Jack Reed

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am honored to rise today to acknowledge and celebrate the 179th anniversary of Greek Independence. On March 25, 1821, courageous Greeks, poorly armed but imbued with an ancient calling for democracy, initiated a revolution that would successfully end 400 years of oppression by the Ottoman Empire. I am proud to join my distinguished colleagues as a cosponsor of Senator Specter's Senate Resolution 251 which designates Saturday ``Greek Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy.'' The achievements of Greek civilization in art, architecture, science, philosophy, mathematics, and literature became legacies for succeeding generations living around the world. But it was the idea of democracy, born in Athens over two thousand five hundred years ago, that signaled the beginning of a lasting revolution to which we as Americans are eternally grateful. As citizens of the United States, we are proud to recognize the contributions of Greek culture in the creation of our great nation. The Founding Fathers, deeply inspired and influenced by Hellenic ideals, developed our representative democracy from the example of the ancient Greeks. As U.S. democracy flourished, its principles inspired citizens in other nations, sparking revolutions across time and space, from France in 1789 to Portugal in 1974. As vital as the culture of ancient Greece was to the formation of our nation, modern Greek culture continues to enrich our society today. I can speak firsthand of the significant contributions that Greek- Americans make in my home state of Rhode Island. They serve our communities in many professions and continue to contribute to the state through their hard work and active citizenship. Greece's commitment to democracy has been essential in fostering stability and supporting the ideals of freedom and equality among its neighbors in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean region. Today, the United States supports Greece in its call for fellowship and peace in the Balkan peninsula and on the divided island of Cyprus. I applaud the Greek people for their commitment to the protection of democratic principles in these regions. Therefore, on the day marking the 179th anniversary of the revolution for independence, I congratulate all Greeks and Greek-Americans and express my appreciation for their contributions and those of their ancestors.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for H.R. 2559, the ``Federal Crop Insurance Act''. Today the Senate will approve a $6 billion crop insurance reform bill designed to increase premium subsidies for farmers who buy more comprehensive coverage and expand the availability of crop insurance for specialty crops. The reforms in this legislation will enable farmers in Rhode Island and across the country to obtain more crop insurance coverage and reduce income losses due to natural disasters. I and my colleagues from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic opposed last year's farm disaster bill because it did not provide adequate relief to farmers in our region who were hit by the terrible drought conditions of 1999. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that four states in the Northeast, including Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, experienced the driest growing season in their histories. From April through July, Rhode Island was the driest it has been in 105 years of record-keeping by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. Unfortunately, forecasters at the National Weather Service are predicting continued drought conditions this year, because we are starting out with a deficit of rainfall and, even with the snowstorms of January, winter precipitation was 3.5 inches below normal for our region. The prospect of another long dry summer makes this crop insurance reform bill all the more important. I know that people may not always think of the Northeast when they think of farming. But in my small state alone there are about 700 farms. Farmers in Rhode Island grow vegetables, turf, nursery stock, cranberries, strawberries, and potatoes. My state is also home to many orchards and dairy farms. Many of our crops are not insurable under the current federal crop insurance program, and that's why I strongly support the significant investment in research and development of new specialty crop policies provided by this bill. I also support provisions in the bill to remove the ``area trigger'' for the Non-insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP). I believe broader NAP eligibility is one of the most effective ways to assist farmers in the eastern United States who face severe production losses due to drought, floods, or other disasters. Currently, NAP crops are eligible for assistance when: (1) expected ``Area Yield'' for the crop is reduced by more than 35 percent because of natural disaster; and 2) individual crop losses are in excess of 50% of the individual's approved yield, or the producer is prevented from planting more than 35 percent of the acreage intended for the eligible crop. These criteria have proven to be unworkable in many eastern states, both in terms of program accessibility and timeliness of payments. For individual growers of specialty crops, typically grown on small acreage, a loss of as little as 20% can be devastating, especially given the high per-acre value of these crops. Moreover, the process of verifying area yield reductions is cumbersome and exceedingly time- consuming, resulting in waiting periods of several months or, in some cases, more than a year for payment. Giving the Secretary of Agriculture broader discretion over delivery of NAP program funds will streamline the approval process and make direct assistance available to thousands of farmers whose substantial losses do not meet NAP criteria under the current area trigger. I am pleased that removal of this trigger is among the many valuable reforms in the bill before us today. Finally, I was proud to join several of my Senate colleagues from the Northeast to offer an amendment to provide $60 million for expanded education and outreach for farmers in states with low levels of crop insurance participation, as well as research and development of new crop insurance policies for currently uninsured crops in these states. Our amendment would also set aside $66 million for farmers in underserved states to participate in the bill's proposed risk management pilot project which allows farmers to choose between traditional crop insurance and a direct payment for adopting new risk management practices such as farm diversification, futures contracts and options, creation of conservation buffers, soil erosion control, and irrigation management. While offering increased income to farmers for whom crop insurance has not worked well, the pilot will test whether incentive payments can encourage producers to adopt new risk management strategies that are good for the environment. I thank the distinguished Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture for making this amendment part of the overall package we will vote on today, and I urge the Senate conferees to ensure that this important provision remains in the bill after conference with the House. Otherwise, I will likely oppose the conference report when it comes before the Senate. Together with the substantial new funding for research and development of specialty crop insurance policies, this amendment will ensure that we have a farm policy that is truly national in scope. With the passage of this legislation we will give farmers the tools they need to manage their risk more effectively, and possibly reduce the need for Congress to pass massive farm disaster packages year after year. At the same time, we recognize the contribution and needs of farmers in every region of the country, who not only feed the world but preserve a way of life that makes our nation stronger and protects our precious open spaces from the encroachment of development and urban sprawl. I urge my colleagues to support the Federal Crop Insurance Act.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from New York and the Senator from New Jersey for their great efforts. I thank the chairman. As my colleague so well expressed, there is a tendency to not realize or understand that the Northeast part of the United States has a significant farming industry. We learned that the hard way, in some respects, last fall when we discovered our farmers were in desperate straits because of drought, loss of crops, and environmental conditions that affected them. Today, we are recognizing their standing along with farmers throughout this country, and not only their need but their eligibility now for Federal assistance in times of need. I thank the chairman for his efforts, and I thank my colleagues for working so hard on this. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I commend the Senator from Vermont for his eloquence and his passionate support of this vital legislation. It is vital to the children and to the families of this country. As the Senator pointed out, it has been 11 months since the tragic incident at Columbine High School. Last April 20, we witnessed with horror and revulsion an attack on children who were just going to school. The entire country stood up as one and said: We have to do something. We have to stop this senseless gun violence. We have to create a country in which easy access to firearms and the resulting violence is something of the past. However, it has not stopped. The violence continues every day with tragic consequences throughout this country--in Seattle, WA; in Atlanta, GA; in Los Angeles, CA; in Honolulu, HI; in Ft. Worth, TX; in Sidney, OH; in Wilkinsburg PA; in Mount Morris township in Michigan; and thousands of other places where, regrettably and tragically, gun violence is so common in this country that it doesn't make the front page because the incidents aren't that graphic or that violent. The first anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine High School is just around the corner, April 20. Still, the conference committee on juvenile justice has not yet discharged their duty and sent back a bill that contains common, safe, gun safety measures that were passed by this Senate. In fact, as the Senator from Vermont pointed out, the committee has met only once, last August. For 8 months we have waited. We have waited; the American people have waited. We have waited for commonsense protections that have been frustrated and thwarted by the Republican leadership at the behest of the NRA. They have ignored the will of the American people and the overwhelming desire of the American people to protect the safety of their children and the safety of their communities. I believe the American people have waited long enough. Today, along with my colleagues, Senator Boxer of California, Senator Leahy, and others, I will introduce a sense-of-the-Senate resolution calling for the juvenile justice conferees to complete and submit the conference report before April 20, the first anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and to include in this conference report the amendments passed by this Senate seeking to limit access to firearms by juveniles, by convicted felons, and by other persons. Will the passage of this legislation stop gun crime in this country? No, it won't. But it will represent a step forward to impose reasonable controls on the easy access to firearms for those who should not have them: Children, criminals, those whose mental capacity is diminished enough so they resort to violence with these weapons. Within the core of this juvenile justice legislation are simple, commonsense approaches to ensure we have a safer society: Closing the gun show loophole, requiring safety locks to be sold with handguns, banning the importation of large capacity ammunition clips, and outlawing juvenile possession of assault weapons. We will bring common sense to our gun laws with these measures and, hopefully, reduce the avalanche of violence that is engulfing so many in this society. In my home State of Rhode Island, in the city of Providence alone, 26 people were murdered in 1999. That is up from 15 in 1998. Firearms were used in the vast majority of the killings in both years: 19 out of the 26 people who were killed last year were killed with firearms, 11 of the 15 the year before. And Providence, my capital, is a small city of roughly around 200,000 people. Last year, when we were talking about Columbine High School, if any Member came to this floor and said: I predict a 6-year-old child will walk into first grade and kill another 6-year-old child with a handgun, we would have been lambasted as extremists, hysterical, provocateurs, irresponsible, reckless. Guess what. It happened. Incidents such as that happen each and every day. Just a few weeks ago in Providence, RI, two young boys were rough- housing with each other--a 17-year-old and a 13-year-old friend--doing what boys have been doing for a long, long time. They were razzing each year, wrestling with each other, seeing who was the most tough. They went on and on and on. One of them got frustrated. Now, when I was younger, that frustration might have led to a punch in the nose, a bloody nose, and some hard feelings, but that was all. Somebody in the crowd had a gun and this young boy recklessly and without thought grabbed that gun just to show how tough he was, pointed the gun at the 13-year-old, pulled the trigger, thinking nothing would happen, and shot that 13-year-old in the head. That shooter, that young man--not a criminal, just a kid rough-housing around in the neighborhood--was so overcome with remorse that he fled to an adjacent backyard and shot himself in the head. That is gun violence in America today. That is the cost of easy access to firearms. These aren't criminals. These were kids doing something stupid. But because they had guns, it resulted in death and destruction. We are not kids here. We are supposed to be adults. We are supposed to be responsible. We are supposed to represent the best values and ideals of this country. That means we must stand up and vote on measures such as this juvenile justice bill. I ask on