Jack Reed

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I introduce the Liquefied Natural Gas Safety and Security Act of 2005. The siting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals is an issue that has taken on critical importance for me and for the people of Rhode Island in recent months, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now considering proposals by KeySpan Energy and Weaver's Cove Energy to establish LNG marine terminals in Providence, RI and Fall River, MA, respectively. I recognize that natural gas is an important and growing component of New England's and the Nation's energy supply, and that imported LNG offers a promising new supply source to complement our domestic natural gas supplies. In a post-September 11 world, however, we must consider the substantial safety and security risks associated with siting LNG marine terminals in urban communities and requiring LNG tankers to pass within close proximity to miles of densely populated coastline. The LNG Safety and Security Act would address these concerns by improving FERC's siting process, requiring closer collaboration between FERC and the Coast Guard, and protecting States' permitting rights under Federal and State law. First, the bill would improve FERC's approval process for LNG terminals. Instead of reviewing proposed LNG projects on a first come- first served basis, the bill would require FERC to work with states and the Coast Guard to pursue a regional approach to LNG terminal siting, including a review of offshore and remote sites and a determination of how many LNG terminals a region needs. To address the substantial new costs faced by state and local agencies responsible for security and safety at the LNG terminal and along shipping routes, the bill would require the developer to create a cost-sharing plan describing direct cost reimbursements to these agencies. To make sure that FERC addresses all relevant safety and security issues in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for an LNG terminal--and that the public has access to this information before FERC makes a final decision--the bill requires FERC to await the completion of an Incident Action Plan by the Coast Guard before issuing a Final EIS. It would require FERC to incorporate the non-security sensitive components of the Incident Action Plan into the Final EIS, including all safety and security resource requirements identified by the Coast Guard. Second, to ensure that States continue to have the authority to establish meaningful safety and security standards and to protect their fragile coastal environments, the bill requires FERC to comply with Federal laws that may be enforced by States, including the National Historic Preservation Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act; clarifies the right of a State to review an application to site an LNG facility under any of these laws; and establishes that FERC has no authority to preempt a State permitting determination under federal or state law. Third, to ensure that the Department of Transportation's safety standards for LNG terminals truly encourage remote siting as Congress intended, the bill requires the Secretary of Transportation to issue new regulations establishing standards to promote the remote siting of LNG terminals. Finally, to protect coastal communities along LNG shipping routes, the bill requires the Coast Guard to issue regulations establishing thermal and vapor exclusion zones for vessels transporting LNG, based on existing DOT regulations for LNG terminals on land. I again want to emphasize that I recognize LNG's important role in the energy infrastructure of Rhode Island and the Nation, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure reliable supplies of natural gas to our homes and businesses without siting LNG import terminals in densely populated urban areas. I am confident that we can achieve this goal by requiring FERC and other federal agencies to explore a broad list of alternatives--including offshore LNG facilities--to bring more natural gas to our communities while minimizing the risk to our citizens. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I introduce the Liquefied Natural Gas Safety and Security Act of 2005. The siting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals is an issue that has taken on critical importance for me and for the people of Rhode Island in recent months, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now considering proposals by KeySpan Energy and Weaver's Cove Energy to establish LNG marine terminals in Providence, RI and Fall River, MA, respectively. I recognize that natural gas is an important and growing component of New England's and the Nation's energy supply, and that imported LNG offers a promising new supply source to complement our domestic natural gas supplies. In a post-September 11 world, however, we must consider the substantial safety and security risks associated with siting LNG marine terminals in urban communities and requiring LNG tankers to pass within close proximity to miles of densely populated coastline. The LNG Safety and Security Act would address these concerns by improving FERC's siting process, requiring closer collaboration between FERC and the Coast Guard, and protecting States' permitting rights under Federal and State law. First, the bill would improve FERC's approval process for LNG terminals. Instead of reviewing proposed LNG projects on a first come- first served basis, the bill would require FERC to work with states and the Coast Guard to pursue a regional approach to LNG terminal siting, including a review of offshore and remote sites and a determination of how many LNG terminals a region needs. To address the substantial new costs faced by state and local agencies responsible for security and safety at the LNG terminal and along shipping routes, the bill would require the developer to create a cost-sharing plan describing direct cost reimbursements to these agencies. To make sure that FERC addresses all relevant safety and security issues in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for an LNG terminal--and that the public has access to this information before FERC makes a final decision--the bill requires FERC to await the completion of an Incident Action Plan by the Coast Guard before issuing a Final EIS. It would require FERC to incorporate the non-security sensitive components of the Incident Action Plan into the Final EIS, including all safety and security resource requirements identified by the Coast Guard. Second, to ensure that States continue to have the authority to establish meaningful safety and security standards and to protect their fragile coastal environments, the bill requires FERC to comply with Federal laws that may be enforced by States, including the National Historic Preservation Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act; clarifies the right of a State to review an application to site an LNG facility under any of these laws; and establishes that FERC has no authority to preempt a State permitting determination under federal or state law. Third, to ensure that the Department of Transportation's safety standards for LNG terminals truly encourage remote siting as Congress intended, the bill requires the Secretary of Transportation to issue new regulations establishing standards to promote the remote siting of LNG terminals. Finally, to protect coastal communities along LNG shipping routes, the bill requires the Coast Guard to issue regulations establishing thermal and vapor exclusion zones for vessels transporting LNG, based on existing DOT regulations for LNG terminals on land. I again want to emphasize that I recognize LNG's important role in the energy infrastructure of Rhode Island and the Nation, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure reliable supplies of natural gas to our homes and businesses without siting LNG import terminals in densely populated urban areas. I am confident that we can achieve this goal by requiring FERC and other federal agencies to explore a broad list of alternatives--including offshore LNG facilities--to bring more natural gas to our communities while minimizing the risk to our citizens. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Kennedy's amendment to the, fiscal year 2006 budget resolution. This amendment would ensure the necessary investment in education to secure our Nation's continued prosperity. This amendment would focus on three areas critical to boosting educational opportunity and our economy. First, it would make college more affordable and accessible. The amendment would raise the maximum Pell grant by $450, to $4,500, a long overdue and necessary increase for millions of students who struggle to keep up with ever-rising college tuition. It also would restore a host of programs that give low-income Americans a lifeline to college. The President seeks to eliminate programs like TRIO, GEAR UP, and LEAP, which have opened doors for students who otherwise might never consider a college education, let alone be able to afford it. Second, this amendment would make a crucial difference for high-need schools. We cannot remain global leaders in technology if we do not maintain a world-class standard of education in math and the sciences for all students. Yet we have a shortage of highly qualified teachers in these very areas. This amendment would use loan forgiveness as an incentive to attract and retain 57,000 teachers in math, science, and another woefully understaffed arena, special education. Finally, this amendment would ensure the future competitiveness of the workforce by preserving investments in workforce development, adult literacy, and vocational education. In voting to reauthorize and improve the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, 99 Senators just last week recognized the indispensable nature of the act, despite the President's efforts to eliminate it. With this amendment we can restore funding for Perkins programs as well as for job training and literacy programs that give adults the tools they need to be economically productive. The investment in these commonsense measures is one we cannot afford to forego. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this amendment. Amendment No. 234

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I would like the Record to reflect that I was necessarily absent for the vote on the Byrd amendment offered to S. Con. Res. 118 on Wednesday, March 16, 2005. Had I been present for this vote, I would have voted in favor of the amendment.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I share my concern over S. 256, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, and urge my colleagues to vote against this flawed legislation. This legislation provides a misguided and uneven approach to combating bankruptcy abuse, especially because it leaves so many causes of bankruptcy unaddressed. Most provisions in this bill were written years ago and do not target abuses which have recently gained public attention. When this bill was originally drafted, corporate fraud at Enron and elsewhere had not yet come to light. The executives at these corporations had not yet been caught enjoying huge personal gains at the expense of shareholders and employees only to later file for bankruptcy. This bill does not fully address these types of bankruptcy abuses, and unfortunately efforts to close these loopholes failed. At the time this bill was drafted, companies were less likely to file for bankruptcy to shed health care and pension obligations to their retirees. In fact, the number of senior citizens in bankruptcy tripled from 1992 to 2001, representing the largest increase of any group. Today, nearly a million Americans have had their pension plans taken over by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and their benefits reduced; this is a substantial increase from when the bill was drafted. I am disappointed that this body not only voted against the Feingold amendment that would have helped elderly Americans protect their houses, but also against the Rockefeller amendment to improve employees' claim for owed wages and benefits. The Rockefeller amendment would have also required companies that dropped retiree health benefits to reimburse each affected retiree for 18 months of COBRA coverage upon reemerging from bankruptcy. The bill adds a means test, which supporters of the bill say will significantly reduce abuse. The nonpartisan American Bankruptcy Institute found that over 96 percent of families seeking to go into chapter 7 bankruptcy would be judged as unable to pay under the new means test. However, the means test would likely deter qualifying families from filing for bankruptcy due to the addition of regulatory requirements and legal costs. I am not opposed to sensible bankruptcy law reform, but this is a reverse Robin Hood--squeeze the down-on-their-luck middle class and impoverished Americans and give the proceeds to the financial services industry. Contrary to the claims of creditors, many of these families simply cannot pay. About half of families going into bankruptcy have had their utilities or phone shut off, and 60 percent went without medical care. One in five families that are bankrupt because of medical bills went without food. Surveys have shown that many of them want to repay their bills but are unable to, and they must ultimately file for bankruptcy to stop the harassment of collection agents. This bill does nothing to prevent bankruptcy by targeting its causes. We should work to ensure adequate worker compensation, lower the high cost of health care, improve financial education, and stem predatory lending. Our middle class is increasingly squeezed. Median family income has been relatively stagnant, rising by only 12 percent in constant dollars from 1978 to 2003. This increase has not kept up with families' sharply increasing costs. Health care costs have risen by 327 percent