Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I wanted to put this on the record so the people who are next up would know it, and would be in a position to come to the Chamber in a timely fashion.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. The Senator is entitled to finish.

Mr. SPECTER. There had been a request for Senator Mikulski for 10 minutes right after lunch.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Utah be willing to await the completion of the remarks of Senator Mikulski for 10 minutes at 2:15 and Senator Schumer at 2:15 and then he will resume his remarks?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are proceeding at the moment to the nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General of the United States of America. He had served as a judge on the Supreme Court of Texas and has been commonly referred to as Judge Gonzales, which I shall do during the course of my presentation. Judge Gonzales, 49, comes to this nomination to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States with an extraordinary record. He was one of eight children, sharing a two-room living quarters with their parents. They had no hot water, no telephone. He pursued an academic career, first at the military academy; then at Rice University, where he graduated; and then at the Harvard Law School. He went into the private practice of law and then was asked by then- Governor George Bush to work with him in the Governor's office. Judge Gonzales then, as noted, was a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. With the election of Governor Bush to the White House, Judge Gonzales has been White House Counsel for the last 4 years. It is not irrelevant to note that Judge Gonzales would be the first Hispanic to be Attorney General of the United States. That is quite a dramatic rise in the legal community. When I was elected district attorney of Philadelphia some time ago, in 1965, there was not a single Hispanic lawyer in Philadelphia. At that time, I made an effort of outreach to bring minority representation into the district attorney's office as assistants and could not find a single Hispanic. So there has been a great deal of progress. Now there are Hispanic Federal judges in Philadelphia, State court judges, city solicitors, prominent attorneys, but Judge Gonzales would be the first Hispanic to be Attorney General of the United States, if confirmed. He will bring, I think, a unique perspective because of his minority status. I think he would have a broader view, a different view on civil rights. We have an issue which is subject to some congressional oversight where some 762 alien detainees were rounded up after 9/11, and according to a report by the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, there was never any showing of connection to terrorism or to al-Qaida or to any reason for their detention. While we know we live in a very dangerous world, there has to be some reason--it may not be as strong as probable cause for an arrest, or probable cause for search and seizure, or even sufficiency for stop and frisk--but there has to be a reason for detention. That is something of which I think Judge Gonzales might have some greater perspective. Judge Gonzales, I think, also would be expected to have a broader view on the immigration laws, being Hispanic, being from Texas, seeing the kinds of problems which are present both from the point of view of stopping illegal immigrants and also from the point of view of immigrants who come to this country who seek a better way of life. Similarly, I think he might have some greater insights into voting rights. He took a position broadly viewed as divergent from the administration on affirmative action in the controversial cases involving the University of Michigan. Affirmative action, always a complicated, controversial subject, but one where differing views and a broader perspective is a quality that would be well served in the Attorney General of the United States. He also took a broader view on the issue of what was required on parental notification under the Texas statute, drawing opposition from some on the so-called right of the party. There again, a little different view and a little broader view reflective of his background and his own attitudes. A great deal of the hearing process on Judge Gonzales has been involved on the issue of compliance with the Geneva Convention, on compliance with the statutes of the United States which prohibit torture. A great deal has been made of a statement made by Judge Gonzales with respect to the Geneva Conventions. He has been broadly quoted on a statement that some of the Geneva Convention's limitations are obsolete or quaint. In an opinion which he circulated, he said this: In my judgment, this new paradigm-- referring to what has happened after 9/11-- renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions. That part of the statement is the one always quoted, and the comment on ``quaint'' and the comment on ``obsolete'' have drawn a lot of criticism. But almost nowhere has there been a followup on what he was referring to. But what he said, continuing: . . . renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip--i.e., advances of monthly pay--athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Well, when you see the reference here to ``items like commissary privileges,'' I don't know that that would be exactly something to be concerned about on a prisoner, or scrip or advances of monthly pay or athletic uniforms or scientific instruments. So in that context, to say it is ``quaint'' or ``obsolete'' is not to challenge the underlying provisions of the Geneva Convention on its important substantive provisions. In Judge Gonzales's statements and testimony before the Judiciary Committee, he has been very emphatic about his personal opposition to torture and about the opposition of the administration to torture. He has been emphatic on his opposition to transporting detainees to other countries which permit torture to enable detainees to be tortured in other countries where they could not be under the auspices of the United States. He has been explicit in articulating the view that the CIA is bound by the same rules prohibiting torture as anyone else. He has come under considerable criticism for the so-called Bybee memorandum which was issued in August of 2002, signed by Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General of the United States, where the memorandum was requested so that there would be a full statement and an understanding of what the law required to comply with the statutes prohibiting torture in the United States. That memorandum was erroneous in its legal conclusions, as has been generally agreed to, and has been withdrawn by the Department of Justice. The interpretation of what constituted torture was very extreme, referring to the kind of excruciating pain and loss of bodily function, certainly not a realistic or an adequate or a definition of torture which would withstand legal analysis or legal scrutiny. The memorandum was extreme and excessive in a statement, an articulation of executive power. One example was the statement that the President of the United States had as much authority on questioning of detainees as the President had on battlefield decisions, which obviously makes no sense. When you talk about a battlefield decision, that is a prerogative of the Commander in Chief, as it is delegated down through field commanders. But that kind of authority does not reside in the President on an issue such as the questioning of detainees. The memo went quite far in suggesting that the President had authority to ignore statutes if he felt they were unconstitutional. There has been some question raised, although it is not explicit in the Bybee memo, about the authority of the President to immunize those who violate the law. That certainly is not lawful. When you talk about immunizing, you talk about judicial