behalf of the 12 children killed each day by gun violence that we bring this conference bill back to this floor with those reasonable gun control measures included. Someone has to speak for them. Someone must speak for them. Someone must demand these measures come before the Senate. We cannot continue to listen to the siren song of the NRA in this Chamber. We cannot be hypnotized by all the spin and the hype and all the misinformation and misdirection. We have to respond to the reality of kids easily getting handguns and unwittingly and, tragically, killing each other. We have a country in which the homicide rate by handguns far surpasses that of any other country in the world. In Japan, in 1996, there were 15 people killed with handguns, in a country of 126 million people. That is 1 person in every 8.4 million. The ratio in the United States? One person out of every 27,000. What is the difference? Cultural? Genetic? Demographic? They have gun laws that make it difficult for anyone and everyone, willy-nilly, to own handguns. It is the same story the world over. Canada, perhaps the country closest to us in culture, in demographics and ethnicity, is also a country that had a great frontier, a country that had the same kind of challenges we had opening up their great west. It is a country of outdoors men and women; it is a country, in many respects, with the same cultural values we have. Yet in that country, in 1996, 106 people were killed out of a population of 30 million. That is 1 person in every 284,000--many, many, many times fewer people killed by gun violence in a country so similar to ours. The difference? Once again, they have sensible laws that govern access to handguns. We could go on and on. But as long as a criminal can walk into a gun show and buy a gun without a background check and walk out before any type of check can be done, as long as kids can get access to firearms without safety locks on them so they can use them, as we have seen happen too often, as long as it is harder for a kid to open a bottle of aspirin than it is to shoot a gun, because we have childproof tops on aspirin containers, we are going to have these problems. It is our responsibility to act. It is our responsibility to stand up. We have not done that. Time is drawing close to April 20, 1 year after Columbine. I cannot think of a better way, not only to memorialize the victims of that shooting but to give meaning to that senseless tragedy, than for this body and the House to send to the President a gun control measure that will provide the sensible, reasonable controls that are so critical. I see the Senator from California. There is no one in this body who is not only sensitive but more forcefully engaged in this effort than my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer, someone who I am proud to say will cosponsor this resolution, someone I am proud to say will continue her valiant efforts to lead the way for sensible gun control in this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, this resolution expresses the support of Congress for activities that will raise public awareness of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms can range from mild numbness in the limbs to paralysis and blindness. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, but the unpredictable physical and emotional effects of this debilitating disease can be lifelong. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are giving hope to those affected by the disease. It is known that MS afflicts twice as many women as men, however, once an individual is diagnosed with MS, their symptoms can be effectively managed and complications avoided through regular medical care. Nationally, it is estimated that between 250,000 and 350,000 individuals suffer from MS, which is approximately 1 out of every 1,000 people. In Rhode Island, the rate is slightly higher--1.5 out of every 1,000. Over 3,000 individuals and their families in my home state are affected by this disease. It is my hope that through this resolution we can bring greater attention to the devastating effects of this disease, while also building support for additional research. It is through more intensive research efforts by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health that we will better understand some of the potential causes of this disease, as well as develop more effective methods of treatment, and maybe someday prevention. Indeed, it is only with greater resources that we can build public awareness about MS and enhance our scientific understanding of this mysterious illness. I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as well as the Rhode Island Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society for their encouragement and assistance in developing this important Resolution. It is through their grassroots efforts that individuals suffering from MS can get information about their disease as well as learn more about resources available in their communities, research being conducted, and support services for family members. Their support is essential to those who have been afflicted with MS, and I hope that through this resolution the Congress can assist in bolstering these important efforts. In closing, I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this important resolution to raise awareness and encourage people to become more educated about this debilitating disease.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I introduce a Resolution which would express the support of Congress for activities that will raise public awareness of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms can range from mild numbness in the limbs to paralysis and blindness. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, but the unpredictable physical and emotional effects of this debilitating disease can be lifelong. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are giving hope to those affected by the disease. It is known that MS afflicts twice as many women as men, however, once an individual is diagnosed with MS their symptoms can be effectively managed and complications avoided through regular medical care. Nationally, it is estimated that between 250,000 and 350,000 individuals suffer from MS, which is approximately 1 out of every 1,000 people. In Rhode Island, the rate is slightly higher--1.5 out of every 1,000. Over 3,000 individuals and their families in my home state are affected by this disease. It is my hope that through this resolution we can bring greater attention to the devastating affects of this disease, while also building support for additional research. It is through more intensive research efforts by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health that we will better understand some of the potential causes of this disease, as well as develop more effective methods of treatment, and maybe someday prevention. Indeed, it is only with greater resources that we can build public awareness about MS and enhance our scientific understanding of this mysterious illness. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as well as the Rhode Island Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society for their encouragement and assistance in developing this important Resolution. It is through their grassroots efforts that individuals suffering from MS can get information about their disease as well as learn more about resources available in their communities, research being conducted, and support services for family members. Their support is essential to those who have been afflicted with MS, and I hope that through this resolution the Congress can assist in bolstering these important efforts. In closing, I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this important Resolution to raise awareness and encourage people to become more educated about this debilitating disease.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Hatch and Senator Leahy for all of the hard work they've put into, and continue to put into, the judicial nomination process. I also recognize Senator Lott for making a commitment to bring the Paez and Berzon nominations to the Floor for a vote by March 15, over the protests of certain members of his caucus. First, a process comment. One of the most important duties of the United States Senate, as envisioned by our founding fathers, is the confirmation of Presidential appointments. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution states that the President shall nominate and ``appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States'' with the ``Advice and Consent of the Senate.'' This is one of our enumerated duties in the Constitution, and to my mind, we have egregiously failed to uphold this duty in the case of Judge Richard Paez. More often than not, nominations move through the Senate the way they're supposed to. However, in this case, the system has broken down. As a result, considerable public attention is being paid to this nomination, especially among members of the Latino community, because the Senate is not doing its job. This is troubling. In regards to nominations, the public rightly expects us to move judiciously and expeditiously and without regard to politics. No nominee for judicial office should have to wait four years to have his appointment confirmed. Allowing Judge Richard Paez and his family to wait four years for this body to perform its constitutional duty is inexcusable. Judge Paez has opened up his life and resume for our examination, so that we can make a very important decision about his qualifications for a very important job, lifetime tenure on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is appropriate. Judge Paez should be subject to serious scrutiny by this body. But no citizen of this country should have to wait three Congresses for this body to act. Just as he has presented his qualifications to us to the best of his ability, we need to make a decision about these qualifications to the best of our ability in a timely fashion. In the private sector, how many of us would subject ourselves to the process that Judge Paez has subjected himself in order to be on the Board of Directors or the CEO of one of America's top companies. Most of us would choose not to go through that process at all. And that is exactly my point, we should not make this process so painful that America's best and brightest attorneys are unwilling to subject themselves or their families to what has become an increasingly unpleasant and distressing process. We should be doing everything that we can to encourage people like Judge Paez to aspire to be members of our judicial branch. This, despite lower pay and greater responsibility than most lawyers have in private practice. As the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a March 2, 2000 letter to Senators Hatch and Leahy, the Ninth Circuit Court has had a 300% increase in workload with no increase in active judges. Unfortunately, the Paez and Berson nominations are indicative of a greater systemic breakdown that should be disturbing to both Republicans and Democrats. Even Justice Rehnquist has felt it necessary to comment on the problems being caused by greater federal court workloads, and too few judges. Second, it's clear that the President has nominated lawyers of extraordinary ability when it comes to Judge Richard Paez and Ms. Marsha Berzon. Both have received the American Bar Associations's highest rating (``well-qualified'') and we are fortunate that these individuals have been willing to go through such a grueling federal judicial nomination process thus far. I ask my colleagues today take their constitutional duty seriously and vote for these nominees on the basis of their objective qualifications, and not on the basis of petty politics. This process is much too important to the citizens of this great democracy to do otherwise.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I respect the Senator's efforts to try to improve education. We may very well disagree on the philosophy. In specific response to his question about the Joint Tax Committee studies, I think there is a difference between coverage and effect. The coverage might include a broad range of American families, from the very wealthiest to low-income families, but the effects--who gets the benefits--are decisively skewed toward very wealthy Americans. That same tax analysis in 1998 showed that 7 percent of families who have children in private schools who use this provision will receive 52 percent of the tax benefit and the other 93 percent of the families will receive 48 percent. Frankly, the way, as we all realize, the tax structure is established, tax credits and tax benefits are more beneficial to the higher income level, unless they are particularly targeted to low-income citizens. These are not. Essentially, what we have is, yes, low-income families and medium- income families will, in fact, be able to get some benefits. It has been estimated that over 4 years, this benefit to the average family is about $20. The benefit for very wealthy Americans will be significantly more. Again, this might be more anecdotal than analytical. If you look at the population of students going to private schools, they generally come from upper-middle-income to upper-income families because of the nature of funding. I know the Senator wants his time. Let me make a quick point. When we start making these comparisons between higher education and elementary and secondary education, not only do we have a principle difference, i.e., we have a fundamental obligation to elementary and secondary education, do we have the same to higher education? We can disagree about that. The other thing we have to do is put it in context. The tax benefits in higher education are on top of Pell grants which are specifically directed at low-income parents. They are really, if you will, icing on the cake, and the cake is really Pell grants, Stafford loans--a whole panoply of higher education benefits which we supported for years and years. To make the transfer or analogy of it is just like what we do for higher education, it is not only philosophically questionable but also, in terms of the context, questionable. I thank the Senator for his time.

