Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I wish to speak on a matter of great importance to this country, keeping the soundness of Social Security--and I say to my colleague from Florida how much I appreciate the great leadership that he has given to the Nation in the last several weeks as he has led the effort to try to honor the senior citizens of this country with a prescription drug benefit that would modernize Medicare to provide for what senior citizens ought to have in the year 2002. It has been my privilege and pleasure to support him in his efforts. It is beyond me why we could not get the 60 votes. Some of the misinformation that was distributed, as the senior Senator from Florida has explained, is part of the reason. Part of the reason I happen to think has something to do with partisan politics as well, unfortunately, during an election year. I want him to know my profound appreciation for him as a colleague, as a friend, and as a leader for this Nation in offering a needed change to Medicare for a prescription drug benefit.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I will summarize my remarks because Senator Graham and I have pretty well covered it in the discussion we had, that one only has to look back a couple of years. The Nasdaq has fallen by 75 percent, and the broader S&P has dropped more than 40 percent, and given this market downturn, as we say in the South, it is beyond me, I am surprised that the Bush administration is sticking by its proposal to allow workers to divert some of their Social Security into private accounts of the stock market instead of there being a defined benefit that would give the Social Security retiree the security, the knowledge, the confidence that when their retirement years came, they knew they had a certain amount they could rely on, even though most retirees are going to have to supplement that Social Security benefit, but at least they would know that benefit was there and was not going to evaporate if, in fact, the Social Security privatized account was invested in stocks that had suddenly taken a turn going down. That is the essence of what I wanted to share. I will be speaking frequently on this matter when we resume in September, because this issue has had scant attention--an article here, an article there, about how the Bush White House is so intent that it wants to privatize these accounts. Clearly, if the times had not been of the economic downturn and the suffering that so many people have had in the stock market, perhaps they would have been lulled into a false sense of security. But with the stock market doing what it has done--a reflection, by the way, of the corporate scandals that have come to light and therefore a lessening of the confidence of the investing public of America in those corporations--if that had not come, the governmental decision process might have been seduced into going for this privatized part of Social Security. Clearly, that is not, in my judgment, in the best interest of our senior citizens. That is what I wanted to share tonight. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am here to support my colleague from Florida and to thank him for his leadership, which has been bipartisan in nature. It reflects the bipartisan yearning and desire of the people of this country, and particularly of our State. Most people understand that Florida has a higher percentage of those over age 65 than the rest of the country. That is true. But wherever you are, age 65 and older, there are seniors who are facing choices in the year 2002 that seniors should not have to face. The choice that many seniors have to face is: Do I buy groceries or do I buy medicine? It is unimaginable to me that in this land of plenty, in this time of abundance, in this land of beneficence, in this land of great generosity, that we have among us, the generation that we owe so much to, our seniors, the generation that has built the strong economy upon which all now enjoy, the generation that has reestablished and secured the freedoms with which each of us participate in each day and sometimes takes for granted, it is unimaginable to me in the year 2002 that of that great generation there are those who would have to make a choice--because they cannot afford it--between buying groceries to eat and the medicine they need on a daily basis. Why are we trying to do what we are trying to do? It is because Medicare was set up 37 years ago when health care was centered around acute care in hospitals. If Medicare had not been set up in 1965, but instead, if we were designing a system which would take care of senior citizens by designing a health insurance plan funded by the Federal Government for senior citizens, would we include prescription drugs? The answer is, obviously, yes, because prescription drugs are so much a part of our health care today, so much a part of our quality of life, so much a part of the miracles of modern medicine that give us a greater quality of life. So if that is how we would design it, and yet it was designed 37 years ago, should we not modernize that system? The answer to that is, obviously, yes. Then it comes to a question of cost. And if the cost is such that we cannot get through this Senate because we have to operate with 60 out of 100 votes in order to pass anything, and we got to 52 votes with Senator Graham's and Senator Miller's amendment--that was a much more comprehensive plan than trying to find a plan that we can fashion, that we can get 60 votes to get it through this Chamber, this is what we have come up with. Some would say it has two prongs, but it really has three. There is the one that would take care of the most poor; i.e., it would take care of those up to 200 percent of the poverty