Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Will the Senator yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I say to the Senator from South Carolina, you are correct. I am not challenging the technical aspect. I think it is a violation of the spirit of the rule. My point is, I know how you feel about it. We had the debate on the floor. I respect your view. I know you respect mine. The House, by 393 to 33, disagreed with you. And the Senate, by a vote of 58 to 34, disagreed with you. I thought we had separate but equal branches of Government. If the White House wants to veto the bill over that, then veto the bill over it. We will bring it back here and talk about it. I don't think it is right to violate the spirit and intent of the rules.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, this decision clearly disregards the wishes of the House and Senate. I taught history and civics when I was a teacher. I always taught my students that conference committees were intended to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions. There is not difference in this case. Let me read from the report: The conference agreement does not include language proposed in both the House and Senate bills regarding civil actions against Japanese corporations for compensation in which the plaintiff alleges that, as an American prisoner of war during World War II, he or she was used as slave or forced labor. There was no difference between the two versions, just a decision by a small group of conferees to impose their own will on both Houses of Congress. This is not the way things should work. The House passed this amendment in July with a 393-33 vote. The Senate later passed the exact same provision with a 58-34 vote. Congress should not turn its back on the 700 prisoners of war and their families who are seeking long-delayed justice. They have gone to court to demand compensation from the Japanese companies that used from for slave labor. Throughout the war, these Americans worked in mines, factories, shipyards, and steel mills. They labored every day for as long as 10 hours a day in dangerous working conditions. They were beaten on a regular basis. They were given no compensation by these companies. Now they deserve their day in court without interference by the U.S. State Department or the Department of Justice. That's what our amendment had set out to do--allow our POWs to seek the long-delayed justice and compensation they deserve.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the late 1st Lt. Leon J. Jacques, Jr., of Milford, NH, for his heroic services to the United States of America during the Korean war. Leon was a graduate of Saint Anselm College and the United States Military Academy at West Point who also attended the Ground General School at Fort Riley, KS and the United States Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, GA. He was assigned to the 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division in Kumamoto, Japan. After the outbreak of war in Korea on June 25, 1950, Leon was committed to combat in Korea. During the first two weeks of combat, more than forty percent of the men fighting were killed, wounded, prisoners of war, or missing in action. On July 12, 1950, Leon and his men were captured as prisoners of war and it was later learned that Leon had been killed by the enemy. He was in charge of several soldiers who were harassed by the enemy. Leon demanded that they stop and for making this statement, he was killed. According to a report received, ``Lt. Jacques' complete disregard for his personal safety and valor in response to enemy aggression were in the finest tradition of military service and reflected great credit upon himself, the 21st Infantry Regiment and the United States Army.'' Thanks to the generous efforts of Colonel Phil Day US Army (Ret), Leon has been honored with ten award medals including: Bronze Star Medal with ``v'' device, United Nations Service Medal, Presidential Unit Citation and the combat infantryman badge. As the son of a World War II Naval aviator who was killed in a war related incident and a veteran of the Vietnam war, I empathize with the Jacques family. Leon is an American hero whose selfless dedication to his State and country has benefitted his fellow citizens with the blessings of freedom and liberty. It is truly an honor and a privilege to represent his family in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Edward Laurie of Enfield, NH, an exemplary public official who dedicated himself to serving the people of New Hampshire for more than 26 years. As chief of police for the city of Lebanon since 1991, he has brought to the office the professional skills and knowledge of law enforcement which has benefitted the citizens of Lebanon and the entire State. Edward began his career as a patrol officer in 1975, and was promoted through the ranks of the Lebanon Police Department serving positions including: police sergeant from 1984-1985, police lieutenant from 1985- 1986, police captain from 1987-1991 and police chief from 1991-2001. He was an active member of the law enforcement who participated in programs including: chairman of the New Hampshire Regional Drug Task Force, executive board member of the New Hampshire Attorney General's Drug Task Force, president of the New Hampshire Police Association, associate of the FBI National Academy, and member of the New England and Grafton County Chiefs of Police Associations. Edward was active in the Lebanon community and provided dedicated service to area charities including the New Hampshire Special Olympics and Lebanon Lions and Kiwanis Clubs. Throughout his career, Edwards has served the city of Lebanon and the State of New Hampshire with dedication and pride. The people of Lebanon owe a debt of gratitude to Edward for the contributions which he has made making the city and the State a safer and more pleasant environment in which to live. It is an honor and a privilege to represent Edward Laurie in the United States Senate. I wish him and his family Godspeed in his retirement and in all of their future endeavors.