can protect the people. They sent us here to do no less.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the Warner amendment, and I wish to take as much time as I may consume.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, today I rise to honor and congratulate Mr. Larry Feldman, Jr., who will be sworn in as President of the Louisiana State Bar Association on June 28, 2002. His assumption of the role of President is the culmination of a lifelong commitment to service in the Bar Association. Larry received his J.D. degree in 1974 from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center and was admitted that year to practice in the State of Louisiana. Since this time he has been actively involved in the Bar Association. Larry has also demonstrated a commitment to excellence in programming on the Continuing Legal Education Program Committee and served as Chairman of the Committee from 1986-1987. He was one of the pioneers of the Sandestin Summer School for Lawyers. He served on the Board of Governors from 1994-1997. He was Secretary of the Association from 1997-1999, a position in which he served as Editor of the Louisiana State Bar Journal. In 1996, he received the LSBA's President's Award, which is the highest award given by the Louisiana State Bar Association to a member for their service to the organization. Through all of his effort, Larry Feldman has clearly demonstrated his dedication to the Association. However, Larry has not only been dedication to the Association, but also to his family. As the father of three daughters, he has shown that giving children a strong sense of self and independence is a great gift. As a devoted son, he has displayed that love, warmth, and support are excellent gifts to parents as they age. And as a husband, he has proven that love is best when it is between equals. Larry is known for his cooking, his quick wit, and his love of a good time. He is much sought after as a lawyer and, more importantly, as a friend. I congratulate Larry for all he has done, both in and out of the courtroom, and wish him the best of luck as he begins his service as President of the Louisiana State Bar Association.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senator Cantwell of Washington, Senator Smith of New Hampshire, and Senator Grassley of Iowa, as a co-sponsor of this critical amendment to provide justice, dignity, and equal rights to our service women stationed in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia requires its women to wear garment called the abaya, it is a covering which extends from head to toe on a woman. It is part of the Muslim faith and their customs and traditions. The Saudi Arabian government does not require American women living or visiting in Saudi Arabia to wear the abaya. Rather, both men and women are encouraged to wear modest American clothing. When visitors come to my home, I anticipate they will abide by the rules I have established in my home. Therefore, I respect the wishes of the Saudi government, that when westerns enter Saudi Arabia, westerns should wear modest clothing. I would not want to violate the customs of a host country. What I cannot understand is why the Department of Defense has determined that American service-women must wear the abaya when they leave the confines of the military bases in Saudi Arabia. The host government does not mandate that service women wear the abaya. More importantly to me, the Saudi government does not require our service women to dress differently from our service men. However, our very own Department of Defense requires our service-women to dress differently from our service men. This is unjust and outrageous. Our service women are equals to their male counterparts in the Armed Services. Women have died and bled in defense of this country. They can fly fighters, pilot helicopters, and drive ships. Those rights did not come easily. Roadblocks were put in the way, and I thought they has been overcome. But now, the Department of Defense wants to make our first-rate women soldiers second class citizens in the United States military. I hope the Senate will approve this amendment and stand with the House of Representatives, which passed similar legislation, to send a strong message to the Department of Defense that women in uniform are not second class citizens. In closing, I want to salute the women who brought this issue to America's attention. Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally has always been a warrior. She fought the Pentagon's bureaucracy to become one of the first female fighter pilots. And, now she has to fight the Pentagon, once gain, in a court of law to overturn the Pentagon's abaya policy. Colonel McSally you serve as an inspiration to young women across the United States who want to serve their country. Today, I hope the Senate can come to Colonel McSally's defense, and all women serving in Saudi Arabia, to lift this irrational Pentagon rule.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to address two amendments I will soon offer to S. 2514, the Defense authorization bill. The first amendment is critical to the training and future deployments of the Interim Brigade Combat Teams, and is, therefore, vital to both Louisiana and our national security. This amendment designates Louisiana Highway 28 between Alexandria, LA, and Leesville, LA, a road providing access to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, as a Defense Access Road. Fort Polk has been designated as a home for one of the new, transformational Interim Brigade Combat Teams IBCTs. Furthermore, I am proud to say that Fort Polk will serve as the training site for all IBCTs. Louisiana Highway 28 is one of the primary access roads into and out of Fort Polk. Highway 28 is the direct route from Fort Polk to the former England Air Force Base in Alexandria, Louisiana. I mention this because any military equipment designated for Fort Polk that is transported via C-130 must be trucked to Fort Polk if it is non-wheeled or non-tracked from the former England AFB. If military vehicles are tracked or wheeled, they then trek the forty miles from England to Fort Polk along Hwy. 28. No matter how the equipment arrives at Fort Polk, the heavy trucks and military vehicles cause tremendous wear and tear to Highway 28. With the coming of the IBCTs to Fort Polk, the stresses on Hwy. 28 will only be exacerbated. Louisiana Highway 28 is a two lane highway that currently operates over capacity, as it already has a traffic volume of 2,000 cars per day. When you add 2,000 cars a day and 10 training rotations a year to a two-lane highway, the deterioration of the road surface and the congestion of the roadway will lead to numerous accidents, and possibly fatalities. The commanding general of Fort Polk, Brigadier General Jason Kamiya, and the people of Louisiana want to see Hwy. 28 expanded to four lanes. A four lane highway will improve the safety conditions on the roadway, and four lanes will allow for faster deployment of units stationed and training at Fort Polk. During times of war, like we find ourselves in now, it is critical that units can deploy to the battlefield as quickly as possible. But, it is also important that our military achieve quick deployments in training because our service men and women will fight only well as they train. The designation of Highway 28 as a Defense Access Road will allow the Department of Defense to work with the State of Louisiana to pool funds to make necessary repairs to the highway and increase the road surface to four lanes to best accommodate the IBCTs. DOD will only be required to participate in funding to the degree to which usage of the highway is out of the ordinary due to the military installation or military activity. It only makes sense that the Federal Government would aid State Governments to make repairs caused by federal usage or alterations to the highway requested by the Federal government. Finally, there is no cost associated with the authorization. The second amendment pertains to the most crucial problem facing our United States Navy, both today and in future generations, the dwindling size of the Navy fleet. The 2001 Quadrennial Review stated that the Navy must maintain a fleet size of least 310 ships to achieve its mission. This amendment makes it the policy of the United States for the budget of the United States for fiscal years after FY 2003, and for the future-years defense plan, to include sufficient funding for the Navy to maintain a fleet of at least 310 ships. Additionally, the President must certify within the budget of the United States that sufficient funding has been allocated to maintain a fleet of 310 ships. If such a certification is not made, the President must explain within the budget of the United States why the certification cannot be made. Today, Navy ships sail globally to ensure a world-wide American presence and to immediately respond to threats against America's national security. This amendment will make certain that the President funds a fleet at least capable of meeting the Navy's current mission objectives or explains why the Navy will fall shy of a 310 ship fleet. Without the Navy, the United States could not have prosecuted the war in Afghanistan as successfully as we have. On numerous occasions throughout the war, our armed forces have been denied access to land bases in foreign countries from which our forces could operate. Nevertheless, when our armed forces cannot forward deploy because there are no willing host countries, the U.S. Navy provides our military with acres of floating sovereign territory from which the U.S. military can deploy. Without the firepower, logistics, and transport capabilities of the Navy, our ability to retaliate to the terrorist actions of September 11th would have been compromised. However, if Congress and the President do not allocate critical resources to shipbuilding, the Navy will soon fall well below the minimum level of ships required for the Navy to properly provide for America's defense, a job the Navy has performed so admirably. Today, the Navy has approximately 315 ships in its fleet, a number which cannot dwindle or the Navy's operations will be gravely challenged. This year, the President's budget funded only 5 ships. The Senate has taken needed action to provide an additional $690 million in advance procurement funding for 2 surface ships and a submarine. If current shipbuilding rates are sustained, the Navy will only have a fleet of 238 ships within 35 years. That is simply unacceptable. 