action in the context where there is a statute by the Congress of the United States authorizing immunity in a given context, immunity from criminal prosecution to disclose some information, but there is no suggestion anywhere that the President has the authority to immunize executive branch officials from noncompliance with the law. We find Judge Gonzales essentially working as White House counsel, working for the President in a role which he was very emphatic in distinguishing from the role of the Attorney General of the United States. As Attorney General he has a responsibility to represent all of the people. As counsel to the President, as White House counsel, his responsibility is limited only to the President. The memorandum by the Department of Justice was requested in order to have the legal interpretation as to what the appropriate line of questioning could be in order to be in compliance with the law. That was the role of the Department of Justice. It was not the role of Judge Gonzales. Then the decision as to what the questions would be, what the interrogation would be is the role of the Department of Defense, again, not the role of Judge Gonzales. Judge Gonzales has been very forthcoming, being available and meeting with some 27 Senators, which is said to be a record in being available to everyone on the Judiciary Committee and beyond, submitting to up to four rounds of questioning, 10 rounds each, and then in some cases the third round of 15, and in one case the fourth round of 22 minutes, and then responding to very broad questions, with the New York Times commenting that the responses of more than 200 pages of answers to questions was the most expansive view by the administration of its techniques and procedures on the questioning of detainees. So there is no doubt that Judge Gonzales has responded very broadly to the inquiries made of him. There has been a challenge that he has not answered all the questions because he could not recall specific conversations which were held years before, but that is entirely understandable. There were questions about discussions where representatives of the executive branch got together to discuss the specifics of the Department of Justice memorandum and the interrogation techniques to be employed by the Department of Defense. One of his answers to one of the written questions propounded gives a fair summary in a fairly abbreviated form as to Judge Gonzales's role. These are his words: Shortly after September 11, 2001, until the present, the administration has been involved in conducting the war on terror by gathering as much information from terrorists as we possibly can within the bounds of law. During that time, I have participated in several meetings at which possible uses of methods of questioning were discussed. These meetings may have included from time to time representatives from the National Security Council, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and others. In the meetings I attended, agencies' representatives raised concerns that certain terrorists had information that might save American lives. The participants shared a desire to explore whether there existed methods of questioning these terrorists that might elicit that information. It was always very clear that we would implement such methods only within the bounds of the law. That would bear repeating, ``always very clear that we would implement such methods only within the bounds of the law.'' Judge Gonzales continues: As counsel to the President, my constant emphasis and interest was on the last factor, ensuring compliance with the law. It would not have been appropriate for me to comment on issues such as whether a particular individual may have information that would be helpful to the effort to save American lives or to defeat terrorists or whether a certain procedure for questioning that individual would be effective in eliciting that information. Others with more relevant experience, expertise, and information were responsible for making those judgments. Instead it was my responsibility to ensure that any method they deemed appropriate and effective from an operational point of view was considered lawful by the Department of Justice. To the extent I was involved in recommendations, results, and assignments arising out of such meetings, my activities were directed toward ensuring that those with operational responsibilities would act only after receiving the judgment of the Department of Defense that a proposed course of action was lawful. That is the end of Judge Gonzales's statement on that. His role was reasonably, clearly delineated. He represented the President. He was responsible for saying what were the outlines of the law, or what was lawful. Those practices were defined by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, which has the responsibility to do that. And then anything beyond the legal techniques of the questions would lie with those who have the expertise, as he described it, and the experience, and the responsibility from the Department of Justice or from the Central Intelligence Agency. There was one other statement by Judge Gonzales in response to a question by Senator Kennedy, which I think is a summary, which delineates his own role. When asked about a specific newspaper article and about events that occurred several years before, Judge Gonzales replied: Sir, I don't have any specific recollection. I read the same article. I don't know whether or not it was the CIA [that was in reference as to whether it was a CIA request]. What I can say is that after this war began against this new kind of threat, this new kind of enemy, we realized that there was a premium on receiving information. In many ways, this war on terror is a war about information. If we have information, we can defeat the enemy. We had captured some really bad people who we were concerned had information that might prevent the loss of American lives in the future. It was important to receive that information, and people at the agencies wanted to be sure that they would not do anything that would violate our legal obligations, so they did the right thing; they asked questions--what is lawful conduct, because we don't do anything that violates the law. So here again is a capsule statement of Judge Gonzales's role. He is representing the President. He is not looking to determine what the appropriate scope of conduct is. That is a matter to be determined by those who are involved in questioning the detainees. That is the essence of what I believe--to be succinct and to the point of the issue. There are a great many other responses that could be read, a great many other arguments that could be advanced. I will reserve further responses on this matter as the course of the argument develops. I thank my colleague, Senator Hatch, for coming early in the proceedings to make a cogent argument. