Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, after being begged to do that.

Mr. SANDERS. And I thank the gentleman for his efforts. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is courageous and active on this issue, and I thank her for being with us.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on a point that the gentlewoman made. She mentioned Clear Channel; and some people say yes, well, Clear Channel is a radio network, but they are much more than a radio network. And the point that I am trying to make and that all of us have been trying to make today, getting back to this chart, is that a handful of giant media conglomerate corporations are owning more and more of what we see, hear, and read; and this is not what a democracy is about. I would remind my colleagues in Congress and all Americans that in the last days of the Soviet Union, which was a totalitarian society, people thought, well, I guess they had one newspaper and one television network, and that was it. It was a totalitarian society. That is wrong. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of different newspapers, different magazines, different television stations, all over the totalitarian Soviet Union. The only problem was that all of those television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines were only controlled by either the government of the Soviet Union or the Communist Party. Many, many different outlets, but limited ownership. What we are seeing here is many, many outlets and increasingly fewer owners. Let me say a word about News Corporation; people probably do not know. What is News Corporation? Well, it is owned by a gentleman named Rupert Murdoch, who was born in Australia, part of a newspaper publishing family in Australia. News Corporation today owns much of the media in Australia. Big deal. Well, they also own much of the media in the United Kingdom. They own a lot of the media in Eastern Europe. They are increasingly owning more media in China. And guess what? They already own a whole lot of media and other companies in the United States, and they want more. So what you are looking at is one man who happens to be a right-wing billionaire controlling huge amounts of media all over the entire world, which makes him, in fact, one of the most powerful people in the world. In the United States, news corporations owned by Mr. Murdoch, 22 television stations, including stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Minnesota, Houston, Orlando and Phoenix. He owns the Fox Broadcasting Network. He owns Fox News. He owns Fox Kids, Fox Sports, the Health Network, the National Geographic. He owns TV Guide. He owns the TV Guide Channel. He owns Fox Sports, radio, the Golf Channel. He also is not content with broadcast media. He happens to own the New York Post. And this is really a small number of what he owns. He owns the Times in London, one of the leading papers in the United Kingdom. He owns the Sun in the United Kingdom, one of the large circulation tabloids there. He owns the News of the World. He owns the TV Guide Magazine in the United States. He owns a conservative magazine called the Weekly Standard. But that is not all that he owns. He owns Harper Collins, one of our major publishing houses. He owns Regan books. He owns Amistad Books. He owns William Morrow and Company. That means if you want to get a book published, you have got to go through these guys. Not only that, he has tremendous impact on sports in America. People say, I do not care about books, but I really am interested in sports. Well, he happens to own or at least be part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York Knickerbockers, the New York Rangers. Well, I am not interested in sports, but I am interested in music. He owns Festival Records. He owns Mushroom Records, and he owns much, much more. Now, the point here is it is not just Mr. Murdoch and news corporations. I have talked about Viacom before. It is not just AOL- Time Warner. It is not just Disney. It is not just Clear Channel. It is a handful of corporations that control more than you think they do, and the end result of that is that entire issues of great concern to the American people are not discussed at all because these guys really are not interested in discussing it. I read recently that Mr. Bush's proposal for $720 billion in tax breaks is gaining support in America. Well, I can see why: Because there has been relatively little opportunity in the media for those of us who disagree, who think that it is a bad idea that the richest \1/10\ of 1 percent get as much in tax breaks as the bottom 89 percent. How many people know that? How many people know that as a result of that budget, there will likely be cutbacks in Medicaid, Medicare, veterans needs, education, environmental protection? Because if you give away all of that money, you will have less for the needs of working families and the middle class. How many people know that if you do that huge tax break, you are going to end up with a $10 trillion national debt that we are leaving to our kids and our grandchildren? Not a whole lot of discussion about that because Mr. Murdoch and the guys who make tens of millions of dollars a year want tax breaks for the rich. They want the American taxpayer to subsidize them, to give them billions of dollars in corporate welfare. Do you think General Electric, which owns NBC, is going to be talking about all the welfare that General Electric gets through its nuclear power efforts? Maybe, but I do not think so. Do you think that General Electric, which owns NBC, will be talking about all the jobs that GE destroyed in the United States, all the American workers they threw out on the street as they moved to Mexico and China? I do not think so. So this issue is not some kind of inside-the-Beltway abstract issue. It gets to the heart and the soul and the core of what America is about, and that is if we are to remain a democracy where honest people have honest differences of opinion, we have got to get all of the information. We cannot have a handful of conglomerates who have their own special interests determining what we see, hear and read. And that is why, just to recapitulate what all of my colleagues who have been up here have said, it is enormously important that on June 2 the FCC does not go forward and further deregulate the media so you will end up with even an even smaller number controlling what we see, hear and read. At the very least, Mr. Powell has got to stop the process. He has got to have public hearings all over America. We need studies to understand what this will mean, what more deregulation will mean to the quality of American democracy, what it will mean to the ability of communities to get local news, what it will mean to small businesses and the ability of small businesses to function within the media area. This is an enormously important issue. I would hope that anyone who needs more information about this can go to my website at Bernie.House.gov. I hope that more people will get involved in this extremely important issue. I want to thank all of the Members of Congress who have been here today.