310 ships is the lowest allowable floor, but Congress and the President should strive to maintain a Navy of at least 350 ships to guaranty America's sovereign needs on the high seas. Accordingly, this amendment makes it the national defense policy of the United States to uphold a Navy of at least 310 ships, as spelled out in the Quadrennial Defense Review of 2001. Moreover, shipbuilding must be a priority of the President, and the President must certify in future budgets and in future year defense plans, beginning with FY 2004, that sufficient funds have been made available to sustain a fleet of at least 310 ships or explain why such funds have not been made available. I hope the Senate will support this amendment to provide for our Navy which has provided for the American people since the Revolutionary War.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce to my colleagues, the Consolidation Student Loan Flexibility Act of 2002, a bill of great importance to the hundreds and thousands of students working to make the dream of a college education a reality. According to a recent report published by the National Center for Higher Education, the cost of attending two- and four-year public and private colleges has grown more repidly than inflation, and faster than family income. Poor families spent as much as 25 percent of their annual income to send their children to a public, four-year colleges in 2000, compared with 13 percent in 1980. What's worse, the Federal Pell Grant program, designed to help alleviate the financial burden on low income families, covered only 57 percent of the cost of tuition at public four-year colleges in 1999, compared with 98 percent in 1986. The most widespread response to the increasing costs, according to the report, involves debt, more students are borrowing more money than ever before. Since 1980, Federal financial assistance has been transformed from a system characterized mainly by need based grants to one dominated by loans. In 2000, loans represented 58 percent of Federal student financial aid, and grants represented 41 percent. Studies show that a major factor influencing a student's choice of college and degree program is the amount of debt connected with the type of institution or profession. Make no mistake, these choices not only affect the lives of the students themselves but also impact society as a whole. Efforts to attract college graduates into needed, but not necessarily high paying careers, such as teaching, may be undermined by substantial debt burdens. School loans are an important and legitimate aspect of attending college for many students, but it also raises several policy concerns. One area of growing concern surrounds what is called the single lender rule. The single lender rule is a provision in the Higher Education Act that affects the ability of college graduates to consolidate multiple student loans into a single new loan for the purpose of getting a lower rate. Specifically, it provides that borrowers having all of their loans held by a single lender have to consolidate with that lender, so long as it offers consolidation loans. Therefore those borrowers with all of their loans in one place can't go to other lenders offering better rates or benefits, they have to stay where they are. I would like to submit for the Record some numbers which demonstrate how damaging the single lender rule is for students. Last year, 143,504 students were denied the benefits of loan consolidation because of the single lender rule. In my home State of Louisiana, 3,329 students were prevented from obtaining a lower-rate or more generous benefits because of this rule. Many of these students are studying to be doctors, nurses, teachers, and lawyers. These are conservative numbers, collected from student loan providers, the reality is even more staggering. This restriction makes no sense and while it may benefit those offering student loans, it sure isn't designed to provide students with the power that choice and competition can bring. A few months ago we acted to pass a package designed to stimulate the economy and secure long term economic stability in America. I would be hard pressed to think of a better way to ease the burden on our States and to secure a brighter future for the U.S. economy than to make a college degree an affordable option for all who seek to obtain one. The Census Bureau has released new figures on the earnings gap between people with a high school education and those with bachelor's degrees. It's wide and growing. The bureau said that college graduates made an average of $40,500 last year, while the average high school graduate earned $22,900. People with bachelor's degrees now earn an average of 76 percent more than high school graduates. In 1975, the gap was 57 percent. One does not have to have a Ph.D. in math to understand the impact that closing this gap would mean for the economy, more people with college degrees means higher consumer spending and lower unemployment. Some of my colleagues may be asking, why now? Why not wait until next year when we will be re-addressing the Higher Education Act? Here are some of the reasons why I believe this is not a good idea for us to wait until next year or the year after. To delay repealing the rule until the H.E.A. Reauthorization would unnecessarily victimize hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers, depriving them of the ability to manage their debt in an optimal way. Today's graduates are entering a workplace where jobs are hard to get and salaries for starting positions are lower than they have ever been before. In this environment, we need to be building up opportunities for them to reduce their debt not increase it. This bill is an important first step to making college more affordable for all American families. I hope my colleagues will join me in making the dream of a college education a reality for all.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce to my colleagues, the Consolidation Student Loan Flexibility Act of 2002, a bill of great importance to the hundreds and thousands of students working to make the dream of a college education a reality. According to a recent report published by the National Center for Higher Education, the cost of attending two- and four-year public and private colleges has grown more repidly than inflation, and faster than family income. Poor families spent as much as 25 percent of their annual income to send their children to a public, four-year colleges in 2000, compared with 13 percent in 1980. What's worse, the Federal Pell Grant program, designed to help alleviate the financial burden on low income families, covered only 57 percent of the cost of tuition at public four-year colleges in 1999, compared with 98 percent in 1986. The most widespread response to the increasing costs, according to the report, involves debt, more students are borrowing more money than ever before. Since 1980, Federal financial assistance has been transformed from a system characterized mainly by need based grants to one dominated by loans. In 2000, loans represented 58 percent of Federal student financial aid, and grants represented 41 percent. Studies show that a major factor influencing a student's choice of college and degree program is the amount of debt connected with the type of institution or profession. Make no mistake, these choices not only affect the lives of the students themselves but also impact society as a whole. Efforts to attract college graduates into needed, but not necessarily high paying careers, such as teaching, may be undermined by substantial debt burdens. School loans are an important and legitimate aspect of attending college for many students, but it also raises several policy concerns. One area of growing concern surrounds what is called the single lender rule. The single lender rule is a provision in the Higher Education Act that affects the ability of college graduates to consolidate multiple student loans into a single new loan for the purpose of getting a lower rate. Specifically, it provides that borrowers having all of their loans held by a single lender have to consolidate with that lender, so long as it offers consolidation loans. Therefore those borrowers with all of their loans in one place can't go to other lenders offering better rates or benefits, they have to stay where they are. I would like to submit for the Record some numbers which demonstrate how damaging the single lender rule is for students. Last year, 143,504 students were denied