Mr. REED. Surely. I yield 1 minute, or Senator Kennedy does.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Kennedy amendment. Senator Kennedy has focused on one of the critical aspects of education reform in the United States; that is, improving the quality of teachers in this country. Teachers want this kind of assistance. If you ask them, they are universally disappointed in their opportunities to improve their skills as teachers. Just a few days ago, in this debate we supported, in large part, Senator Collins' amendment to allow increased tax preferences for educational courses teachers might take. But that is just the surface. The way to reinvigorate and reform schools in this country is to improve the professional development in the classroom--not in graduate schools, not in taking correspondence courses, but getting those teachers in classrooms watching other qualified teachers, giving them the opportunity to participate with their principals in developing curricula, developing their own skills and their own attributes. That is what the Kennedy legislation does. It calls for the incorporation in our schools of professional development that is embedded within the curriculum. It is consistent, sustained, long-term, throughout the academic year--indeed, throughout the entire year. What is happening today? The reality is, teachers spend between 1 hour and 8 hours during the academic year on professional development. Most times, it is gathering in a big hall listening to a lecturer who the superintendent of the system thinks makes sense, but in some cases the teachers are wondering why they are at that location. We can change that. Indeed, we must change that. Unless we improve the quality of teaching--and I agree wholeheartedly with Senator Murray; we have excellent teachers in America--we will not respond to the challenges of this new century to prepare, in public schools, the best educated citizens of this country. Indeed, our first obligation has to be this effort to reform and reinvigorate and reignite the quality of excellence in our public education system throughout the country. The underlying proposal does not do that. It essentially siphons off dollars to those, principally wealthy, Americans who choose to send their children to private schools. Our obligation, I believe very fervently, is to ensure there is a real choice so that, indeed, there are excellent public schools and an American family can choose those excellent public schools or a private, independent or parochial school. But until we have excellent public education throughout this country, we are failing in a fundamental obligation we have to our country and to our citizens. One of the best ways to assure excellent public education is the way that has been suggested by the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts, and that is to provide professional development that is sustained, embedded in a classroom, that calls upon mentoring, that calls upon all the things we are learning from the real world. We are learning from observing places such as district II in New York City, which is committed to this type of professional development. I had a chance to visit with a school in that district and listen and watch the teachers as they discussed among themselves the issues that were critical as they developed new curricula, as they talked about new strategies. This is what is going to improve the quality of our teaching. When we do this, we will improve the quality of education throughout the entire country. This is also what we heard at hearings during consideration of the ESEA. We heard experts from around the country, teachers from around the country, coming to tell us they need more support for this type of professional development. If we are really, fundamentally asking ourselves how we can improve education in this country, it is not through a tax credit device that will essentially subsidize, on average, wealthy Americans to send their children to private schools; it is investing in teachers in our public schools so they will be able to educate this generation of Americans to continue the leadership role of this Nation in the world in this new century. I emphatically and fervently support the Kennedy amendment. I urge its adoption.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am not familiar with the data about New York parochial schools, but I am very eager to look at it, if the Senator will provide it.

Mr. REED. Second, it is one of those things: What do you measure? Do you measure parochial schools in New York City or are you measuring all the private schools, very exclusive schools? All I can speak to with great compulsion and experience is in my home State of Rhode Island, generally speaking, the parochial schools mirror some of the public school systems. But when you go to some of the private schools, that is not quite the case. I suggest if it is not limited to parochial schools, it is going to be taken advantage of.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, I will speak with respect to Senator Bingaman's amendment. Let me commend the Senator for his efforts not only today but throughout his career in the Senate to ensure that accountability is a central part of Federal educational legislation. Senator Bingaman, in 1994, was one of the leaders in this body with respect to the issue of accountability. At that time, I was serving in the other body. Together we worked at the conference on accountability provisions in the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As a result of the efforts of Senator Bingaman and others, we were able, for the first time, to begin to focus significant attention on the issue of accountability. In fact, the 1994 reauthorization, together with Goals 2000 legislation, accelerated and encouraged a movement throughout the States to develop standards. Practically every State in the country today has standards. We now have the opportunity to begin measuring how well schools are doing. That is at the heart, I believe, of Senator Bingaman's approach today. We need not only to measure how well they are doing but then hold States and localities accountable for those results. What has happened in the last several years is that the States have not had the resources to fully exploit the opportunities to measure schools against standards and then improve those schools. Half of the schools in the country that are problematic, according to State standards, have not been able to have access to teams of improvement; they have not had access to the support they need to make themselves better. In addition, they have not had access to the professional development which they need to enhance the capabilities of their teachers. All of these efforts together suggest the American people's money would be best spent by devoting time and attention to accountability. Again, I think the approach that the Senator from New Mexico is taking is exactly on target. As we spend $8 billion a year on title I, we should insist that the States live up to their responsibility to use these funds wisely as measured by the performance of their students. The best way we can do that is to give them the resources and, again, the impetus to take stock of their schools and then to apply corrective measures, remedial measures. They have not been able to do that. I don't believe it is because they don't want to do it; I believe it is because they have not been able to find the resources to carry out this mission. Senator Bingaman's amendment would give them access to these resources. It will give them access not in a restrictive way but in a very open-ended way so they can pick and choose the best device to use in their particular school to ensure that school performance improves. That, again, is why I believe we are all here. We have a special obligation at the national level to assist, particularly, low-income schools. Regrettably and unfortunately, many of the low-performing schools are low-income schools. Therefore, this effort to help support States to identify low-performing schools and to bring them up to the standards of the State is entirely consistent with the purpose of Federal legislation, which is to assist low-income students to have access to the opportunities that more affluent students and their families take for granted. I believe what the Senator is proposing is entirely consistent with what we should be about, but also it will go to the heart of leveraging all of our programs and all the State programs to ensure we accomplish the ultimate goal that lies before the Senate of ensuring that every child in this country has access to excellent public education. Coincidentally, both Senator Bingaman and I and others today are beginning the markup in committee of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We will be pursuing these issues within the context of that legislation. Today, when we have a bill in this Chamber that purports to be a way to assist education, elementary and secondary education, in the United States, we have to seize this opportunity to point out that the heart of our efforts has to be the reinforcement of what we have already begun years ago, which is to develop within the States the capacity to evaluate their schools based upon their standards and then to intervene successfully to fix these schools. Before we go on to more attenuated means to help education in the United States--such as tax credits and other proposals--we have a primary responsibility and, today, an opportunity to do what we started to do in 1994 to give the States the resources, further incentives to evaluate their schools, identify the schools that are failing, to step in with their choice of intervention strategies, and to fix the schools in America. There are over 8,000 schools in this country that are not meeting State standards. Those figures come from our Department of Education. What is preventing the States and the localities from stepping in right now? There might be a host of issues, but one thing we can do to accelerate that intervention is to support the Bingaman amendment, to give them resources and give them the clarion call to step in and fix the schools so we can declare--as I hope we can at the end of this debate and certainly I hope at the end of the debate on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--that we are not only committed but we are on a path to ensure that every school in this country is providing every American child with the opportunity to succeed. Every public school in this country is doing that. I commend the Senator and I thank him for yielding time to me. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and, finally, any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 264, submitted earlier by Senators Lott, Daschle, Moynihan, Stevens, and Byrd.