level. They would have a fully funded Medicare prescription drug benefit. It would also take care of those the most sick. It would take care of the most poor and the most sick, the most sick being those stricken by a catastrophe, who have to spend a lot of money out of pocket. When they get to a certain level, a level in excess of $3,000 out of pocket, the Federal Government is going to take care of that, and, indeed, you are going to be able to buy that protection for $25 a year. That is called catastrophic coverage, and that is a pretty good deal. There is a third element, or prong, to this amendment. Those who would detract from this amendment would say it doesn't take care of the middle class. It certainly doesn't take care of the middle class as much as the original amendment offered by Senators Graham and Miller, but of course that costs a lot of money. What does this do for the middle class besides the catastrophic coverage for $25? It has a system in place that will have discounts up to 30 percent of the cost of those drugs, through a system designed to use bulk buying, plus an additional 5-percent reduction by virtue of a Federal subsidy. So it takes care of the most needy--that is, the poorest--by taking care of those with incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty level. It takes care of the most sick--when we have a catastrophic illness--for $25 a year, for anything out of pocket over something just in excess of $3,000 per year it takes care of that. And for everybody else it clearly reduces the price, up to 30 percent plus another 5-percent subsidy. That is not everything we want. That is not a total across-the-board prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But it is clearly a step in the right direction so we go about doing what we need to be doing: Modernizing Medicare that was set up 37 years ago. That is why I rise to add my voice to the support for this amendment and encourage its adoption. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I support the nomination of Julia Smith Gibbons and would have voted aye to confirm her nomination to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized at the appropriate time.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Might I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the amendment. I want the Senator from Nebraska to know of my personal affection and respect for him. There are certain people in a body to whom you just naturally gravitate and you naturally like, and he is certainly one of them. I rise in opposition, not because he does not have an excellent, substantive proposal, but I would offer my objection as has been articulated by the AARP today in a letter to Senator Hagel in which they state: In addition to our substantive objections, we are concerned that by offering this scaled-back proposal today, you would effectively derail bipartisan discussion and compromise on more meaningful comprehensive approaches. That is what I want to discuss today. What this Nation is begging for is a comprehensive approach, not a piecemeal approach. What the senior citizens of this Nation are yearning for is that we modernize Medicare to provide a prescription drug benefit. If any of us were designing a Medicare system, which is a health insurance system for senior citizens, funded by the Federal Government, if we were devising it today in the year 2002 instead of the year 1965, when it was enacted, would we include prescription drug benefits? The answer to that is, obviously, yes. Medicare was set up in 1965 when the condition of health care was centered around acute care in hospitals. But with the miracles of modern medicine, with the advent of prescription drugs that can increase the quality of our lives, that can take care of chronic ailments and that, indeed, add to what we would say, in the street vernacular, is preventive maintenance, then, clearly, if we were designing a health insurance system funded by the Federal Government for senior citizens today it would clearly include prescription drugs. That is the question that is before this body. But because of the rules of the Senate, we have to get 60 votes in order to pass anything here which, with competing plans, makes it very difficult. Although I think the Senator from Nebraska has some excellent ideas, it is injected in this debate at the wrong time because in the words of the AARP, as articulated in their letter today: We are concerned that by offering this scaled-back proposal today, you would effectively derail bipartisan discussion and compromise on more meaningful, comprehensive approaches. We have to keep trying. We have just been unable to get the 60 votes on two different substantive approaches to prescription drugs in the votes that occurred earlier today. We have to keep trying to forge a compromise. The compromise is not this scaled-down version. I wish to speak about the substantive alternatives that are here. One of the alternatives, as suggested by what has been voted out of the other body, the House of Representatives, utilizes the private sector and private sector insurance companies in which they offer the prescription drug benefit. I had a little bit of experience as the elected insurance commissioner of Florida for 6 years before coming here. I point out that you can get some glimpse of the enthusiasm of insurance companies to offer this prescription drug benefit if you look to the States. For example, 4 years ago, the State of Nevada passed a prescription drug benefit. It was to be offered by private insurance companies. Within 2 years after the passage of that law, not one insurance company had come forth to offer that prescription drug benefit. On the basis of that experience, that is certainly not what we