Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, I wanted to make sure there will be another amendment from the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) included within my time. I would hope there would be no objection to that.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I do not know if my colleague saw it, but we have very strong supply management components in the legislation.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I look forward to working with him so that we can protect the farmers in Vermont and Wisconsin and every other region in this Nation. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me make my concluding remarks. Let me pick up on the point that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) made. Those of us who come from rural America and those of us who know family farms are touched emotionally by this issue. So for those people who are not from farm areas, they may not understand the passion involved in this discussion. We know that our farmers are some of the very best people in our States. They love the land. They protect the environment. They work, in some cases, seven days a week. In my State we have many farmers who make 15, 20, $25,000 a year working 60 or 70 hours a week. What their dream is is to leave the land that they inherited from their parents to their kids. When I drive around the State of Vermont, I never cease to get a very positive feeling and a wonderful feeling when I go through the rural areas of my State, which are so beautiful, and I am sure that that feeling is matched by those in other States who also appreciate what their farmers are doing. Mr. Chairman, we are up against the wall. For years we have been talking about how we protect the family farm, not only in dairy, but in every other commodity and we are losing. The best people in our country are being forced off the land because they cannot live on the paltry amounts of money that they are getting for their commodities, be it milk or any other commodity. What is happening in dairy is happening in industry after industry. The little people are being driven off of the land and industry is being consolidated and the big get bigger and they control the industry. We are seeing in the New England area some processes who now control 80 percent of the purchase of milk and that is true in other regions of country. Our friends from Wisconsin say they are losing four farms a day. How much time do we have to continue the debate? I agree with what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said. This is not a perfect amendment. It needs more work. But let us come together let us make it a better bill so that it works better for South or the West or the Midwest or the Northeast. We can do this. Mr. Chairman, I believe there is support in the Senate for this concept. Let us not say, no, no, no, it is not perfect. It is not perfect that our farmers are being driven off the land. Let us draw the line and try to do something. This is a good-faith effort to bring people together to save some of the best people in our country. I would hope that this body could support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, who has the right to close?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how many more speakers the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) has?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and say to my friend from Wisconsin, the gentleman has described that he is losing four farms a day; he has described that perhaps no other State in this country has lost more family farms than his great State; he has described the pain and the sadness that the people of his State are feeling in this transition. Yet, we keep talking about that, we keep talking about the loss of farms in the Northeast and then we say, well, this is not perfect. Well, I have a problem with that, oh, gee, this one does not work in every part of the country. I understand that. But the gentleman is going to lose four more farms tomorrow, and I will lose a farm. We are giving our colleagues a blueprint, an outline. If we reject this, nothing will happen this year, in my view, to protect family farmers; and we are going to continue to lose the farms. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to work with us to develop a national policy that works for Wisconsin, that works for Vermont. This is a step forward. It is not the end-all. There are folks in the Senate who are sympathetic to this concept. We have time to refine it. So I would urge the support of my colleagues for this amendment tonight.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) who has been a real fighter for family farms.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's sentiments, and I am the first to admit that more work needs to be done. But I think the gentleman will agree with me. The gentleman has seen some of the best people in his State lose their farms and go out of business. I have seen the same thing. I think we have to work together. I think this is a good start. We do not have a lot of time. I would appreciate the gentleman's support for the amendment and work with us so that we can make this a good amendment for Wisconsin and the Northeast and the whole country.