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the Business Unit of BAE Systems of Nashua, NH, for being named as one of five companies in the country to receive the Pro Patria Award. The award is given to companies which are supportive of military reservists. The Information and Electronic Warfare Systems business unit received the award on October 11, 2001, at a ceremony at the Pentagon following a presidential proclamation ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House. BAE was nominated for the Pro Patria Award by Pete Kilger, department manager for BAE's Systems Engineering in the Information Dominance Systems area and a member of the Naval Reserve. BAE was chosen for the prestigious award because of its outstanding support and understanding for employees in the military reserves. BAE does work for the U.S. military services and values the exemplary contributions of employee reservists and the contributions they make to New Hampshire and the country. BAE is one of the largest employers of reservists in the state providing benefits including paying reservists on military duty the difference between their military and civilian pay. I commend BAE Systems for the many contributions they have made to the defense industry. Their concern for company employees who are reservists in the United States military is exemplary. The people of New Hampshire and the country owe a debt of gratitude to BAE Systems for the economic and defense benefits provided by their hard work and dedication. BAE will continue to provide expertise which will be of benefit to the military personnel in the country with its involvement in the production of the next generation fighter jets. BAE Systems will have two teams working on electronic warfare systems for the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. The contract won by BAE will eventually lead to the replacement of fighter planes used by the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marines and Britain's Royal Navy and Air Force. It is truly an honor and a privilege to represent BAE Systems and their employees in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I asked for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, this amendment really has two very simple provisions. There exists now what is called an Alien Terrorist Removal Court which was set up to remove alien terrorists from our country. The problem is no one is using the court. The reason for that is we are required under the law to submit to the terrorists a summary of the intelligence we gathered on him and how we got it. Obviously, if the terrorist gets that information, then the people who provided that information are going to be killed or their lives will be at risk. My amendment provides that an independent Federal judge would take a look at the information and decide that it could not be shared but that the person should be deported. That is the first provision of my amendment. The second one provides that every 6 months we get a report back from Justice on how the terrorist court is working, how often the court is being used, and so forth. That is really all there is. I want everyone to understand that the amendment is quite simple. We are trying to work out an agreement on both sides. So far, that has not occurred. In view of the fact that we still have not done that, I am going to ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment at this time.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, in the way of introduction, I applaud the efforts of our intelligence community to fight this war against terrorism. Under very difficult circumstances, they are doing an outstanding job. They have a tough assignment, not knowing from one day to the next where a terrorist may strike. We know there is a network of terrorists right now in America. There are a lot of brave people in the intelligence community who are working night and day to make sure the events of September 11 are never repeated. Of course, we can't make those guarantees. The best way to have a situation where we can see that it doesn't happen again is to provide the support the intelligence community needs to fight this war against terrorism. My amendment under the intelligence authorization bill is a tremendous tool in that fight against terrorism and to see to it that aliens are deported--not U.S. citizens, but aliens who are in this country participating, if you can believe it, in these networks of terrorism. All we are asking for is that they be deported--sent back home. That is what the amendment does. It will remove provisions from the Alien Terrorist Removal Court that render the court ineffective and useless. Let me repeat again that today under the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, if we gather information that an alien terrorist may be committing a crime, or is prepared to commit a crime, or is getting ready to do some terrorist act against the United States, that individual must have the intelligence summary presented to him, which could and many times does compromise the sources and methods of gathering intelligence. My amendment would say that a judge would look at that summary, and that judge would say, yes, this would compromise their sources and methods. So we will deport the alien--not a U.S. citizen--based on the recommendation of the judge. The second provision is that we get a report every 6 months on how often this court is being used. That will allow us to track the effectiveness of how this court is working. Right now it is not working at all. We have a court, and no one is using it because the intelligence community simply will not compromise their people, nor should they, nor their sources and methods. In 1994, to provide a little history, I sponsored legislation to create this court. The legislation established specific procedures for the removal of alien terrorists without disclosing sensitive intelligence data and also protected those sources and methods. I didn't get anywhere with it in 1994. In 1996, I succeeded in getting a version of this legislation added to the Antiterrorism Act. That bill became law. The court was established. The intent was to set up a Federal court that specialized in the identification and expulsion of aliens who are terrorists from the territories of the United States. But my idea never became reality. We created the court, and nobody used the court because of this business about the summary having to be provided under the law. We need to go to the next level beyond the court. We created the court. Now let's allow the court to work and allow the intelligence community to do what it has to do to get these people deported. The Alien Terrorist Removal Court is staffed with judges and is empowered to prosecute alien terrorists. As you well know, since that 1996 law was passed there have been zero prosecutions. It is hard to believe, especially today, that this mechanism to fight terrorism has yet to be utilized by the Federal Government to prosecute even one alien terrorist. That is the part that frustrates me. It is not a comment against the intelligence community. They are put in the position. They come in, and they say, we have this information that this person or that person is going to do something. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't because if they provide the information, they compromise their own sources and methods. If they don't provide it, we can't deport them. So they stay. I believe there are some aliens we have been able to deport. Perhaps--who knows. We will never know--some of the ones who committed that heinous act on September 11. But there are legitimate reasons the court has not prosecuted any cases. Some of the reasons are from weakening amendments that were made prior to the bill becoming law, which also was disturbing. But I don't want to go back and criticize. Hindsight is cheap, and armchair-Monday- morning quarterbacking is not what I want to do. I don't want to go back and complain to any Senator or to any Congressman about weakening legislation. But we are in a different world now. The world has changed. September 11 changed us forever. We need to respond to that change and be willing to take a new look, a fresh look at this. I am not casting stones at anybody. If we could all predict the future, we would probably all be doing something other than what we are doing. So I want to make it very clear, this is not about criticizing anybody's position in the past or criticizing the intelligence community at all. But the most glaring shortfall of the court is that too many procedural protections are given to the accused alien at the expense of the rest of us. These are not U.S. citizens. I make that clear. I have been informed that the notice requirements and other procedural obstacles that force the Federal Government to disclose classified information just basically renders the court useless. The court can be a very effective tool in our antiterrorism program, including everything we have been talking about, not only in this bill but in the other legislation that we just passed in the antiterrorism bill. We can make it so much more effective with this kind of support. Case in point: I wrote a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft on September 17, which, of course, was right after the terrorist attacks, and informed him of this whole issue of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court and what was needed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Subsequent to that letter, I had a conversation with the Attorney General. The Attorney General is supportive of this provision because it will help them to do their work. Republican Leader Lott and I had a colloquy in this Chamber during a recent debate on antiterrorism. We had a conversation in which he agreed with me and supported my provision. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that colloquy be printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. This court was created in 1996, as I said, as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Since 1996, the Justice Department has used the court, as I said before, not once--not even one time--to deport any alien terrorist or suspected alien terrorist. Again, the reason is because they have to compromise their sources and methods to do it. They do not want to do that and I don't blame them. Therefore, the alien stays here, and we have to wait until he commits a crime before we can then arrest him or deport him, whatever the courts chose to do. So, again, this amendment that I am offering strikes the provision of existing law that allows an alien terrorist to get access to a summary of classified information. It is interesting because you will hear some critics of my amendment say: A summary is OK. We can take a summary and we can modify it, and we can take out sources and methods. We can do all these necessary things to make this good. I submit to you, in some cases summaries are acceptable. We get them all the time. I know that the Senator from Florida, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, gets them. We see summaries. Sometimes you can take a summary and get enough information. Oftentimes, Senators look at summaries of intelligence. We do not see the raw intelligence and that is fine. But in this case, it is not fine because, let's say, for example--and this is a totally fictitious example--there is a conversation taking place between four people, and one of those people is a U.S. intelligence agent, and the three others are in a terrorist network. If we reference any of that conversation, even in a summary, the others are going to know that one of the four is a U.S. agent. If they know that, then a bin Laden might wipe everybody out just to be sure we get the suspect here. So it does risk our intelligence personnel, and we cannot afford that. So my intent is to prevent the so-called ``sleeper cell'' of alien terrorists from committing an act of terrorism. A ``sleeper cell'' means they are out there; they have not committed an act yet, but we know who they are. Why not deport them. These are not U.S. citizens. We are not taking away their rights. We are taking away their visas. They are guests in our country. They have visas. Those terrorists who committed those crimes were guests in our country, if you can believe that. They were guests. So why can't we take their visas and send them back to some other place where, if they want to commit it wherever they came from, fine, but keep them out of here. That is what we need to do. Let the other countries they came from take care of them and stop them, but don't let them come in here with their visas and do these kinds of horrible things. That is what I am trying to do, get at this sleeper cell, the network out there. Frankly, we are spying on them. Of course we are. And it is the right thing to do. But they are aliens. We do it with good reason--because we have specific information from our intelligence community. The intelligence community gets this, and they cannot act on it because to act on it would compromise their own people and their methods of collection. To not act on it means they stay here. So that is where we are. That is why not one case has been brought to court since my legislation created it in 1996. Who are these sleeper cells? We have seen a lot of them. These are guys that took flying lessons in Florida, who seemed to be reputable people, with families, just going about their business. They could be a student here on a visa. They could be here on a work visa. And they are very careful; they do not break