in constant dollars from 1988 to 2004. The real cost of tuition at a four year public university increased by 646 percent from 1978 to 2003. Child care costs have risen by 35 percent more than inflation from 1986 to 2003. With less disposable income, families are less able to make it through difficult financial times and can be devastated by a single unexpected event. It saddens me that many of my colleagues in the majority voted against Senator Kennedy's amendment to raise the minimum wage for the first time in eight years. This measure could have meant the difference to countless Americans between being able to pay their bills and having to file for bankruptcy. Indeed, according to a new Harvard Law School study, illness or high medical costs cause half of personal bankruptcies. Certainly this is sure to affect the 45 million uninsured Americans, up from 30 million in 1978. It also has a traumatic effect on those who do have health insurance, one-third of whom lost it while they were sick. Yet again, I believe it was a mistake for this body to have killed an amendment to offer protections to patients with high medical bills. We also continue to see some banks cross the line into predatory lending practices. We must continue to find a balance between providing access to credit and capital and protecting individuals from predatory lending. Unfortunately, as many of my colleagues have pointed out, members of our Armed Forces have become a top target of these unsavory practices. Senator Durbin's G.I. protection amendment would have extended protections to military members who have been forced into bankruptcy because of income loss connected to their service. It would also have protected them from predatory ``pay day'' loans. Unfortunately, this amendment was voted down. For all of these reasons, I intend to vote against this flawed legislation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act. By passing this legislation today, the Senate recognizes the critical need to maintain the Perkins program--the Federal Government's single biggest investment in our nation's high schools. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act provides a vital link between students and the high-skilled workforce American business depends on to thrive. It funds rigorous and challenging career and technical education programs that give more than 10 million Americans the opportunity to attain the specific skills needed to successfully embark on careers and undertake further education. The President's decision to eliminate this program in his fiscal year 2006 budget proposal is exceedingly short-sighted. It would aggravate the skills gap that employers already face and cost our country in future competitiveness, productivity, and innovation. The President seeks to eliminate a $1.3 billion investment, $6.4 million of which would be a loss to my state, Rhode Island. Instead, the Senate's action today will help ensure this program's continued success. I am especially pleased that this legislation contains provisions I authored to address the needs expressed to me by educators in Rhode Island. As I have in other education reauthorization bills, I worked to strengthen professional development programs for career and technical educators, principals, administrators, and counselors. I also ensured the legislation gives states more flexibility in their use of funding and in implementing innovative statewide initiatives. In addition, I added language to ensure schools can offer students the benefit of real-world internships and other work-based learning experiences to enhance their skills. These and other provisions in the bill will strengthen the Perkins Act. I sincerely hope that we will maintain the same cooperative and bipartisan spirit as we work toward final passage of this bill.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concern about the direction that the President is taking the country in terms of our Nation's commitment to providing retirement security to the elderly and income security to the disabled, widows, and survivors. I am speaking, of course, about the President's plan for privatizing Social Security. President Bush writes in his recently released Economic Report of the President, ``The greatest fiscal challenges we face arise from the aging of our society.'' Yet his annual Economic Report devotes little more than a page and a half to this important subject. As his Economic Report reveals, the President has no real plan to address the fiscal challenges arising from the retirement of the baby boom generation, let alone a plan to fix Social Security. All the President has is an unaffordable plan to create private retirement accounts, with few specifics and many unanswered questions. That is not stopping the President from barnstorming the country telling the American people that Social Security is a sinking ship and private accounts are the lifeboats into which we should jump. But the administration is manufacturing a crisis that does not exist in order to dismantle Social Security. Despite the administration's claims, Social Security will remain solvent for nearly 50 more years. Even after that, Social Security would still be able to pay 70 to 80 percent of benefits. Modest changes to the system would enable Social Security to pay full benefits well beyond the next 50 years. No other retirement system or Fortune 500 company in the United States can make that same claim. In fact, the weakness of traditional pensions makes Social Security look like the most secure part of our retirement system right now. To put the problem into perspective, making the Bush administration's four enacted tax cuts permanent would cost three to five times more than the Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years. For over 60 years, Social Security has provided a dependable and predictable stream of income to retired or disabled workers, their dependents and their survivors. Forty-eight million men, women, and children rely on Social Security benefits each month to help them live with dignity. The benefits are protected from inflation and one cannot outlive them. Social Security is an insurance program, not an investment plan, and private accounts would destroy much of the insurance value of the program. More than one-quarter of Social Security benefits go to survivors and disabled workers and their families, and these benefits would be at risk under the President's proposal. We all acknowledge the long-term fiscal imbalance of the Social Security trust fund. However, it is equally critical to recognize that the President's private accounts do absolutely nothing to address this imbalance, as a senior administration official recently acknowledged. In fact, diverting payroll tax revenues exacerbates insolvency and accelerates the date of trust fund imbalance. For obvious reasons, the President has not mentioned this or other facts that are so critical to the Social Security trust fund. His privatization scheme requires cutting benefits by more than 40 percent, even for those who choose not to invest in privatized accounts. Those choosing a private account could be hit with an additional ``privatization tax'' of 70 percent or more of the value of their account, which would be deducted from their Social Security benefits upon retirement. President Bush has urged Congress to fix Social Security for younger workers and not pass on the problem to future generations. However, the President's plan for private accounts would place a huge burden on our children and grandchildren by increasing Federal debt by over $750 billion in just the next 10 years. This debt would rise to nearly $5 trillion over the first 20 years that the plan is in place. The President's private accounts would cut Social Security's funding, weaken the program, and make its financial problems worse, not better. In short, private accounts pose a serious threat to the future economic security of all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. This is why last week I joined 41 of my fellow Democratic senators in calling on the President to publicly and unambiguously abandon his support for private accounts funded with Social Security dollars or cuts in guaranteed benefits. At a time when our country is saving so little and fewer employers are offering traditional pension plans, Social Security's predictable, inflation-protected benefits that can't be outlived occupy a critical role in ensuring our retirement security. Before we can roll up our sleeves and delve into the very serious question of shoring up Social Security for all, we must set aside ideology and acknowledge the demographic and fiscal challenges facing this bedrock retirement security program. I want to work with President Bush to promote personal wealth and saving through investment, but not at the cost of Social Security. I urge the President to take private accounts off the table so that we might achieve bipartisan agreement to strengthen Social Security for the long-term and enhance the retirement security of all Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I, too, want to commend Senator Dole for her stirring comments about the valiant Marines on Iwo Jima. My brother was a Marine officer. I followed not in the Marine Corps but to West Point, so one of us was right.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senators Dodd, Kennedy, and Murray in once again introducing the Child Care Quality Incentive Act, which seeks to redouble our child care efforts and renew the child care partnership with the States by providing incentive funding to increase payment rates. This legislation seeks to put high-quality child care within the reach of more working families. As things stand, States too often fund only a fraction of prevailing child care costs. Under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), States are required to perform market rate surveys every two years. Yet many States disregard them when it comes time to setting their payment rates, the level at which States reimburse child care providers who care for low- income children who receive a child care subsidy. As a result, States are unable to meet the law's promise to give eligible low-income families the same access to child care services as non-eligible families. At stake are safe, supportive, and educationally enriching environments for children during the formative years that set the stage for future performance in school and beyond. When payment rates are set too low, child care centers that serve low-income children struggle to survive and may have to close. If they choose to stay afloat despite the limited ability of families to pay, the tradeoffs directly impact the quality of care. Such tradeoffs include smaller staffs, underpaid employees with few or no benefits, and limited employee training, educational materials, and community services like health screenings. Those centers that avoid this route may turn low-income children away or be forced out of business. Under welfare reform we expect the neediest parents to hold jobs to sustain their families. We must also afford them responsible choices to protect their children while they pursue their economic future. Our legislation creates a new mandatory funding pool under the Child Care and Development Block Grant to help States increase payment rates, while requiring States to set payment rates in line with updated market rate surveys. As such, it will allow more low-income families access to quality child care, and increase the availability of quality child care for all families. Support for this legislation is strong among leading national organizations such as USA Child Care, the Children's Defense Fund, the YMCA of the USA, Catholic Charities of the USA, the Child Welfare League of America, and many more. A range of local and State organizations and providers have also offered endorsements. This year, Congress is slated to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Dodd, Kennedy, Murray, and me in this endeavor to improve the quality of child care by cosponsoring the Child Care Quality Incentive Act and working to include its provisions in the CCDBG reauthorization. The time to bring payment rates in line with market realities is now. Only then will the commitment to offer equal access to quality child care ring true. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senators Dodd, Kennedy, and Murray in once again introducing the Child Care Quality Incentive Act, which seeks to redouble our child care efforts and renew the child care partnership with the States by providing incentive funding to increase payment rates. This legislation seeks to put high-quality child care within the reach of more working families. As things stand, States too often fund only a fraction of prevailing child care costs. Under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), States are required to perform market rate surveys every two years. Yet many States disregard them when it comes time to setting their payment rates, the level at which States reimburse child care providers who care for low- income children who receive a child care subsidy. As a result, States are unable to meet the law's promise to give eligible low-income families the same access to child care services as non-eligible families. At stake are safe, supportive, and educationally enriching environments for children during the formative years that set the stage for future performance in school and beyond. When payment rates are set too low, child care centers that serve low-income children struggle to survive and may have to close. If they choose to stay afloat despite the limited ability of families to pay, the tradeoffs directly impact the quality of care. Such tradeoffs include smaller staffs, underpaid employees with few or no benefits, and limited employee training, educational materials, and community services like health screenings. Those centers that avoid this route may turn low-income children away or be forced out of business. Under welfare reform we expect the neediest parents to hold jobs to sustain their families. We must also afford them responsible choices to protect their children while they pursue their economic future. Our legislation creates a new mandatory funding pool under the Child Care and Development Block Grant to help States increase payment rates, while requiring States to set payment rates in line with updated market rate surveys. As such, it will allow more low-income families access to quality child care, and increase the availability of quality child care for all families. Support for this legislation is strong among leading national organizations such as USA Child Care, the Children's Defense Fund, the YMCA of the USA, Catholic Charities of the USA, the Child Welfare League of America, and many more. A range of local and State organizations and providers have also offered endorsements. This year, Congress is slated to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant. I urge my colleagues to join Senators Dodd, Kennedy, Murray, and me in this endeavor to improve the quality of child care by cosponsoring the Child Care Quality Incentive Act and working to include its provisions in the CCDBG reauthorization. The time to bring payment rates in line with market realities is now. Only then will the commitment to offer equal access to quality child care ring true. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today, March 1, is National Sportsmanship Day. A project of the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island, National Sportsmanship Day is the largest initiative of its kind in the world. Now in its 15th year of promoting the highest ideals of sportsmanship and fair play among America's youth, the day will be observed in over 13,000 schools in all 50 States. The day will involve more than 5 million students, teachers, administrators, coaches, and parents in discussions on the issue of sportsmanship. National Sportsmanship Day was first championed by Rhode Island Senators Claiborne Pell and the late John Chafee. This year, National Sportsmanship Day will honor these Senators; USA Today, which conducts an annual National Sportsmanship Day essay contest, and its sports editor Monte Lorell; the President's Council on Physical Fitness; the Old Dominican Athletic Conference, which has reinforced the values of sportsmanship among its teams; and Playing for Peace, an international organization which uses basketball and sportsmanship to bring young people together from communities such as Belfast, Northern Ireland and Johannesburg, South Africa. I am proud Rhode Island is home to the Institute for International Sport and National Sportsmanship Day, and pleased to see the positive influence it has had on youngsters across the Nation during its 15 years of promoting the best in athletics.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to speak about S. 5, the Class Action Fairness Act. First and foremost, I want to commend both the Republican and Democratic Leaders for all the work they did to bring this bill before the Senate. In particular, I am pleased that the consent agreement allowed all relevant amendments to be offered and debated. I believe many of these amendments would have improved the underlying legislation without threatening its reforms. In particular, I think we should have adopted the Feinstein-Bingaman amendment, which would have given federal judges clear guidance about how to apply state consumer laws in multi-state class action lawsuits. This would have permitted more multi-state consumer class actions to be certified in federal court and resolved on their merits. After S. 5 is enacted into law, I believe we should rapidly revisit this issue and make sure that consumers are actually getting their day in court and not having their class action cases thrown out because Federal courts are deeming them too complex or unmanageable to certify. That being said, I think this legislation benefited greatly from the negotiations entered into by Senators Dodd, Landrieu and Schumer with the bill's major sponsors, Senators Grassley, Kohl, Hatch and Carper. Although S. 5 is not the bill I would have written, I do think it will address some of the well-documented problems created by overlapping class actions in State and Federal courts. In particular, the Dodd-Landrieu-Schumer language included in S. 5 addressed some of my biggest concerns about moving class actions to Federal court. Many class actions involve only State law issues, are brought by plaintiffs from the same geographical area and have a defendant who is based within that same community. Moving these cases to Federal court is inappropriate, especially if they do not involve issues of national importance. In many cases, it is our State judges who are in the best position to make determinations about State law. The Dodd-Landrieu-Schumer compromise created a new exception for keeping cases like this in State court. Under the bill, if two-thirds of the plaintiffs are from a given State, the injury happened in that State and at least one significant defendant is from that same State, then the class action can remain in State court. As a result, I believe S. 5 ensures that ``nationwide'' class actions are separated from those that should continue to be heard in State courts. I also believe that any attempt to stop forum shopping by plaintiffs should minimize forum shopping by defendants. The Dodd-Landrieu-Schumer compromise in S. 5 addressed this issue by making it clear that there is a firm 30-day deadline for the removal of nationwide class actions to Federal court once the plaintiffs have filed papers that create conditions for removal. I also am pleased that the Dodd-Landrieu-Schumer compromise dealt with one of the most serious abuses in class action cases, certain types of collusive coupon settlements. S. 5 clarified that if a settlement provides coupons as a remedy, attorneys' fees will only be paid in proportion to the redemption of the coupons. A provision like this does not prohibit coupon settlements, but practically speaking, attorneys will not agree to such settlements unless the coupons are actually valuable. S. 5 also requires that a judge may not approve a coupon settlement until a hearing is conducted to determine if the settlement terms are fair, reasonable, and adequate for class members. Finally, I believed that is important to preserve the ability of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules, the U.S. Judicial Conference, and the Supreme Court to amend the class action rules or procedures to the extent necessary to accomplish their purposes more effectively or to cure any unanticipated problems. S. 5 also included a provision saying that the Federal courts could make such changes as appropriate. As a result of all of these improvements, I believe S. 5 is legislation that addresses serious problems in our nation's class action system and will make the system fairer for both plaintiffs and defendants.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise to commemorate the life and accomplishments of Stan Kimmitt, former Secretary of the Senate Majority and Secretary of the Senate, retired Army colonel and loving husband and father. On December 7, 2004, the Senate and the Washington community lost a devoted friend, one whose work honored the institution of the Senate and the value of bi-partisanship. Throughout his careers in the military, political and corporate worlds, Stan Kimmit dedicated his life to public service and democratic ideals. He first served our Nation in WW II and Korea, then as Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's senior staff member for 11 years and later for 5 years as Secretary of the Senate and finally as a consultant. Stan was born on April 5, 1918 in Lewistown, MT. His father was a wheat farmer until drought destroyed the family's crop in the early 1920s. The family moved to Great Falls, MT, where Stan spent the remainder of his childhood. He enrolled at the University of Montana where he took an Asian history class taught by a man who would be very influential in his life, a man named Mike Mansfield. In June of 1941, Stan was drafted out of college and began what would become a 24-year Army career. He was sent to Europe where he was a combat commander and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He crossed the bridge at Remagen and was part of the first U.S. division to occupy Berlin. Stan entered the Korean War as a first lieutenant, where he served as an artillery officer at Pork Chop Hill. After completing his bachelor's degree at Utah State University, he went back to the Army to serve in Europe. The Army later assigned him to serve as secretary of the Army office of legislative liaison to the Senate, his first of three terms in this post. During his assignment to the Senate, he renewed his connection to the Senate Majority Leader from Montana, Senator Mike Mansfield. By the time Stan retired from the Army in 1966 as a colonel, he was decorated with the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star for Valor with Three Oak Leaf Clusters and was inducted into the Field Artillery Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame. He approached his career in the Senate in the same manner with which he approached his commitment to the Army, with integrity, with fairness, and with an enormous deal of respect for the institution. Stan was always troubled by the partisanship in Washington because he thought of the institution as a family. He honored the principles of the party, but always knew that it was part of a bigger picture. He was grateful for the opportunity to have served Senator Mansfield but, above all, Stan was grateful to have served in the United States Senate. Even after many years in Washington, true to his roots, Stan always considered himself ``a gopher-shooting Montana boy at heart.'' I had the privilege of knowing Stan through his sons Robert, Jay and Mark, they were contemporaries of mine at West Point. They established extraordinary careers in their own capacity. Bob Kimmitt was former Ambassador to Germany under President Bush. Jay Kimmitt served this institution as a member of the Appropriations staff. Mark Kimmitt is today a general officer to the U.S. Army. Stan had a large family. He leaves behind his wife Eunice, his 5 children, his 12 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild. I extend my deepest condolences to his friends and his family. Stan Kimmitt served this Nation with distinction; the Senate shall miss such a devoted friend and such a humble servant. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to recognize my friend John Holt, who is one of the great leaders of our faith community in Rhode Island. In many dimensions, his efforts have made our State a much better place, more decent, more noble, and more caring. He is somebody who recognizes that faith is not just words but it is actions, and each day he tries to put those faithful actions into the lives of the people of Rhode Island. With great pride, it is a pleasure and a real privilege to recognize today his serving as the Chaplain of the Senate.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REED. Madam President, every 4 years an individual chosen by the American people steps forward to assume the awesome responsibilities as President of the United States. His first act is to take this oath: I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. George W. Bush took this oath on January 20, 2001, and again a few days ago on January 20, 2005. His overarching responsibility is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. In order to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution, you must understand what it says. As such, a President must rely on the advice of his legal counsel. Alberto Gonzales has served as President Bush's legal counsel since 2001. In this capacity, he has provided advice to him that, in my view, ignores both the letter and spirit of the Constitution and the President's critical responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend it. Through his advice, he has set in motion policies that have harmed our interests at home and abroad. Our Nation was founded by men and women fleeing severe political and religious persecution. Wary of authoritarian government or religious leaders, they created a nation by and for the people, a nation committed to the rule of law and the notion that every person has certain inalienable rights. Our Founding Fathers very deliberately did not create a new monarchy. They did not crown a king. Instead, they created a new system of government that relied on the rule of law that was agreed upon by representatives of the people. As article VI of the Constitution states so eloquently: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land. . . . The Constitution is the supreme law, not the word of the President. I would also emphasize the language here includes all treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. They are not extrajudicial. They are part of the Constitution. They are part of the responsibility of all of us to defend. In the United States of America, the Constitution, our Federal laws and our treaty obligations are the means by which we as a people, in this grand experiment we call democracy, have agreed to rule ourselves. The President, all Senators, all Representatives, the members of our state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and the individual states, are bound by an oath to support our Constitution. This oath to defend and support our Constitution was also taken by Judge Gonzales in his current position as counsel to the President. Now, Judge Gonzales is being considered to serve as the Attorney General of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. It is Judge Gonzales's failure to defend and support our Constitution, our federal laws, and