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

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield further, that is absolutely correct.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

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

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend from Louisiana. I believe this amendment should be adopted because it advances our efforts to reach a consensus among dairy producers in this country. It represents a good compromise between those who would want a super low cap and those who have no cap. If we are ever to make any progress on dairy, all of us will have to give a little. So I appreciate the amendment. I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, there is also a Vitter amendment, but we can include that in our time.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I would just hope at least that we can continue this debate on such an important issue.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I am asking that these statements be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. On Behalf of Ethan Casavant and Jaime Santerre--Regarding Education in Vermont Prisons, May 7, 2001 Jamie Santerre. Ethan and I visited the Chittenden Regional Correctional facility. Ethan Casavant. We spoke with Mary Tripp, a teacher at the facility, one of three. There is her and John Long, who are both full-time teachers, and there is one who is based on independent study and special ed. I don't remember her name, though. Jamie Santerre. The facility was built in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, the facility had an open library, where people who went there could only, get their GEDS. And the classes that they have now, which are like math, social studies, art, English and science, they started in 1998, where anyone under 22 without a high school diploma had to attend in an attempt to get their high school diploma. Ethan Casavant. Just to touch up on that a little bit,, even if, say, you are 16 years old and you drop out of high school and end up going to the prison system, you have to go back to the schools to graduate or get your diploma. They won't let you just get off of it or get out of it. But, anyway, the classes are Monday through Friday, like any other school. There is independent study and regular class, like three, four people to a class. There is three classrooms, an art room, and one with science and social studies, that you can't do labs or like chemistry or physics or anything like that, because they can't trust the inmates with any of those materials. The materials are also supplied to them for free so that they can, you know, use them all and learn just like anybody else. They have a library that they can use. For resources, they have some computers, but they don't have Internet access for safety reasons, or any of that. Anything they need to download off the Net, the teachers do before the classes and go over it. The Vermont Correctional Facilities school system are the only schools in the state that require literacy competency before you graduate. Any other high school, you don't have to be fully literate to graduate. And Mary Trip, the teacher we talked to, said that about 20 percent of the population of the inmates attend class regularly. And if you get the diploma from their high school, you have just as good a chance of getting a job as you would from graduating from any other school. You know, you might just not like it for personal satisfaction.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. I am asking that these statements be printed in the Congressional Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues. Regarding Napster (By Hydie Buchanan) I am here today to talk about whether it is right to shut down Napster over the record companies' feeling it infringes on the copyrights of artists. This case first started in April 1999 when the recording industry brought a lawsuit against Napster, saying that Napster violated copyrighted material. Since then, just recently, district courts ruled that Napster has to put blocks on copyrighted material, which Napster has complied with. However, although it is against Napster's file-sharing rules to change file names to get around the copyrighted blocks, people change a song, they add letters or numbers to the file name, and therefore it can pass the block. And although Napster says that they will warn people and then kick them off the Napster community, there is over 500,000 users, so it is kind of hard to keep track of them all. It's not that many artists are intimated by Napster. Many artists actually support Napster. It is the recording industry that thinks they are losing profits, when, in all reality, profits were up in 1999 because of Napster. I have a few quotes to share about artists who support Napster. Dave Matthews Band, in July 2000, said: ``There are a lot of bigger problems in the world than whether Napster succeeds or fails. I don't think there is a malice coming out of Napster. We allowed people to tape our concerts from the beginning, and the record company questioned us about allowing that. My thinking was that it only makes people want to buy more, and increases the devotion of people who are really going to listen to us.'' Which, in this case, shows that he supports Napster because it promotes the music, not takes away profits, but actually increases them. Another quote: ``We're not afraid of the Internet. We think it is a very cool way to reach our fans. If a band sells 12 million albums, what are we supposed to say? `Oh, maybe we could have sold 13 million if we had just been Internet Nazis.' At a certain point you have to say, Let the people have the music.'' Dexter Holland, from Offspring: ``Many of the bands that support Napster are maybe not the manufactured bands created as boy bands, the popular music of today.'' A lot of people think that Napster doesn't infringe on copyrights. And it really doesn't. Napster does not copy the MP3s. The people that are on Napster, they're the ones that create the MP3s, either from the program that they downloaded off the Internet or burning the--ripping the CD onto their hard drive. So, really, it's not Napster. They just created a community where people can swap everything, and that is not necessarily so wrong. A lot of people that use Napster use it as a way to find out more about an artist. Like, say they hear one song on the radio and