want to be offering to senior citizens of our country on something that is so important to them, a benefit that would be illusory, that would not be there. That is why we ought, in whatever compromise we strike, to come closer to the Graham-Miller approach, which is a substantial reworking of Medicare, and the prescription drug benefit becomes a part of Medicare. Then it is my hope, once we can find that illusive consensus, we can go on and add additional improvements. The health care providers of this country are hurting because they are not getting reimbursed for their Medicare procedures at a rate that is commensurate with what they should be reimbursed. One of the items we are going to discuss--and hopefully we would be able to take this base bill and amend it--is an increase of those Medicare reimbursements so that we are taking care of the Medicare beneficiaries, the senior citizens, and we are also helping those who are providing the services, the health care providers, by increasing their Medicare reimbursement. When we do that, I hope we will also look at some of the practices that because doctors are getting squeezed, in large part squeezed by insurance companies, sometimes regular insurance companies, some called HMOs, which are insurance companies, and because doctors are getting squeezed, they are trying to find ways to keep their income up. Lo and behold, down in my State of Florida, there is a group of doctors now saying to all of their patients: We are not going to see you anymore unless you pay us an entrance fee of $1,500 per patient per year. But by the way, we still want to take your Medicare reimbursement. That is simply the beginning of the end for Medicare, because the logical extension of that is that only those who are wealthy enough to afford that entrance fee--in the case of Florida, $3,000 per year per couple--are going to get the access to the doctor they want, that doctor who is being reimbursed by the Federal Government for the services performed for those senior citizens. That is wrong. It should be changed. It ought to be illegal and yet the Department of HHS has said it is not illegal. So we are going to have to change the law so that a doctor cannot receive reimbursement from Medicare if they are saying to those patients: I will not see you unless you pay me $1,500 a year as an entrance fee into concierge care. I hope we strike the major compromise, that it is closer to the Graham-Miller bill, that we address Medicare reimbursements because the doctors and other health care providers need it, and that we add the amendment I just talked about which would prevent doctors from limiting patients to seeing them unless they pay an entrance fee while at the same time getting their Medicare reimbursement. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I am delighted to join my colleague from Michigan, who has given such tremendous leadership on this issue. It is very important that in the next couple of weeks, before we break for the August recess--and my colleague from Michigan will certainly agree with this--that we in the Senate pass a prescription drug benefit. The problem is, under Senate rules, we do not have the opportunity to pass something unless we get 60 votes. It is not the typical majority plus one, otherwise 51 votes, but under the rules of the Senate, we have to get an extraordinary majority of 60 votes to prevent a filibuster in a parliamentary procedure that is known as a cloture motion, to cut off debate. That takes 60 votes. Therefore, on one particular plan that is proposed for a prescription drug benefit, it makes it extra difficult for us to get those extra votes because out of every plan, there is going to be something in the plan with which somebody disagrees. I wish to talk about one of those plans and talk about the reason why it is so important for us to modernize Medicare. If we were designing a health insurance system for senior citizens today, would we design it to include prescription drugs? The obvious answer to that question is yes, because every day lives are benefited by virtue of an increased quality of life, an enhanced quality of life, enhanced health with the miracles of modern medicine that we know as prescription drugs. But Medicare, the health insurance system for senior citizens, was not designed today. It was designed 37 years ago. In 1965, when state-of-the-art health care was centered around the hospital and acute care, the health care system, supported by the Federal Government, for senior citizens did not include prescription drugs unless they were attendant to the care of someone who was in the hospital. Thirty-seven years later, we must update that health insurance system for senior citizens. I want to give an example. There is a lady in my constituency in Parrish, FL. Obviously, her name shall remain confidential, but for these purposes, I will refer to her as Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith is 69 years old and she suffers from a variety of medical conditions, including a painful muscle disorder. Because the cost of her prescription drugs is not covered by Medicare, on a monthly basis, her out-of-pocket expenditures are over $300 just for prescription drugs. Let's look at her financial condition. She lives alone. She has no family members to help her. Sons and daughters often help their moms and dads, but Mrs. Smith does not have immediate family members to help her with her daily cost of living, including those costs of over $300 a month for prescription drugs. What does she receive from Social Security? This is the only income she has--a $1,030 per month benefit from Social Security. Of that $300 that she has to take out of that $1,000 Social Security payment, she has some big expenses. She