the benefits of loan consolidation because of the single lender rule. In my home State of Louisiana, 3,329 students were prevented from obtaining a lower-rate or more generous benefits because of this rule. Many of these students are studying to be doctors, nurses, teachers, and lawyers. These are conservative numbers, collected from student loan providers, the reality is even more staggering. This restriction makes no sense and while it may benefit those offering student loans, it sure isn't designed to provide students with the power that choice and competition can bring. A few months ago we acted to pass a package designed to stimulate the economy and secure long term economic stability in America. I would be hard pressed to think of a better way to ease the burden on our States and to secure a brighter future for the U.S. economy than to make a college degree an affordable option for all who seek to obtain one. The Census Bureau has released new figures on the earnings gap between people with a high school education and those with bachelor's degrees. It's wide and growing. The bureau said that college graduates made an average of $40,500 last year, while the average high school graduate earned $22,900. People with bachelor's degrees now earn an average of 76 percent more than high school graduates. In 1975, the gap was 57 percent. One does not have to have a Ph.D. in math to understand the impact that closing this gap would mean for the economy, more people with college degrees means higher consumer spending and lower unemployment. Some of my colleagues may be asking, why now? Why not wait until next year when we will be re-addressing the Higher Education Act? Here are some of the reasons why I believe this is not a good idea for us to wait until next year or the year after. To delay repealing the rule until the H.E.A. Reauthorization would unnecessarily victimize hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers, depriving them of the ability to manage their debt in an optimal way. Today's graduates are entering a workplace where jobs are hard to get and salaries for starting positions are lower than they have ever been before. In this environment, we need to be building up opportunities for them to reduce their debt not increase it. This bill is an important first step to making college more affordable for all American families. I hope my colleagues will join me in making the dream of a college education a reality for all.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. For at least 15 minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I appreciate an opportunity to say a word on this amendment that we just voted on and then to present some information about the underlying bill in reference to the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. Let me begin by thanking the chairman of our committee, our most able chairman and our most able ranking member, for their extraordinary and bipartisan work on the underlying bill. Let me also thank them for joining their forces and their talents and their persuasive skills to put forward the amendment that we just discussed in some detail. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the amendment just adopted. I believe it is something we most certainly should do. It is a shame we have not taken this action previous to this year. There are 25 million veterans who have served our Nation proudly and bravely. Only 2 percent, about 550,000 veterans, quite a large number but a small percentage, have been disabled on the battlefield, have received serious injuries in many cases; in some cases, minor injuries, but in all cases, relative to the service, and many of those were received on the battlefield. In Louisiana, that is about 12,000 men and women who have served proudly and bravely, about 3 percent. While there is a cost associated, as has been discussed by both our chairman and our ranking member, and noted by the Senator from Nevada who has led this fight over many years, while there is a cost associated, it is a cost that this budget and this Nation and this economy should bear for the small percentage of veterans who were disabled when serving the Nation so they don't have to be shortchanged in their retirement because they have also given up a limb or two, or a bodily function that prevents them from living in a way that many others enjoy. It is the least we can do, and I am only sorry it took us this long to get to this point. I agree with the Senator from Nevada that I think the President would not veto this very well-put-together bill over this issue. I think he will, in the end, join with members of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to support the extension of this benefit and to fix an injustice that is in the payment and compensation scheme and plan for this Nation. Again, only 2 percent of the veterans have received injuries that caused them to be disabled--legally designated as disabled--and they are simply asking, since they joined up, signed up, put the uniform on, and were injured in the line of duty and it caused them to be disabled so they are unable to be productive because they gave their physical, mental, and spiritual contribution so that the rest of us could be productive, the least we can do is to say you don't have to be shortchanged in your retirement. We are happy and proud and it is our honor and duty to provide you with your disability and your retirement, both of which you have earned. So while I appreciate the comments of the other Senators who have questioned how we might afford it, my question is, How can we not afford it? Why haven't we done this before? I am proud to support the amendment, and I hope we will be able to have a good negotiation with the House and the President to support the men and women in uniform who were hurt, many seriously, and have given great sacrifice, while keeping the rest of us safe. At least we can give them a full disability check and a full retirement check. I want to speak for approximately 15 minutes on the underlying bill. Particularly, I want to speak as it relates to the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which is the subcommittee I now chair with my most able and very good partner, the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Roberts. Douglas MacArthur said that in war there is no substitute for victory. We are engaged in a war right now unlike we have ever been engaged in before. We have never really fought a war such as the one we are fighting today. We are in the process in this underlying authorization bill, which funds our Department of Defense at the highest level ever--the highest level in many years--and we are in the process of shaping our defenses and our offenses to fight this new kind of war. In this war, our enemies are not wearing uniforms of a recognized state; they are not using conventional weapons or a conventional means of attack. They are using weapons of mass destruction, which they did on September 11, by taking several of our own airplanes and filling them with fuel and turning them into flying bombs and flying them into some of the greatest buildings and symbols here in America on a Tuesday morning when the Sun was shining. They didn't attack men and women in the military; they attacked civilians. They attacked innocent men and women and children who were unprepared for what was happening to them, and they could never have really been prepared for such a horrible and horrific attack. These are fanatics, people who are cowards; these are terrorists, murderers, and people who are going to use weapons of mass destruction. They have proven so because they have used them, and they will continue to use whatever weapons they can get their hands on to wreak havoc here in America and to our allies as well. I just received word that there has been yet another suicide bomb that hit Jerusalem within the last few hours. I have to say this because my children just finished school this year. My 10-year-old and 5-year-old celebrated their last day of school a couple weeks ago. I can't tell you how difficult it was to read the article about yet another suicide bombing that occurred in Jerusalem just yesterday morning, where 19 people were killed. The description of that event in the New York Times was that the bus was full of schoolchildren. The bus was full of workers going to work. I cannot imagine the pain of a parent putting a child on a bus, and they are on the way to school with their books and in their uniforms, and then the parents are called to come collect the body parts a few hours after they put their child on a bus. That is terrorism. That is what we are fighting. That is what this bill is funding. This is what we have to have a victory over. Israel is in a battle for survival. We are not in the same position, obviously, and not in the same sort of vulnerable situation; nonetheless, this is the new kind of war. If we don't strengthen our military, if we don't support new strategies, new defenses, focus on intelligence and on getting the coordination of our intelligence so we are not caught off guard in the future, if we fail, stumble, or delay in trying to rearrange some of our strategies, we will let our people down and not give them the protection they deserve in this war against murderers and cowards and fanatics. I am proud to stand here to represent for a few minutes our subcommittee, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, which was formed a few years ago for this exact purpose, to help our military think differently about these new threats, about the new ways we are going to fight these wars. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the leadership of the chairman from Michigan and the ranking member from Virginia in supporting our efforts to help give our military the support they need. We will achieve victory. There is no question about that. America will continue to lead our allies and we will be, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, victorious because we will be able to meet these challenges. In this bill we are discussing we have taken some of the first steps. Well before September 11 our subcommittee explored these new threats, such as terrorism, the use of weapons of mass destruction, which not only are going to face our men and women in uniform as they fight in faraway places but also our civilians. Our civilians are well aware of these threats. There is general fear and anxiousness, understandably, now in the Nation. They are depending upon us to provide the framework for this new defense. Our committee worked to authorize the critical programs that are creating these new capabilities that will help to make this transformation possible. Again, we focused on combating terrorism, chemical and biological defenses, which we have come to know and understand much more in these last few months--how we must be prepared to fight against these new weapons, as horrible as they are. Our committee also wants to support in a full way our Special Operations Command, which is a relatively small force, but an extraordinary force, a very brave force--something that was created by this Congress to meet these new demands and the new threats and which is executing spectacularly in Afghanistan. Our committee and this subcommittee support their work. The nonproliferation program, which is to try to help identify and stop the proliferation of nuclear materials through the Department of Defense and Department of Energy is part of our mark, as well. And I feel very strongly, as I know the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin does, that we need to keep up the research development and testing and evaluation in the science and technology account in our military budget. Let's not lose sight that this war is not only going to be won with muscle but won with a lot of brains. It is going to be won because we are on the cutting edge of new technology in every aspect. In order to get those new technologies to the battlefield, we have to invent them. The way we invent them is research, research, research. We cannot undermine the research in this budget. S. 2514 recommends additional funding in each of these areas that are intended to support this subcommittee's objectives and all the objectives as outlined by Senator Levin. I will take a few minutes to go through a few of them. The President's budget request included $7.3 billion for combating terrorism, and another $2.7 billion for combating terrorism items in the emergency response fund. This bill supports the President's initiatives, as well as $30 million for additional research and development that we think is crucial to achieving some of the goals we have outlined. In response to the unsettling results of a recent GAO report on military installation preparedness for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, this bill includes a provision that directs the development of a comprehensive plan to improve the preparedness of these installations. Also in light of continued confusion about the Department's role--and understandable confusion. We have not fought a war on our own homeland since the Civil War. We have been positioned to fight overseas, to protect our perimeters thousands of miles away. Now our military has to think: Is that the right strategy and, if not, what role should we play with our local law enforcement and local police protection? It is not a simple question, and our bill directs the Department and the Secretary of Defense to submit a detailed report on how DOD should be fulfilling this new homeland mission so that we can help them come to the right conclusions regarding this new state of affairs. In the area of nonproliferation, for too long our programs with Russia and the former Soviet Union were, in my opinion, mischaracterized. Many people characterized this as wasteful foreign spending. Since September 11, I hope we have come to realize that funding these programs should be in the forefront as a means to eliminate the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This is not wasteful foreign spending. It is out of self-preservation that we seek to make these programs robust and effective to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands because we have seen the result. I want to read a quote from a distinguished former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn, who led this committee beautifully for so many years. Senator Nunn said shortly after September 11: The terrorists who planned and carried out the attacks of September 11 showed there is no limit to the number of innocent lives they are willing to take. Their capacity for killing was limited only by the power of their weapons. Intelligence and field reports from Afghanistan point to al-Qaeda's desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We have seen much more of that in the news lately. But the visions of Senators Nunn and Lugar a decade ago have limited the terrorists' weapons and capability of killing because they started before the headlines, before the attacks of September 11 putting programs into place because of their vision. This committee wants to support that vision and make it more robust, and we have. Accordingly, Congress and the President must continue to push forward in nonproliferation programs. This underlying bill is not perfect, but it puts us well on the way and honors the work that Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar accomplished, again, prior to September 11. Among the legislative provisions, we have also included support of granting permanent authority, which the President asked for, for the President to waive on an annual basis the preconditions to implementing the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. We have also included Senator Lugar's bill that will provide discretionary authority to the Secretary of Defense to use CTR funds outside the former Soviet Union, which is very important as we have discovered that maybe our whole problem is not going to be only confined to former Soviet Union states but, unfortunately, now other states. We have to have a robust plan for containment and cooperation, and Senator Carnahan's bill encourages the Secretary of Energy to expand the cooperative program beyond traditional weapons grade material. These are two essential components to build on the legacy and the work that Senator Lugar and Senator Nunn have so beautifully done over the years. I wish to comment on two more areas, Mr. President. As I mentioned, in science and technology, the President's budget included $9.9 billion for S&T programs. This is both good and bad news. It is only 2.6 percent of DOD's budget. It is the lowest percentage since fiscal year 1992. Although the dollar amounts have increased because the overall Defense Department bill has increased, it is not near the goal of 3 percent, which is where we want to be, and it is a less percentage than last year. So the trend lines are not going in the most positive direction. I hope we can continue to work in this area because this is important to our subcommittee and to our entire committee, and I think it is important to give the support to our military so we can be not only the strongest but the smartest. We are going to be working on that as well. In chemical and biological weapons, I visited the Army's infectious disease research laboratory at Fort Detrick. It was a very fine day we spent touring that facility. I was taken aback by the hard work and dedication of the civilian and military researchers who are working to develop the defenses and cures we need to fight these new biological weapons. I should note for all Senators that this laboratory, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRIID, did the analysis of the anthrax that was sent to the Senate of the United States last year. In addition to their work, they analyzed more than 15,000 samples of anthrax and other biological agents, using facilities that are very small and overcrowded. I believe if I took anyone from Louisiana or elsewhere to visit this facility, they might be very surprised to see the cramped quarters. They would be proud of the extraordinary work, but they would be surprised to see the cramped quarters in which we are asking people to operate when this threat is real, this threat has happened, this threat will probably happen again. There is money in this budget to upgrade those facilities, and I am proud to be a part of that. Of course, it is important to the Maryland Senators because this facility is in Maryland, but it is important to our whole Nation. I am proud to be leading that effort to give us the finest lab facilities to deal with these new threats. We did not have to do this in World War II. We did not have to do this in Vietnam. We have to do it now. Our scientists are on the front lines, our lab technicians are on the front lines, and this bill needs to reflect the new realities. We also fund a number of innovative projects for chemical and biological defense including improved sensors, decontamination