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I will speak this evening on an issue of great importance to the country and every family in America. That is the issue of education. For the past 4 months, the Republicans and Democrats on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee have been working to come up with a bipartisan approach to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Sadly, those efforts have collapsed and we are being presented with a Republican bill, the Straight A's Act, which is essentially a block granting of critical programs and the amassing of Federal resources to be distributed with little accountability by the States. This issue is of great importance because education is what I believe is fueling the great economic progress we are making today. The 5- percent growth in productivity in the last quarter recognizes the combination of American technology, which is a product of our ideas, our education, and the skills and talents of the American people that have been forged in the classrooms of America. Just as importantly, this recognition of the centrality and importance of education is shared by every American because they the mothers and fathers of this country, recognize that the future of their families, the future of their children, are dependent almost exclusively on how well they are educated. As a result, we cannot take lightly the proposals that are before the Senate with regard to the educational policy of the United States. There are some who do not think the National Government has a role in education. I disagree. We recognize, of course, the primacy of States and localities in terms of forging educational policy, but we do have a role at the national level. We have a role of providing both encouragement and support for local innovation and also support to overcome local inertia. We have seen that played out throughout our history. We have seen a situation where years ago the States were inattentive to the needs of low-income students, particularly minority students. That is one of the primary impulses for the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We have seen in the past where States were indifferent to the education of students with disabilities, and we acted properly and appropriately to do that. So we do have this national role and we have to carry it out conscientiously, recognizing that public education is the bulwark of our society and our country. Ninety percent of our students attend public schools. Public schools offer not only educational benefits but are the devices that bring us together, the common ground, the area in which one can enter and prepare to seize the opportunities of life without regard to race, creed, or ethnicity. It is this public education system that we must enhance, reform, and reinvigorate. I argue that the approach to do that is not through block grants. The approach is a careful consideration of the appropriate Federal initiatives, both in terms of resources and in terms of programs, that will help stimulate reform at the local level and help overcome the inertia and the political gridlock we see every day at the localities and at the States just as they see on certain issues in Washington. Again, I yield, as do all my colleagues, that the Federal Government is the junior partner in this partnership for education in America. We supply roughly 7 percent of all the resources; the States, the cities, and the towns supply 93 percent of the resources. However, we can do much, particularly in the area of focusing assistance on the neediest children and also, as I said before, to help invigorate our school system, to help accelerate reform. Money isn't everything; it is vitally important, but we also need a sense of direction or purpose, of national statements about what is critical to the Nation as well as critical to localities and to States. That, too, is part and parcel to our deliberations about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We should be providing resources for local communities. One of the problems with the educational policy in the United States is it is tied so closely to property tax that we can witness situations where good school systems, particularly school systems in urban areas that were models of efficiency and expertise decades ago, have fallen on hard times because their property base has evaporated. People have moved to the suburbs; the industries have left the central city and moved out. We can help, and we do that principally through title I programs. Again, as we help with resources at the local level, we cannot give up the idea also that we have to provide this spark of innovation, the spark of reform that is so critical to the efforts. I believe also that this is recognized by many people at the State and local level, that our Goals 2000 initiative several years ago helped essentially start a reform process that was inchoate at the State and local level and many places that needed resources, even if there was a sense of reform. This effort, this identification of reform together with resources helped stimulate productive efforts that are improving the quality of education. But I also would say we have a long way to go before we can satisfy ourselves that every student in America, every child in America, has access to excellent public schools. That should be our goal, a goal we must insist upon. Again, I am disappointed that efforts over the last several months to try to forge bipartisan compromise on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have failed, apparently, for the moment. Tomorrow in the committee we begin to debate a legislative proposal that is simply abdicating the responsibilities of the National Government to the States without any real accountability. That is a wrong approach. We have seen that because we have seen what the States have done in contrast to what the Federal Government has done in some critical areas of concern. I am not trying to suggest there is any type of nefarious plot at the States, but we all have to recognize they are under very special pressures in terms of allocating funds, in terms of local problems, a host of local issues that complicate their politics, and we have an opportunity sometimes to avoid those internecine fights that go on and provide direction that they welcome and they, in fact, in many cases expect. One aspect of this debate about Federal versus State perspectives is a report prepared by the General Accounting Office in 1998. It was found Federal aid was seven times more targeted to poor students than State programs overall. It found our effort to reach out and help low- income students was disproportionately greater than State efforts. I think you have to ask yourself, logically, had we not acted in 1965 with title I, and in Congresses subsequent to that date to help out low-income students, both in center-city areas and in rural areas, would they enjoy the limited success they have had to date? I am not suggesting we succeeded in that arena. I suggest you might find that same proportion of funding, those who are politically powerful in States, those suburban areas, those areas that themselves with property tax can fund schools, would do much better. In fact, our situation in center-city and rural areas would be much more severe without specified targeted Federal assistance--not a block grant, specified targeted Federal assistance. I should point out in the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--I was a Member of the other body at that time--we were aware of some of the shortcomings and limitations and inhibitions in the title I program, and we made changes to streamline it and make it more effective, as we did with several other programs. The results from the last few years seem to suggest this combination of more programmed and efficient Federal support, together with State initiatives, have led to real improvements. We want to continue that partnership and certainly those improvements. There is another aspect, too, that affects the State and Federal Governments. I think sometimes we sit back and say: The States have it right; they know how to allocate and distribute funds. It turns out in over one-third of the States in these United States, people are suing the States claiming they are unfairly distributing their school aid. If we are going to turn around and give moneys to such a State without real accountability, without real direction, we, frankly, are running right into the teeth of those suits that are saying the States do not know how to spend their money fairly, wisely, or well; they are disadvantaging large parts of the population. I think there are many reasons why we can argue with great credibility and force that Federal programs and Federal resources, national policies, can complement, supplement, help States do things that, because of politics, because of resource limitations, because of a host of reasons, they would not do of their own volition. There is another issue, too, and it becomes, frankly, an issue that is much more specific to us today than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. We are in a global economy. Our competition is no longer between Rhode Island and South Carolina or Pennsylvania and Utah. It is between students in Singapore and in Japan and around the world versus American students. To suggest at this time there is not a national need for some direction, some support, some help to States to move forward their educational process is to disregard the global nature of the world we face today. There are examples, frankly, of where we have acted successfully with federally directed programs to set national policies with national resources to facilitate State reform. One I mentioned previously is Goals 2000. I participated in the drafting of this legislation in 1994. I would have liked to have gone much further in terms of accountability, in terms of many other things. But the sense of the Congress and the administration was let's get into the States' resources with a direction to begin to start reforming or helping their reform efforts. That took place. In fact, it has been acknowledged that Goals 2000 has been a force for reform in places such as Texas and Georgia and Vermont and elsewhere. Indeed, in 1998, in another GAO report, State and local officials stated: Goals 2000 funding provided valuable assistance and that, without this funding, some reform efforts would not have been accomplished or would not have been accomplished as quickly. Again, had we simply back in 1994 said take this money and do what you like, without some structure, some framework, it would not have been as successful, I believe, as it has been to date. There is another area where we can play a critical role--it is a role we have played in the past--and that is educational technology. National investment in educational technology since 1994, in programs such as the Technological Literacy Challenge Fund and the Technology Innovation Challenge Grants, as well as the E-Rate, have led to a dramatic increase in the number of schools connected to the Internet. Again, these are very specific targeted national programs. Between 1994 and 1998, Internet access in public schools increased from 35 to 89 percent of schools. The percentage of public school instruction rooms with Internet access also increased during this time period from 3 percent in 1994 to 51 percent in 1998. High poverty schools, which have long lagged behind wealthier schools in Internet access, were as likely to have Internet access as low- poverty-level schools by the fall of 1998 because of these initiatives--again, appropriate. We are not supplanting State and local efforts, but we are identifying a national need to wire up to the Internet the children in the classroom, providing resources, direction. It gets done. It succeeds. There is still a need, in fact, for additional effort in that regard. That is why we are missing a real opportunity in this reauthorization to build upon the success of our technology initiatives. In fact, the gap between high- and low-poverty schools and the percentage of classrooms with Internet access does not seem to be stabilized. It seems to be a widening; there is a bit of widening at the gap. We have to continue to work to make sure that gap does not exist. My colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski, is often quoted talking about the digital divide; the fact that affluent students enjoy computer access at home and in classrooms. Low-income students do not have that opportunity. In the information age that digital divide could be decisive. So we have an opportunity to work now to build on prior success to ensure we truly close the digital divide. There is another area--this one, I think, is very emblematic of the dangers of reflexively shifting from targeted programs to block grants--and that is school libraries. In 1965, Congress enacted legislation in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which included specific provisions to assist school libraries to buy library material, principally books. But in 1981, with the advent of the Reagan administration, this specific program was thrown into a large block grant. Now what has happened? What happened is all the material that was bought in 1965 through the late 1960s and 1970s is still on the shelves and has not been replaced because when this library program was thrown into a block grant, local pressures took out the support to buy library books. It always seemed there was something else to crowd it out, some other immediate problem. As a result, what