has a drug called Neurontin. It is at a cost of 125 bucks a month. She has a drug called Ultram. It is at a cost of 150 bucks a month. She cannot afford, out of her Social Security benefits, to take the daily dosage of those drugs that her doctor has prescribed for her painful muscle disorder. What does it come down to? It comes down to groceries or prescriptions. Can you imagine that in America in the year 2002 we have senior citizens all across this land who are having to make a choice between whether they are going to eat or whether they are going to get their medicine, as in the case of Mrs. Smith in Parrish, FL? I cannot imagine it, but it is happening, and that is what brings us to the Senate Chamber now as we take up this prescription drug bill. Mrs. Smith is obviously frustrated that in her golden years she has enormous anxiety because of the high cost of the prescriptions. Under one version of the prescription drug bill, the version that I am a cosponsor of with my colleague from Florida, Bob Graham, Mrs. Smith would only have to pay $25 a month premium for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. If she chose to have a brand name prescription, she would pay a copay of $40, but if she wanted a generic prescription, Ultram-- that drug that I mentioned she takes at 150 bucks a month--it does have a generic alternative so she would only have to pay $10 for the prescription for the generic. That coverage for Mrs. Smith would begin upon enrollment, and Mrs. Smith would not be subject to any initial deductible, as is the case in the legislation that passed in the House. It is another personal example, a real-life example, of why we ought to have a prescription drug benefit enacted to modernize Medicare.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise to day in support of the Graham-Nelson bill to de-authorize the dredging of the Apalachicola River. The time has come to end the dredging of the Apalachicola river in north Florida. The detriments far outweigh the benefits of this expensive Army Corps of Engineers river project. The barge traffic is negligible; and the environmental and economic impact to the area surrounding this river are harmful. Since 1998, fewer than 140 barges have used the Florida portion of the Apalachicola River. And of the barge traffic that does navigate this waterway, most is confined to a 6 mile long stretch of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint ACF River System for the transport of sand and gravel, the principal commodity shipped on the system. The dredging to keep this small amount of barge traffic going has resulted in sand mountains that have destroyed one-quarter of the banks of the Apalachicola River and choked sloughs cutting off water supply to surrounding habitat. In addition, the releases of large quantities of water to allow barge traffic to navigate the river disrupts the spawning behavior of three endangered species: the Gulf Sturgeon, the Fat Three-Ridge and the Purple Bank Climber. Another concern is the effect of pulses of this fresh water on the balance of salt and fresh water in Apalachicola Bay. The Apalachicola Bay is the largest oyster harvesting area in the Gulf of Mexico and one of the principal nurseries for Gulf Shrimp and blue crabs. Commercial fishing operations along the Gulf coast rely heavily on the Bay for their continued prosperity. The fresh water influxes threaten this important industry. For these reasons, this project must end. I urge my colleagues support for this important piece of legislation.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator's timing is just uncanny. We need look back no further than to yesterday when the stock market dropped almost 300 points, all the way down close to 8,800, the stock market being a reflection of the confidence of the American people in their investments in public corporations. Lo and behold, that confidence is sinking, and the American people need some greater sense of confidence that, indeed, they will not be hoodwinked, that they will not be fooled by greedy corporate executives or greedy auditors who blur the lines on what their auditing duties ought to be and instead get in bed with those who would mismanage the finances of a corporation. The people of America who invest their hard-earned dollars ought to have the confidence that when they see the financial reports, those financial reports are accurate. That confidence is not there, and we saw it yesterday in the reaction of the people in their purchases and sales in the stock market. I thank the Senator from Michigan for his timeliness in trying to put some teeth in the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to give greater confidence to the Joe and Jane Citizen of America who invest their money because they want to invest in the future of their country and they need to do it and know they are getting accurate figures. I thank the Senator.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is unconscionable. One of those we had testify in our Commerce Committee was Janice Farmer, an Enron retiree who lost her entire life savings that she had built up in a retirement plan from Enron. In her case, it was $700,000. She has nothing now. And then, I suppose it also would not surprise the distinguished Senator that, while we are talking about these excesses of corporate irresponsibility and corporate greed, the Florida pension fund for the Florida retirement system had a loss of $335 million--more losses than any other State--from Enron stock purchases, and that the money managers of that Florida pension fund, which covers all of the public sector retirees in Florida--the money managers kept buying Enron stock, based on the assertions from the company's management that everything was OK, that doesn't surprise us either, does it?