any laws. They do not want to bring any attention to themselves. They do not get speeding tickets or rob banks or commit murders. They stay nice and cool and stay out of trouble. They are good. They keep their hands clean. Then they focus on the horrible act of terrorism, as we saw on September 11. These are smart people. They know what they are doing. And we have smart people who know how to catch them. But we have to give the intelligence community the tools to do that. So how does the Government prosecute an alien who is planning an act of terrorism--an alien who has committed no criminal act, nor has that alien violated his or her visa? How do we get them? Again, with the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. They have good Federal judges. Our court has one judge. If somebody wants to make that two or three judges, I do not object to that. I trust that the Federal judge can look at that intelligence and say: Whoops, wait a minute, we cannot provide that. We have to get this guy out of Dodge, get him out of here. These sleeper cells are law-abiding. That is the interesting part. They are law-abiding. I want to make sure they are not given access to any classified information at that hearing which is going to cause them to take the lives of those who have provided that information or somehow compromise the methods of collection. I also want to make sure they do not get to do the terrible things that they are planning to do, as they did on September 11. So my amendment provides for reports to Congress on the Justice Department's utilization of the court. If we can put a provision in there that says--I want my chairman to understand this because I know he may have a concern or two--if we can say to the court, report back to Congress and let us know how you are utilizing the court, if it is abused, we are going to know that. If we do not think the alien got the right decision from the judge, we are going to hear about that. We are going to be able to monitor this every 6 months. If we can trust Federal judges to enforce our Federal laws in our country, we ought to be able to trust them to look at a piece of intelligence and decide whether somebody should be removed or not without sharing that intelligence. So I am hopeful we can get this done. Let me address the issue of due process because this always comes up. I have been criticized for being somebody who wants to take the civil liberties from every American. I am not trying to take anybody's rights. I am trying to take their visas before they take our lives. Is there anything wrong with that? Let me repeat that because it is very important. I am not taking away anybody's due process. I am not taking away their rights. I am taking their visas. They are guests in our country. They have been law-abiding people who have not committed a crime but are plotting one--as we saw on September 11, a big crime, a massive crime, a horrible, detestable act against innocent Americans. If we had a court--and we don't know that we would have gotten those people--that had the ability, maybe we would have broken up that network. I am not saying we would have or could have, but we might have. That is really the issue: Are there any more plans such as this? Who can we monitor? How many people are out there who we are watching right now that we would like to deport but cannot deport without compromising those methods? I think this passes constitutional muster. There will be some who will differ. That is the beauty of the Senate. We have people who differ on everything. It is like two lawyers. They won't agree on everything. They always find something to disagree about. I respect that, but I believe it passes constitutional muster. I believe others do as well and who have said so. Remember, we are talking about a civil and not a criminal matter. We are talking about aliens who have no constitutional right to a quasi- criminal proceeding to remove that alien if that alien is involved in terrorism. That is important to understand. We are not talking about U.S. citizens. That is another issue. That is another venue, another court, another methodology. That does not apply. Both the fifth and fourteenth amendments prohibit Government actions which would deprive ``any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.'' The Alien Terrorist Removal Court has the necessary procedural safeguards to protect an alien terrorist's due process rights. If life, liberty, or property is at stake, the individual has a right to a fair procedure. Again, this is not about his life. This is not about his liberty. This is not about his property. It is about his visa. The interesting irony is that--and I hesitate to use the term ``law- abiding citizens''--but these horrible people who did these things on September 11, at the time, were law-abiding citizens. They were very careful to keep their noses clean in America until they did what they did. That is why we must deport them when we know they are involved in planning, plotting, thinking about plotting, or are involved in meetings that are plotting, or whatever, terrorist acts. So this court has the necessary procedural safeguards to protect an alien's due process. And I am very confident about that. Liberty is freedom of action by physically restraining an individual--deporting or imprisoning--or a denial of a right with special constitutional protection, such as freedom of speech. From the case Mathews v. Eldridge, 1976, there is a procedural due process test. There are three factors: No. 1, private interest; No. 2, risk of deprivation of interest; and, No. 3, Government's interest. The Government's interest in these cases is our interest. The Government has an interest in deporting terrorists who may commit these crimes because the Government's interest is to protects us. That is what we have a Government for, to protect us, and they cannot because they cannot use the tool that we have given them, which is the court. They cannot use it because they have to compromise their sources and methods to do it. So the Alien Terrorist Removal Court does provide these protections. An alien terrorist gets the evidentiary hearing before a Federal judge. Even though he is an alien, he gets an evidentiary hearing. This hearing is afforded to the alien terrorist, and the judge is allowed to see all classified information--the judge, not the terrorist. This is under my amendment. But the way it is now, the terrorist gets to see the classified information. Can you believe that? That is true. But they do not see it because the intelligence community