I believe is a strong national thought that children in our schools should have up-to-date, modern library books has withered away, and we can see the proof on the shelves of school libraries throughout this country. When I was talking about this issue several years ago, a librarian in a school in Arizona sent me a book. The title was ``The Constitution of the United States,'' by James Beck. But what I thought was interesting is that there was a foreword by the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. The book was written in 1924 and was still on the shelves in 1993. I went to law school. I think there were a couple of amendments to the Constitution after 1924. I would be hard pressed if I were a student in that school in Arizona to confirm or deny that fact. There is another book found in Boston entitled ``Planets, Stars, and Space'' which noted: Of course, the trip (to the moon) cannot yet be made. . . . It may be necessary to establish a giant artificial moon or satellite a thousand miles or so above the earth, from which to launch the moon rocket. That is copyright 1957, and that was in a school library recently. From my own home State, there was in a school library a book entitled ``Ms. MD'' which stated only men could enroll in Brown Medical School, and the tuition--this really dates it--was $2,800 a year. The effort to block grant the library program led to the deterioration and destruction of the library program, and as a result there are thousands of schools across the country that have books so out of date that if parents saw them, they would recall their child. I hope we can change it. In this authorization, contrary to block grant, we can try to develop another library approach to assist libraries in buying not just books but CDs and all the media we need for an information age. The other presumption is--in addition to the fact there is a presumption in some quarters that the States know how to spend the money--all of the successes are because of local initiatives. The reality is there are too many failing schools in America, and the people directly responsible for these schools--we all admit it here--are the States and localities. I think that somewhat undercuts this notion of infallibility at the local level and supports the notion that at the national level, our ideas and our initiatives and complementary activities have a place and a purpose. There are about 8,000 schools across the country which are failing their own standards set by their States--not national standards but State standards. Ask yourself: What is happening? Why are these schools not being reformed? What has happened in our proposal, and I hope we can deal with it in the ESEA, is we are asking for more accountability by the States. We are asking them to tell us: What are you going to do about these 8,000 schools? How are you going to fix them? Do you need additional resources? We are not trying to be prescriptive--one way to do it--but we want accountability. That, too, is going to be decisively lost if we simply turn over large block grants to Governors and say do what you will because doing what they will has led to 8,000 schools across this country failing their students, failing the parents, and failing the Nation. We should not tolerate that. There is another area that is important that represents, in many cases, the clash of conflicting priorities at the local level and results in a poor educational environment for students. That is the issue of school modernization. There are schools in this country that are literally falling apart or so out of date that they impair the educational experience of children. There are schools in my communities in Rhode Island that were built in 1876 and in 1898. In 1876, George Armstrong Custer lost a battle at the Little Big Horn. Much has changed since then, except children are still walking and busing to this school in a community in Rhode Island. In the wintertime, the way they regulate the heat is they open the windows because once they turn that boiler on, it gets so hot that the only thing they can do to cool it down to room temperature is to open the windows. There is a trailer outside, but the trailer is not a good place to put computers because it is not fully air conditioned, not well ventilated. This is one example. These examples are replete throughout the entire country. In Rhode Island, 81 percent of schools report a need to upgrade or repair a building to good overall condition. Again, this is an area where national assistance can be very helpful. There is not a weekend-- and I go home every weekend--where I do not run into someone--a parent, a school committee person--who says: You know what, we sure could use some help fixing up our schools. This is not some plot hatched in Washington, DC, to take over elementary and secondary education. This is what people intimately involved in elementary and secondary education in our communities want us to do, but we will not be able to do it if we simply bundle up the money in a block grant and give it to the Governors. I talked a good bit about some of the problems we have in our school system, some of the problems we have in terms of our response in the Senate to these issues. But I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the good news because of our efforts over the last several years. It turns out that high school students are taking tougher mathematical and science courses because this notion of increased standards which began with the Governors' conference years ago and certainly were highlighted by the efforts of President Clinton, certainly underscored by the Goals 2000 Act, certainly reemphasized in the last reauthorization, this is leading to students taking tougher mathematical and science courses. These increased participation rates are cutting across different lines of income, ethnicity, and race, which are very good signs for our country. Student mathematical achievement is improving. Between 1982 and 1986, students improved their achievement in mathematics, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. There is some good news, and it is the result not of the absence of the National Government from policy or solely because of the presence of national programs; it is because of this partnership that has been worked out, somewhat fluidly and sometimes roughly, over several decades between local initiatives and national complementary initiatives. I could go on about student achievement. It is improving but not enough. Certainly, in international comparisons, we are not where we want and must be. The other item is we have seen some of these improvements in math and science and some in part--I do not want to overstate this--might be attributable to a specific Federal national initiative, and that is the Eisenhower Professional Development Program established in 1984 to increase the quality of math and science teaching by giving math and science teachers opportunities to develop their expertise and understanding and to develop their techniques to teach; again, part of what I hope is good news about improving mathematical scores in this country. Had we been presented with a bill in the HELP Committee which would have given us the opportunity to talk seriously about issues of programmatic content and national priorities, there are some things I would have liked to emphasize. I will mention them. First, we have to improve the quality of teaching in the United States. We just had an amendment by my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins. It was a very good amendment because it talked about allowing teachers to get more tax benefits for their investment in professional development, for taking courses in graduate school, and buying material. That is a good effort. Frankly, that is just the surface. If we want to improve the performance of teachers in our schools, we have to go into the classroom. We do not have to send the teachers necessarily to graduate school. We have to go into the classroom. We have to embed professional development as part of the daily life of the school. That is not being done across this country. What we have in many places is what I experienced as a child when I went to school, and that is the proverbial teacher's institute. It was the one day we celebrated because there was no school or no holiday. They just took the day off. Teachers went to a big conference center, listened to a speaker, chatted about all sorts of things, and that was professional development. It does not work that way, particularly nowadays. They have to make professional development part and parcel of the school. They have to have senior teachers and principals involved in the professional development of their teachers. They have to have the flexibility to get substitute teachers into the classroom so teachers can get out and observe other teachers teaching. This is a national priority. We should be able to give the States both financial assistance and a sense of direction about the best techniques, if you will, give them a spectrum, a menu of things from which they can choose. But we cannot do that if our fixation is just ship the money down to the Governor. We have to improve the quality of professional development. A 1998 study in California found that the more teachers were engaged in ongoing curriculum-centered professional development, holding school conditions and student characteristics constant, the higher the students' mathematical achievements. We know from the data, if you can embed professional development, put it in the life of the school, you can improve performance. That is what it is all about, not winning debating points but ensuring that the performance of students in the classrooms of this country improves and improves dramatically. The teachers themselves recognize this. One in five talk about the fact they need more professional development, that what is being required of them by the States is inadequate. In fact, I believe the statistic would probably be higher if you pressed and probed more. So that is an area to which I would like to be able to devote attention. I am sure I will offer an amendment in the committee, but it is starkly different than the approach of simply shrugging our shoulders and saying: Let the Government figure it out. We have ideas. We have an obligation to take what we see across this country and try to move States forward to do something that would improve the quality of education. There is another area that is important. That area is parental involvement. The national PTA did a survey of public school parents and found that 91 percent believe it is ``extremely important'' for parents to be involved in their children's school, but more than half of the parents stated that schools need direction about how to make parents true partners in their children's education. The overwhelming view of parents is they need to be more involved in the school. But a significant number say the schools are deaf to their concerns. They do not have the programs or the attitudes or the policies that will get parents into the schools. This is particularly the case when you get to areas where there are low-income students because the reality is many times their parents have an unsuccessful educational experience. It is not as if school was a good place for them. There are also practical problems in many urban areas, and some rural areas, about language difficulties, about reaching out to parents in their own language to get them involved in the lives of their children. We have not, as a nation, been able to develop the kinds of policies and programs that assist States and localities in making parents real partners in their children's education. I hope we could do that. I hope we could do that by using ESEA to start thinking about ways we can jump-start parental involvement at the local level. Again, you can always fall back to the point: Why is this not happening if the States have the vision, the resources, and the commitment to do it? Why should we tolerate it continuing in such a deplorable way if there is a lack of resources, vision, or commitment at the local level when we know it should and must be done? As I mentioned, I would love very