technologies, and equipment and promising nanotechnologies. But it also includes provisions to allow defense labs to cut the red tape, adopt more business-like practices so they can be more competitive in attracting the finest technical talent and doing the best technical work for the Department and for the Nation. One final point: Over the last few years, our subcommittee has requested that the Department perform a careful evaluation of their testing and evaluation facilities. The reason is we want to make sure we are testing all these new weapons systems, new technologies, so that when we get them to the battlefield, they actually work. We want to make sure the right incentives are in this bill to have good and robust testing. The procedure we are using now to explain in the most simplified way is that they are not the right incentives in place to have the right kinds of testing because the testing budget is competing with the production budget. So we have put in a proposal that hopefully will not create a new bureaucracy and not take discretion away from the services. We do not intend to slow down getting new technologies. We want to make sure we are doing our taxpayers a good service by making sure we are testing before the battlefield in a way that helps us save taxpayer money and gives our soldiers and sailors what they need to fight effectively. That is a very important component. Finally, in special operations, I say again that this force is doing extraordinary work. They only have 1.3 percent of this whole budget, but they are basically the ones we see on the news every night fighting al-Qaida in the caves and in the desert, everywhere, over ground, underground, in the air, on the battlefield, protecting us and hunting down these murderers, cowards, and terrorists, wherever they are. We are proud that we are recommending $96.1 million to Special Operations Command to make sure they can address their training and pressing equipment needs for the forces, the new radios that we saw on the news, the emitter radios. When the special operations were riding horseback, they were calling down the strikes from our bombers and our fighters, and that was a result of the work our subcommittee did in a bipartisan way to provide our warfighters on the battlefield with what they need to get the job done, thinking outside the box, and we are really proud of the work they have done. In addition, besides good communications equipment and good training, these special operations forces, because of the human intelligence now that is required, need much more foreign language training, more sophisticated sort of schoolwork, to make sure that our fighters are up to the task, and we are really working with foreign operations to provide them funding for the new kind of training, particularly foreign language, that is going to be necessary for all of our military in the future as we find ourselves operating in very different circumstances, in different countries with different cultures, trying to understand very complicated geographic, cultural, and religious conflicts. Over the past year, and in fact well before September 11, this subcommittee has looked at the new threats, such as terrorism and the use of weapons of mass destruction, that will face our military and our Nation in the 21st century. It has worked to authorize the critical programs in the Departments of Defense and Energy that are creating the new capabilities that will transform the military to help it meet and defeat those threats. Chairman Levin's guidelines for the Armed Services Committee in developing our legislation included two themes where this Subcommittee focuses much of its work: Promote the transformation of the armed forces to meet the threats of the 21st century. Improve the ability of the armed forces to meet nontraditional threats, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. As the subcommittee is responsible for monitoring emerging threats and helping ensure that our military has the capabilities needed to respond to those threats, this subcommittee's jurisdiction includes the following: research, development, test and evaluation, RDT&E, including science and technology, S&T accounts, Special Operations Command, combating terrorism, counter-drug programs of DoD, nonproliferation programs of DoD and DOE, and chemical and biological defense. This bill recommends additional funding or legislative provisions in each of these areas that are intended to meet the objectives of Senator Levin's proposed guidelines. I will describe our major efforts in each of these areas. The President's budget request included $9.9 billion for science and technology programs. Unfortunately, this is only about 2.6 percent of DoD's budget, the lowest share since fiscal year 1992, and far short of Secretary Rumsfeld's goal of 3 percent of the total budget, which would be more than $11 billion. This subcommittee has oversight over the majority of S&T programs within the Defense Department. This bill recommends significant increases for the Department of Defense's research and development budget, as compared to the President's budget request. In particular, I want to note that there are recommendations to increase the science and technology budget request by over $170 million. There are significant increases for: Combating terrorism and weapons of mass destruction; Army transformation, including funding $100 million of Army unfunded requirements in science and technology; technologies to reduce the effects and costs of corrosion on ships and aircraft; fundamental scientific research at national labs and universities; and cyber security, including continuing the important information security scholarship program championed by Senator Warner. This bill includes legislative provisions to address the issue of speeding the transition of defense technology from the laboratory into the hands of warfighters. This will give our troops the most advanced technology available more rapidly and improve the return on our S&T investments. They will also help our small businesses get prompt and fair evaluations by DOD of their technology ideas for combating terrorism. During the past year, I visited the Army's infectious disease laboratory at Fort Detrick, MD. I was taken aback by the hard work and dedication of the civilian and military researchers there, who are working to develop the defenses and cures that we need to fight the threat of biological weapons. I am pleased that the bill also includes provisions to continue the Senate's efforts to improve the quality of our nation's defense laboratories. This legislation reauthorizes and expands a number of pilot programs previously established by our subcommittee under Senator Roberts. The programs allow defense labs to cut red tape and adopt more business-like practices so they can be more competitive in attracting the finest technical talent and doing the best technical work for the Department. The bill includes a provision recommended by Senator Lieberman that establishes a coordinated, joint Defense Nanotechnology R&D Program. This legislation will ensure that the Department invests sufficiently and wisely in this revolutionary technology area, and plans the program strategically from the start so that new nanotechnologies can be used by our warfighters as soon as possible. The bill includes a provision requiring the Secretary of Defense to carry out a program to identify and support techological advances that are necessary to develop vehicle fuel cell technology for use by the Department of Defense. The program is to be conducted in cooperation with the Secretary of Energy, other appropriate federal agencies, and private industry, with at least half of the total cost of the program to be borne by industry. The program, which is authorized at $10 million, will also focus on critical issues for fuel cell vehicles such as hydrogen storage and development of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure. There are a number of other funding provisions throughout the bill, totaling over $50 million, that support increased development or use of revolutionary and advanced technologies such as hybrid electric technology, advanced batteries and fuel cells. Three years ago, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee initiated a provision requiring a task force of the Defense Science Board (DSB) to report on the state of the Department's test and evaluation facilities. The DSB report, issued in December 2000, concluded that ``the T&E process is not funded properly, in phasing or in magnitude.'' As a result, ``testing is not being conducted adequately'' and ``there is growing evidence that the acquisition system is not meeting expectations as far as delivering high quality, reliable and effective equipment to our military forces.'' The annual report of DOD's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, DOT&E, for fiscal year 2001 endorses the views of the Defense Science Board, concluding that: ``The acquisition process fails to deliver systems to the warfighter that meet reliability and effectiveness requirements.'' In other words, DOD's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation and the Defense Science Board have both concluded that the Department's systematic underfunding of test and evaluation has resulted in a situation where we cannot give our troops the assurance they deserve that weapons systems will function the way they are supposed to in combat conditions. This bill includes a series of provisions designed to