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to state my support for the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General of the United States. First, I would like to describe Judge Gonzales's personal background. He has had an extraordinary life and career. His personal story is one of dedication and courage--the sort of story that is possible only in America, where the dreams of even the most humble citizens can be achieved through hard work and discipline. Judge Gonzales was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in the small town of Humble, just outside of Houston. Although he and his seven siblings shared a two-room house that lacked either a telephone or hot running water, Judge Gonzales refused to be deterred by his difficult circumstances. He journeyed through Texas public schools, graduating from a Texas high school. Judge Gonzales then chose to serve his country by joining the Air Force and serving for approximately 2 years before entering the United States Air Force Academy for a 2-year stint. Shortly thereafter, he accomplished his childhood dream of graduating from Rice University. Following his graduation from Rice, Judge Gonzales went on to graduate from the Harvard Law School. In June of 1982, he joined the law firm of Vinson & Elkins in Houston, TX, where he later became a partner. Not content merely to practice law without giving back to the profession, Judge Gonzales also taught law as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center. The opportunity for service arose again when then-Governor Bush asked Judge Gonzales to leave his law firm to become the Governor's General Counsel. Thereafter, Judge Gonzales embarked upon a distinguished career in public service, including service as Texas's 100th Secretary of State from December 2, 1997 to January 10, 1999. In what would be a capstone for many lawyers' careers, in 1999 Judge Gonzales was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas--a job he loved, and the reason he is still today known as Judge. Although he enjoyed his job on the Texas Supreme Court, the President called upon him to serve his country as the White House Counsel, a position he filled throughout the administration's first term. Mr. President, no one in the Senate could take issue with Judge Gonzales's remarkable rise to prominence, and the obvious talent and ability that fueled it. Indeed, I think we are all in agreement about that. Nevertheless, Judge Gonzales finds himself confronting substantial opposition from my colleagues across the aisle. The purported reasons do not justify the opposition. First, the opponents of Judge Gonzales have succeeded in confusing the public about his views on torture. To listen to Judge Gonzales's critics, one would think that the policy of the United States was to promote or sanction torture, and that Judge Gonzales somehow established such a policy. Last week, for example, the senior Senator from Massachusetts stood on the Senate floor and accused Judge Gonzales of being a participant ``in the shameful decision by the administration to authorize the torture of detainees at Guantanamo and in Iraq.'' That charge is simply false. In fact, the White House has made very clear that the United States policy and law prohibit torture, and the President himself has insisted upon humane treatment for detainees. Judge Gonzales has been emphatic in his agreement with this position. When asked, point blank, by the senior Senator from Illinois whether U.S. personnel can legally engage in torture under any circumstances, Judge Gonzales answered: ``Absolutely no. Our policy is we do not engage in torture.'' To which my colleague replied: ``Good. I am glad that you have stated that for the record.'' Despite that exchange, and others like it, some critics, including the editors of the Washington Post and New York Times, have mischaracterized Judge Gonzales's answers to the committee's questions. In its editorial of January 26th, the Post claimed that Judge Gonzales had asserted the administration's right to, among other things, ``transport [foreigners] to countries where torture is practiced.'' In response to a question on this topic posed by my colleague from Massachusetts, however, Judge Gonzales wrote: ``The policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States.'' He added, ``I am not aware of anyone in the Executive Branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy.'' In case this was not clear enough, Judge Gonzales reiterated to the Senator from Massachusetts: ``United States policy is clear--the President has directed that the United States is not to engage in torture anywhere in the world and is not to transfer detainees from anywhere in the world to other countries where they likely will be tortured.'' In the New York Times editorial, also dated January 26th, it is argued that the ``biggest strike against Mr. Gonzales'' is the fact that a ``now repudiated'' Justice Department memorandum giving a ``narrow definition of torture'' was addressed to him. This ignores several facts: First, Congress--not the Administration--enacted the definition of ``torture.'' In 1994, Congress defined torture as ``an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.'' The now repudiated Justice Department memorandum suggested that ``severe physical pain,'' as used in the torture statute, should be construed narrowly to mean the type of pain ordinarily ``associated with a sufficiently serious physical condition or injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions--in order to constitute torture.'' But, Judge Gonzales was not the author of this offending language, and--as I will discuss at greater length later--he has rejected this narrow view of what constitutes torture. Moreover, while the memo has now been repudiated and replaced by one widely acknowledged to be more appropriate, neither memo altered the President's policy that detainees are to be treated humanely. The Times editorial also cites a leaked draft memorandum from Judge Gonzales to the President. Some on the Judiciary Committee, including the Ranking Minority Leader from Vermont and the senior Senator from Massachusetts, have mischaracterized this draft memo as a disavowal of the Conventions. Again, this ignores what Judge Gonzales has written and said. The language from the leaked memorandum is often taken out of context. The relevant passage reads as follows: The nature of the new war [against terrorism] places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments. At his hearing, Judge Gonzales reasserted his commitment to the Geneva Conventions as a whole. He told the Judiciary Committee in no uncertain terms: ``I consider the Geneva Conventions neither quaint nor obsolete.'' And he stressed that, ``[t]he President has repeatedly condemned torture and made clear that the United States will not condone torture.'' When asked about potential changes to the Conventions, he noted: ``I'm not suggesting that the principles of Geneva regarding basic treatment, basic decent treatment of human beings, should be revisited. That should always be our polestar.'' Further, in response to another Democratic Judiciary Committee Member, Judge Gonzales reiterated, ``Yes, I do denounce torture, and if confirmed as Attorney General, I will prosecute those who engage in torture.'' Finally, none of those standing in opposition to Judge Gonzales has come close to articulating a viable case for linking the actions of Judge Gonzales to the so-called ``migration'' of a flawed interrogation policy to the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, and perhaps elsewhere. Despite multiple investigations, including several discussed at our hearing, no one has established a link--even an attenuated one-- between Judge Gonzales and improper interrogation techniques in the field; I have yet to see anything other than supposition and conjecture. So, Mr. President, I think that Judge Gonzales has been clear about the United States' policy and his own views against torture, leaving no meaningful basis to oppose his nomination on such grounds. As I have already indicated, another issue that has been misrepresented by Judge Gonzales' opponents is his stance with respect to the Office of Legal Counsel's memorandum on the anti-torture statute, the so-called Bybee memo. At the Judiciary Committee's last Executive Meeting, the senior Senator from Massachusetts suggested that Judge Gonzales had failed to reject the memorandum. The record established the contrary. For example, Judge Gonzales has rejected the Bybee Memorandum's overbroad statement of Executive authority. In response to the Committee's questions about the memorandum, Judge Gonzales said: It has been rejected, including that section regarding the Commander-in-Chief's authority to ignore the criminal statutes. So it has been rejected by the Executive Branch. I, categorically, reject it. And, in addition to that, as I have said repeatedly today, this administration does not engage in torture and will not condone