much to be able to take out some of those antiquated books on the library shelves of America and replace them with modern books that talk about the fact that we have landed on the Moon, that include all the amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Again, we will not be able to do that if we are simply block granting our educational dollars. There is also a program that is based upon one State's experience helping another State. The States have long been described as laboratories of innovation and experiment. But I think we have a job, and that is to disseminate all that good work, making it available throughout the Nation, giving other States the incentive or the ideas or the resources to put in place what some States have succeeded so well in doing. One program in Rhode Island is called the Child Opportunity Zones, COZs. These are places within schools that bring together all sorts of social services, mental health services, child care services, and social work services. It is designed to assist the family, recognizing that the success of a child is dependent not only on his or her innate talent, and the teachers and the facilities, but also in the support and the participation of the whole family. If the family has problems, that child will likely have problems. Indeed, one of the things that has changed since my education is that family life in so many parts of this country has been terribly complicated by social problems, health care problems, issues that are not educational but decisively impact on the ability of a young child to learn. I am encouraged that the President has sent up his budget proposing increases in Head Start. I have colleagues such as Chris Dodd who are working valiantly to improve early childhood education. All of these things coming together recognize the fact that today, in so many places, it is not the educational problems holding children back; it is the health problem; it is the mental health problem; it is a host of problems that are outside the strict purview of what we used to think of as educational policy. This COZ program is very successful in Rhode Island. It brings these disciplines to one place in the school. It gives families easy access to all of these disciplines. Once again, this is an example of how the experience of one State-- highlighted, illustrated, and disseminated by national legislation--can benefit the entire country. I would like very much to be able to work on that. Finally, we come back to a major issue which will preoccupy all of us. That is this issue of accountability. Block grants, without accountability, are an abdication of our responsibility not only to have good educational policy but to the taxpayers. We cannot hand over millions of dollars with the assumption that States and localities are doing it right, when we know in some cases they do not invest enough in low-income education, that in some cases States and localities will not provide the kind of innovative change that is necessary for this new century. We have to work hard to ensure we have accountability standards that work. I know Senator Bingaman has been a champion of this issue in the Senate. I worked with him as a Member of the other body in our reauthorization of the prior Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I anticipate, if we have a chance--and I hope we do--that both in committee and on the floor we will push hard for accountability. So we have a lot of work to do. It is national work. We simply cannot walk away from it. Unfortunately, the approach that I see the Republican majority taking is effectively walking away from it, to hand it off to the States, to step back and say it is not our job, not our role, when, in fact, we can and should be a partner, the junior partner but a partner, in this effort to improve education throughout the United States. We have made progress. Statistics are encouraging in relation to student performance, but we will give up this progress, I fear, if we do not innovate, if we do not continue to support local initiatives, and if we do not continue to try to overcome the local inertia that leads to 8,000 failing schools, that leads to a malapportionment of dollars between poor students and more affluent students. It is a national role that we have long had. It is increasingly a national priority, as we face a world of international competition, as we face a world where the future of our families literally depends upon the quality of the education that our children receive. I hope that in this great debate we will, in fact, be able to talk about libraries, talk about child opportunity zones, talk about improving the accountability, and talk about how we can put technology into classrooms, not simply to walk away from this issue with the assumption that the States can and will do it.

Mr. REED

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

Mr. REED. I ask to speak pursuant to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000, which would enable law enforcement agencies nationwide to more easily trace handguns used in crime, and provide background checks and registration by law enforcement of all primary and secondary transfers of handguns, including retail sales, Internet sales, gun shows, and all other private transfers. This legislation is supported by Handgun Control, Inc., the Violence Policy Center, the NAACP, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Many Americans are unaware that there is a successful federal weapons registration system already in place under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). The NFA requires registration of all machine guns, short- barrel shotguns and short-barrel rifles, silencers, bombs, grenades, and other specialized weapons. The NFA is successfully and efficiently administered by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The Handgun Safety and Registration Act would require the registration of all handguns under the NFA within one year of enactment. I know some of my colleagues may question why this bill is needed. First, the bill would help law enforcement more effectively trace handguns used in crime by making registration data available on- line to state and local law enforcement agencies. Tracing methods used today are extremely cumbersome and favor the criminal over the police. When a gun used to commit a crime is recovered, a state or local law enforcement agency contacts ATF with the name of the manufacturer and the serial number of the handgun--if it has not been removed by the criminal. ATF in turn contacts the manufacturer, which provides the name of the wholesale or retail dealer to whom the handgun was sold. ATF then contacts the dealer to obtain the name of the individual or another retail dealer who purchased the handgun. All too often, this is where the trail goes cold, and another gun crime may go unsolved. If the individual handgun owner has sold the gun to another person in a private sale, there is no way for law enforcement to follow the path of the handgun without time-consuming detective work and a good deal of luck. Subsequent private transfers or gun show sales are similarly unrecorded, making law enforcement's job even more difficult. Even before the first retail sale, law enforcement is completely dependent upon the record keeping of gun manufacturers and gun dealers to follow the trail of a handgun from manufacture to criminal use. There is no law enforcement database of handgun production or sales in the United States. The Handgun Safety and Registration Act would give the advantage back to the police by making handgun registration data available to law enforcement in an easily accessible format. Mr. President, in addition to improving law enforcement's tracing capabilities, the Handgun Safety and Registration Act would help prevent handguns from ending up in the possession of people who are likely to commit gun crimes. The bill would require registration of all handguns, including those currently in private possession, and would make it a felony for any person to transfer a handgun to another individual without prior law enforcement approval. As it currently does for all NFA weapons, ATF would conduct a background check on the transferee through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), and the National Law Enforcement Tracking System (NLETS). This would provide a clear incentive for all handgun owners and dealers to exercise great caution when they choose to sell or otherwise transfer a handgun to another person. It is my hope that by requiring registration of all handguns under the National Firearms Act, we can give law enforcement officials the tools to conduct faster and more reliable tracing of handguns used in crime, and prevent handguns from falling into criminal hands in the first place. The Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000 would accomplish these goals without restricting in any way the possession or sale of hunting rifles or shotguns used by law-abiding sportsmen across the country. I encourage my Senate colleagues to support this important legislation as we seek effective ways to help law enforcement reduce gun violence in America.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I thank the Senator from Georgia for yielding the floor. We are all--every Member of this Senate--vitally interested in the health and welfare of our educational system throughout the United States. We are taking divergent roads to try to improve that system. I rise today, though, in opposition to the Education Savings Account provisions of this particular legislation. I think it is both bad tax policy and bad education policy. In fact, I think one of the great dividing lines between those who support this legislation and those who oppose it is whether or not our primary responsibility is to enhance, support, indeed, to reform public education or to somehow, in general, provide disbursed resources to parents. Our primary goal should be to enhance and reform and provide better public education. This legislative proposal, as well-intended and well- meaning as it is, does not do that. As I said, it represents both bad tax policy and bad education policy. In terms of the bad tax policy, it is a preferential distribution to wealthy Americans. If you look at the analysis by the Treasury Department, it shows that this legislation would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and provide little or no benefit to low- and middle-income families. Indeed, 70 percent of the tax benefits under this bill would go to families in the top 20 percent of the income bracket. This is bad tax policy because one of the problems we have today is the growing divergence between low- and middle-income Americans--working Americans--and upper-income Americans--not to suggest that upper-income Americans do not work. But what I am suggesting is that over the last 7 to 9 years of unprecedented growth in the economy, with a huge bonanza on Wall Street, we have seen the wealth and income of upper-income Americans grow significantly. We have not seen the same kind of effect--although we are beginning to see it--for low- and middle-income Americans. When we go into the tax system and create a tax preference such as the one proposed in this legislation, that remarkably benefits upper- income Americans, we are exacerbating that bifurcation of benefits, that bifurcation of wealth and income. If we are talking about effective tax policy, we should think of ways, rather than benefiting the well-to-do more, to try to provide those low-income and middle-income Americans with more tax relief. This bill does not do that. In fact, 7 percent of the families with children in private schools would receive over half the tax benefits in this bill. I also suggest that these families probably are not sending their children to private schools because they need assistance. They are sending them to private schools because they have the means to do it--and, in fact, many other reasons. They are not sending them, I think, in any conscious way, to improve the public school system. That is where there is this disconnectedness between tax policy designed to help private schools and the involved commitment of so many of