reverse this situation by implementing the recommendations of the DSB and the Director of OT&E. The most important of these provisions would address longstanding funding shortfalls in the T&E infrastructure accounts, as recommended by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation and the Defense Science Board, by requiring the Department to: (1) fund the T&E infrastructure through direct appropriations, rather than through surcharges on T&E ``customers''; and (2) establish a central T&E ``resource enterprise'' to handle this infrastructure funding. The first provision would transfer roughly $250 million of testing funds from individual programs to separate T&E accounts to achieve direct funding. The money would still pay for the same things, but out of different accounts: the programs from which the money was transferred would benefit from a reduction in the rates that they are charged for testing (to be achieved by eliminating overhead charges). Because the new funding approach would reduce the prices charged to T&E customers, the Director of OT&E and the DSB believe that this approach would reduce the current disincentive to testing. The second provision would improve the ability of the test and evaluation facilities to compete for limited funds by giving them a high-level advocate within the Department. We share the view of the Director of OT&E and the DSB that we owe it to our men and women in uniform to ensure that the weapons systems that they carry into battle will work as intented in an operational environment. Adequate testing of weapons systems is not an abstract concept: lives depend upon it. For this reason, the committee would implement the recommendations of the Director of OT&E and the report of the Defense Science Board task force on test and evaluation capabilities. The President's budget request included $4.9 billion for the Special Operations Command SOCOM, keeping their budget steady at 1.3 percent of the overall defense budget. The bill under consideration recommends adding $96.1 million to the SOCOM request to address training shortfalls and pressing equipment needs of the forces, such as radios for Army Special Forces and night vision goggles for Navy SEALs. About half of this additional funding was offset by a combined $13.7 million transfer of fiscal year 2002 funding as requested by the Command for the Advanced SEAL Delivery System program, which faces numerous problems, and a reduction in premature fiscal year 2003 funding for procurement of a second mini-submarine. The committee's bill fully funds the research and development associated with the program, and recommends that about a fourth of the procurement funding be released only after the Secretary of Defense reports to the committee on how remaining technological, schedule and cost challenges associated with building the mini-sub will be addressed. In addition, the bill includes a provision directing the Comptroller General to examine Special Operations Forces' foreign language requirements, training and means of achieving and retaining language proficiencies. The President's budget request included $7.3 billion for combating terrorism and another $2.7 billion for combating terrorism items in the Defense Emergency Response Fund, DERF. S. 2514 would authorize the portion of the budget request under our jurisdiction and add some $30 million for research and development programs aimed at combating terrorism. In response to the unsettling results of the GAO report that the committee required in last year's bill on military installations' preparedness for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, we have included a provision that directs the Secretary of Defense to develop and submit a comprehensive plan to improve the preparedness of military installations to deal with WMD incidents. The plan will include a strategy with clear objectives and resource requirements, as well as a performance plan for achieving and measuring implementation. Finally, in light of continued confusion about the Department's role and strategy for defending the homeland, the bill directs the Secretary of Defense to submit a detailed report on how DOD should be and is fulfilling its homeland defense mission. With respect to counter-drug activities, in addition to authorizing the budget request of $849 million, the bill provides an additional $25 million for the National Guard counter-drug State plans. This additional funding is of specific interest to many Senators. The bill fully funds the budget request for both the DOD Cooperative Threat Reduction programs and the related programs at the Department of Energy, including a $15 million increase for the DOE nonproliferation research and development work. There are several legislative provisions that have been included to support these nonproliferation programs: At the administration's request, we included permanent authority for the President to waive, on an annual basis, the pre-conditions to implementing the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. There is legislation to support the administration decision to transfer the program to eliminate plutonium production in Russia to the Department of Energy from the Department of Defense. We included Senator Lugar's bill that would provide discretionary authority to the Secretary of Defense to use CTR funds outside of the Former Soviet Union; and We also have Senator Carnahan's bill that would direct the DOE to explore ways to secure nuclear materials and improve nuclear plant security worldwide. This bill funds a number of innovative projects for chemical and biological defense, including improved sensors, decontamination technology and equipment, and promising nanotechnology. It also includes a reduction to the budget request for a one-year spike in chem-bio defense funds that Department officials acknowledge are not executable and not well defined. The bill authorizes the full funding requested by the Defense Department for chemical demilitarization, almost $1.5 billion fir fiscal year 2003. It includes a legislative provision that would provide the funding in a Defense Department account, as required by law, rather than in an Army account, as the budget request did. I am proud to be associated with this bill and want to thank the chairman, ranking member, and especially my ranking member, Senator Roberts, and all the members of my subcommittee for working together to produce this legislation. I believe that it takes a great step in transforming our military to face an uncertain future and a host of ever-changing threats. I strongly support this bill and urge the Senate to pass this legislation. It is my pleasure to serve as chair of this important subcommittee. It was great working with Senator Roberts and the other Members. I again thank Senator Levin for his leadership because this Emerging Threats Subcommittee is important to be part of the front line of helping reshape our military and provide the protection that our taxpayers and our citizens expect in this new war against people who are cowards, fanatics, and murderers, who do not wear a uniform and who have decided they are not going to attack people in uniform but they are going to attack innocent men, women, and children. So we need to be prepared for the future, and I think we are.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to be added as a cosponsor as well.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded and that I be recognized as in morning business.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I understand we are going to be voting on a very important bill at about 3:45, in just 20, 25 minutes. I support the bill on terrorism insurance creating a mechanism for us to create a system in this country for a new kind of insurance, unfortunately, one for which there has become an apparent need since September 11, and without which there would be a great hardship for our banking and financial industries and also for our real estate developers. Frankly, all businesses--many in Louisiana--are affected across our Nation. So I am going to be supportive of this terrorism insurance bill, and have been supportive of it in the process of trying to bring it to the floor for a final vote. But I want to take a few minutes, before we actually vote on that bill, to speak on an issue that is not directly before the Senate but is something in which many of us are involved, and for which we are trying to come up with some solutions. This is the very important issue involving the subject of cloning. It involves issues related to potential research in cloning. We believe this is a subject the Senate and Congress is going to have to address, and we are attempting to address it. There are various differences of opinion about how to do that. So I come to the floor to speak for a minute while we have some time. First of all, as you know, Madam President, and as many of my colleagues know, I am working with Senator Brownback and Senator Frist and others to try to fashion a position on this bill that would basically create a moratorium of some type--either long term, short term, or intermediate term--because we believe this is an issue with serious ethical considerations and one that we, as a Congress, and as leaders, should have to give very careful consideration to before we would go forward. That has been the essence of our approach, just trying to slow things down so that perhaps we could get enough information to say that we should not, at any time, under any circumstance, go forward