Mr. SANDERS. If I could interrupt for a moment, we are a Nation which, as I think everybody knows, is pretty equally divided. The last election, Mr. Gore and Mr. Nader received somewhat more votes than Mr. Bush and Mr. Buchanan. Congress is almost equally divided. The Senate is almost equally divided. Polls show a certain number of people are Democrats, an equal number are Republicans, and you have a lot of independents out there. This is not an extreme right-wing country. It just is not. I would ask people to think for a moment about the phenomenon of talk radio. In a Nation which is divided pretty equally politically, people on the left, people on the right, let me just mention the folks who are on talk radio: Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Sean Hannity, Armstrong Williams, Blanquita Collum, Michael Savage, Neil Boorts, Bob Grant, Bob Dornan, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, Matt Drudge, Laura Schlesinger, Don Imus, Michael Graham, Ken Hamblin, Laura Ingraham, and many, many others. What do they have in common? They are all extreme right wing. And now let me read you the names of the progressive voices. That is it. There are not any. There are not any. Liberal voices, virtually none. Now, how come in a Nation in which more people voted for Gore than for Bush, there are no national voices speaking for working families, speaking for the middle class, speaking for the environment, speaking for women's rights? No voices. I am not talking about a minority; I am talking no voices. Is that an accident? Well, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) was saying, I do not think it is an accident. I think one has to be very naive not to see the connection between the large corporations who own the media, their desire for lower taxes for the rich, their desire to take American jobs to China, where people are paid 20 cents an hour, their anti-unionism, their lack of respect for the environment, and the fact that talk radio is dominated by these right wing forces.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for all of her efforts on this issue. I think her appeal is exactly right. Why should the American people not be able to participate in this debate? Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, in my view the issue that I and some of my colleagues are about to discuss, which is concentration of ownership in the media and the implications of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and FCC Chairman Michael Powell, is one of the very most important issues facing this country. One of the ways that we can know how important this issue is is precisely by how relatively little media attention has been paid to it. The growing concentration of corporate ownership of media in the United States is in fact one of the least discussed major issues in this country because the media itself is in a major conflict of interest and chooses not to discuss it. As bad as the situation is today, and when we examine this chart we will find out how bad it is, how few major multinational conglomerates like Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Disney, Clear Channel, News Corporation and a few others, to what degree a few major corporations control what we see, hear and read, as bad as it is, it is likely to become much worse, much more dangerous for the future of democracy in this country if, as is proposed on June 2, the FCC votes for further media deregulation, regulations that have been on the books for years to protect localism, to protect diversity of opinion, to protect the clash of ideas. Needless to say, there are many people and many organizations all across this country regardless of political orientation who are strongly opposed to changing these regulations and who do not want to see more media consolidation in this country. Millions of Americans do not want to see the handful of corporations who determine what we see, hear and read become three, become two, become one perhaps as a result of mergers and takeovers. These groups range across the political spectrum from progressive groups to conservative groups. According to the Associated Press yesterday, and I quote, ``The National Rifle Association joined the ranks of consumer groups, musicians, writers and academics who oppose easing the restrictions. ``The NRA asked its members to write Powell,'' that is the FCC Chairman, ``and lawmakers in support of the existing rules, said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president.'' Quote from Mr. LaPierre: ``These big media conglomerates are already pushing out diversity of political opinion.'' Further, we have heard recently from organizations representing black broadcasters and Latino broadcasters. We have heard from musicians. We have heard from a wide spectrum of people who say what America is about is freedom, and we cannot have freedom if we do not have a clash of ideas. And it will be very dangerous for this country when a tiny number of multi-multibillion-dollar international conglomerates own virtually all of our newspapers, all of our radio stations, all of our television stations, all of our book publishing companies, all of the companies that produce the films that we observe. At issue now is the FCC's review of rules that seek to protect localism so that back home they will have local news, that there will be a local radio station telling them what is going on in their community, that will preserve competition and diversity. These rules, among other things, currently limit a single corporation from dominating local TV markets. Do people want to live in a community where all of the local television stations are owned by one company? These rules that we have in place right now will prevent the merging of local television stations, radio stations, and a newspaper. Do people want to live in a community where one company owns their local TV station, owns the newspaper and owns radio stations? Do they think they are going to hear different points of view when that happens? These regulations deal with the merging of two major television networks so that we will have just a few networks controlling all of the TV stations facing our country. Honest people might have differences of opinion on this issue, but one would think that there would be massive amounts of public discussion all over America. I can tell the Members that in my small State, the State of Vermont, which is one of the smallest States in this country, we recently had a town meeting on this issue, and 600 people came out to hear FCC Commissioner Michael Copps talk about that issue. We should be having town meetings like that all over America, and in my view and in the view of many of us in Congress, the FCC should delay making any decisions on June 2 and let the American people get involved in the process. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege now to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) who has been very active on this issue. I thank the gentlewoman for being with us.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman. Before I yield to the gentlewoman of Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), I want to just emphasize a point that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) just made. I think sometimes when people turn on a television or they pick up a newspaper, they say, well, a company owns this newspaper, and a lot of companies put out different newspapers, different types of television stations, and so forth and so on. What people are not aware of is the degree, the number of separate companies that one large corporation owns. Let me start off with an example and go to Viacom. I suspect that most people have never even heard of Viacom. Who is Viacom? What is Viacom? So let me tell the Members a little bit about Viacom. Viacom is a huge multinational corporation that owns TV stations, radio stations, TV networks, and many other media outlets. For example, this is just Viacom, just Viacom. When we turn on CBS network, that is Viacom. We turn on the UPN network, Viacom. MTV, Nickelodeon, TV Land, CMT, TNN, VH1, Showtime, Movie Channel, Sundance Channel, Flick, Black Entertainment, Comedy Central. One would think they are watching different companies. They are not. That is Viacom. They get off the TV now, drive into work, turn on the radio. There are 180 Infinity radio stations owned by Viacom. What about local television stations? We have got the big CBS. What is about the local television stations? They must be locally owned. Wrong. We have 34 stations that Viacom owns in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Dallas, in Detroit, Miami, Pittsburgh, among other places. They are in radio. They are in television. But at least when I go from the movies I am getting away from this corporation, right? Not quite. When we watch Paramount Pictures, it is Viacom. MTV Films, Viacom. Nickelodeon, Contentville, the Free Press, MTV books, Nickelodeon books, Simon & Schuster. I am into music now. That is not Viacom. Wrong. Famous music publishers: Pocket Books, Viacom. Star Trek franchise; Scribner's Publishers, Viacom. Touchstone, Spelling Entertainment, Big Ticket TV, Viacom Productions, King World Productions, all one company. One company. And they say it is not enough. We do not own enough media. We need to own more media. Break down the regulations so we can own more television stations, we can own more book publishing companies, and so forth. A very dangerous trend. Now it gives me a great pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), clearly one of the outstanding Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. SANDERS. I am assuming you were prepared to pay for that ad?