our treaty obligations that leads me to believe he does not have the wisdom or judgment to be our next Attorney General. Our Nation's Attorney General must ensure that no person is above the law--including the President of the United States--and that no person is outside the law, whether that person is deemed an enemy combatant, or held outside the United States. Judge Gonzales's record does not justify such an appointment. I recognize that much of the advice that Judge Gonzales gave was in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11 and the emergence of the al-Qaida network as a grievous threat to the United States. Small terrorist cells dispersed worldwide and committed to suicide attacks producing mass casualties represented a new and disturbing threat to our country. The possibility that al-Qaida or other terrorist cells might acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices, added an even more frightening element to the dangers we faced. We had to face this threat realistically. The policies of deterrence that served us well in the Cold War are difficult, if not impossible, to apply to these ruthless groups of terrorists. With respect to al-Qaida, we had to take preemptive action. And, we did in Afghanistan. But the nature of this threat did not relieve us of our responsibilities to the Constitution and the structure of international treaties embodied in the Constitution. This is not being naive or sentimental. The durability of the Constitution testifies to both its strength and its wisdom. The structure of international treaties reflects hard won agreements based on experience. The Constitution requires careful and sincere interpretation when new challenges arise. It cannot be ignored or trivialized. When it comes to the issue of the conduct of war, legal guidance must be particularly clear and it must recognize that the fury of war too often brings out the worst. Ages ago, Thucydides wrote: War, depriving people of their expected resources, is a tutor of violence, hardening men to match the conditions they face . . . Suspicion of prior atrocities drives men to surpass report in their own cruel innovations, either by subtlety of assault or extravagance of reprisal. Shakespeare captured the essence of this visceral violence in his immortal phrase, ``Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.'' Abraham Lincoln understood the passions and emotions that grip the warrior. Writing to a friend in the midst of our Civil War, President Lincoln declared: Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and thrives. Confidence dies, and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among honest men only. But this is not all. Every foul bird comes abroad, and every dirty reptile rises up. Yet, the guidance provided by this Administration was confused at best and relied on the fine parsing of legal terms which may pass muster in the contemplative chambers of a judge but fails miserably in the crucible of war. This advice was a disservice to the men and women of the Armed Forces. It is clear that as White House counsel, Judge Gonzales has been one of the architect's of the Administration's post 9/11 policies. In particular, he has helped craft or agreed to policies regarding the treatment of individuals captured and detained in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These policies have denied detainees the protections of the Geneva Conventions, permitted them to be interrogated under a dramatically narrowed definition of torture, and denied them access to counsel or judicial review. In at least one memorandum, Judge Gonzales apparently agreed that the President has the ability to override the U.S. Constitution and immunize acts of torture. Although supporters of Judge Gonzales will point out that only one of five memoranda discussed at his nomination hearing were written by Judge Gonzales, he clearly acquiesced to the conclusions in the other memos. As White House counsel, Judge Gonzales's role was to decide what legal advice was needed from the Department of Justice and then to weigh and distill that advice before giving his opinion to the President. It is clear from the record that Judge Gonzales either agreed with the legal advice dispensed in these memoranda, or allowed poor legal advice to be passed onto the President. Either way, I believe Judge Gonzales has been deeply involved in policies that have undermined our standing in the world and our historic commitment to the rule of law. I think we must first put these memos and decisions in historical context. The issue of the treatment of detainees in war is not a new one and an extensive legal framework has been developed to guide a nation's behavior during conflict. The most well known and comprehensive are the Geneva Conventions, created in 1948, to mitigate the harmful effects of war on all persons who find themselves in the hand of a belligerent party. 192 countries, including the United States and Afghanistan ratified the treaty. The Geneva Conventions were created in the aftermath of World War II and the Nuremberg Trials, by a world which had just experienced warring armies, the systematic rounding up and extermination of millions of innocent civilians, squalid POW camps, death marches, resistance movements and the aftermath of two nuclear bombs. Those who drafted the Geneva Conventions had pretty much seen it all, and they accounted for all of it in the Conventions. The United States clearly took the Conventions seriously and made them the part of the law of our land by incorporating them as part of our legal system. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1996, makes ``a grave breach'' of the Geneva Conventions a crime punishable by prison and even the death penalty. Adding to this legal structure, the United States ratified the United Nation's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1992. The ICCPR prohibits arbitrary detention and ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.'' The United States notified the UN that it interprets ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'' to mean cruel and unusual treatment or punishment prohibited by the First, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Furthermore, in 1998, the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Convention requires parties to take measures to prevent torture from occurring within any territory under their jurisdictions, regardless of the existence of ``exceptional circumstances'' such as a war or threat of war, internal political instability or other public emergency. The U.S. Congress implemented the treaty by enacting 18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A. Torture is defined in this statute as ``an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon another person within his custody or control'' outside the United States. Offenders can be subject to imprisonment and the death penalty. The laws of warfare are also an integral part of military training and conduct. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ, was a law enacted by Congress in 1950. The mistreatment of prisoners may be punishable as a crime under article 93, UCMJ, which forbids a soldier to act with ``cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any persons subject to his orders.'' Article 97 prohibits the arrest or confinement of any person except as provided by law. The UCMJ also punishes ordinary crimes against persons such as assault, rape, sodomy, indecent assault, murder, manslaughter, and maiming. Article 134 also punishes ``all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces'' and ``all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.'' The Army also has regulations implementing the laws of war, including regulation 190-08, which implements the Geneva Conventions. All soldiers are expected to abide by Army regulations and if a soldier violates a regulation, he or she is subject to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Despite the Constitution's clear prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, despite law after law, treaty after treaty prohibiting torture, the President's chief counsel, Judge Gonzales, requested a series of legal memos regarding the applicability of treaty provisions and permissible interrogation techniques in the war on terrorism. One of these memos, the August 1, 2002, Bybee Memorandum, was apparently written to explore what coercive tactics U.S. officials could use without being held criminally liable. This memo created a new and radically narrow definition of torture. It stated that torture would require interrogators to have specific intent to cause physical pain that ``must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.'' Mental torture is defined in the statute but the Justice Department memo states that mental torture must result in ``significant psychological harm lasting for months or even years.'' According to Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and an international law expert, this memo is ``the most clearly erroneous legal opinion'' he has ever read. In testimony before the Judiciary Committee he stated: In sum, the August 1, 2002 OLC memorandum is a stain upon our law and our national reputation. A legal opinion that is so lacking in historical context, that offers a definition of torture so narrow that it would have exculpated Saddam Hussein, that reads the Commander-in-Chief power so as to remove Congress as a check against torture, that turns Nuremberg on its head, and that gives government officials a license for cruelty can only be described--as my predecessor Eugene Rostow described the Japanese internment cases--as a ``disaster.'' One would have expected the Counsel to the President to have immediately repudiated such an opinion. Judge Gonzales did not. Instead, this memo was endorsed by Judge Gonzales as the legal opinion of the Justice Department on the standard for torture. Now, over 30 years ago, the U.S. Navy vessel USS Pueblo was sent on an intelligence mission off the coast of North Korea. On January 23, 1968, it was attacked by North Korean naval and air forces. Eighty-one surviving crewmembers of the USS Pueblo were captured and held captive for 11 months. One survivor, Harry Iredale, related his experiences with a North Korean interrogator named, ``The Bear:'' The Bear proceeded to yell at me to confess. He had me kneel on the floor while two guards placed a 2-inch diameter pole behind my knees and other guards jumped on each end of it several times. Then the Bear picked up a hammer handle and proceeded to smash it onto my head, completely encircling my head with lumps as I screamed in pain. I think most of us would consider this graphic description one of torture. But under the Bybee memorandum's definition, this would not constitute organ failure or death, so it would not be considered torture. More importantly, perhaps, is that the North Korean regime still exists and thousands of American soldiers line the border. Our soldiers could still be captured. And now we cannot hold the North Koreans to a higher standard of conduct, because ours is the same. The August Bybee memorandum also enumerated reasons that American officials could not be held criminally liable for coercive interrogation tactics that fell outside of this new narrow definition of torture. It also posits that officials can invoke ``necessity'' or ``self- defense'' as a defense against prosecution for such acts, despite the fact the Convention Against Torture clearly states there are no ``exceptional circumstances'' that may be invoked as justification for torture. Although the torture provisions of the August 2002 Bybee memo were rescinded and replaced four weeks ago by a new December 30, 2004 memo, the Bybee memo was Administration policy for almost 2\1/2\ years and has had extremely harmful effect on both our military and intelligence communities. If this memo with its narrow definition of torture was so wrong on its face that it had to be rescinded, why didn't Judge Gonzales know it was wrong at the time he requested and endorsed it? One of the most disturbing parts of the August Bybee memorandum is the suggestion that the President and other executive officials can escape prosecution for torture on the ground that ``they were carrying out the President's Commander-in-Chief powers.'' By adopting the doctrine of ``just following orders'' as a valid defense for United States soldiers and officials, the opinion undermines the very underpinnings of individual criminal responsibility set forth after World War II, and now embodied in the basic instruments of international criminal law. This memorandum basically puts the President, and his subordinates, above the law, as it states, ``any effort to regulate the interrogation of battlefield combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President.'' This is antithetical to everything we know about our founding document and the rule of law. It ignores the fact that the Convention Against Torture and other treaties have been approved by Congress, elucidated by statute and become the law of the land. The Bybee memo's reading of the President's powers as Commander-in- Chief essentially would allow him to ignore or order that the criminal prohibition against torture in the United States code be set aside. The President could trump Congress' power under Article I, section 8, clause 10 to ``define and punish . . . offenses against the law of nations'' such as torture. Interestingly, nowhere does the August Bybee memorandum mention the landmark Youngstown Steel & Tube Co. v. Sawyer decision in which the Supreme Court explained why the President's Commander-in-Chief or inherent executive power were not enough to allow him to take over the American steel industry during a time of crisis. In his concurring opinion, Justice Jackson eloquently discussed the limits on such Presidential powers, especially when the ``President takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress.'' In