with human cloning. But the basis of our approach has been a moratorium to give us more time to get some of this important information out to the public. This is an issue of great concern to the public. Generally, I think people want to be supportive of ethical kinds of research, particularly for the development of cures for diseases. Juvenile diabetes comes to mind; also cures for cancer and spinal cord injuries. We want to be very supportive of ethical approaches to research to provide cures for people who are suffering: children, adults, older people. I think this Senate has gone on record, in a truly bipartisan fashion, supporting the increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health, and it has been a remarkable increase in funding. I, for one, have been very strongly supportive of that funding and want it to continue. But I want to spend a moment talking about some of the problems-- ethical and otherwise--associated with the process of human cloning and to suggest that the Feinstein-Kennedy approach, which basically would be asking the Senate, if you will--and why I am not supporting that approach--and Congress to consider, for the first time, sanctioning or legalizing human cloning. I do not think there is enough information for us to make that decision. Let me give you a couple of reasons. First of all, some of the proponents of human cloning--people who say we should go forward with human cloning--try to make a distinction between human cloning and therapeutic cloning or reproductive cloning or nuclear transfer. One of the points I want to make is that human cloning is human cloning is human cloning. It is just a matter of where you stop the process. The process is exactly the same. Terms have been used to describe it in a variety of different ways. There may be many terms, but there is just one process. There may be many names, but there is one process. As shown on this chart, it is the one process that we are talking about. There are not two or three or four processes; there is one process. That process involves an unfertilized egg and a cell from an adult stem cell. The nucleus is removed and put into this unfertilized egg, and it becomes basically an embryo. The Feinstein-Kennedy-Specter approach says that we should basically authorize this for the first time, say it is legal, authorize it, and engage in the creation of a human embryo--not a plant, not an animal, but a human embryo; and then just say at a certain point--whether it is 12 days or 14 days or 16 days--that embryo would then be destroyed, basically before it is implanted. That is the Feinstein-Kennedy- Specter approach. Senator Brownback and I--because of many similar concerns and some different concerns--and Senator Frist believe the line should be drawn at this point until we can make a better determination about the risks and benefits associated with human cloning; that is, to stop the process before it begins. One of the reasons we believe this--although the law might try to draw a line here after the embryo has been created--is because it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce this line because somewhere, some time, that line is going to be pierced and we will end up having a cloned embryo implanted. Then the question is, What do you do then? The possibilities of passing any kind of so-called compromise that would legalize and authorize human cloning for the first time in our Nation's history could get us on to a very slippery slope. That is why some of us are urging to slow it down, have more study, and have a short-term moratorium, which even President Clinton, in his term as President, said--of course, when Dolly, the sheep, was created--that is exactly what we should do until we get more information about the benefits and risks associated with cloning. So it is not only President Bush who is urging us to slow down, but both Democrat and Republican administrations. And you can understand why. It puts us on a very slippery slope if we--and I hope we do not; and I am going to fight to make sure we do not--start with the premise that we can legalize human cloning, authorize it, potentially even fund it with Government funding; that we at least legalize it so that millions of private dollars flow into the research on human cloning, harvesting, creating these millions of embryos in labs all around the country and supporting their development in labs all around the world-- harvesting them and destroying them, harvesting them and destroying them, harvesting them and destroying them. Then, at some point, because these are not Government-run labs, these are private sector labs, these are people who will be working--to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, let's say most people are working on some potential cures for diseases, although they may be far in the distance, but it is not inconceivable, and it is common sense to believe that at some point somebody--a scientist, a patient, a woman, a couple--is going to push the envelope, implant what is a legal clone, and then look at us or go call a press conference and say: Now what? It is a clone that has been created because we have legalized it. It is a clone. We will have legalized it, if we pass a bill that does legalize it. And then the question is, What are you going to do about it? Once a clone is implanted, what do we do if it is delivered or born healthy? That is one issue. What if it is born grossly mutilated, which is probably, based on the Dolly, the sheep, experiment and research, going to happen because 275 embryo trials were used to create Dolly, the sheep. All of them ended in death or destruction to the creature, the clone being created, and then finally a clone was successfully delivered. For us to think that this is the time--there has been only one hearing in a Senate committee on this subject, at least in recent years; perhaps there were some many years ago, but I don't think so--to move forward with a bill that would authorize human cloning is at best premature and, frankly, in my opinion, at this particular point, wholly unproven technology with tremendous ethical questions and great difficulty in trying to police what would basically be an authorized legal process of creating for the first time in America human clones. That is as simple as I can state it. There is not a difference between therapeutic cloning or nuclear transfer. There are many names for it, but it is one process. It is the same process. The issue is, should we start that process and, if so, where should we stop it. Another question is, Could you really stop it once it is started? The other reason I am suggesting a pause, a moratorium of some nature, maybe 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, enough time for us to develop a blue ribbon panel of scientists, not with preordained notions but truly a group of scientists who can help us as a nation figure out what would be, if any, benefits of human cloning, we have to realize that right now in the body of the law we are not even engaging in the full range of stem cell research that holds tremendous potential for the discovery of cures for many of these diseases. We have very limited research on stem cells going on in this country, either adult or embryonic stem cells. Why? Because we have not even come to a consensus on that. Human cloning takes us many steps past that issue. We can work on nonclones. We can work on noncloned embryos and still get a tremendous amount of benefit without the terrible ethical consideration this raises. The third issue is, if you think about it, even in a macro sense, even those of us who are not trained as doctors or scientists could understand that one issue that might compel a person, a family, a grieving parent over a fatally ill child or a spouse over another fatally ill spouse would be if the research or the benefits could not be derived from regular embryos or from stem cells on nonclones, and the only way to cure this person's particular disease would be to get something harvested from a clone. That is the rejection issue. If everything else has been exhausted, none of the other methods or procedures is working in other areas, then perhaps we would have to get tissue or research or some piece of a cell from a cloned embryo. We are so far from making that determination. I have not read one scientific study, one legitimate group of scientists anywhere, not any prize winners, not any research has been done or even theorized that that would be the only way, the rejection issue, to overcome the objections to cloning. Those of us who are urging a moratorium are not against research. We are strongly--many of us--supportive of stem cell research. But to rush headlong into a process that will for the first time legalize human cloning because there might be a slight benefit, which is totally unproven, to get over a rejection issue by using a human clone is a real stretch, and it is very premature. What I am hoping is that we can continue this debate for Members to come to the floor and speak about some of these issues at the appropriate time. We don't want to hold up other important bills. But this is a very important bill for our Nation. It will set a pace, a direction for our research. I am hoping in the next several days and weeks we can come up with a compromise on this issue that will not authorize the creation of clones but that will allow us some more time to study the benefits of human cloning, if there are any, if it can be proven, and if those benefits outweigh the grave risk, the