Mr. SANDERS. What we have now, and I think people should be aware of this, is it a bad situation when the media does not provide adequate coverage for different points of view, and that is what we are seeing. What the gentlewoman is saying is that when individuals want to buy time at the going rates, they are not even allowed to do that. That is an outrage, that is unacceptable, and we are seeing more and more of that. If I like your point of view, you can buy an ad on my radio station; if I do not, sorry, we do not want your money.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if I might, I would mention to my friend that the FCC has a Web site that people can currently e-mail to, and the overwhelming majority of people who are contacting the FCC are saying, do not go forward with more deregulation, which I find interesting. And the gentleman's point is well taken. I think that there would be tens of thousands of people from California to Maine coming out to these hearings if they had the courage to meet the people rather than just talk to the big corporate bosses.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), I want to touch on another aspect of this. People may say, well, this is outside the Beltway. Maybe Members of Congress are complaining, they did not get a good story, they are angry about their lack of courage. That is not the issue here. The issue here is that in a democratic society, we do not know what goes on unless all issues of importance are discussed. It is not whether somebody gets a good story or whether they are on TV or not; it is whether whole segments of American life get the discussion that they need. Now, we know, we know that we have seen everything that we ever wanted to see about Michael Jackson, about all the other scandals that we have heard about. But here is an issue that gets very little discussion. We have been told that with all of the explosion of technology, with the global economy, with the use of computers and e-mails and faxes, what we are told, which is true, is that the productivity of the average American worker has substantially increased. That is the good news. The bad news is that the tens of millions of Americans today, despite the increase in productivity, are working longer hours for lower wages. The reality is that in America we have lost several million jobs, decent-paying jobs in the last few years because of a disastrous trade policy where companies are throwing American workers out on the street and running to China. Have we seen much discussion about that on the TV? in the newspapers? I do not think so. The reality is, the middle class in this country is shrinking. The rich are becoming richer. The richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. How does that touch into the media? What the media does, to a large degree, is deflect attention. Here is a scandal, we hope you get involved. Here is a ball game, maybe you are interested in that. But do not worry if your job goes to China; do not worry if the minimum wage has not been raised in years and you are making $5.15 an hour. You do not have to worry about that. Do not worry if a pharmaceutical company has contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Republican Party so you end up paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. You are too dumb to worry about that. We have another scandal for you. So the issue does relate to the lives and well-being of every American in our country. We have a right. We are not stupid people. We believe in democracy. We understand honest people have differences of opinion, but we want to be able to discuss the most important issues facing the middle class, facing working families. And we are not able to do that because of the enormous conflicts of interest that exist between these very, very large corporations.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong support of the George Miller-Rangel substitute, and this substitute includes legislation that I introduced last month that now has 133 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by the 35 million members of the AARP and the 13 million workers in the AFL-CIO. And this legislation is a very simple piece of legislation included in this amendment, and it says that when a company converts to a cash balance plan after promising its workers a certain pension benefit that one cannot simply, like that, cut somebody's pension by up to 50 percent. They cannot renege on the promise that they made to that worker and one of the reasons why that worker worked at that company for 10, 20 or 30 years. I ran into this experience in Vermont when hundreds of IBM workers called me up and they said that the promise that the company had made to them was rescinded and the pensions that they had been promised were now out the window. In Vermont, the IBM workers fought back, and they fought back all over the country; and as a result, IBM partially withdrew what they did, and they ended up protecting the older workers and Kodak protected older workers and Motorola protected older workers. But the reality is that millions of American workers today are at risk in seeing huge reductions in the pensions that they were expecting. Pension anxiety is running rampant all over this country, and if we do not pass this amendment, workers will have good reason to worry that the pensions promised to them will not be there. What this amendment says is very simple. It says that if one is 40 years of age or if one has been with a company for 10 years and is on a defined benefit plan and the company goes to cash balance, they have got to give them a choice. What is wrong with giving workers a choice and not taking away the benefits that they had worked their whole lives for? I would like my Republican friends to tell me that. Some of the good companies have given workers a choice. We should give workers a choice right here. That is the amendment that I have included in this bill. But there is another issue that was not included. The Members of the United States Congress have a defined benefit pension plan. And the amendment that I offered said if they think cash balance is such a good idea, why do we not adopt it in the Congress? If they want to tell millions of American workers to see a substantial reduction in their pensions, why do we not do the same thing? If it is good for the workers of America, surely it must be good for the Members of the Congress. I offered that amendment. Everyone will be shocked to know the Republican leadership denied it.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, my friend said that we do not have to do anything. My friend said that it should be voluntary. What happened at IBM is that thousands of workers stood up and fought back. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other workers did not even know what was happening to them. They could not fight back. If the gentleman thinks that giving people a choice is a bad idea, why do the 35 million members of AARP think it is a good idea and the 13 million members of the AFL-CIO? Choice is right.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule. Yesterday I requested that two amendments be allowed, neither one of which was accepted. Mr. Speaker, I first became involved in the issue of pensions in the State of Vermont when hundreds of employees of IBM contacted my office because one day they learned that the promises that had been made to them in terms of their pension benefits was simply being pushed under the rug and being dismissed; that, in fact, the company had converted from a defined benefit pension plan to a so-called cash balance benefit plan; and that for many of the older workers, their benefits would have been reduced by up to 50 percent. People that had worked at the company for 20 or 30 years wake up one day and say, sorry, forget everything that we told you, because we are going to cut your pension benefits by up to 50 percent if you are an older worker. It turned out it was not just IBM, but companies all over this country. In Vermont IBM workers fought back. We had a town meeting with some 7- or 800 workers coming out, spread all over the country, and IBM had to rescind that proposal. But the reality is that the Bush administration has now come up with an idea that would make it easier for companies to slash the pensions of their workers by moving to cash balance programs. My amendment would do a very simple thing that some good companies have already done. Kodak has done it. Motorola has done it. To some degree IBM has done it. CSX, John Snow, Treasury Secretary's company has done it, and that says that if one is an older worker working for the company for at least 10 years, or they are 40 years of age, they will have the choice about which proposal they will take, and older workers, of course, will stay with the defined benefit pension plan. The second amendment that I introduced was a very interesting one, and I said if the Republicans think that cash balance payments are such a good idea, and we all have our pensions, why should we not go to cash balance benefits? The answer is that cash balance benefits will substantially lower the pensions that Members of Congress have. Of course, the Members of Congress will not reduce their own pensions, but they are prepared to force millions of American workers to lower their benefits by going to cash balance benefit plans. So my proposal said that if the President's idea goes forward, on that very day, Members of Congress will move to cash balance benefit pension plans as well and see the same reduction in their benefits as do millions of American workers. Amazingly enough, they did not put that amendment on the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the outstanding performance of Saint Johnsbury Academy from St. Johnsbury, VT in the We the People . . . The Citizen and the Constitution national finals held in Washington, DC, April 26-28, 2003. These outstanding young people competed against 48 other classes from thoughout the Nation and demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the fundamental ideals and values of American constitutional government. Adminstered by the Center for Civic Education, the program is the most extensive of its kind, reaching more than 26 million students at elementary, middle, and high schools. The national finals competition simulates a congressional hearing whereby high school students testify as constitutional experts before a panel of judges, and the students from Saint Johnsbury Academy performed brilliantly. I would like to recognize Mr. Henry Eaton, the moderator for this outstanding group from St. Johnsbury Academy, and the students themselves: Ingrid Bengtson, Merril Bent, Alex Camelio, Brent Clayton, Simon Darling, Dave Goreau, John Limberakis, Ross Marklein, Caroline Milne, Monica Montany, Eric Rowe, Susannah Roy, Kelsey Stavseth, Alex Tausanovitch, and Ashley Ward.