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I know it would not surprise the Senator, but I will ask him this anyway. After what went on with Enron last summer, while Enron executives were selling their shares for hundreds of millions of dollars and protecting their portfolios, their retirees and employees lost more than a billion dollars in retirement savings. Does that surprise the Senator?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I doubt that it would surprise the Senator that one of those executives, by the way, was putting the finishing touches on a $15 million mansion, derived from that money from WorldCom. Would it surprise the Senator that late last year Global Crossing laid off 1,200 people, giving them no severance package, while the CEO of that company walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am proud to be here today with my colleague from Michigan to offer these reforms aimed at preventing and punishing perpetrators of corporate fraud. The questions I wanted to ask the very distinguished Senator from Michigan, who has the foresight of why we need this at this particular time, are these: Would it not intrigue the Senator from Michigan and other Senators here that all of this is happening in an environment when 17,000 workers at WorldCom have received pink slips and have realized losses of over a billion dollars in their retirement plans; and at the same time they were receiving pink slips, the corporate executives were attending a retreat in Hawaii? That would not surprise the Senator, would it?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The management said everything was OK, but it was not OK. While the stock was dropping like a rock, but not before the company's management had unloaded their shares, the money managers were buying that stock as it dropped like a rock, and it caused to a dozen or so pension funds, retirement systems, public pension funds in this country over a billion dollars in losses. My State had the most losses of $335 million. So we have seen in the last year and a half corporate abuses of monumental proportions, and it is time for us to stop it. I am grateful to the Senator from Michigan for his leadership in bringing forth the amendment that he has described, which is basically going to give some additional teeth to the Securities and Exchange Commission to cause disclosure and to cause some hurt when these corporate managers, motivated and operated by greed, cross the line. I thank the Senator for his leadership.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The distinguished Senator from Michigan has laid out how this amendment will give stronger enforcement measures to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We have a saying in the South: It is beyond me. It is beyond me why there are other people in this Chamber, when confronted with such corporate and auditor misconduct, would not want to strengthen the law to prevent and punish such corporate abuse. Does the senior Senator from Michigan have any idea why people would oppose us trying to strengthen existing law and, indeed, strengthen the underlying bill?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, it is my understanding that what has happened here is that our friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Michigan, has asked for unanimous consent, earlier, and it was denied by the senior Senator from Texas, in order to proceed with the offering of an amendment that would considerably strengthen the underlying bill that we have under consideration. It is with a heavy heart that I saw the parliamentary tactics-- clearly within any Senator's opportunity to utilize--to delay a piece of legislation that would address the issue before us that is resonating in the hearts of every American, that being the subject of corporate greed. Indeed, what we have seen is that which is obviously resonating because I am told the stock market has gone down almost 300 points today, down to a range of about 8,800. You would think folks would realize that the stock market is a reflection of the confidence of the American people, not only in the economy but in a lot of the engines that drive the economy. Most of the great corporate structures are very solid financially as well as ethically, but having seen some of the lapses in ethical judgment have led to some of the exposes that we have seen over the course of the last months, I am rather surprised to see these parliamentary delaying tactics by folks from the other side of the aisle when in fact what the American people would like to know is that their Representatives in the U.S. Congress are responding with very tough laws enacted to address the problems of corporate greed. We can talk about the Enrons. We can talk about the WorldComs. We can talk about whatever. Lord knows what is going to be next. But that is why Senator Levin and I will be coming to the floor after being denied, tonight, the opportunity to offer an amendment that will strengthen the underlying bill. We will come to offer reforms aimed at preventing corporate fraud and punishing its perpetrators. The senior Senator from Michigan, as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, lends an expertise to this body in matters of defense. He has a perspective that, to keep America strong from a military standpoint, we have to be economically strong and we have to be morally strong. So that is getting right to the heart of what we are doing, trying to enact a law preventing the perpetrating of corporate fraud or then seeing that the perpetrators are punished. There were at WorldCom 17,000 workers who received pink slips. While it was realizing $1.1 billion in losses in the