tremendous risk associated with legalizing human cloning, and then trying to stop the implantation of the clones. I think it puts our society at a great risk, at a great disadvantage, to try to regulate something we have never tried to regulate before. The Feinstein-Kennedy approach is not a ban on human cloning; it is an exception to the ban on human cloning. It would authorize and legalize human cloning for the first time in our Nation's history. We have to be very careful before we open what could be a Pandora's box or at least get us on a slippery slope towards a system where we have actually legalized and authorized the development of human clones. If this study comes out and the research suggests the only way to find cures for this disease for this particular individual might be to explore the benefits or to explore the opportunities in a clone, maybe some ethical considerations would be outweighed if a life could be saved or if this is the only way to save a life. But we are not anywhere near that. I urge my colleagues to take a very close look at what Senator Brownback and Senator Frist and I will suggest as a compromise to get us through these next years, using our good values and our common sense and our ethics, always promoting good research and good science, but not getting ourselves in a direction where we cannot pull back and causing our population to have to deal with the birth of a first human clone. To then have to ask ourselves, why didn't we do something more to stop this and what do we do now that we have the first clone alive and in the world--we have to think about it. I hope we can come to terms with this issue. That is why I wanted to spend some time speaking about it. It is a very exciting time in science. We are exploring and inventing and discovering things people even 25 or 30 or 40 years ago thought could never possibly be. There are some wonderful things about science and discovery, but there are limits that sometimes need to be placed. We have now for the first time in human history come to terms with the fact that we can create not a plant clone, not an animal clone, but the potential to create a human clone. The question before the Congress is, Should we start that process? I am saying as simply as I can, before we start, we had better be sure of what we are going to do, when basically the line we draw is breached, as surely as it will be one day, and make sure we can draw a line and set a framework in place that minimizes the chances of a human clone being born in our lifetime or forever. I think it is definitely worth debating and worth considering. I yield back the remainder of my time. I see my colleague from the great State of Connecticut is with us. Before I yield the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have two articles by Charles Krauthammer printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I appreciate your kind words for the 8th Air Force. They are welcome at this time of need for the 8th Air Force. I have been notified that the facility repair costs for the 8th Air Force Headquarters will total $19.3 million for fiscal year 2002. I am concerned as to how this money will be made available, especially when service budgets have been stretched thin because of the war on terrorism. Will the Air Force be able to fund and begin construction in fiscal year 2002?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to engage my colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Inouye, in a colloquy on the importance of rebuilding the 8th Air Force Headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, LA. This historic building, which housed the Mighty 8th Air Force, was devastated on March 12, 2002, by a fire that burned for more than 12 hours. It is imperative that the Mighty 8th see its headquarters rebuilt as soon as possible. Over 53,000 airmen served in the Eighth Air Force, including the B-52, B-1, and B-2 crews who have provided air superiority over the skies of Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom. Additionally, key National Guard units patrolling the skies in Operation Noble Eagle also call the 8th Air Force home. I believe that it is critical to the Air Force to rebuild the 8th Air Force Headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base. The 8th Air Force is crucial to our warfighting capabilities, and it is imperative that construction begin to rebuild the 8th Air Force Headquarters immediately. I think my colleague would agree on the need.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I appreciate the patience of this body. The reason I have been tenacious about this is that this amendment affects 37 States. It is a technical correction to disability councils. The Senator from Texas and the Senator from Arizona, because of rule XXVIII, there is no way to correct this. It is a technical amendment. If it is not fixed tonight, it will not get fixed; it cannot be fixed at conference and will affect 37 States. These are not huge amounts of money, but these councils do not have a lot of money for the disability councils in 37 States. It was passed and agreed to by the managers and ranking members. Again, because of the germaneness issue, we have been left out, which is unfortunate. I thank you for your patience, but I wanted to clarify this amendment. The supplemental appropriations bill includes authorizing language that will address a technical error in the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000. The language will reestablish a hold harmless provision that was included prior to its inadvertent omission from the reauthorizing bill enacted in 2000. The bill also includes $2.5 million for this purpose. However, this additional budget authority is fully offset by a reduction in funding for NIH buildings and facilities. This amendment is needed to address the funding formula error recently identified by the Department of Health and Human Services. For the past 2 years, the Department of Health and Human Services allocated funds to states councils on developmental disabilities as if a hold harmless provision still was in effect. In fiscal year 2001, this error caused 17 councils to receive higher grant awards than allowed under the statute. Last year, 23 councils were overpaid. The additional funding provided in this amendment will hold these states harmless from reductions. Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg, the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions are supportive of this technical change. The amounts for 37 states are as follows: (1) For Alabama, $91,709. (2) For Alaska, $3,626. (3) For Arkansas, $25,849. (4) For Colorado, $36,547. (5) For Connecticut, $126,810. (6) For Delaware, $3,626. (7) For the District of Columbia, $3,626. (8) For Hawaii, $3,626. (9) For Idaho, $3,626. (10) For Illinois, $119,542. (11) For Indiana, $15,537. (12) For Iowa, $120,529. (13) For Kansas, $12,297. (14) For Kentucky, $90,248. (15) For Louisiana, $219,989. (16) For Maine, $3,626. (17) For Massachusetts, $107,858. (18) For Mississippi, $68,539. (19) For Missouri, $1,166. (20) For Montana, $3,626. (21) For Nebraska, $9,104. (22) For Nevada, $3,626. (23) For New Hampshire, $3,626. (24) For New Jersey, $2,530. (25) For New York, $631,640. (26) For North Dakota, $3,626. (27) For Ohio, $130,898. (28) For Oklahoma, $39,826. (29) For Pennsylvania, $400,847. (30) For Rhode Island, $3,626. (31) For South Dakota, $3,626. (32) For Tennessee, $27,398. (33) For Texas, $25,633. (34) For Vermont, $3,626. (35) For West Virginia, $221,412. (36) For Wisconsin, $13,861. (37) For Wyoming, $3,626.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator from Mississippi. I understand it has no objection, so I wanted to make sure it would have a chance to come up.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I understand that, just as long as we have had opportunity to consider it, is my question.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I wanted to inquire if the Senator would consider amendment No. 3581, to which I believe there is no objection. Although it may not be technically germane, I do not believe there is objection to No. 3581, to add to that list.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I need the chairman to clarify how some other costs associated with the reconstruction of the 8th Air Force Headquarters will be funded. In fiscal year 2002, an additional $3.5 million is required for clean-up costs from the fire. Furthermore, as you can imagine, the fire destroyed hundreds of computers, expensive communications equipment, and office furniture. The Air Force estimates $3.5 million will be needed in fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004 to replace this valuable equipment. How will the men and women at the 8th Air Force Headquarters see that the site is cleaned up this year and that office and communications equipment are purchased in the next two years?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Again, I thank the Chairman for his assistance and taking this time to address my concerns. The people at Barksdale Air Force Base, the people of Louisiana, and I appreciate your efforts, and I look foward to working with you on other vital issues in the future. reimbursement by the postal service of anthrax-related costs incurred by health care providers

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I have an inquiry.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I object.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I object.