fact, Bybee cites no precedent for his unique enhancement of the President's Commander-in-Chief power other than: In light of the President's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, we will not read a criminal statute as infringing on the President's ultimate authority in these areas. We have long recognized, and the Supreme Court has established a canon of statutory construction that statues are to be construed in a manner that avoids constitutional difficulties so long as a reasonable alternative construction is available. This is nonsense. There are statutes on the book outlawing torture. There is no precedent cited because scant precedent exists, it any. Now if this Commander in Chief override exists, if the President can exercise his Commander-in-Chief power to ask his subordinates to engage in torture to protect the national security of our country, how would this be done? One would think the Commander-in-Chief would have to order his subordinates to engage in such conduct for it to be legal. So where are the orders? And if there are no orders, aren't U.S. soldiers and intelligence officers still subject to the supreme law of our land--our Constitution, our statutes and our treaty obligations--and can they not be prosecuted for violations of this law? How would Judge Gonzales approach this dilemma, created by his own legal reasoning, if he is nominated-confirmed Attorney General? Would he prosecute subordinates of the President who engaged in what most rational people would consider torture during the past 2\1/2\ years and then defend themselves with the reasoning in the Bybee memorandum? In addition, at this time there are over 20,000 private contractors in Iraq. Many of them are engaging in ``military functions'' in support of U.S. forces. These civilians are currently liable for prosecution in U.S. courts for various offenses, under the U.S. laws implementing the Convention on Torture. In addition, persons who are ``employed by or accompanying the armed forces'' may be prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. Now, many such offenses are permitted by the Bybee memorandum but are prohibited by other U.S. law. Again, would Judge Gonzales vigorously prosecute violations of law that, either through his advice or the legal reasoning he deemed were acceptable practices activities? Now the creation of this so-called Commander-in-Chief override power has created some consternation in legal circles. But neither Judge Gonzales nor the Justice Department has backed away from it. The December 30, 2004, memo declares that it supersedes the August 2002 Bybee memo in its entirety. However, the Office of Legal Counsel has not yet clearly and specifically renounced the parts of the August 2002 memorandum concerning the Commander in Chief's power stating: Consideration of the bounds of any such authority would be inconsistent with the President's unequivocal directive that United States persons not engage in torture. Judge Gonzales's own public statements have also urged a broad view of the President's power to conduct the war on terror. In a June 2004 speech before the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, Judge Gonzales stated: [The President] has not had to--as I indicated, in terms of what he has done or has not done, he has not exercised his Commander-in-Chief override, he has not determined that torture is, in fact, necessary to protect the national security of this country. But it seems that Judge Gonzales's statement is at least providing for a situation in which the President could make that determination, but under what constitutional principle I do not know. Furthermore, Judge Gonzales was unwilling to repudiate the Commander in Chief override power when asked directly about it during his confirmation hearing, saying that it was a hypothetical question about a hypothetical situation and he was ``not prepared in this hearing to give you an answer to such an important question.'' Now, I always assumed the purpose of a hearing to confirm a Cabinet official was that he would answer, after preparation, important questions involving his proposed responsibilities. Apparently, Judge Gonzales did not believe that was the role of the hearing. He provided no answer. In addition, in responding to a followup question submitted by Senator Leahy, Judge Gonzales refused to answer in the affirmative that the President could not override the Convention Against Torture and any implementing legislation and immunize the use of torture under any circumstances, stating again: [T]he President does not intend to use any authority he might conceivably have to authorize the use of torture. I guess it is one of those situations where torture is in the eye of the beholder. Much of what seems to have happened to those crew members of the Pueblo looks to us as torture, but I guess it was not torture under the Bybee memorandum. As Attorney General, Judge Gonzales will be responsible for enforcing the laws of our land. But he himself created an exception to these laws for the President. He not only allowed torture to be redefined, he also agreed to a new, unchecked power for the President that no President before ever had. Now, I would like to discuss two memoranda Judge Gonzales requested from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel regarding U.S. treaty obligations in the war in Afghanistan. Specifically, he asked if treaties forming part of the laws of armed conflict applied to conditions of detention and procedures for trials of members of al- Qaida and the Taliban militia. He also asked that if the Geneva Conventions did apply in Afghanistan, would the Taliban, the military force of Afghanistan, qualify for prisoner-of-war status. As I noted earlier, after World War II, the United Nations drafted, and most of the world, including the United States and Afghanistan, ratified the Geneva Conventions. There are four conventions. The third convention defines six classes of persons who, if captured, should be considered as prisoners of war. The most protected class under the Geneva Conventions is the prisoner-of-war category. Civilians and spies are protected as other classes in the fourth Geneva Convention. Running through all of these conventions is common article 3, which prohibits: [O]utrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment. Most experts would agree this is the minimum standard for the treatment of all detainees. As I stated in the beginning of my remarks, September 11 did usher in a new era. It was reasonable for Judge Gonzales to wonder if perhaps a group such as al-Qaida was one of those categories of individuals or groups that was not authorized automatic protection under the Geneva Convention. However, the Geneva Conventions maintain if the status of a captured individual is in doubt, a competent tribunal must decide that status. Furthermore, the Geneva Conventions are only one part of the law of armed conflict. The Convention Against Torture and the assurance of basic human rights remain in place at all times. On January 22, 2002, the Justice Department sent a memo to Judge Gonzales regarding treaty obligations. Also signed by Jay Bybee, the Assistant Attorney General, the memo analyzed the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions and concluded: [N]either the federal War Crimes Act nor the Geneva Conventions would apply to the detention conditions of al- Qaida prisoners. We also conclude that the President has the plenary constitutional powers to suspend our treaty obligations toward Afghanistan during the period of conflict. A memo sent 2 weeks later concluded that the Taliban did not qualify for prisoner-of-war status. Now, legal experts can and have disagreed about the conclusions reached by the Department of Justice. But what I find deeply disturbing is the questionable judgment and cavalier attitude Judge Gonzales used outlining his recommendations as White House legal counsel. On January 25, 2002, Judge Gonzales drafted a memorandum to the President agreeing with the January Bybee memorandum. He states two positive aspects of this decision. First, he finds that suspending these treaty obligations ``preserves flexibility,'' which, I would note, is not a legal conclusion. He then states that the war on terrorism is a new kind of war, a ``new paradigm that renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.'' A second positive aspect Judge Gonzales concluded is that since the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaida and the Taliban, it ``substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act.'' Judge Gonzales then goes on to list seven negative points about suspending the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions in these circumstances, including: The U.S. had abided by the Geneva Conventions since their creation in 1948. The U.S. could then not invoke the Geneva Conventions for U.S. forces captured or mistreated in Afghanistan. The War Crimes Act could not be used against the enemy. The position would ``likely provoke widespread condemnation among our allies and in some domestic quarters.'' In the future, other countries may look for ``loopholes'' to avoid complying with the Geneva Conventions. The determination ``could undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct of combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.'' Remarkably, after weighing the pros and cons, Judge Gonzales found the negatives of such a decision by the President were ``unpersuasive.'' He concurred in the Justice Department's decision that the Geneva Convention did not apply to al-Qaida and the Taliban. On January 26, 2002, Secretary of State Powell objected to the presentation and conclusions in the Gonzales memo. Secretary Powell sent his own memo to Gonzales, stating: I am concerned that the draft does not squarely present to the President the options that are available to him. Nor does it identify the significant pros and cons of each option. Secretary Powell lists as cons, in his words: It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops; it is a high cost in terms of negative international reaction, with immediate adverse consequences for our conduct of foreign policy; it will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain; and Europeans and others will likely have legal problems with extradition. At a February 4, 2002, National Security Council meeting to decide this issue and make recommendations to the President, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in agreement that all detainees would get the treatment they are or would be entitled to under the Geneva Conventions. Now Judge Gonzales was faced with two opposing opinions: one, from the Department of Justice, which offered a new and untried approach to international law; and the other which was supported by decades of precedent and the entire military establishment, which was actually going to be on the front lines of the conflict. Judge Gonzales had to choose what he was going to advise the President. On February 7, 2002, President Bush, presumably following the legal advice of his counsel, issued a memorandum stating that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaida, and that while the Taliban were covered by the Geneva Conventions, they did not qualify for POW status. The fact that the third Geneva Convention requires a competent tribunal to determine this fact was ignored. Furthermore, President Bush stated that the Geneva Conventions' common article 3, the minimum standard of human rights for noncombatants, including prisoners, did not apply to either al-Qaida or the Taliban. Mr. President, these questionable decisions of Judge Gonzales have profound effects. What he found unpersuasive was the most correct statement in his memo--that his advice would, in his words, ``undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.'' In January 2004, the Pentagon announced that they were investigating reports of abuse of prisoners in Iraq. In May 2004, the world was horrified when pictures of some of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison became public. Now for many months, DOD officials have maintained that such abuses were the acts of a few depraved, low-ranking individuals, but reports of abuses in other prisons, such as Guantanamo and the Adhamiya Palace in Baghdad, are coming to light. To date, the Pentagon has initiated several investigations into these abuses. Only some of the investigations have been completed, and they all concern Abu Ghraib. However, they have startlingly similar findings. President Bush's February 7, 2002, memorandum set new policy that conflicted with longstanding Army doctrine based on established laws of war, and this conflict caused confusion and ultimately a corrosion of standards. The Schlesinger report, released on August 24, 2004, was written by an independent panel chaired by the former Secretary of Defense, Jim Schlesinger, to review DOD detention operations. In fact, the report was essentially commissioned by the present Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld. Dr. Schlesinger pointedly blamed the administration for confusion in the ranks. The Schlesinger report found ``Lieutenant General Sanchez signed a memo authorizing a dozen interrogation techniques beyond standard Army practice, including five beyond those applied at Guantanamo . . . using reasoning from the president's memo of February 7, 2002.'' Another report, completed by Lieutenant General Jones, stated that confusion over different standards for detainee treatment and interrogation, dictated by the administration and followed through by the Army, led to ``a permissive and compromising climate for soldiers.'' In order to overcome these problems, the Schlesinger report recommended that ``the United States should further define its policy applicable to both the Department of Defense and other Government agencies, on the categorization and status of all detainees as it applies to various operations and theories. It should define their status and treatment in a way consistent with U.S. jurisprudence and military doctrine and with the [United States] interpretation of the Geneva Conventions.'' It is a fact of life that there are always going to be abuses of human rights in time of war. But the abuses I have discussed above, and that are still, unfortunately, coming to light, are systemic. I would argue that they are the result of a corrosive trend started by the President's February 7 memo, which was based on advice given by Judge Gonzales in consultation with the Department of Justice. This is not the type of legal thinking and judgment that I find suitable for the Office of Attorney General. There is one final issue that needs to be mentioned. That is the deeply disturbing issue of ``ghost detainees.'' The Bush administration has always maintained that the Geneva Conventions are in force in Iraq. Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention prohibits ``individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory . . . regardless of their motive.'' Yet an October 24, 2004, Washington Post story states that a confidential March 19, 2004, Justice Department memorandum granted permission to the CIA to take Iraqis out of their country to be interrogated for a ``brief but not indefinite period.'' It also said the CIA can permanently remove ``illegal aliens.'' Other reports state that as many as a dozen detainees were moved under this policy. In addition, the third and fourth Geneva Conventions maintain that international organizations such as the Red Cross must have access to prisoners. Two generals investigating the abuses of Abu Ghraib, Major General Taguba and General Kern, noted in their reports that the U.S. hid prisoners from Red Cross teams. General Kern stated that the number of ghost detainees ``is in the dozens, perhaps up to 100.'' The role of Judge Gonzales in the production and approval of this memo is yet unknown. But given his participation in other decisions made about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not irrational to assume that he had some participation. The existence of ghost detainees is a violation of the Geneva Convention. Someone is responsible for this decision and must be held accountable. If Judge Gonzales is confirmed as Attorney General, will he pursue these types of investigations and potential prosecutions? Some of my colleagues will likely state that opposition to Judge Gonzales is partisan politics. But we are not alone in opposing this nomination. Twelve retired admirals and generals sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee expressing deep concerns about the nomination of Judge Gonzales. This letter includes the following statement: During his tenure as White House Counsel, Judge Gonzales appears to have played a significant role in shaping U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere. Today it is clear that these operations have forced a greater animosity towards the [United States], undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world. These are the words of distinguished general officers who have served their country in uniform upwards of 30 or more years. A group of 17 religious leaders and organizations also sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee expressing concern about Judge Gonzales's nomination and his role, in their words, in ``sanctioning torture.'' Another group of more than 200 religious leaders sent a letter to Judge Gonzales stating: We fear that your legal judgments have paved the way to torture and abuse. Even his colleagues in the legal community have doubts. A group of 329 prominent lawyers sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee stating that Judge Gonzales's purported role in deciding the treatment of detainees ``raises fundamental questions about Judge Gonzales's fidelity to the rule of law, about his views concerning the responsibility of a government lawyer, and about the role of the Department of Justice.'' Much has been made and much should be made about Judge Gonzales's rise from very humble beginnings. There is no disputing this fact. There is no disputing that the nomination of a Latino to such an August position is a significant, notable moment in our Nation's history. Indeed, there are many people in my State who see their deepest hopes and dreams for their children and grandchildren in the story of Judge Gonzales's rise. Such a sense of pride is no small thing. But our duty as Senators is to advise and consent on the fitness and skills of nominees. And there are few positions in the Cabinet that are as sensitive and important as that of Attorney General. As heartening as Judge Gonzales's personal story is, like the congressional Hispanic caucus and a number of civil rights groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, I believe that Judge Gonzales has left too many important questions unanswered. Indeed, as The congressional Hispanic caucus has pointed out: [T]he Latino community continues to lack clear information about how the nominee, as Attorney General, would influence policies on such important topics as the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, protections for persons of limited English proficiency, due process rights of immigrants, and the role of local police in enforcing federal immigration laws. The right to vote, protection from discrimination, and assistance for those who have yet to master the English language are issues of great importance to Latinos in my State, and they deserve real answers. Despite Judge Gonzales's superb academic credentials and his record of achievement, I have too many concerns about his decisions made on legal matters, particularly in his role of the past 4 years as White House Counsel, to vote for his confirmation. The genius of our Founding Fathers was not to allow power to be concentrated in the hands of a few. They were particularly concerned about a concentration of power in the President. Although they made the President the Chief Executive Officer of our Government and the Commander in Chief, the Founding Fathers constrained the President through the very structure of our Government, through both law and treaty. The Attorney General has a duty not just to serve the President but, also and ultimately, to support, protect, and defend the constitutional commitment to a system of checks and balances. I do not feel comfortable with Judge Gonzales's ability to do this. After studying his record, I do not believe that Judge Gonzales has demonstrated the judgment necessary to perform the duties of the highest law enforcement officer of our land. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a number of articles bearing on Judge Gonzales's role in torture policies, as well as recent statements by the Leadership Conference on Human Rights and the Center for Constitutional rights opposing this nomination.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in discussing the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State of the United States. I must confess, after careful deliberation I intend to oppose this nomination. There is no doubt that Dr. Rice is an extraordinarily talented, capable individual. Her credentials as an academic are impeccable. She has a compelling life story. She has done remarkable things in her life. But I believe the best way to judge what would be her performance as Secretary of State is looking closely at what she has done as a National Security Adviser under this Bush administration. I think in that regard she leaves some very troubling questions unanswered as her nomination comes before us this day. Most of what she did with the President, obviously, as his National Security Adviser, was confidential and necessarily is not subject to public view. But she has not, in my view, successfully responded to obvious questions about inconsistencies in her statements, about policies she advocated, apparently, and about her role in marshaling information for the President of the United States. In a very simplistic view, I think the National Security Adviser's chief role is to make sure the President has every bit of information he needs to make very difficult judgments--not just the information that favors one side or the other but all the information. Indeed, not just the bold strokes but the nuances. My sense is that this mission was not adequately performed by Dr. Rice. She has been a key figure in the Bush foreign policy establishment going back years when Governor Bush decided to run for President. She is someone who is very close to the President. Again, I think she has to be judged on the result of that partnership. One of the aspects that is troubling to me is the fact that Dr. Rice has maintained that Iraq is the central arena in the war on terror, when, in fact, this is a global, international threat to the United States and that, in fact, it appears that Iraq was not the global center, the central arena in this war on terror. She applied a doctrine of preemption which is applicable to terrorist cells, but I believe she applied it incorrectly in the case of Iraq--at least the administration did, and she was the principal architect or one of the principal architects of that policy. Many people expressed alternate views about the role of Iraq as a center of terror. Brent Scowcroft, a predecessor as National Security Adviser, pointed out in an editorial: An attack on Iraq, at this time, would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken. To this date I think it certainly has not advanced the policy we are actively pursuing throughout the world. She suggested on several occasions there are strong links between al- Qaida and Saddam Hussein. On March 9, 2003, on ``Face the Nation,'' Dr. Rice declared: Now the al-Qaeda is an organization that's quite disbursed, and quite widespread in its effects, but it clearly has had links to the Iraqis, not to mention Iraqi links to all kinds of other terrorists. On ``Meet the Press'' on September 28, 2003, Dr. Rice said: No one has said that there is evidence that Saddam Hussein directed or controlled 9/11, but let's be very clear, he had ties to al Qaeda, he had al Qaeda operatives who had operated out of Baghdad. That, in my view, is not accurately reflecting what many other sources subsequently confirmed, that, in fact, any ties Saddam Hussein had with al-Qaida were very tenuous if they existed at all. On June 27, 2003, the New York Times reported: The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the UN Security Council to track al Qaida told reporters that his team had found no evidence linking al Qaida to Saddam Hussein. And 6 months later, the New York Times further reported: CIA interrogators have already elicited from the top al Qaida officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam. As far back as November 2002, Europe's top investigator of terrorism told the LA Times: We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever. But what I think Dr. Rice did publicly, and perhaps even within the confines of the West Wing, is to make the case for these links when the case was at least highly questionable. None of that questioning, none of that nuance seemed to have been presented effectively to the President, certainly not effectively to the public. During her confirmation hearings, Dr. Rice asserted her belief, reiterated her belief on the topic of troop strength, that she believed that the levels in Iraq were sufficient from the beginning of the war up to and including phase IV operations. Phase IV operations are those posthostility operations to stabilize the country. In her phrase she said that they were ``adequately resourced.'' What we have discovered in the months since the successful action leading to the fall of Saddam is instability, violence--demonstrating, I think, less than adequate forces there in country to deal with these problems. It turns out that in March 2003 when a lieutenant colonel was briefing the issue of phase IV, the postoperation activities of our military forces, phase 4-C, the chart was very simple. It said, ``To Be Provided.'' Again, I think this is a glaring error. If you are the National Security Adviser, you have to be able to assure the President of at least a plan for every contingency, thorough, adequate, with sufficient resources and sufficient troops. Since the success of the military campaign, we have been, in my view, plagued by insufficient troops. Indeed, it was interesting to note that Ambassador Bremer, just last October, stated: We never had enough troops on the ground. This, I think, is a glaring mistake. It might have been the decision of a principal to overrule their best advice, but that is not the case she is making today as she seeks this nomination for Secretary of State. There is another troubling issue and that, of course, is the one that received quite a bit of notoriety--the appearance in the State of the Union speech of a reference to Iraq attempting to buy yellow cake from Africa even though weeks before that, many weeks before that, the CIA claimed that such an assertion was unsubstantiated. In a July 2003 interview with Jim Lehrer, Dr. Rice stated she either did not see or could not remember reading this CIA clearance memo. I would argue if a piece of information is going to be uttered by the President of the United States in a State of the Union speech dealing with the critical issues of peace and war, of weapons of mass destruction, of the attempt of one nation to obtain nuclear material from another, that is a point of information that has to be of concern to the National Security Adviser. She claims she delegated it to her deputy, Stephen Hadley. But still it is her responsibility. That was a misstatement--a misstatement that had already been pointed out by the CIA before the President made such a statement before our colleagues in the State of the Union Address. The interesting point to make also is that Mr. Hadley now apparently has been selected to be the National Security Adviser even though if there was a mistake he apparently is the one who is determined to be responsible--at least in Dr. Rice's recollection. There is another issue, too. In October 2003, the White House announced the creation of an ``Iraq Stabilization Group,'' recognizing that something more had to be done to stabilize the situation. Dr. Rice was charged with leading this stabilization group. This group was designed to coordinate activities there. She was in charge. There were four coordinating committees on counterterrorism, economic development, political affairs, and creation of clearer messages to the media both in the United States and within Iraq. There has been no product of this committee, no apparent impact on policy. It is a void in terms of what it has done. Yet this was one of her major responsibilities. I think these are serious issues about her stewardship of the very critical role as National Security Adviser and raises serious questions in my mind of her capacity to do differently as Secretary of State. She also indicated many times that prior to 9/11 the policy of the Bush administration--and her advice by inference--was a strong focus on counterterrorism. Yet I understand Dr. Rice was scheduled to deliver a speech on September 11 at Johns Hopkins in which she would indicate the cornerstone of the Bush foreign policy was missile defense. Having served in this body during that period of time, I can tell you the emphasis was on missile defense. It was not on counterterrorism. It was not on the old-fashioned kind of boots on the ground, intelligence, striking brigades. It was a multibillion-dollar effort on developing a national missile system. I think her speech scheduled for that day was emblematic of what the focus was. Also, before 9/11, the Bush administration was preparing significant cuts in the counterterrorism program. Those cuts were obviously obviated by the terrible attacks on New York on that dreadful day. Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism expert in the Clinton administration, sent an urgent memo to Dr. Rice directly asking for a meeting of principals about the impending attack by al-Qaida. That was January 24, 2001--days after the President took office. There was no meeting with her on such topic until 1 week before 9/11. Internal Government documents show that the Clinton administration officially prioritized counterterrorism as the ``tier I'' priority, but when the Bush administration took office, top officials downgraded counterterrorism. Even Dr. Rice admitted, ``We decided to take a different track.'' There again, was the President given the best advice? Was all the information marshaled so he could make good judgments? Were the people who had viewpoints that might be inconsistent with the group think of the time allowed in? That is a special role of the National Security Adviser, and a very difficult role. These are a few of the issues which I think have to be considered with this nomination. There are other issues, too. The President, in my view, is basically replicating his inner circle now in the broader context of the Cabinet. This raises an issue that was identified by John Prados, a senior fellow at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. What he said is: The administration is setting itself up for a very closed process of creating foreign policy. It's going to eliminate consideration of wider points of view. In effect, we are in danger of creating an echo chamber of foreign policy in which one loud voice carries because it reverberates without check. That, I think, would be a very dangerous situation. There are other areas of concern that I have with respect to Dr. Rice's nomination. She has excellent access to the President. There are friends of hers who say she and the President have a ``mind meld.'' I guess they think alike. But being Secretary of State or being any Cabinet Secretary is not just having access, rapport, and a sense of what the boss wants; it is also having the ability and the interest to tell hard truths which you know are not going to be accepted well. That is something that is important. Again, I don't know. It is hard to predict these things--whether she possesses that kind of ability to tell someone whose mind is melded with hers that he is wrong, or she will even understand where policy requires a different perspective. As the New York Times editorial characterized her first term as National Security Adviser, according to their words: She seemed to tell [President Bush] what he wanted to hear about the decisions he's already made, rather than what he needed to know to make sound judgments in the first place. That type of approach will not serve a Secretary of State very well. She has also broken a longstanding precedent recognized by preceding National Security Advisers who refrain from partisan politics. She gave speeches espousing the administration's policy in key battleground States of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania beginning in May 2004. Her actions were sharply criticized by her predecessor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser for President Carter. He stated that ``the national security adviser is the custodian of the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and should be seen as an objective adviser to the President'' and not just another member of the political team. We have I think serious issues raised by this nomination. No one can deny her ability. But I think she has not successfully explained these inconsistencies of statements and these policy mistakes which I believe have seriously eroded our position in the world. She has, along with the President, apparently espoused a unilateral policy that has isolated many of our traditional allies. It has us going it alone in Iraq at a huge cost. The President is sending up to us a supplemental budget of $80 billion. Today, the operations officer for the U.S. Army indicated they assume they will have over 100,000 troops in Iraq not just this year but next year. That means--just doing the arithmetic--that we can expect another $80 billion-plus bill next year, and still we are in a difficult and confusing situation. I think Dr. Rice's nomination recognizes and represents a continuation of a policy which has us bogged down in Iraq while Iran and North Korea continue to advance their nuclear ambitions and while a diminished but still dangerous al-Qaida continues to plot against us. These facts--this strategic situation--I believe requires if not a change in direction at least a realistic reassessment of where we are and how we got there. Dr. Rice's nomination does not appear to give hope to this change in direction or realistic reassessment. Therefore, I will vote against this nomination. I yield the remainder of time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time I have been allotted?

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for S. 2845, the intelligence reform bill. I first want to commend the 9/11 families who have worked so tirelessly to ensure that necessary reforms were implemented through the formation of the 9/11 Commission and the enactment of this bill. I believe this bill is an important first step toward needed intelligence reform. As we are all aware, intelligence is the key to keeping America safe and winning the global war on terrorism. I think that there are many provisions of this bill which will improve U.S. intelligence. It creates a Director of National Intelligence who has personnel and budget authority; establishes an Information Sharing Environment to facilitate the sharing of terrorism information among all appropriate Federal, State, local, tribal and private sector entities; provides for training and education to meet linguistic requirements; and emphasizes the use of open intelligence, a resource I believe we have overlooked recently to our detriment. I am also pleased that this bill establishes a National Counterproliferation Center since I believe the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the potential for terrorists and rogue states to obtain these weapons are the greatest threats facing us today. In addition, I commend the House and Senate for providing for a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board within the Executive Office of the President that would ensure that privacy and civil liberties concerns are appropriately considered in the implementation of laws, regulations, and executive branch policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism. While Americans are more willing to give up some of their privacy after 9/11, necessary intrusions must be carefully balanced against the rights of U.S. citizens and I believe the Board will help maintain the balance. Again, this bill is simply a first step. The United States remains vulnerable in many areas. I do not believe the bill does enough to provide for transportation security such as for ports, public transportation and railroads. In addition, it does not address other asymmetrical threats such as food safety. Two days ago Secretary of Health and Human Services Thompson noted how easy it would be to tamper with and poison our food supply. Finally, I would like to express my disappointment with the administration's and Republican congressional leadership's participation in this undertaking. The administration originally did not want a 9/11 Commission and its support of this bill was lukewarm at best. The tragedy of September 11 made it clear that our Nation was not as secure as it could be and changes needed to be made. It is the duty of the administration to make those changes as quickly as possible. September 11 was over 3 years ago and we are just now enacting the first changes. The process certainly could have proceeded more quicky if the administration had been more actively engaged throughout the process. But we have a bill which is a good first step. I support this bill and look forward to working with my colleagues on future reforms.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to commend J.B. Hudson, who is retiring after 42 outstanding years of Federal service to the United States Army. In 1962, Mr. Hudson began his Government career at Fort Eustis, VA, as a management analyst with the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Comptroller. While pursuing his civilian career, Mr. Hudson also served as an Army reservist, 1963-1969, and continued his post graduate education earning a masters of personnel administration from George Washington University, 1969. In 1966, he accepted a position at Fort Monroe, VA, where he served as a management analyst with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Comptroller; and later, as chief, Management Improvement Branch, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Resource Management from 1973-1975. Since 1975, Mr. Hudson has been with the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army serving in a number of senior leadership positions, including deputy director and director, studies and analyses staff, 1975-1977; director, plans and projects, 1977-1979, director, policy and plans/safety, security and support services-- Washington, 1979-1995, and deputy administrative assistant, 1995-1996. In over 42 years of Government service, Mr. Hudson has received numerous honors and awards, including the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service. Mr. Hudson is an extraordinary leader who recognizes that people are his most important resource. He epitomizes leadership by example, perpetuating a work environment in which harmony, resilience, and productivity reign. In the days following the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, he faced his toughest leadership challenge. Not only did he have to deal with the tragic loss of 40 staff members and the injury of many more, he also had to lead the effort of restoring calm and productivity to the agency, the Army, and the Pentagon, minimizing any disruption of support to the Army and OSD. As the overseer of the Defense Post Office, Mr. Hudson faced the possibility of receiving mail contaminated with chemical or biological agents since the Pentagon's mail is processed through the same facility where two United States Postal Service workers died from exposure of mail contaminated with anthrax spores. Working in collaboration with Defense Department and White House officials, Mr. Hudson quickly assessed the threat and developed courses of defense. His reputation for initiating leading-edge business practices is widely recognized. His vision, adaptability, and passion for customer success have enabled him to gain recognition for the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army as a preferred support provider throughout Headquarters, Department of the Army, and Defense Department activities within the Pentagon and the National Capital Area. Mr. Hudson has been a focused and competent defender of the Army's limited resources and is absolutely committed to achieving operational excellence. In more recent years, he consistently used his keen business acumen, technical expertise, political savvy, and resourcefulness to proficiently position the agency for the best business results. Mr. Hudson is a superior advisor, astute negotiator, and superb administrator who can operate comfortably in all environments. His ability to bring divergent parties together and forge a common vision to achieve desired outcomes is renowned. His mastery of unique Defense Department and National Capitol Region relationships has enabled him to consistently produce quality results, even on the most contentious and complex issues. Perhaps the best examples of Mr. Hudson's ability to build coalitions and achieve results for the Army and the Department of Defense are evident in his management of the Army's executive aircraft fleet and his championing of the Pentagon Athletic Facility. In the first initiative, Mr. Hudson worked with Defense Department and Congressional representatives to acquire two state-of-the-art executive airplanes. As the overseer of the Pentagon's 55-year old athletic center, Mr. Hudson realized that the aging infrastructure of the current facility and the growing demand for fitness facilities in support of the Army's readiness mission required quick action. Once again, he negotiated prime real estate at the Pentagon for the construction of a new facility and fought for and won funding for the $19 million project that offers a state-of-the-art facility comparable to well-known commercial fitness facilities. Mr. Hudson's distinctive accomplishments, selflessness, dedication, commitment to excellence, and willingness to ``go the extra mile'' in supporting the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense and Joint Service activities in the Pentagon truly set a standard of excellence for others to follow. Mr. Hudson's distinctive accomplishments and selfless service in support of the Defense of our great nation truly set a standard of excellence worthy of emulation. I thank him on behalf of a grateful Nation and wish him well in his retirement.