retirement funds of those employees, and while those 17,000 employees were getting those pink slips, the corporate executives were attending a retreat in Hawaii. One of them was putting the finishing touches on a new $15 million mansion. I am not absolutely sure, but I think that person is one and the same person whose $15 million mansion is in my State. Then late last year, Global Crossing laid off 1,200 people, giving them no severance package, while the CEO there walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is there something wrong with this picture? Yes, there is. And the American people are feeling it. Part of that is what we are seeing resonating in the plunge of America's stock markets. So last summer, while Enron executives were selling their shares for hundreds of millions of dollars and protecting their portfolios, their employees and their retirees lost more than $1.2 billion in retirement savings. Sadly, that includes Janice Farmer, a former Enron employee who is now a retiree. She lives in Orlando. Janice Farmer lost her whole savings--$700,000--in her retirement plan with Enron. Then, if you will recall, the pension fund of the State of Florida lost $335 million--more losses than any other State--from Enron stock purchases. When we had a hearing in the Commerce Committee with the managers of Florida's pension fund, which covers all of our public employees in Florida, the testimony came out that the money managers of that fund were buying Enron shares based on the management's and the company's assertions that everything was OK. But it wasn't. The stock was dropping like a rock, but, oh, by the way, not before company executives had unloaded their shares. In the last 18 months alone, we have seen corporate abuses of monumental proportions. People have had it. Their representatives in Congress, I hope, have had it. I can tell you I have had it. So has my colleague, Senator Levin. Eventually, after we have to go through all the parliamentary rankling, we will be allowed to offer our amendment. We must act now to protect taxpayers and employees and investors. We must prevent huge losses for public institutional investors. Now we are looking sadly as thousands of layoffs, earnings and restatements by more than 300 companies with billions of dollars lost by ordinary people. The victims are the ones demanding the reforms that we are talking about today. Unfortunately, because of the objections rendered by that side of the aisle, we are not able to take that up today. Those victims and the American people who believe in a strong economy want us to act strongly and swiftly to punish such corporate abuse and to prevent corporate abuse. That is why Senator Levin and I want to introduce stronger enforcement measures. We have a package of three amendments. They complement the Sarbanes bill by streamlining and strengthening procedures to punish corporate and auditor misconduct. There is a glaring shortcoming of our current statutes. The Securities and Exchange Commission is essentially powerless today, even after conducting an investigation and even after finding wrongdoing. What the SEC needs is more enforcement authority. The amendments that Senator Levin and I are offering will strengthen civil penalties and provide for more enforcement authority over corporate misconduct. And it will do it in several ways. First, these amendments will grant the SEC administrative authority to ban unfit officers and directors from publicly traded corporations. And the SEC will be able to do so without having to go through the lengthy court proceedings in advance that makes it so difficult under the present law to get anything done. Their decisions, however, will be subject to judicial review so that we have the checks and balances. Yesterday, the President gave a speech on Wall Street. He echoed the idea that unscrupulous officers and directors should not be able to serve in that capacity again. But he offered nothing to enforce that principle. I hope the President will realize that he was a day late and a dollar short--that his proposal did not have the strength and the backbone behind it. What we offer here will allow the SEC to have the authority to remove crooked executives. This amendment also will increase the maximum civil fines that the SEC can impose on violators of securities laws and increase those by manyfold. Future fines against crooked executives would range from $100,000 up to $2 million. Right now some of the fines are only $6,500. When you are dealing with white-collar crime, you have to hit the criminals where it hurts--in the pocketbook. Our amendment also broadens the authority of the SEC to impose fines on companies, officers, directors, auditors, and lawyers. Currently, the Commission can only impose fines on narrow categories of regulated individuals, such as brokers and dealers. But this amendment would allow the SEC to cast the net wider and go after a broad range of bad actors who engage in fraudulent conduct. Earlier this year, Senator Carnahan and I introduced legislation advocating that the SEC take a tough enforcement approach, including criminal prosecutions whenever necessary. We also sought to end the cozy relationships among company executives, auditors, and directors, money managers, analysts, lawyers, and others who create this incestuous kind of relationship that does nothing but undermine the confidence of the American people in the corporate structure of this country. Senator Levin and I are glad to see that a consensus is coming to embrace this approach, and if the other side of the aisle will ever let us bring this to a vote, it will be widely accepted in this body. The recent Enrons, WorldComs, and other financial tragedies have demonstrated that white-collar crimes can be incredibly damaging-- robbing hard-working Americans of their jobs, their savings, and their retirements. There is simply no justification for handling corporate wrongdoers with kid gloves. Earlier today Senator Leahy pointed out that if you defraud the public you must go to jail. I came over here hoping that I could give a speech to support Senator Levin before we adopted this amendment. But I guess it is going to be Friday, or if they drag us on, I guess it will be Monday, or Tuesday. But we will pass this amendment, and we will pass this bill. It is a reflection of the will of the American people to keep our country strong and to keep our country free. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is an amendment that has already been adopted.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wanted to again thank the leadership of our Armed Services Committee, the distinguished Senators from Michigan and Virginia, respectively, the chairman and ranking member of our committee, for the acceptance last evening of an amendment I had offered that was cosponsored by a number of Senators, including several on our Armed Services Committee, concerning a requirement that the Department of Defense will do an investigation and will report to the Congress on a regular basis about the biological and chemical testing that may have put some of our service men and women and, indeed, some civilians in harm's way. Certainly, that wasn't the original intent when these tests were conducted back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. But, indeed, that has been the upshot of what we now find out, in some cases, 30, 40 years later--even a half century later--that there may have been exposure that is causing our veterans to now need to know what the whole truth is in order to fix the past mistakes where veterans have been exposed to toxic substances, particularly from this chemical and biological testing, and to get full disclosure of this testing because it has been classified over the past number of decades. The veterans of this country certainly have a right to know, particularly with regard to getting them to come in and get the health care they need if, in fact, the health care is required. Now, that is a general statement. Let me kind of flush it out with some specifics. In the sixties and the seventies, ships of ours in the Pacific were gassed with biological and chemical substances and, in some cases, simulants or simulations of those substances. That was a program under the acronym of SHAD, Shipboard Hazard and Defense. It was ostensibly to test those ships' ability to react and protect themselves if an enemy came out and suddenly tried to put these biological or chemical agents on our ships in order to immobilize and to kill our Navy. In some cases, we were told these were not the actual materials, such as nerve gas, but that it was a simulant of nerve gas. Years later, decades later, we are finding that these simulants that were used are having an effect on the people who were sprayed; and, indeed, there actually may have been some exposure to the actual chemical and biological agents instead of just the simulants. There were 113 of these tests. Only 6 have been declassified. Of those 6, a population of 4,300 veterans have been identified to be contacted and, to date, only 622 have been written to when the Department of Defense declassified it, gave it to the Veterans' Administration. They wrote the letters and said: If you are having any effects, come into the veterans medical facility. Of those 622, a good number of them were in Florida, which is how I first started hearing about this. Senator Cleland will have hearings this fall on this very same issue, but what we are going to look into in this amendment, just attached last night to DOD, is the shipboard gassing in the sixties and seventies. What Senator Cleland's committee is going to look into is the overall testing because, lo and behold, I started getting all of these ruminations coming out of Florida about some mysterious tests that were conducted in the fifties at the old Boca Raton Airfield, an old World War II airfield, and an 85-acre parcel to the north that apparently is still undeveloped. But guess what has grown up around it. Florida Atlantic University, one of our major universities, was built on this site. The Boca Raton Airport, one of the major general aviation airports in Florida, is right there. When I requested this information from the DOD back in February, as the junior Senator from Florida, DOD wrote back and said it is classified. Well, thank goodness that Senator Levin, our chairman, has tasked Senator Cleland, our Personnel Subcommittee chairman, to get into this because our committee is clearly capable of handling classified information. So I want the leadership to know how much I appreciate them doing this so the veterans will have full disclosure--were they in harm's way?--now that we are just finding out three and four decades later, certainly incited by these letters that, as we speak, are being mailed out to these veterans all over the country. Thanks to the chairman and the ranking member, they accepted this amendment, which will be etched into law in our DOD authorization bill. Then, as we pursue the larger bill, including all the tests, other than just SHAD, Senator Cleland's subcommittee will get into this investigation. It is my understanding that Senator Rockefeller, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, is also interested in having hearings on this very same subject. I am so grateful to the leadership of this body, on behalf of the veterans of Florida in my case, and on behalf of the veterans of this country, to find out what happened--to peel back the onion and see what really happened--and if there is a problem, we can get these veterans into the medical facilities. I thank the chairman for making this possible. I thank the distinguished assistant majority leader for giving me this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. If the Senator will yield, Senator Levin has just come into the Chamber.