torture. During his hearing, I asked Judge Gonzales: ``Do you agree with the statement in the memo, `Congress may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield'?'' Judge Gonzales answered: ``I reject that statement, Senator.'' This is a clear and unequivocal answer. Moreover, Judge Gonzales has explicitly recognized that Presidential authority in this area is indeed limited. Among other things, he has noted: We in the executive branch, of course, understand that there are limits on Presidential power. We are very, very mindful of Justice O'Connor's statement in the Hamdi decision that a state of war is not a blank check for the President of the United States with respect to the rights of American citizens. I understand that and I agree with that. In addition, at his confirmation hearing, Judge Gonzales testified that he did not agree with the portion of the Bybee Memorandum stating that severe physical pain, as used in the torture statute, was limited to pain equivalent to organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. In response to a question from the Committee's Ranking Member, for example, Judge Gonzales agreed that horrific conduct, such as cutting off someone's finger, would be considered torture. Nevertheless, at the Executive Meeting, the Senator from Massachusetts continued to suggest that Judge Gonzales might somehow condone conduct such as, ``[b]eating you, suffocating you, ripping out your fingernails, burning you with hot irons, suspending you from hooks, putting lighted cigarettes in your ear.'' Such hyperbole, Mr. President, serves to highlight the fact that arguments against Judge Gonzales have ignored significant statements by this nominee. Judge Gonzales has taken important steps towards accommodating the legislative branch of government through his rejection of the Bybee dicta and his concessions on the limits of presidential power. Ignoring such efforts is the wrong way to approach such an important nomination and the wrong way to assess such a fine and worthy nominee. On a related note, my colleague from Massachusetts and other critics, including the New York Times, have seized upon the fact that the President's February 2002 directive regarding the humane treatment of prisoners is addressed to the Nation's Armed Forces to suggest that somehow the CIA has been operating without legal constraints. The senior Senator from Massachusetts, for example, has alleged that Judge Gonzales ``evaded answers to questions about whether the CIA can abuse prisoners, even if the military is prohibited from doing so.'' This is directly contradicted by Judge Gonzales's responses to the Judiciary Committee's written questions. For example, Judge Gonzales has written: The CIA and other intelligence agencies are fully bound by the prohibition on torture contained in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340 and Sec. 2340A and, depending on the circumstances, by other criminal statutes such as those defining crimes in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Those statutes prohibit, for example, assault (18 U.S.C. Sec. 113) and maiming (18 U.S.C. Sec. 114). These criminal prohibitions prevent abuse of detainees by intelligence officers. In fact, the Department of Justice is currently prosecuting a CIA contract employee for various charges of assault under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 113. Despite such answers, my colleague from Massachusetts continues to accuse the administration of sending ``the message that anything goes to our troops and intelligence officers in the field.'' To the contrary, Judge Gonzales has stressed that the ``CIA and other intelligence agencies are fully bound'' by the laws against torture. And, as further noted by Judge Gonzales, the CIA and other agencies have sought Department of Justice guidance concerning the boundaries emanating from U.S. obligations under, for example, Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. In fact, let me take a moment to address Article 16 directly. Some have suggested that the administration's interpretation of Article 16 has been used to justify or facilitate the cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of aliens overseas. Just last week, for example, the senior Senator from Massachusetts accused Judge Gonzales of saying ``that the CIA is not bound by the prohibition on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture.'' Again, this ignores the testimony of Judge Gonzales. At our hearing, Judge Gonzales noted that, when the Senate ratified the Convention Against Torture, it took a reservation equating the requirements under Article 16 with the requirements under the Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendments. Judge Gonzales further acknowledged that, when interpreting these requirements, the Administration has looked to Supreme Court precedents holding that aliens interrogated by U.S. personnel outside the United States enjoy no substantive rights under the Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendment. Nevertheless, regardless of the debate about the strict legal requirements of Article 16, Judge Gonzales testified that the administration has sought ``to be in compliance as a substantive matter under the Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendment.'' He also testified that, to the best of his knowledge, the United States has met its substantive obligations under the Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendments. This commitment has often been overlooked by the Judge's opponents. Contrary to the claims of his critics, Judge Gonzales also acknowledged that, based on his review of the relevant investigations, the responsibility for what happened at places like Abu Ghraib extends further up the chain than the culpable guards. The Senator from Massachusetts accuses Judge Gonzales and others in the administration of a ``continuing effort to pin the blame for the torture scandal on a few bad apples among our solders.'' In reality, however, Judge Gonzales testified: The reports [by Schlesinger, Faye, Kearns and others] seem to indicate that there was a failure, there was a failure of discipline amongst the supervisors of the guards there at Abu Ghraib, and also they found that there was a failure in training and oversight at multiple layers of Command Joint Task Force 7. And so I think there was clearly a failure well above the actions of the individuals who actually were in the prison. At least that's what the reports seem to indicate, as I review them. At the same time, he rejected the notion that inhumane treatment was tolerated or encouraged as a matter of course. He pointed out, for example, that, even within Abu Ghraib, the gross misconduct of the night shift was aberrant: The findings in these eight reports universally were that a great majority, an overwhelming majority of our detention operations have been conducted consistent with American values and consistent with our legal obligations. What we saw happen on that cell block in the night shift was limited to the night shift on that cell block with respect to that first category, the more offensive, the intentional severe physical and the sexual abuse, the subject of those pictures. And this isn't just Al Gonzales speaking. This is what, if you look at it, the Schlesinger report concludes. And so what you see is that you have got this kind of conduct occurring at the night shift, but the day shift, they don't engage in that kind of conduct because they understand what the rules were. And so I respectfully disagree with the characterization there was some sort of permissive environment. Once again, on this point as with others, the Judge's own words refute the accusations of his critics. Some of my colleagues have also seized upon Judge Gonzales's inability to recall certain details of meetings that occurred more than 2\1/2\ years ago to suggest that we lack sufficient information to make an informed decision