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today the Senate will pass H.R. 1350, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, legislation which has my support. This important legislation, which reauthorizes the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is a compromise that protects the civil rights of children with disabilities, while ensuring that teachers, principals, and administrators have the essential tools to improve these children's academic or functional skills and knowledge. It is the culmination of months of hard-fought bipartisan and bicameral negotiations in an attempt to strike the balance between these competing interests and overall. This bill improves upon current law. As an original cosponsor of the Senate version of this bill and the sponsor of an earlier bill on personnel preparation and development, I am pleased that most of the provisions I authored on the recruitment, preparation, support, and professional development of special education teachers, general education teachers, principals, administrators, related services personnel, and others working with children with disabilities have been included in the final version of the bill before us today. First, the bill requires states, through the renamed State Personnel Development Grants, to target 100% of the funding under this competitive grant for professional development activities--an increase of 25% from current law. These grants will help achieve our goal of ensuring that there is a highly qualified teacher in every classroom in America. Furthermore, the bill sends funding to states via a formula once funding reaches $100 million, ensuring that teachers in every state benefit. Additionally, as a condition of receiving a State Personnel Development Grant, a state educational agency must submit a comprehensive plan that identifies and addresses the state's personnel needs. This and other new requirements will ensure that the state educational agency has the necessary expertise and strategies in place to boost the skills of teachers and in turn improve the education of children with disabilities. Retaining special education teachers new to the profession is a particular area of concern in our States. According to data from the National Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education, the turnover rate of special education teachers in their first 3 years of teaching is exceptionally high--much higher than the comparative rate for general education teachers. Annual attrition rates for special education teachers are 6 percent for those who leave the field entirely and an additional 7.4 percent who transfer to general education. High turnover is costly both for school districts, which must repeatedly fill the same positions, and for students, who lose the advantage of being taught by experienced special education teachers. As such, I am pleased that the bill establishes a new grant program for institutions of higher education to help beginning special educators. Funding is authorized for incorporating an extended, such as a fifth year, clinical learning opportunity to existing special education preparation programs or for the creation or support of teacher-faculty partnerships, such as professional development schools, that provide high-quality and ongoing mentoring to new special education teachers so that they will remain in the field. The legislation also enhances existing IDEA personnel preparation programs to ensure that all teachers and other personnel have the skills, knowledge, and leadership training to improve results for students with disabilities, including working collaboratively in regular classroom settings, addressing the needs of limited English proficient students with disabilities, preventing the misidentification of children with disabilities, working with parents to improve the education of their children, and utilizing positive behavioral interventions to address the conduct of children with disabilities that impedes their learning or that of others in the classroom. There are other highlights as well. This bill aligns the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with the No Child Left Behind Act by requiring states to ensure that all special education teachers are highly qualified by the 2005-2006 school year, including allowing teachers to meet the standard through the high objective uniform state standard of evaluation or HOUSSE; requires the uniformity of electronic versions of instructional materials and provides for the establishment of a National Instructional Materials Access Center to give schools a one-stop shop for textbooks and other educational materials for students who are blind or possess another disability which necessitates alternate formats; expands the current definition of related services to include school nurse services; strengthens early intervention and preschool programs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities, including permitting states to create a system that gives parents the choice to have their child continue early intervention services until the age of five; establishes a new program aimed at developing and enhancing behavioral supports in schools while improving the quality of interim educational settings; enhances planning and transition services for children with disabilities; advances the monitoring and enforcement of IDEA; and improves services for homeless and foster care students with disabilities. Teachers, principals, and administrators are also given flexibility to more effectively provide an education to all students. There are new approaches to resolving complaints to head off litigation and to reducing paperwork, along with a clearer framework for the discipline of children with disabilities. I thank my colleagues, Senators Kennedy and Gregg, and their staffs, for their excellent work on this important bipartisan legislation. One staff member, Connie Garner, deserves special recognition for her tireless efforts to make this law work for students, parents, teachers, and schools. This is significant legislation for the people of Rhode Island and across the nation, and I am pleased to support it. I will also continue to press for full funding of IDEA to provide 40% of the excess cost of providing special education services--a promise Congress made in 1975 when IDEA was first enacted. Funding for IDEA services has only recently reached nearly 19 percent--just under halfway to fulfilling that promise. While we have taken a number of positive steps with this bill to ensure a high quality, free appropriate public education for children with disabilities, we must bridge the funding gap so these children receive the educational assistance and support they need and deserve. teachers Mr. President, I am pleased that our bill now requires special education teachers to be fully certified by the state. Prohibiting temporary or emergency certification is an important step forward and one that brings IDEA in line with NCLB. It is important that teachers who are fully certified in special education have the unique knowledge and skills needed to effectively teach students with disabilities. Parents should know that the label of ``fully certified special education teacher'' means that the teacher has demonstrated both knowledge and skill in special education practices. Senator Kennedy, is it your understanding that full state certification in special education includes a demonstration of such knowledge and skill?

Mr. REED. I thank Senator Kennedy for that clarification.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I don't have the document, but an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer of October 17, 2004 made several references. First: Franks' Central Command did have an extensive plan to restore order and begin rebuilding the country, called Operation Desert Crossing, said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who drew up the plan and updated it continuously when he led Centcom until 2000. It was never used. Further in the story: Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld's opening bid was about 40,000, ``a division-plus,'' said three senior military officials who participated in the discussions. Bush and his top advisers finally approved the 250,000 troops the commanders requested to launch the invasion. But the additional troops that the military wanted to secure Iraq after Hussein's regime fell were either delayed or never sent. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED. Yes.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Warner for his consideration in arranging this opportunity to discuss the nomination of Dr. Harvey to be the Secretary of the Army. First, let me say it is obvious Dr. Harvey is an admirable person with experience and skill. In my view, this debate is less about Dr. Harvey and more about the United States Army; whether he is prepared to take the necessary steps to respond to severe crises that affect the Army today. The Army is extended across the globe. The Army is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. I just returned from a trip to both Iraq and Afghanistan. I have seen these magnificent soldiers serve us with distinction and courage, but it is a very stressful and demanding responsibility that each day they discharge, and, indeed, for the Army the stresses are beginning to build. I think we have to recognize affirmatively that the Army must be bigger, not on a temporary basis but on a permanent basis. I think we also need to recognize the Army needs additional resources. Senator Levin, in his comments, pointed out the shortfall between the money the Army has estimated is necessary to recoup and repair their equipment and the actual funds they have available. If we do not address these issues, I believe we will begin to expose the Army to irreversible damage which certainly no one here in this body wants to see happen. One inescapable conclusion of my trip to Afghanistan and Iraq is that we will be in these countries for years; not months but for years. The cost, the human cost and the financial cost to the country and to the Army particularly, will be substantial. I have no doubt Dr. Harvey is a consummate professional. He is very skilled in managing organizations. I know he is committed to doing his best as Secretary of the Army, but I believe the Army needs a leader, not necessarily a manager. Also, I think we need an aggressive advocate for the Army. I hope that perhaps the result of this debate, if Dr. Harvey is confirmed, is that he will become that aggressive advocate for the Army. I know advocacy has to be appropriate. He has to be loyal to his civilian superiors. But he has to be someone who will take the case of the Army to the Secretary and, if necessary, beyond. Also, I believe any Secretary of the Army has to be cooperative with this Congress. He has to respond candidly and directly to our questions and our comments. One of the issues we all have as leaders is the necessity to speak truth to power on occasion. One of the observations I would make is that we have seen, in the experiences of General Shinseki and Secretary Tommy White, occasions where they gave us their best opinion and they effectively were punished for those views. I think that is wrong. I think that attitude has to be corrected. That is another responsibility of the Secretary of the Army, to ensure that uniformed officers have the opportunity to express themselves appropriately and not fear retribution. All of us will benefit from the advice the uniformed officers of this country can so wisely give to us. Secretary White was discharged many months ago as Secretary of the Army. It took a very long time for the Secretary of Defense and the President to nominate Dr. Harvey. In the interim we were extremely well served by Acting Secretary Les Brownlee. I don't have to add more than what the chairman and the ranking member have said about the qualities of that individual. I just had the privilege about 10 days ago to be with Secretary Brownlee up in West Point where he represented the Army at the Board of Visitors meeting. He is a consummate professional, someone who has rendered extraordinary service to the Army and to the Nation. But one of the issues I find somewhat disturbing is that even though we were well represented by Secretary Brownlee, it took so long for the Secretary of Defense to nominate a permanent Secretary. I think that I can put it this way: I find that doesn't suggest the importance the job must bear. That is another reason I found it somewhat unusual, at the very end of our session, before the election, there was a sudden rush to confirm Dr. Harvey. I had the occasion to speak with Dr. Harvey.