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to share with you some excerpts from remarks I gave at Middlebury College on May 2, 2003 regarding the international AIDS crisis: Hello and thank you for inviting me to address this very important gathering. While I am most certainly not a great expert on this issue, I am appreciative that I have this opportunity to exchange a few thoughts with you. The HIV virus respects no boundaries. In every corner of the world, it strikes young and old alike. Especially tragic, those infected include staggering numbers of children. Here are some numbers which should sober us all: Last year, over three million people died of AIDS. That represents nearly 8,500 persons dying each day from

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I recently held a town meeting at St. Michael's College in Vermont to discuss an issue that for obvious reasons does not get much media coverage, and we had over 600 people, Vermonters, coming out to this meeting to discuss the issue of corporate control over the media and the impact that further media deregulation will have on the quality of our democracy. At that meeting we had a gentleman named Michael Copps, one of the commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission, who laid out what is happening at the FCC and told us what most Americans do not know, that on June 2 the FCC is likely to hold a vote which will further deregulate media in the United States and create a situation in which a handful, a tiny handful of huge media conglomerates will largely control what the American people see, hear and read. What we have today is already a very dangerous situation. What is likely to happen after June 2 will be even worse. What do we have today? If we turn on the television and watch NBC, how many people know who owns NBC? It is owned by General Electric, one of the largest corporations in the world, a corporation with enormous conflicts of interests in a dozen different areas. Turn on CBS. Who owns CBS? It is owned by Viacom, another huge company. Turn on ABC, owned by Disney. Turn on Fox, owned by the right wing Australian billionaire Rupert Murdock. Turn on CNN, owned by AOL-Time Warner, another huge corporation. What happens when we end up with a few large companies determining the flow of information in America? Two things happen. Number one, if we listen to radio, we know that on talk radio, the only differences that we hear are between right wing radio talk show hosts and extreme right wing talk show hosts. There is virtually nobody on national talk radio who is expressing the needs of working Americans, of the middle class, of low income people. If we watch television, huge sections, huge areas of great concern to the American people are virtually never discussed. How many Americans know that we as a Nation have the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth? The richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and the Bush tax proposal will only make that situation worse. Have my colleagues heard discussion on that issue? Is it appropriate to give tax breaks to billionaires when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world? When we turn on the television we can see a lot of advertising come from the large drug companies. How many Americans know that we are the only major country on earth that does not have a national health care program that guarantees health care to all people as a right of citizenship? Yet we end up spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other country. Mr. Speaker, turn on television, you hear a lot of discussion about a lot of things; but you may not know in the United States, our people, especially seniors, are forced to pay by far, not even close, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Turn on TV, read the editorial papers of your newspapers. You will hear how great our trade policy is doing. How many people know that NAFTA, most-favored nation status with China, was pushed upon Congress by the big-money interests who also own the media but have resulted in huge job losses for working people in this country. If deregulation of media goes forward, this is what will happen. For the first time, we will have television stations and newspapers in a given town or city owned by the same person. You are going to turn on TV and get the same point of view as you do from the local newspaper owner. Also as a result of further media deregulation, we will see large television companies able to own more and more TV stations all over the country. The trend is very clear. Fewer and fewer large corporations own more and more of the media. This is dangerous for democracy. It must be opposed.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today, all across this country, American workers and the middle class are under severe attack. Unemployment is rising, our manufacturing base is collapsing, health care costs for workers are soaring, the minimum wage has not been raised for years and the decline of the stock market has devastated the retirement plans for millions of workers. And now, on top of all of that, the Bush administration and corporate America and the CEOs who receive compensation packages are attempting to destroy the pensions that have been promised to millions of American workers. In response, I am introducing the Pension Benefits Protection Act to protect the pensions of American workers with 117 original co-sponsors. This legislation has been endorsed by the AARP representing more than 35 million Americans, the AFL-CIO representing more than 13 million American workers, the Pension Rights Center and the Communication Workers of America. I have attached the statements of David Certner, AARP Director of Federal Affairs, and Richard Trumka, Secretary Treasurer at the AFL-CIO, in support of this legislation for inclusion in the Congressional Record. Those of us in Congress who care about this issue, along with the grass roots organizations, will do everything we can to see that workers in America do not see their pensions slashed by up to 50 percent as a result of cash balance conversions. The Pension Benefits Protection Act requires the Department of Treasury to withdraw proposed cash balance conversion regulations that would give companies the green light to violate the pension age discrimination laws that are on the books. The legislation would also require companies that convert to cash balance plans to allow older workers and those with at least 10 years on the job the choice to remain in their traditional pensions. Specifically, this legislation does 2 things: First, it requires companies that convert to cash balance plans to allow workers who are at least 40 years old or have at least 10 years of service the choice to remain in the traditional defined benefit pension plan that was promised to them when they started working for the company. In other words, they cannot be forced into an inferior plan. When a company makes a promise to its employees regarding their pension benefits, it must not be able to pull the rug out from under its employees by cutting their pension benefits in mid-stream. Companies receive some $100 billion in tax incentives to set up these pension plans. Given that reality, Congress must allow older workers or those with at least 10 years of service the option to remain in their traditional defined benefit pension plan. Secondly, this legislation requires the Bush administration to immediately withdraw all of their proposed cash balance pension regulations that, if finalized, would give companies the green light to commit age discrimination against older workers by converting to cash balance schemes. Just yesterday, the Treasury Department withdrew a portion of the proposed regulations dealing with highly compensated employees. While, in my view, this is a step in the right direction, the Administration must go further and withdraw all of these proposed regulations, and require all companies that convert to cash balance plans to protect older workers. We do not tolerate discrimination against workers based on race, based on gender and based on other criteria, and we will not tolerate discrimination based on age. Last January, in a letter to the President, 217 Members from both the House and the Senate made that very clear. Through my involvement with the IBM cash balance conversion, I have heard from thousands of workers throughout the country who have expressed their anger, their disappointment, and feelings of betrayal by cash balance conversions. These are employees who had often stuck with their companies when times were tough. These were employees who had often stayed at their jobs precisely because of the pension program that the company offered. And, these are the same employees who woke up one day to discover that all of the promises that their companies made to them were not worth the paper they were written on. Instead of providing protections for these workers, President Bush has proposed regulations on cash balance plans that would devastate the traditional pension benefits of millions of employees in large companies throughout the United States. The White House policy on cash balance pension plans is a direct assault on the retirement plans of millions of American workers. Hundreds of companies all across America have already reneged on the retirement promises they made to their employees by switching to cash balance pension plans. If the White House proposal is aloud to stand, it will give the green light to hundreds more--resulting in financial disaster for workers all across the country who will not be receiving the pensions they were promised. Of the 44 million Americans with traditional defined benefit plans, some 8 million employees with $334 billion in pension fund assets have been impacted by cash balance pension conversions. According to the General Accounting Office, older employees can have their pensions slashed by up to 50 percent by a cash balance scheme. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has received over 1,000 age discrimination complaints from workers in over 30 different companies who have been negatively impacted by these schemes. According to the Labor Department's Inspector General, companies that have converted to a cash balance scheme are illegally slashing the pension benefits of their employees by as much as $199 million each and every year. Even worse, the Inspector General found that the Federal Government was not enforcing the pension laws and regulations that are on the books when companies shift to cash balance. The courts have ruled that Xerox, Georgia Pacific and the Bank of Boston illegally slashed over $300 million in pension benefits of more than 20,000 employees by converting to a cash balance plan. Last July, 308 Members of Congress voted in favor of an amendment that I offered to prohibit the IRS from using any funds that are in violation of the pension age discrimination laws that are on the books when companies shift to cash balance schemes. According to the President's spokesman Arl Fleischer, criticisms that cash balance plans hurt older workers are ``not valid.'' Well, tell that to Larry Cutrone, a 54-year-old employee from New Jersey, who worked for AT&T for 28 years, who woke up one day to find that his pension had been slashed by over 50 percent as a result of a cash balance conversion. Tell that to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, or Rep. Rob Portman. According to the Congressional Research Service, they would have their pensions slashed by as much as 69 percent under cash balance plans. During the next debate on pension legislation, I will be asking my colleagues in the House, if cash balance plans are good enough for workers, why aren't they good enough for Members of Congress? The answer to that question, of course, is that cash balance pension conversions are not good for older workers. They need to be given a choice.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am voting for this resolution because, like every American, I want to see all of our troops come home safely and want to show my support for them and their families. I also want to see this war ended as quickly as possible, with a minimum of Iraqi casualties. I am disturbed, however, about the partisan nature of this resolution. Instead of simply indicating our support for the troops, this resolution has language in it which some might suggest indicates support for the policies of the President which have led us to where we are today. Let me be very clear. I do not support those policies. I do not support the concept of ``preemptive war.'' I do not support a foreign policy which undermines the United Nations, and which alienates us from virtually all of our allies. I believe that all of these actions create a horrendous precedent which makes our country and our planet less safe, which could well result in more terrorism, not less terrorism. I voted against giving the President the authority to go to war in Iraq and I believe that history will determine that was the right vote. Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator but I believe that, with the support of the international community and the United Nations, he could be contained and his weapons of mass destruction could be removed from him--without war and without killing and at a fraction of the cost that this war and occupation will cost. I also believe that with enforced and prolonged inspections, and with a strong commitment to human rights, the international community could bring democracy to Iraq. Mr. Speaker, let us not forget the phenomenon of ``blow-back,'' or unintended consequences. The U.S., the most powerful military force on earth, will surely win this war in short order, but I'm not so sure that this victory will seem quite so clean and positive five years from now. I'm not so sure that the American occupation of Iraq will have all of the positive results that some think. Let me conclude by expressing my outrage about how, at a time when young men and women are in the line of fire in Iraq, the Republican leadership, on this very night, is voting to cut the benefits of our veterans. On one hand we vote to ``support the troops,'' while on the other hand we vote to deny health care and other promised benefits to those veterans who fought in the first Persian Gulf War, or Vietnam, or Korea or World War II. What hypocrisy! Yes. We apparently have billions available for tax breaks for the rich, but not enough to keep the promises we made to our veterans.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you an article which appeared in the March 9th New York Times. It is not acceptable to me that millions of older American workers could lose the pensions they were promised by their companies because of a conversion to a cash balance pension. My experience in working with IBM employees in Vermont has shown me that these cash balance schemes are extremely unfair and could cut the expected retirement benefits of older workers by up to 50 percent. Every member of Congress enjoys a defined benefit pension plan. We can figure out exactly how much we will receive when we retire by computing the years we have served, our salaries and the age at which we retire. A study I recently requested from the Congressional Research Service, CRS, shows very clearly that if members in Congress were in cash balance plan they would receive substantially less in pensions than in the defined benefit plan we currently enjoy. President Bush has proposed regulations that would legalize age discrimination in cash balance pension conversion. These proposed regulations would give the green light to Fortune 500 companies to raid the pension benefits of millions of older workers. It seems to me that if Congress allows this extremely unfair proposal to go into effect, and jeopardizes the pensions of American workers, it should be prepared to do the same thing for itself. Mr. Speaker, if cash balance plans are good enough for American workers, they should be good enough for members of the U.S. Congress. My understanding is that the Pension Security Act is supposed to go on the floor for debate sometime this month. During that time it is my intention to offer an amendment which would give all vested employees the right to choose which pension plan works best for them under a cash balance conversion. If that amendment does not succeed, I intend to offer another amendment that would convert the traditional pensions of members of Congress into cash balance plans if the President's proposal goes into effect. What's good for the American worker should be good for members of Congress. [From the New York Times, March 9, 2003] What if a Pension Shift Hit Lawmakers, Too? (By Mary Williams Walsh) As members of Congress prepare to reform the pension system, they might want to think hard about the proposals on the table. A new study has examined what would happen to their own retirement benefits if the changes that some favor for other workers were applied to them. The answer might give them pause. Virtually every senator and representative would lose out, the study found--in some cases by hundreds of thousands of dollars--if their current Congressional pensions were switched to a controversial variant called a cash-balance pension. One big loser, for example, would be Representative Rob Portman, a major sponsor of the House Republicans' pension legislation. He had built up a pension benefit worth $337,857 by the end of 2002, if taken as a single payment, the study found. But if Mr. Portman had instead earned his benefits under a cash-balance plan, he would get $239,185, based on an age of 48 and 10 years of service. Mr. Portman will turn 48 this year. (The study used approximate ages in calculating the hypothetical totals.) The study, done by the Congressional Research Service, shows that other members of Congress would suffer losses of varying amounts, depending on their ages and years of service. Congress will be deliberating on significant pension legislation in the coming months, including proposals that would affect benefit levels and the strength of the pension system itself. An especially contentious debate is looming over regulations proposed by the Bush administration on how companies could convert their traditional pension plans to the cash-balance variety. The existing Congressional pension plan is generous, and no one is really planning to trade it in for a new, stripped- down version. For years, however, private-sector employers nationwide have been replacing traditional pension plans with newer ones that are generally meant to be less costly for the companies to offer, but that in many cases yield smaller benefits, or transfer all the risk to workers. Seen in that context, the Congressional