about his nomination or that Judge Gonzales is being less than forthcoming when he asserts he cannot recall a matter. Last week, for example, the senior Senator from Massachusetts told the Judiciary Committee that Judge Gonzales ``refuses to tell us anything about those meetings.'' In fact, the Senator from Massachusetts had several exchanges with Judge Gonzales on this topic at our confirmation hearing. The Senator queried, for example: ``I just want to point out, if it is true, as the Post reported, that you held several meetings at which the legality of interrogation techniques, such as threat of live burial and water- boarding were discussed; do you remember that?'' Judge Gonzales responded: Senator, I have a recollection that we had some discussions in my office, but let me be very clear with the Committee. It is not my job to decide which type of methods of obtaining information from terrorists would be most effective. That job responsibility falls to folks within the agencies. It is also not my job to make the ultimate decision about whether or not those methods would, in fact, meet the requirements of the anti-torture statute. That would be a job for the Department of Justice. And I never influenced or pressured the Department to bless any of these techniques. I viewed it as their responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not a procedure or method of questioning of these terrorists that an agency wanted, would it, in fact, be lawful. Given the passage of time, his inability to recall precise details is understandable. Moreover, it must be viewed in the context of what he has recalled and provided to the committee. Among other things, he has: acknowledged his participation in meetings where the questioning of detainees was discussed; explained the genesis and purpose of such meetings; described the limited nature of his role; and explained the result of these meetings. In one lengthy written answer to a question posed by my colleague from Massachusetts, for instance, he explained: Since shortly after September 11, 2001 until the present, the Administration has been involved in conducting the War on Terror by gathering as much information from terrorists as we possibly can within the bounds of law. During that time, I have participated in several meetings at which the possible use of methods of questioning were discussed. These meetings may have included, from time to time, representatives from the National Security Council, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and others. In the meetings I attended, agencies' representatives raised concerns that certain terrorists had information that might save American lives; the participants shared a desire to explore whether there existed methods of questioning these terrorists that might elicit that information; and it was always very clear that we would implement such methods only within the bounds of the law. As Counsel to the President, my constant emphasis and interest was on the last factor--ensuring compliance with the law. It would not have been appropriate for me to comment on issues such as whether a particular individual may have information that would be helpful to the effort to save American lives or defeat terrorists, or whether a certain procedure for questioning that individual would be effective in eliciting that information. Others with more relevant experience, expertise, and information were responsible for making those judgments. Instead, it was my responsibility to ensure that any method they deemed appropriate and effective from an operational point of view was considered lawful by the Department of Justice. To the extent I was involved in recommendations, results, and assignments arising out of such meetings, my activities were directed toward ensuring that those with operational responsibility would act only after receiving the judgment of the Department of Justice that a proposed course of action was lawful. That answer provides a good deal of information. The fact that he cannot recall details of those meetings is understandable. It is commonplace to forget details of meetings, particularly when years have passed. It is certainly not, given the responses that have been made, a reason to oppose someone who is universally praised for his ability and integrity. Since his nomination, the White House has offered every Committee member a personal, private meeting with Judge Gonzales. To date, the Judge has met personally with 14 members of the Judiciary Committee, and more than a dozen other Senators. At his hearing, Judge Gonzales testified for nearly 6 hours, answering multiple rounds of questions. There were three rounds of questions, and I encouraged Senators to participate in each round. After a complete and lengthy first round, 9 Senators participated in a second round of questions. After that, 4 Senators including myself took advantage of the third round. I made sure every Senator had ample opportunity to question Judge Gonzales. Indeed, one Senator was ultimately granted a fourth round of questions. Contrary to the assertion by the Senator from Massachusetts that Judge Gonzales was unresponsive and he made ``a mockery of the notion of congressional oversight and accountability,'' Judge Gonzales's answers to the committee's written questions, contained in 221 single- spaced pages, provided nearly 450, often detailed, responses on issues ranging from the war on terrorism to intellectual property. So thorough was Judge Gonzales's response that the New York Times (January 19, 2005) stated that Judge Gonzales's answers to the committee's written questions comprised ``one of the administration's most expansive statements of its positions on a variety of issues, particularly regarding laws and policies governing C.I.A. interrogation of terror suspects.'' The questions kept pouring in even after the committee's hearing record closed on Thursday, January 13th, with 4 Senators submitting more than 40 additional questions for the nominee. Judge Gonzales has now responded to all of those supplemental questions. In 27 additional pages of questions and answers, Judge Gonzales has further clarified his position on several issues. He also furnished a remarkable 93-page memorandum on the Geneva Conventions prepared by the State Department as well as a letter reiterating his role in a court appearance for then-Governor Bush. These facts refute the claims that Judge Gonzales has failed to provide us with sufficient information to evaluate his nomination. Nevertheless, the Judge's opponents continue to clamor for more. At the executive meeting, for example, the senior Senator from Massachusetts complained that Judge Gonzales had ``not conducted a search for . . . requested documents.'' In fact, my colleague said it would be ``hard to imagine a more arrogant insult to this Committee's oversight responsibility.'' I requested that a search be conducted for any draft or final memoranda or other documents written by Judge Gonzales and relevant to the subject of interrogation techniques or torture. The White House responded by conducting a search. On January 19, 2005, at the direction of the White House Chief of Staff, David Leitch, Deputy Counsel to the President, supervised a search of certain electronic records available in the Office of Counsel to the President. Specifically, he searched for word processing documents containing the words ``torture'' or ``interrogation'' that were located on (1) the shared Counsel's Office directory, (2) the personal and network directories used by Judge Gonzales and his assistants, or (3) the hard drive of Judge Gonzales's computer. According to the White House, based on the practices concerning documents created by Judge Gonzales, there is a very high probability that any document of the sort described would have been identified as a result of this search. I have been advised, however, that no such documents were identified by the administration. Moreover, the