they want to hear more about the band before they go out and buy the CD. So that's actually helping the profits, So, really, the recording industry, they shouldn't stop people from doing that, because it is promoting the music. Also, Napster is not the only company of its sort. There are many other file-sharing companies out there, such as Scour or Livewire, that also have the same sort of system with filesharing. It is also the same thing as, say, burning a CD for your friend, or recording a tape of songs off the radio. It is all the same thing. And, sure, they said that recording CDs and tapes is illegal, but never really did anything about it. In order to shut Napster down, I think you would have to stop selling the recordable CDs and recordable tapes, because it is all the same thing. And you would also have to go out onto the Internet and search for every site like Napster in order to shut them all down, because shutting one down out of thousands isn't really fair.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to see government do regarding these concerns. On Behalf of Hillary Knapp and Christine Harvey--Regarding Healthy Choices During the Teens Years, May 7, 2001 Hillary Knapp. In January, Otter Teen Network helped organize and run a peer leadership project, with the help of Green Mountain Prevention Project. Christine Harvey. Otter Teen is a student-initiated and run organization that invites teens to work together to create a safe environment and positive school community at Otter Valley. And OTM encourages young students to develop leadership skills, have fun, and be high on life, not alcohol, tobacco or other dangerous drugs. One of OTM's goals is to empower individuals to respect themselves and others, and not give in to negative peer pressure. There are no membership requirements. All student and faculty are already members. As a member, you can become involved as much or as little as you desire. Hillary Knapp. Peer Leadership Project is where certain kids from the school go and have leadership training for one weekend. And Green Mountain Prevention projects provided a facilitator, Workshop-presenter and team-building games. Through the PLP, we generated interest among the middle school students to get involved with planning and carrying out of our Power of Choice Day. Christine Harvey. Our Power of Choice Day was a day where we had workshops for students to go to instead of regular classes, and the workshops were on healthy choices and the power you have to make your own choices. Hillary Knapp. Students came to our Power of Choice Day thinking that it was going to be really boring and they were just going to sit there. And as they went to the workshops and did all the Activities we had, they found that it was interesting and they liked the day. The preliminary results of the survey for the day showed that the vast majority of the students enjoyed the day and found it somewhat to be useful in their everyday life. Christine Harvey. We have a packet on all the stuff that we did during the day, and some pictures.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, during the last 10 days, the American people and Members of the Congress have been in emotional shock from the terrible loss of life and tragedy that struck. We are all together struggling and trying to determine the most effective way to end terrorism and to punish those people who committed this atrocious act. But on the issue of how we can deal with the airlines and how as a Nation we deal with the perhaps coming recession, I do not think that there should be a lot of debate. The American people want to believe that we are all in this together; and when they see that 100,000 airline workers are laid off in an industry that is crumbling, they not only want to restore that industry, but they want to make sure that the workers who have been running those industries are treated fairly. They do not want to read in the papers that they are providing taxpayer dollars so that CEOs can end up with tens and tens of millions of dollars in executive compensation but, at the same time, there is apparently no money available to provide health insurance for workers who were laid off. They want to know that the package that we are passing is fair in terms of providing security for the people who will get on the planes. Where is the definition of what we will be doing in terms of security? Mr. Speaker, we are moving into an economic recession; and in a certain sense, this legislation is the first bill that we will be looking at as to how we are going to respond; and the American people are demanding that, if we are in this together, we have got to protect the working people, we have got to protect the most vulnerable people; and this legislation does not do that.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, as you know, under the authority of the War Powers Act the President already has the legal right to use force when this country is attacked--as was the case on Tuesday when some 5,000 Americans were killed in an unspeakable act of terrorism. So, in an important respect, this debate is more symbolic than legally necessary. Americans have prayed in churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship over the last four days. They have prayed for strength, for courage, for an end to this horror, and for peace. They have heard sermons that spoke of love being stronger than hate, of the forces of good triumphing over evil. I will vote for this resolution because I believe that the use of force is one tool that we have at our disposal to fight against the horror of terrorism and mass murder. One tool but it is not our only tool, and it is something that must be used wisely . . . and with great discretion. I believe that we must work with other nations to root out, capture and eliminate the terrorists who have caused such terrible suffering in our country and elsewhere. But we must also understand that widespread and indiscriminate force could lead to more violence and more anti- Americanism. Mr. Speaker, the people of the developing world must know that we do not hate them, but only the terrorists who hide in their midsts and control their lives. By word and deed, we must show those people that we are on their side, rather than the terrorists who exploit them. Mr. Speaker, the President has an enormous responsibility. I pray that he uses it well and that Congress provides him with effective guidance.