does not give it to them. Therefore, the terrorist stays in America, and we wait for the acts to be committed. The Federal judge, not the alien terrorist, has access to view all the classified information, and he or she can make a determination on the merits of the Government's claim. The Government's interest in not disclosing highly classified and sensitive information is outweighed by the alien terrorist's right to see the evidence. Think about that. Let me repeat that: Under current law, the Government's interest in not disclosing highly classified and sensitive information is outweighed by the alien terrorist's right to see the evidence. That shouldn't be. It should be the other way around. The Government's interest should outweigh the terrorist's interest. It is the people's interest, not just the Government. It is the interest of 260 million American people. When one balances the interest of the alien terrorist versus the interest of the Government to prevent the disclosure of sources and methods to terrorist cells, such as al-Qaeda, and to prevent the killing of human resources by these terrorist organizations, that is when this should kick in. It is the rights of the terrorist versus the rights of the Government and the people. Sometimes they clash. In the case of a person committing or persons wanting to commit a terrorist act, they have clashed. It is more important that we protect the information and err on the side of caution, that we don't cost more lives. That is what my amendment is about. I have an article which I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. This was written by Ed Pound and Chitra Ragavan. It is a U.S. News article of a few weeks back. In the article, which is entitled ``Finger-pointing, fingerprints,'' Mr. Pound goes into a lot of detail and history about the fact that the court has not been used. I hope my colleagues will read it. It is a good history and a summation. It is pretty simple. This provides that the court we now have created to remove alien terrorists can be used. That is what I am hoping. I ask again for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Madam President, I thank the chairman for his cooperation. I will not take more than a minute or two and will not ask for any recorded vote. I also thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for making a commitment to me that we can have a hearing on this, if the Attorney General chooses to come and talk about the issue after the report comes back. To summarize, the amendment I offered dealt with this terrorist removal court which is not being used because of the fact that it would compromise intelligence if we did use it. I had hoped we could pass it to change that court, but given the fact that there is some information coming in on different views as to who believes what way about this and the issue as to how this court would or should work, I am prepared to and will accept the second-degree language offered by the Senator from Florida. I hope we can get this done. It is a 3-month report. I am a little concerned about the length of time, but realizing it takes time to do a report, I am also worried about the fact that something else could happen. Given the circumstances, it is good that we now have the attention of not only the Senate and the Congress but also the Justice Department, and I hope we can hear from the intelligence community as well on this issue, which we will do in the hearings when we have them. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation and look forward to passage of the amendment and yield the floor.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2116

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Madam President, I have amendment No. 1874 at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration as described under the previous order.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following letter from the Allied Pilots Association be printed in the Record in support of amendment No. 1874.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, it had been my intention to offer an amendment which would strengthen provisions in the bill to deal with known terrorist aliens. As Senator Lott well remembers, we worked in 1996, created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, to hear cases against aliens who were known terrorist and to allow the Justice Department to deport these aliens without divulging classified information to the terrorist organization.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. That is correct. As the leader knows, there are some changes that are needed to improve the law, which is what my amendment was going to be about.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I would say to my colleagues, all the tools we are giving to the Justice Department in this bill are irrelevant if we cannot deport these terrorist who are living in our country preparing to terrorize American citizens. Page 162 of the bill says the Attorney General shall place an alien in removal proceedings within 7 days of catching him, or charge him with a criminal act, or else the bill says ``the Attorney General shall release the alien.'' Mr. President, the problem is that most of these terrorist have not committed criminal acts until they are ready to attack. Therefore, in most of these cases, the only option is to deport them.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. That is exactly the problem. Under current law, the Justice Department would have to give a declassified summary of all the secret evidence used in the deportation proceedings to the terrorist. Now, why would we compromise our intelligence sources and methods by revealing sensitive intelligence information to a known terrorist? The intelligence community would never allow it, and with good reason. But as a result, the Justice Department has never once used the alien terrorist removal court to deport anyone.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I thank the Leader. As I said, it had been my intention to offer an amendment to resolve this problem by eliminating the requirement for the Attorney General to give this sensitive information to the alien terrorist before deporting him. However, upon discussions with the Attorney General, who indicated to me that he supports this provision, and after discussions with the Leader, I have decided in the interest of moving this legislation to withhold my amendment at this time, with the assurance of the Leader and the Administration that we will work to solve this problem in conference.