White House has represented, and Judge Gonzales confirmed, that he has no notes reflecting discussions at any meetings concerning these topics, nor does the White House believe there are any notes taken by Judge Gonzales in the files of the office. Finally, I have been advised that, during Judge Gonzales's tenure as counsel to the President, there have never been any audio recordings or transcriptions of any meetings in the White House Counsel offices concerning these topics, or any others, so far as the White House is aware. Judge Gonzales and the White House have undertaken appropriate efforts to accommodate the Senate by providing relevant information. Between his written answers and his testimony, Judge Gonzales has addressed his role in the solicitation and provision of legal advice, as well as his personal views on the contested issues--such as the treatment of detainees. There is an ample record to evaluate his nomination. I urge Senators to review the voluminous materials that have been produced before coming to any conclusion. Mr. President, another argument used by the Gonzales critics is that he refused to answer certain hypothetical questions during his hearing. Using the rejected language of the Bybee memo about a postulated Commander-in-Chief override of the torture statute, certain Judiciary Committee members repeatedly asked Judge Gonzales whether he believed the President could authorize torture in extreme and hypothetical circumstances. Judge Gonzales refused to engage in scenarios about when, if ever, torture might be sanctioned, because the President has rejected torture under any circumstances. So, when the ranking minority member asked, ``Now, as Attorney General, would you believe the President has authority to exercise a Commander in Chief override and immunize acts of torture?'' Judge Gonzales answered: [T]he President has said we are not going to engage in torture under any circumstances. And so you're asking me to answer a hypothetical that is never going to occur. This President has said we're not going to engage in torture under any circumstances, and therefore, that portion of the opinion was unnecessary and was the reason that we asked that that portion be withdrawn. Given the administration's clear policy, this response is appropriate. Judge Gonzales has explained that the Bush administration will not engage in torture under any circumstance, so his reluctance to contradict the President's policy is perfectly understandable. In fact, even the distinguished witnesses on the second panel of our confirmation hearing, including two law school deans and an advocate for victims of torture, were unwilling to engage in hypothetical debates about what set of circumstances--if any--might justify a presidential decision to approve torture. One witness even characterized the hypothetical about a ticking time bomb as ``fantasy'' and part of the ``mythology'' of torture. Such reticence is understandable, especially for someone, like Judge Gonzales, who serves a President who has rejected the use of torture under any circumstances. Another of the anti-Gonzales shibboleths is that he is too close to the President to be independent. This argument ignores what Judge Gonzales, an honorable and credible man, told the Judiciary Committee. During his opening statement, and several times thereafter, Judge Gonzales acknowledged the difference between his role as White House Counsel and the job of Attorney General. At the outset of our hearing, he noted: With the consent of the Senate, I will no longer represent only the White House; I will represent the United States of America and its people. I understand the differences between the two roles. In the former I have been privileged to advise the President and his staff. In the latter I would have a far broader responsibility: to pursue justice for all the people of our great Nation, to see that the laws are enforced in a fair and impartial manner for all Americans. That is a clear statement that he recognizes the difference between his current job and the job of Attorney General. Judge Gonzales has been the lawyer for one person--the President--and is now going to serve as a lawyer for all Americans. Judge Gonzales knows the difference and will serve honorably as the next Attorney General. Before I conclude, Mr. President, I want to emphasize a few of the positive comments my Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have made about this nominee. At his confirmation hearing, the senior Senator from Wisconsin told Judge Gonzales: ``As you know, we have had an opportunity to work together on several different issues over the years, and I have come to respect you also. And I believe if you are confirmed that you will do a good job as Attorney General of the United States.'' At our Executive Meeting, the senior senator from Delaware noted: ``My vote, to state the obvious, is not about his character or his compelling personal story, which is compelling. He has overcome great adversity in his life, and I believe he is an intelligent, decent and honorable man.'' The senior senator from New York said, ``I like Judge Gonzales. I respect him. I think he is a gentleman and I think he is a genuinely good man.'' Such comments do not surprise anyone who has gotten to know Judge Gonzales. As I have noted, Judge Gonzales has taken a strong stand against torture, rejected suggestions that the President is above the law, and recognized the important distinctions between the position of White House Counsel and Attorney General. So, what is behind the votes against him? Not his personal story. Not his character. Not his willingness to work with Congress. There may well be a large overhang of politics clouding this nomination. Politics, however, is a poor reason for denying the President his choice to be Attorney General. I urge my colleagues to consider this nomination based on the facts. Regardless of what administration is in power, that is a standard we should all honor. Mr. President, the bottom line is that Judge Gonzales is a remarkable American, well-suited for the position of Attorney General, who has been forthcoming with the Senate and the American people about his role in some very difficult decisions during a very important time. He is a good man. Even his opponents acknowledge that. I urge my colleagues to support Judge Gonzales to be Attorney General. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. That will be agreeable.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have consent following the lunch. I think the Senator from----

Mr. SPECTER

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

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss briefly the status of efforts to have asbestos tort reform legislation, a matter which has been before the Congress of the United States for more than two decades. I had my first contact with the issue back in 1984 when then-Senator Gary Hart of Colorado brought in a constituent to talk about asbestos. It has been an issue which we have labored with long and hard, and in the last Congress, Senator Hatch, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, advanced legislation with the concept of a trust and a schedule of payments to avoid the costs and risks of litigation and to treat asbestos injuries very much like workers' compensation. A bill was passed out of the Judiciary Committee last July, pretty much on a party-line vote, as the distinguished Presiding Officer, Senator Cornyn of Texas, knows because he was and is on the Judiciary Committee and did a prodigious amount of work on this issue. The bill was passed out with a number of problems. I voted for it to move it along. I then enlisted the assistance of the former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Edward R. Becker, who was in senior status. Judge Becker convened a large group of so-called stakeholders in his chamber. For two full days in August, he met in his chambers