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Indeed, under our constitutional system--that is part of what I wanted to point out, and I pointed out to the Senate earlier today--we have a mechanism of checks and balances. The check and balance here is the right of appeal from this court of appeals in San Francisco to the U.S. Supreme Court. I have the confidence that the Supreme Court's nine Justices representing the entire Nation would understand the difference between separation of church and state as being the difference between the separation of the state and God. As I was saying, the dignity of this institution is started off each day under the watchful words inscribed in gold above the center door, ``In God We Trust,'' with an opening ceremony in which the position of the Chaplain is actually elevated above the Presiding Officer until the Chaplain delivers the opening prayer which opens the business of the Senate. Furthermore, I point out to our colleagues that as part of our constitutional heritage--including the Constitution--one of the most important documents in our governmental archives is the Declaration of Independence. I call to the attention of the Senate the words of the second paragraph: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Then I point out that there are similar words at the end of the Declaration: And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. I have the confidence to know that when there is a judicial opinion that I think so violates the national understanding and national sense of the proper perspective of a state and divine providence as opposed to the issue that we all support, the separation of church and state so that anyone can worship as they wish if at all, then I think that distinction needs to be clearly made as well as it needs to be reminded of all of the historical significance of our reliance upon divine providence that is a part of the very fabric of this Nation, of this Government, and of the documents upon which this Government was founded. I see the great Senator from Connecticut standing and I am anxious to hear what he has to say. Should all else fail, even in a judicial interpretation, there is another check and balance given to us by this document; that is, the will of this Nation can be expressed by the amending or an addition to this document, the Constitution. We can start right here in this legislative body by the process of adding to the Constitution, amending the Constitution by the legislative branch's initiative of proposing a constitutional amendment. I have great confidence in the system--that this judicial decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is not going to stand. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, a few minutes ago, late- breaking news was called to our attention. As a matter of fact, it was while we were debating the Scott Speicher amendment, which was adopted unanimously on this Defense authorization bill. Sadly, I have confirmed that that news is accurate. A Reuters statement says: A Federal appeals court found the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional on Wednesday, saying it was illegal to ask U.S. schoolchildren to vow fealty to one Nation under God. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a 1954 act of Congress that added ``under God'' to the pledge, saying the words violated the basic constitutional tenet of separation of church and state. It is with a heavy heart that I would have to take the floor--I imagine I am just the first of many--to call to the attention of the Senate, and indeed to call to the attention of the courts, that I think there is substantial legal justification. There is a huge difference between separation of church and state--which we all support--and the separation of the state and of God. There is a huge difference. The opening ceremony of the U.S. Senate each morning that we go into session is a very solemn occasion. Overlooking this Chamber are the words inscribed in gold, above the middle entrance into this Chamber, above the two stately columns--inscribed in gold: ``In God We Trust.'' The opening ceremony, for those who have not participated in it, is a most solemn occasion about which the historian of this Chamber, one of our own, the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia--who has been in Congress, if not over a half a century, certainly close to it, Senator Byrd--has taken it upon himself to educate the freshman Senators as to the dignity, the decorum, and the solemnity of the opening ceremony. When the opening bells ring and those two doors to the left of the rostrum open, in walks the Presiding Officer accompanied by the Senate Chaplain or the especially designated Chaplain for the day. As the Presiding Officer walks in and starts to mount the rostrum, the Presiding Officer steps up three of the four steps but does not ascend on the fourth step, which is the level of the Presiding Officer's desk and chair. Rather, the Presiding Officer remains on the third step as the Chaplain ascends to the higher level, the level of the rostrum. This is the symbolic act. It is a symbolic act of raising the dignity of the position of the Chaplain of the Senate, or the designated Chaplain of the Senate for the day, recognizing and elevating the deity, or the representative of divine providence to that position. We do that each day in the Senate.