Research Service study shows how well members of Congress are insulated from some trends in the private sector. Since the 1980's, hundreds of large companies have switched from traditional to cash-balance plans. These plans combine features of the traditional pension with yet another type of retirement plan, the 401(k), in which employees manage their own retirement money and sometimes receive matching contributions from employers. They are called cash-balance plans because employees periodically receive notice of a hypothetical cash balance that they can track as it grows. In theory, the cash-balance pension has virtues that make it superior to the 401(k): it is paid for and managed by the employer, and it is guaranteed by the federal government; a 401(k) has no such guarantee. But in the real world, companies that have converted traditional pension plans to the cash-balance variety have reduced some employees' retirement benefits sharply. The worst losses have generally befallen older workers. Statistics on the trend are sketchy. But a 2002 audit of 60 corporate pension conversions by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General found that in 13 cases--about 20 percent--workers were deprived of retirement benefits. They were losing about $17 million a year because companies used improper calculations in making the conversions. Extrapolating these lost benefits to the hundreds of pension conversions across the country, the office said, the affected workers ``may be underpaid between $85 million and $199 million annually.'' The office called for heightened regulatory vigilance. Even assuming proper calculations, cash-balance pensions can mean lower payments than in the traditional approach. Cash-balance plans differ from traditional plans, which are set up to let workers build the biggest part of their benefit in the years just before they retire. The idea was to promote worker loyalty by giving workers an incentive to stay with one company. Many graying baby boomers in traditional plans may not know it, but now that they are passing 50 and amassing the bulk of their pensions--they are becoming very expensive to their employers. Companies that have converted to cash-balance pensions have been able to reduce labor costs by ending their traditional plans before many workers enter this high-accrual stage. Cash-balance pensions build benefits more evenly over the course of a worker's career. For some people, they can yield larger benefits than traditional plans, particularly for younger workers who often jump from job to job. In switching to cash-balance pensions, some companies have notified employees in technical jargon or euphemisms that have left workers clueless about what is really happening. But as older employees started to realize that the conversions could mean individual losses in the tens of thousands of dollars, they began to pepper the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission with age-discrimination complaints. Some have filed class-action lawsuits against their companies. The most prominent case, still pending, affects more than 140,000 employees at I.B.M. In 1999, the Internal Revenue Service, which regulates pensions, placed a moratorium on conversions, to give specialists a chance to sort out their legality. Now the Bush administration has proposed regulations that would settle the issue, laying out basic rules for making cash-balance conversions legal. Public comment will be accepted until Thursday, and hearings are scheduled for April 9. If the proposed regulations take effect, the moratorium will be lifted. Critics of cash-balance plans fear that an end to the moratorium would prompt a flood of pension conversions. They and their advocates in Congress doubt that the regulations would adequately protect older workers. ``There are millions and millions of workers today who are scared to death that the pensions they have been promised, that they have worked their whole life for, will not come through,'' said Representative Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who has long opposed cash-balance pension conversions. Proponents of cash-balance pensions have argued that conversions are usually harmless. They note that some companies have voluntarily sweetened their cash-balance plans after older workers complained. In general, members of Congress who have served the longest would face the greatest losses if they were given a cash- balance payout. Patrick J. Purcell, the Congressional Research Service economist who conducted the study, said he worked with each lawmaker's age and years of service without knowing whom the numbers applied to, ``so there would be less reason for people to question the results.'' He then used standard actuarial methods to compress each pension--normally taken as a lifelong stream of monthly checks--into a lump-sum payment. Calculating the lump-sum value made comparison possible with cash-balance benefits, which are normally given in a single payment. Mr. Purcell then calculated what the lawmakers' hypothetical cash-balance benefit would be if they had had such a pension from the day they entered Congress. That approach made for a more straightforward comparison and possibly gave an advantage to the cash-balance plan. In practice, some of the most harmful effects of pension conversions occur because employees undergo the change at midcareer. Mr. Portman, the Ohio Republican, was unavailable for comment on the study. But a spokesman, Jim Morrell, noted that in 2001, Mr. Portman sponsored legislation requiring companies to notify employees of the way their benefits would be affected in cash-balance conversions. That bill is now law. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican from Iowa and chairman of the Finance Committee, earned a pension worth $508,266 under the existing plan, based on an age of 70 and 18 years of service. Under a cash-balance plan, he would have received only $161,623, according to the study. Mr. Grassley is also the former chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and is active on pension issues. A spokeswoman, Jill Gerber, said Mr. Grassley could not comment on the new findings without seeing the study. The study also found that Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, had earned a benefit worth $608,143 at the end of 2002 under the current plan. In a cash-balance plan, Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, would receive $251,086 or 59 percent less, based on an age of 56 and 18 years of service. Mr. DeLay did not respond to a request for comment. Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, qualified for a Congressional pension worth $540,572 at the end of 2002. He would qualify for $164,455 in a typical cash- balance plan, the study found, based on an age of 61 and 16 years of service. Mr. Hastert's press secretary, John Feehery, questioned whether it was fair to single out members of Congress for scrutiny when the entire federal compensation system is skewed toward smaller paychecks and larger pensions compared with the private sector. ``The Treasury Department and Congress are looking at ways to make sure that any conversion is fair,'' he added. ``But on the other hand, many companies, given the economic downturn, are faced with the possibility of not being able to offer any plan at all. And that also would be bad for employees.'' Ms. Gerber noted that pension conversions in Iowa, Senator Grassley's state, generally make it clear that companies are backing away from traditional pensions. In the mid-1970's there were about 1,100 pension plans in Iowa, she said, but now there are fewer than 400. With some companies deciding not to offer any pensions at all, she said, Mr. Grassley sees a need to find some balance between protecting workers' benefits and offering employers incentives to stay in the pension system. ``The anti-cash-balance people are just anti-cash- balance,'' she said. ``But if you just make cash-balance plans illegal, what are the plan sponsors going to do?'' The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan branch of the Library of Congress, did the study at the request of Mr. Sanders, who has introduced legislation opposing cash-balance conversions in the past--none of it successful. He said he hoped the new findings would ``show the hypocrisy'' of colleagues who would let other people undergo pension conversions but would not have to suffer ill effects themselves. ``If they think a cash-balance plan is good enough for American workers, why don't they convert their own pensions?'' he asked in an interview. He said he intended to introduce legislation this week that would force Congress to put its money where its mouth is: it would require the conversion of all Congressional pensions to the cash-balance type if the legislators allow the administration's proposed regulations to go forward. Mr. Sanders himself would lose 72 percent of his pension if that happened. Based on an age of 61, with 12 years of service, he qualified for a $416,159 lump-sum payment at the end of 2002. In a cash-balance model, he would have received $115,850. He would not comment on the prospects for his cash-balance legislation. Perhaps more pragmatically, he said he would also introduce legislation to require companies converting their pensions to let each worker choose whether to keep the old plan or go with the cash-balance plan. Some companies have done this voluntarily, he noted. ``Kodak has done that,'' he said. ``Motorola has done that. CSX, which is the new secretary of the Treasury's company,'' had done that, he said, referring to John W. Snow, who was chief executive of CSX, the railway company, before Mr. Bush appointed him in December to replace Paul H. O'Neill. As Treasury secretary, Mr. Snow has authority over the proposed regulations. All of those companies converted, Mr. Sanders said, ``but they gave workers the choice.''