with representatives of the manufacturers, representatives of the AFL-CIO, representatives of the insurance industry, the reinsurance industry, and trial lawyers to start to work through a large number of problems which appeared to be intractable. We have worked through many of those problems, but some still remain. There had been some talk about a draft bill being offered, but it is not appropriate to offer legislation until later this month under the procedures established by the majority leader, and the proposed draft legislation is not quite ready, although a great deal of work has been done on it. There have been major issues raised as to what the total amount of the trust fund should be. There have been issues raised as to how much money should be in the startup fund; how long the trust fund ought to function before giving the claimants the right to revert to the judicial system because the legislation necessarily takes away their right to jury trial in consideration of a certain amount of money to be paid under the trust fund; and the problems that many victims are having where they are unable to collect from anyone--people with mesothelioma, a deadly disease, with cancer, with many ailments from the exposure to asbestos. This would be the offset to giving up the right to a jury trial. We have adopted an approach of reverting back to the right to jury trial if the elaborate system does not work. I think the system is realistically calculated to be successful. Following the meetings in Judge Becker's chambers last August, there have been some 32 sessions held in my conference room, presided over by Judge Becker with myself in attendance for most of those meetings. To repeat, a lot of progress has been made. It is my hope to be able to circulate a draft bill as a vehicle for discussion. I call it a discussion draft bill. My hope is that it could be circulated before the end of the week, but it is not possible to make any firm commitments because candidly every time we come upon a sequence of negotiations, other problems arise. If there is any way to reconcile them and to have a consensus before going into print, we are trying to do that. It had been my hope last year, as we worked through the process, to have a bill by consensus. Senator Frist and the then-Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, did a great deal of work and exchanged letters. At one point we thought we were on the verge of a consensus, but it did not work out. In order to pass a bill, as we all know, in the last stages of a legislative session, it has to be by consensus because any single Senator can hold up a bill in its final stages. That consensus was not possible, and although we were very close on many issues, there are some issues where there is still some difference of opinion. The differences have been narrowed, and we have come a long way. It is my hope to circulate a draft discussion bill, and there likely will still be some blanks. We will fill in as many of the blanks as we can, and then Judge Becker and I will be available to meet with the stakeholders in my conference room on Monday to talk about the areas where there has been agreement, to talk about the specifics on a draft discussion bill, and to talk about the areas where there are still differences as to how we might bridge that gap. I have worked with Senator Leahy. I commend him for his work with Chairman Hatch on this matter. We have talked about having a hearing next Tuesday on January 11. I am not unaware of the fact that it is not a convenient time, but Senator Leahy will be present and I think there will be some other Senators present. We have given several weeks notice. We are aware it is a difficult time, but there are many hearings held in the Senate with just a few Senators, the chairman, and the ranking member present. I think it is important to move ahead. At that time, it is the expectation that we will hear testimony from Judge Becker to lay out the draft discussion bill and then to hear testimony from the stakeholders identifying the parts of the bill which they choose to comment about where there are agreements or where there are disagreements. We know from experience that the early part of a legislative session is necessarily slow, but that early on in February, certainly in March, sometimes by mid-February, we begin to move ahead and the calendar begins to be crowded. There are many items which the President has identified as legislative priorities. We will have confirmation hearings starting with White House Counsel Gonzales on Thursday and there will be other confirmation hearings. So it is my hope to be able to present a bill through markup at a very early date. Whether that can be done in late January or early February, frankly, remains to be seen. When we marked up this bill the last Thursday of July of 2003, it was a very long markup. It lasted more than 12 hours, as the distinguished Presiding Officer will recollect. In a sense, we had the longest markup in the history of the Senate with the sessions in Judge Becker's chambers and the 32 sessions in my conference room. I thought it would be useful to briefly describe where we have been and in a sense where we are going so our colleagues will know what the status is as fully as it can be described without actually circulating a draft discussion of the bill, which will be done at the earliest possible time. I thank the Chair. I commend him for his lonely vigil. This was a thriving Chamber three hours ago with standing room only and suddenly the business of the Senate is not quite so pressing with only the Presiding Officer and this Senator present. So in the absence of any other Senator, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SPECTER

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

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, for clarification, I will follow Senator Lieberman for 20 minutes. So it is Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, and then I am up for 20 minutes?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I begin by congratulating the chairman, Senator Collins, and the ranking member, Senator Lieberman, for their extraordinary leadership in the beginning of the legislative process which has culminated in where we are today and their steadfast determination in pursuit of this bill throughout many arduous months. Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman took up at the direction of the majority leader and the Democratic leader in structuring hearings which began at the end of July of this year immediately after the Democratic National Convention. They proceeded in August in an unprecedented way where the regular schedules were interrupted, a difficult thing to do in a campaign year. They reconvened the Governmental Affairs Committee on which I served and the committee members were advised of schedules--difficult to do in a campaign season when many Members are up for reelection--but the legislative objective was of paramount importance and the committee responded and the committee pursued the hearings and came up with the legislation. I believe what we have here is really a battlefield victory over the Department of Defense. The essential issue has long been a turf struggle, and I think we have taken a short step, but a significant one, in the legislation which is presented in the conference report today. I do not think we should overstate where we have come, but I think, at the same time, we need to recognize we have stepped significantly forward, albeit a single step, as a result of the insistence of the President of the United States who deserves commendation for his leadership in the final stages of this matter to bring the legislation where it is today. Where we have had a good bit of discussion on the issue of chain of command, I think realistically that has been more smoke than substance. But, at any rate, the key participants in the House of Representatives were