the Members of the Senate who are trying to reform public education. I do not think there is a connection. I think parents who are sending their children to private schools today--and it is their prerogative-- are doing so for reasons unrelated to the social advancement of other students or the social advancement of the community. They simply think a particular school is the best school for their child. Today they can pay for it. They will continue to pay for it--with or without this legislation. That is their choice. One of the good things about our educational system is, we do have choices such as that. But the real question is, should we be subsidizing that choice with our tax system at the expense of public education? Should we subsidize education in a way in which the greatest subsidy goes to the most affluent Americans? I think the answer is clearly no. It has been estimated by the Joint Tax Committee that if you look at the tax benefit for the average family--not the wealthier family, not the lowest income family who might possibly avail themselves of this provision--the average benefit is estimated to be little more than $20 over 4 years. Over one year the benefit translates into paying for 3 notebooks, 14 erasers or 1 box of crayons for the 90 percent of taxpayers who have children in public schools. We can, in fact, do something better, at least, for those in public education with this money. We should do that. So from a tax perspective, I think this bill is questionable. Let me raise one other point, perhaps a technical point. These IRAs for education were designed to help people receive higher education, to be able to save for very significant tuitions. The presumption is that families will begin to save, either when they are just starting out in married life or certainly when the first child comes along, but that it gives them at least 18 years to accumulate the principal in this IRA account, and interest which is tax exempt, and then 18 years later, having a significant amount of principal and accumulated interest, they could begin to draw from it. I must confess, I am not a tax expert. But I wonder, just on a technical basis, whether elementary education is the most suitable mechanism, if you will, the most suitable objective for these types of IRAs, since at most you have 3 or 4 or 5 years before the child goes to first grade to begin to accumulate. If you have several children, these funds might not be useful at all or be so disbursed. That is a technical point. The basic point about the tax policy aspect is that essentially the benefits go to very wealthy Americans. The benefits are not an inducement or incentive to go to private schools. They are going to private schools anyway. They will go to private schools without this. Anytime we take money away from public education, we are really taking it away from children who need us to stand by them and need us to put all of our efforts into reforming public education which should be free and excellent for all of our citizens. That aspect of the tax policy is one reason one could object--and I do object--to the legislation. The other aspect is the question of education policy. We have heard all of our colleagues come to the floor talking about education as a primary concern of the American public. That is absolutely true. They want to have a good system of public education. As the Senator from Georgia pointed out, they don't want us to run it from Washington, DC. I agree with him on that. But they certainly want Washington, DC, to participate in the reform of American education. They want Washington, DC, to be a force, not a dominant, controlling force, but a catalyst for real reform at the State and local level. They want specific needs addressed. They want better facilities for their children. That is why many of my colleagues on the Democratic side have proposed significant support for local initiatives to rebuild and renovate schools. I don't know about my colleagues, but every time I go back to Rhode Island, I have city council and school committee members come up to me and say: What we need is some money from Washington to help us with our school construction and modernization programs. That is a real concern. Frankly, if we support this type of tax break or tax advantage, which will flow primarily to private education, we won't have the resources to go in and help local communities rebuild and revitalize their schools. Also, if we look at some of the other processes going on at the local level in terms of how do we make better schools, one critical issue that has been identified in recent polling is the need for more parental involvement in public schools. I know that proponents of this proposal are talking, I think quite sincerely, about empowering parents. But we have another challenge when it comes to parents--getting those parents into the life of the public school. It is getting those parents to be involved in the education of their children in public schools. We can't do that simply by wishing for it. We have to provide support and resources. We have to provide training for teachers to be more adept, more sensitive to the needs of a new type of parent. Particularly when you go into low-income communities in this country, both rural and urban, you find many times young parents who themselves had a very difficult experience in school. They are not the most adept at or interested in going back into the schools and being part of their child's education. We have to recognize that. In my part of the country--frankly, in every part of the country today--we have many parents whose first language is not English. Again, if we really want to help our public schools--which I argue is our first and primary responsibility--we have to empower schools and teachers to deal with these types of parents. We can't do that if we take resources away from public education and target it through tax breaks to private education. In fact, I argue--and I have submitted legislation to this effect--we should provide resources for public schools to have much more effective outreach to parents, much more effective ways to involve them in the life of their children. That might be a more fundamental and more significant form of parental involvement and real parental choice than is offered by this tax bill. It may for the first time give parents, particularly those of low-income children, a real voice in their child's education in a public school. That is something else, again, I believe we should do. But if we take resources away from public education, we won't be able to do it. We also have to ensure we have good, well-qualified teachers. Frankly, in many school systems we can't say that with confidence. I ask the Senate: How does this legislation before us in any way help public schools have better teachers? It doesn't. I think the logic and implication here is that it will assist, encourage, subsidize parents to put their children in private education. I believe rather than walking away from a problem--indeed, a problem we should be dealing with directly--we should focus our attentions on the problem and our resources. In the area of teacher preparation, we could use the billions of dollars that would be involved in this program to enhance professional development, first, in the teacher colleges where the new teachers should learn about the new classroom, new technology, new techniques, and then, second, by integrating into public education the kind of comprehensive teacher preparation that is part of the curriculum, teacher mentoring, allowing principals to have more time to actually be education leaders. You can't do that for free. You need resources. We can help, not by dictating to the States but by essentially giving them the chance to qualify for grants that will help them do innovative things. So for many reasons, a policy of simply telling parents you can leave the public school system with a subsidy is bad education policy because it doesn't go to the core of what we should be about, which is making sure that every public school in this country provides excellent education for all of the students. Public education has always been the great leveler in this country. I went to parochial school, but that was a choice of my parents. There was always public education there for me, for them to choose. Perhaps this is nostalgia at this point in my life, but it was always perceived to be excellent education, good, solid education, getting people ready for the challenges of the last century. Now we have to get ready for the challenges of this century, and still we need public education. Again, I believe this proposal is motivated by the same desire that is motivating every Member of the Senate--finding a way to improve educational opportunities for Americans. My disagreement is that our focus should be on public education, and this proposal does not focus in on public education. In fact, it draws resources away from it. Also, I object because of the tax implications. Now is not the time to essentially provide tax incentives for people who already, and are likely to continue to, do what we are trying to subsidize, particularly when the benefits are so overwhelmingly skewed to the very affluent in our country. I object to the legislation. I hope we can come together again. We can talk about some of the issues which I hear day in and day out from parents, from elected officials, from school superintendents back in my home State: How do we fix up our schools so they are not remnants of the last century and the 19th century? We have school buildings in Rhode Island built in 1878 and 1876 that are still being used. We have others that are almost as old. How do we deal with those issues? How do we prepare better teachers? How do we reduce class size? because we know from analyses and evaluations that smaller class sizes are beneficial, particularly when it comes to minority children. How do we do this in the context of public education? That is where we should be focusing our attention. That is where I hope we can focus our attention. I urge this measure be put aside so we can get on with what I think is our top priority: Reforming, reinvigorating public education so we can say with great confidence on the floor of the Senate--and we cannot say it today--every school in this country gives every child in this country the chance to develop their talents to the fullest. Every public school does that. Until we can say that, I suggest we concentrate on improving public education, not subsidizing private education. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly on a technical amendment offered by myself and Senator Sessions. Senator Sessions and I are offering this technical amendment merely to correct some provisions which we felt were needed in order to avoid an unintended reading of the amendment. Reaffirmations are essentially agreements between creditors and consumers whereby the consumer agrees to continue to repay the debt owed the creditor, even after all other debts may be discharged in bankruptcy. Unfortunately, there have been many instances in the past in which consumers have not been well-informed going into these agreements, and in some cases have been coerced into signing them. As some of my colleagues may recall, in offering our original amendment on reaffirmations, Senator Sessions and I had two major goals: the first was to improve consumer's understanding of what they are doing when they agree to reaffirm a debt that they were entitled to, under the law, have discharged. The second goal was to promote efficient handling of reaffirmations in the bankruptcy process. Our November amendment developed a uniform disclosure form that is to be filed with the court along with the reaffirmation agreement into which the consumer is entering. The amendment also expands the authority of the bankruptcy court to review those reaffirmations that are most likely to fail, such as debtors whose income and other expenses clearly indicate that they do not have the ability to repay the debt which they are reaffirming. In that respect, the Reed-Sessions amendment seeks to provide courts with the information they need to determine quickly and efficiently whether these reaffirmations are appropriate or not. The specific changes that we are making today to our original amendment simply clarify certain points we felt may be open to misinterpretation. For example, we want to make it clear that the debt a consumer is reaffirming includes two totals: First is the total amount of the debt the consumer owes, and second is the total amount of any other costs accrued by the consumer since the date they were given the disclosure statement. At another point, we wanted to make clear to the consumer that the payments they would be making on the reaffirmed debt are subject to change, based on their reaffirmation or original credit agreement. In the part of the amendment detailing certain steps the consumer needs to undertake, we wanted to make clear that consumers would not be penalized if their attorney decides not to sign the reaffirmation agreement and the disclosure statement. We also want to make clear to consumers that in certain circumstances, they can also redeem the item, rather than reaffirming the debt they have on it. to redeem it, they can simply make one payment equal to the actual value of the item. All of these mostly minor changes will make the original amendment that much more clear and easier for the consumer to understand when they are going through the unpleasant process of bankruptcy. With all that said, it was my hope to have another point included in the final version of this amendment, but I have agreed not to push for its inclusion at this time. This last piece that I was seeking deals with the amount of time one has to file reaffirmations. I would first like to make it clear that it is not my intention to suggest that the original Reed-Sessions amendment was unclear about the need for timely filing of reaffirmations and the new disclosure form with the court. However, in the course of discussions with consumer advocacy groups, there were strong arguments that it could be interpreted that way. Therefore, I sought what I thought was a judicious approach, which was to create a 50-day window--between the first meeting a debtor has with creditors until the time of discharge--to enter into a reaffirmation agreement. The original Reed-Sessions amendment goes to some length to carefully define the information that must be presented to the debtor, the instructions that the debtor must receive, and the conditions under which this information must be presented to the courts. However, I think we will all recognize that this information is most useful to the courts if it can be provided in a timely manner. The underlying bill already contains a number of provisions that outline certain deadlines for actions that the consumer must undertake within the course of bankruptcy. Therefore, this new deadline would be entirely consistent with those others already present in the bill. I believe a deadline of some kind is necessary in this case as we have seen certain abuses in the past, most notable in the case of Sears, where there appeared to be no effort to file these reaffirmation agreements with the court, yet all the while consumers continue to pay as if they had been. I would also like to point out that several advocates and bankruptcy judges were consulted on the timing issue, notably Judge Eugene Weedoff of Chicago and Judge Thomas Carlson of California, as well as Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard University. However, I'm pleased to say that I have come to an agreement with Senator Sessions on the technical amendment and on addressing the timing issue with regard to filing reaffirmations. Therefore, I would urge the support of this amendment. The amendment (No. 2650), as further modified, as previously agreed to, reads as follows:

Mr. REED. I thank the Senator.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, my friend from Alabama is correct. I believe that we have an honest, fair reform to the reaffirmation process and procedure. I know there has been a great deal of work dedicated to this end, and I am pleased we have arrived at this common ground. I have some concerns about the time limits for approval of these reaffirmation agreements. I had hoped this timing issue would be resolved, but I share Senator Sessions' desire to see this amendment passed with the technical corrections. I would ask my friend if he shares my interest in addressing this timing issue in conference?

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, let me commend the Senator from Wisconsin for his efforts. He has spoken out forcefully and clearly and correctly for so many months about our obligation to see that the people of East Timor have a chance to chart their own course, to reach their own destiny, to rule themselves. I thank him for his efforts. Today this amendment is being withdrawn, but this withdrawal should not be a signal that we are turning away from East Timor. Indeed, it is once again an opportunity to speak out and demand that we do, in fact, attend to the needs of this emerging country. As the Senator from Wisconsin pointed out, I traveled to East Timor twice last year. The first time was a week before the referendum. I traveled with Senator Harkin and our colleague from the other body, Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. We were there a few days before the election. What struck us was the incredible courage of the people of East Timor. It was an ominous and foreboding atmosphere. Armed militias were roaming the countryside threatening people and making it clear that their goal was to intimidate all of the East Timorese either not to vote or to vote for continued association with Jakarta, with Indonesia. Despite this, we saw countless East Timorese who were willing to risk their lives, declaring to us that they would vote, they would risk their lives. I had occasion in Suai to be speaking at a church where there were thousands of displaced persons gathered around this church in the protection of three priests. I told them that the vote is more powerful than the army. Not only did they believe that, but they risked their lives to prove it. Sadly, with the conclusion of the referendum, the militias went wild, conducting a rampage throughout East Timor. In fact, the three priests in Suai who were leading their congregations were slaughtered by the militias because they chose to talk about democracy and independence and self-determination. I returned back to East Timor in the first week of December. Since the election had taken place, the United Nations had authorized the intervention of international forces, and we owe a great deal to the armed forces and the Government and the people of Australia because they launched thousands of Australian soldiers to enter that country, to stabilize that country, and literally to give a chance to the people of East Timor to build a democratic society. The United States also contributed roughly 200 troops. The troops were led by our U.S. Marine Corps. The bulk of the troops were U.S. Army forces. These troops, once again, displayed magnificently the ability of American forces to respond to a crisis and to bring to bear not only our technology, but our values, as they supported that struggling democracy, struggling to emerge in East Timor. Now, the Indonesian Government has formally renounced the claims of East Timor. It is being administered in the interim by the United Nations. We had the chance in our last visit at the end of November, beginning of December, to meet with the leadership of the United Nations. They are led by a very accomplished diplomat, Sergio DeMello. But I have to say that their efforts to date are quite feeble when it comes to the difficult challenges they face. So I think the whole international community has to step up and assist this effort of reconstruction because one thing was painfully obvious to us as we traveled through East Timor--the country was deliberately, cynically destroyed. Every building that was worth habitation was burned. Ironically and interestingly--because I think the Indonesian military was calling all the shots--they didn't touch the churches because they knew that would probably make CNN. But a few feet away from every church, rows and rows of buildings were destroyed. We met the people of East Timor, people who are struggling for the basic subsistence now after all the mayhem and destruction. Once again, I commend the military forces-- particularly ours--that are there today helping out. We have a great deal to do to ensure that our words about independence, our words about the value of democracy, and our words about self-determination are transferred into palpable progress for the people of East Timor. We have an opportunity, I say an obligation, to give them resources to get the job done. I believe we should start with an appropriation of $25 million for humanitarian assistance so they can reconstruct their schools and infrastructure. Literally, the militias and Indonesian Army destroyed all records--postal records, all identification records, all land records. This country has been totally devastated, deliberately and cynically destroyed. We have an obligation to help them rebuild. They are a people who want to rebuild, who want to make progress and go forward. I also had the chance while I was in East Timor to travel to West Timor, which is still part of Indonesia. I went to these camps where there are thousands of East Timorese, many of whom were taken against their will from their homes and brought into these camps. These camps are not a place where a person can stay indefinitely. It is a transitory shelter. Many people are there because they are intimidated by the militias still lurking in the camps. Others are fearful and afraid of going home because they might run into retribution by those who stayed behind, the proliberation democracy forces. But in any case, they are creating a huge problem of assimilation and a huge drain on the resources of the villages of West Timor. I had a chance to meet with the Catholic Relief Service, which is doing great work there, and representatives of the Catholic Church. We have a real obligation, also, to see that these displaced people in West Timor are allowed to go home safely and to reintegrate into their society, into the new country of East Timor. The work is substantial. Today's effort by the Senator from Wisconsin, after many days to get this measure to the floor, should, as I say, not be a signal that the problem is solved and that we can withdraw--since no longer is East Timor capturing the front page headlines--it should be rather an opportunity for us to recommit ourselves to do the work of helping these people build a just, decent, and viable society and country. Let me say a final word because we are all here today talking about an issue that has been on the minds of the world for the last year because of the publicity. But long before East Timor was a well-known word in the United States and around the capitals of the world, there was one Member of this Senate, Claiborne Pell, who strove mightily to point out the injustice and the need for freedom. In 1992, Senator Pell traveled to Indonesia, saw President Suharto, and asked him to hold a plebiscite on self-determination. That was a full 7 years, or more, before this referendum was held. He also wanted to visit East Timor but was denied permission to meet with Xanana Gusmao, then in a Jakarta prison. He held hearings and he kept this issue on the forefront of the consciences of many in the world. In a very particular way, the freedom of East Timor today is a tribute to his quiet, persistent efforts through many years. The fact that today Xanana Gusmao is back home in East Timor, is a leader in that community, a community that will decide its own fate, a free country, emerging in the world, is a tribute again to Senator Pell. Let me conclude by thanking, once again, Senator Feingold for his great effort, his clear voice, his dedication and commitment to principle. Let us all resolve today that we have just begun to help these people to rebuild their country, their society, and to create a society that will have our values, but will also definitely have their own perspective as East Timorese. I yield back my time.