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am enclosing a letter that I recently wrote to Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, regarding the growing consolidation of media ownership in America. This letter is especially relevant today as the FCC is now in the process of eliminating the few remaining regulations which would stop further consolidation of the industry. February 27, 2003 Dear Chairman Powell, let's be clear. One of the great crises facing this country is that a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the Internet, fewer and fewer giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read. Unless we stop this trend and create a media with much broader ownership and diversity of opinion, it is not certain that democracy will survive in this country. This is a major, major concern that must be dealt with immediately. I fear very much that if we continue down the path we're on, we will end up like the former Soviet Union--a nation where there were many different news outlets, but all were controlled by the same entity. The difference is that in this country it will be multi-national corporations who control the media, and not the government. Let me express my outrage that the FCC has chosen to have only one public hearing on what is one of the most important issues facing Americans today. Before any decisions are made regarding deregulation and increased corporate control over the media, the FCC must hear from the American people. In my view, the FCC should hold at least twenty meetings across the country to hear directly what ordinary the people have to say. Having held two town meetings in the state of Vermont on the issue of media consolidation, I can tell you first hand that the people of this country want to be heard on this issue. In Vermont, at the two public meetings that we held, over 600 people came out. I guarantee that you will have huge audiences all over the country and, let me take this opportunity to invite you to Vermont. Please do not make a decision without input from the people. Given what goes on in Washington it may be hard to believe, but there are opinions in this country which do not necessarily agree with Rupert Murdoch, General Electric, the Disney Corporation.and other large campaign contributors. Why do we want more de-regulation and more concentration of ownership in the media. We should be moving in the other direction--less concentration, more diverse ownership and more points of view. Television is the means by which most Americans get their ``news.'' Without exception, every major network is owned by a huge conglomerate that has enormous conflicts of interest. Fox News Channel is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right-wing billionaire who already owns a significant portion of the world's media. His network has close ties to the Republican Party, and among his ``fair and balanced'' commentators is Newt Gingrich. NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest corporations in the world and a company with enormous conflicts of interest. GE has a long history of anti-union activity. It has substantial interests in weapons manufacturing, finance, nuclear power and many other industries. It has vital concerns about our trade policy as they have been one of the leaders in shutting down American plants and moving them to low-wage countries like China and Mexico. GE is also an important contributor to the Republican Party. ABC is owned by the Disney Corp., which produces toys and products in developing countries where they provide their workers atrocious wages and working conditions. CBS is owned by Viacom, another huge media conglomerate that owns, among other entities, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon, VHI, TNN, CMT, 39 broadcast television stations, 184 radio stations, Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Inc. The essential problem with television is not just a right- wing corporate bias in news and programming, or the transformation of politics and government into entertainment and sensationalism. Nor is it just the constant bombardment of advertising, much of it directed at children. It's that the most important issues facing the middle-class and working people of our country are rarely discussed. The average American watches dozens of hours a week of television, but to a very significant degree does not see his or her reality reflected on the screen. In my strong opinion what the people of this country see, hear and read should not be controlled by a handful of multi- national conglomerates. More concentration of ownership in the media industry would be a disaster for this country. Stop the deregulation, and begin hearings on how we can have more diverse ownership and more divergent viewpoints on the public airwaves. Democracy is too precious to be given over to corporations interested only in growing bigger and more profitable. The airwaves and cable-ways belong to the people, and the interests of the people should be served. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Bernard Sanders, U.S. Congressman.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you some remarks that I made on March 3 when I introduced the Freedom to Read Protection Act. This legislation now has 28 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association and newspapers throughout the country. Yes, we must do all that we can to U-1 protect the American people from terrorism, but we can do it in a way that protects the basic constitutional rights of our citizens. Statement of Representative Bernie Sanders on the Introduction of the Freedom To Read Protection Act Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us here today to announce the introduction of the Freedom to Read Protection Act--legislation which will protect libraries, bookstores and their patrons from unjustified government surveillance into what books Americans are reading and buying, and what websites they may be visiting when using a library computer. Let me begin by thanking the Members of Congress who have joined me here today. I also want to thank Chris Finan of the American Booksellers Association and Emily Sheketoff-- Executive Director of the American Library Association's Washington Office--for joining us. I am also delighted that Trina Magi--a librarian from the University of Vermont--and Linda Ramsdell, a bookstore owner from Hardwick, Vermont, who is the President of the New England Booksellers Association, are here with us today. Let me also congratulate the 62 cities and towns all across this country who have passed resolutions on this issue--and that number is growing rapidly. That effort is being coordinated by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee which understands that civil liberties and constitutional rights are not only a national issue, but a local issue. I also want to thank the editorial boards of the many newspapers all over this country who have spoken out on this freedom to read issue--including the Los Angeles Times, the Detroit Free Press, the Honolulu Observer, the Providence Journal- Bulletin, the Caledonia Record, and the Valley News. The tri-partisan legislation we are introducing today-- called the Freedom to Read Protection Act--would protect the privacy and First Amendment rights of American citizens against unnecessary government intrusion. Specifically, this legislation will exempt libraries and bookstores from Section 215 of the so-called ``Patriot Act.'' The Freedom to Read Protection Act is being introduced by 24 members of Congress including Republican Ron Paul of Texas, and Congressman John Conyers, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. They are both unable to join us today but I do want to recognize their support and leadership in protecting civil liberties. I am confident that in the days and weeks to come we will add many more cosponsors. One of the cornerstones of our democracy is our right of Americans to criticize their government, and to read printed materials without fear of government monitoring and intrusion. Yes, all of us concerned about terrorism and all of us are determined to do all that we can to protect the American people from another terrorist attack. But, the threat of terrorism must not be used as an excuse by the government to intrude on our basic constitutional rights. We can fight terrorism, but we can do it at the same time as we protect the civil liberties that have made our country great. Unfortunately, the Patriot Act has changed all that. Section 215 of the Patriot Act greatly expanded the FBI's ability to get records from all businesses, including libraries and booksellers, without meeting the traditional standard needed to get a search warrant in the United States. This is a very dangerous situation. Today, all the FBI has to claim is that the information they want is somehow relevant to an investigation to protect against international terrorism. This is an extremely low threshold for government intrusion and average Americans should be extremely concerned. The reason they should care is that Section 215 does not just apply to terrorists or even foreigners or agents of foreign powers. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the person whose records are being searched by the FBI can be anyone. The FBI doesn't even have to say that it believes the person is involved in criminal activity or that the person is connected to a foreign power. Even more frightening, the FBI can investigate American citizens based in part on an American's exercise of his or her First Amendment Rights, such as writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper or reading books the government may not approve of. And the traditional legal protections, that have been embodied in our Constitution for hundreds of years, no longer apply. The government can gain access to our reading records through the secret FISA court which was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 and which is off limits to the public. There's no way to know how many times the FBI has spied on library or bookseller records or whose records they have reviewed. In fact, Section 215 prevents librarians and booksellers from telling their customers that their privacy has been violated. Who would have thought that in 21st Century America, the government could gain access to library circulation records and bookseller customer records with no evidence that the person whose records they are getting is involved in any wrongdoing, that all of this would be handled through a secret government court, and that the librarians and booksellers would be compelled by the law not to let anyone know that the government had swooped in to get their records? Now some may ask how the federal government is using this new power. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are also interested in that question and have pressured the Justice Department to show how they are using these new powers. The information they have received after months of badgering the Department is inadequate. The Justice Department claimed most of the information regarding libraries and bookstores was ``confidential,'' and could not be provided. This past October, several national organizations, including the American Booksellers Association, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get statistical information, such as how many times the government has used its expanded surveillance authority under the Patriot Act. In January, a very limited amount of information was released to these groups and they are continuing to push for a more complete disclosure. Importantly, an anonymous survey done by the University of Illinois found that over 175 libraries across the country have been visited by federal authorities since the September 11th attacks. How is the Congress and the public supposed to make sure that these new powers are not being abused when we do not even know how often they are being invoked and the types of institutions that are being investigated? For many people who can not afford to buy books or have the Internet at home the library is critical to their ability to access to information. Many librarians and booksellers now fear that patrons have begun to self-censor their library use and book purchases due to fears of government surveillance. We need to remove libraries and booksellers from Section 215 so that Americans know their freedom to access information won't be improperly scrutinized by federal agents. Let us be clear. The FBI would still be able to gain access to library or bookseller records as part of an investigation into illegal activity. All our bill does is restore the traditional protections that Americans expect and deserve. If the FBI has probable cause to believe that information in a library or bookseller's records or computers is connected to an ongoing criminal investigation or terrorism investigation, they can go to court and get a search warrant. In addition, the bill requires that the Justice Department provide more detailed information about its activities under Section 215 so we can determine how the FBI is using its new powers under Section 215. Let me conclude by saying that all of us support protecting Americans from terrorism. But we do not win against terrorists by abandoning our most basic civil liberties. We cannot be an example of freedom for the world when our own government is spying on what Americans are reading.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, today we live in an age of exploding technological advances. Many of these new technologies offer the potential to improve the lives of people in the United States and around the world. But, Mr. Chairman, some of this new technology also has the potential to do great harm to our people and to our environment. All too often, these dangers are magnified because the owners of technology are primarily interested in how much money they can make, rather than the betterment of society. We have seen this in the area of genetically modified organisms that are finding their way into our food supply in the U.S. The legislation we are considering today concerns an even more important issue; namely, the cloning of human life itself. While I support stem cell research, the cloning of a human being for any purpose raises the deepest and most profound ethical and moral questions: questions about the sanctity or the uniqueness of each human person; questions about the evil of eugenics and genetic engineering in humans; and, equally important, questions about the ownership and use of cloned humans by an unregulated corporate biotechnology industry motivated almost exclusively by their quest for venture capital, short-term profits, and higher stock prices. The speed with which human cloning technology has developed thus far has far outpaced our abilities as a society to wrestle with these questions. Mr. Chairman, technology should not drive ethics and morality in this country and on this planet; ethics and morality should frame the acceptable limits of our use of technology. That is why I strongly support H.R. 534, which would ban all human cloning.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I do not think any Member of this body disagrees that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, a murderer, and a man who has started two wars. He is clearly someone who cannot be trusted or believed. The question, Mr. Speaker, is not whether we like Saddam Hussein or not. The question is whether he represents an imminent threat to the American people and whether a unilateral invasion of Iraq will do more harm than good. Mr. Speaker, the front page of The Washington Post today reported that all relevant U.S. intelligence agencies now say despite what we have heard from the White House that ``Saddam Hussein is unlikely to initiate a chemical or biological attack against the United States.'' Even more importantly, our intelligence agencies say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he might at that point launch a chemical or biological counterattack. In other words, there is more danger of an attack on the United States if we launch a precipitous invasion. Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the President feels, despite what our intelligence agencies are saying, that it is so important to pass a resolution of this magnitude this week and why it is necessary to go forward without the support of the United Nations and our major allies including those who are fighting side by side with us in the war on terrorism. But I do feel that as a part of this process, the President is ignoring some of the most pressing economic issues affecting the well- being of ordinary Americans. There has been virtually no public discussion about the stock market's loss of trillions of dollars over the last few years and that millions of Americans have seen the retirement benefits for which they have worked their entire lives disappear. When are we going to address that issue? This country today has a $340 billion trade deficit, and we have lost 10 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last 4 years, 2 million decent-paying jobs. The average American worker today is working longer hours for lower wages than 25 years ago. When are we going to address that issue? Mr. Speaker, poverty in this country is increasing and median family income is declining. Throughout this country family farmers are being driven off of the land; and veterans, the people who put their lives on the line to defend us, are unable to get the health care and other benefits they were promised because of government underfunding. When are we going to tackle these issues and many other important issues that are of such deep concern to Americans? Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have, let me give five reasons why I am opposed to giving the President a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution. One, I have not heard any estimates of how many young American men and women might die in such a war or how many tens of thousands of women and children in Iraq might also be killed. As a caring Nation, we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first. Second, I am deeply concerned about the precedent that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could establish in terms of international law and the role of the United Nations. If President Bush believes that the U.S. can go to war at any time against any nation, what moral or legal objection could our government raise if another country chose to do the same thing? Third, the United States is now involved in a very difficult war against international terrorism as we learned tragically on September 11. We are opposed by Osama bin Laden and religious fanatics who are prepared to engage in a kind of warfare that we have never experienced before. I agree with Brent Scowcroft, Republican former National Security Advisor for President George Bush, Sr., who stated, ``An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken.'' Fourth, at a time when this country has a $6 trillion national debt and a growing deficit, we should be clear that a war and a long-term American occupation of Iraq could be extremely expensive. Fifth, I am concerned about the problems of so-called unintended consequences. Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed and what role will the U.S. play in ensuing a civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the region who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? Will the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority be exacerbated? And these are just a few of the questions that remain unanswered. If a unilateral American invasion of Iraq is not the best approach, what should we do? In my view, the U.S. must work with the United Nations to make certain within clearly defined timelines that the U.N. inspectors are allowed to do their jobs. These inspectors should undertake an unfettered search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and destroy them when found, pursuant to past U.N. resolutions. If Iraq resists inspection and elimination of stockpiled weapons, we should stand ready to assist the U.N. in forcing compliance.