satisfied so the bill did come to a vote in the House, and the Senate is ready to take the matter up today. A great deal of credit is obviously due to the families of the 9/11 victims in their insistence that the 9/11 Commission be formed. And then great credit is due to the 9/11 Commission itself in structuring a report, which was filed in July, and then putting considerable pressure to have their report enacted. I think, to repeat, the realities are that the final legislation is short of where the 9/11 Commission would like to have gone either with respect to budget control or with respect to day-to-day operations, but in the tortuous process of making changes in the intelligence community, the 9/11 Commission has been a catalyst here in a very important way. It became apparent, when 9/11 occurred, that had there been proper coordination among the intelligence agencies that 9/11 might well have been prevented. There was that FBI report out of Phoenix about the suspicious character who was interested in learning how to fly a plane, not concerned about takeoffs or landings. That FBI report never got to the proper line in FBI headquarters in Washington. Then, the CIA knew about the two al-Qaida operatives in Kuala Lumpur, but that information was never transmitted to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It was not in the INS computers. Those al-Qaida operatives got into the United States and were two of the pilots on 9/ 11. Then there was the FBI report out of Minneapolis with Special Agent Colleen Rowley, who wrote a 13-page, single-spaced report which finally received public attention, finally came to the attention of the key officials of the FBI. The Judiciary Committee held hearings in June of 2002, and there was surprise and consternation that the appropriate test under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had not been applied. Had that material been known and had we been able to pick up the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui at an early date, again the case was building that 9/11 might well have been prevented, had these facts come to the attention of the appropriate authorities and been collated and put all under one umbrella. So the need was imperative for revision and reform of the national intelligence system. I had seen this need when I chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee back in the 104th Congress. At that time I introduced S. 1718, which contained very material changes in the national intelligence community. I will not put that legislation in the Record at this time. I have done so on prior debates. But it was apparent at that time there needed to be a revision of the national intelligence community. While the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had paper authority, he did not have budgetary authority or day-to-day control sufficient to really put all of the intelligence operations under one umbrella. Following 9/11, after the report from Colleen Rowley came to light in June of 2002, the administration agreed there should be a new Department of Homeland Security. Senator Lieberman and I introduced S. 1534, 30 days after 9/11, on October 11 of the year 2001. The hearings were held and there was considerable debate, and the legislation languished and had a lot of opposition. It finally came to the Senate floor in the fall of 2002. Then, as what frequently happens, the House passed a bill and left town, leaving us with the option of either taking their bill in October of 2002, which was an election year, or putting the matter over, which would have gone to spring. At that time, Senator Lieberman and I made an effort to give the new Secretary of Homeland Security authority to direct--not to task or not to ask or not to request but to direct--the other intelligence agencies. It seemed to us when you were creating a new Department that this was the time to make some fundamental changes in the national intelligence structure. But the administration was opposed. I talked to Secretary Ridge, Vice President Cheney, and I talked to the President, and there was opposition, as concerns had been expressed to putting any agency or any instrumentality or any unit between the CIA and the President. It seemed to me--and I made this argument--that would not have been the case. But we were unable to make that modification. That is where the status of the record lay, until the 9/11 Commission came into operation and filed its report in July of this year. Immediately thereafter, Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, and I introduced a bill which tracked what the 9/11 Commission wanted done. When the Governmental Affairs Committee took up the issue, with the hearings in July and August, it seemed to me we needed a bill which gave a great deal more authority to the National Intelligence Director than where the committee was heading, and I introduced S. 2811, which gave the National Intelligence Director authority. I am not going to make that bill a part of the Record. It has already been made a part of the Record in prior debates. The committee report did not give the National Intelligence Director day-by-day authority, which, as I say, I thought it should have. I offered an amendment which had cosponsors, including the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Shelby; the present chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Roberts; and many others who had very extensive experience on the intelligence structure for the country. I offered that amendment on the floor, and it was defeated by a vote of 78 to 19, so that the National Intelligence Director in the Senate legislation was not given day-to- day operation. It was my thought then, and continues to be my thought, that if we raised the bar a little higher, perhaps in the negotiations--as we know, as a practical matter, in a House/Senate conference there are compromises--we might have ended up with a stronger Director than we have at the present time. In the course of the negotiations with the House, the budgetary control was not maintained. So what we have today is a step forward. But there is a great deal more, in my judgment, of which the National Intelligence Director needs to have effective control over in the national intelligence community. But again, this is a step forward, not a big step but a significant step, and it is something upon which we can build. It would be a colossal mistake to reject this bill with the thought of going back to the drawing board next year to begin again what we have accomplished, putting us on another plateau from which we can work. We have in this legislation significant improvements on transportation security, on terrorist travel and effective screening, on border protection, immigration and visa matters, on terrorism prevention. We do have those areas of very significant improvement. I believe that Congress is going to have a big job of oversight now, to see precisely what is done by the new National Intelligence Director. We have changed our Senate procedures to make permanent the Intelligence Committee so there will be some institutional knowledge there without the shift on 8-year terms. I served 8 years on the Intelligence Committee and had an opportunity to chair the committee in the 104th Congress. That continuity will be very important. On the Appropriations Committee on which I serve, we have structured a new intelligence subcommittee. In the line of seniority, I may have the opportunity to chair that subcommittee. That is something I am thinking about. I am reluctant to give up the subcommittee on Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education, but when we move forward from this point on the restructuring of the national intelligence community, this is a very significant period and is something to which I am giving personal consideration. The creation of the new National Counterterrorism Center is a significant step forward. That has been an outgrowth of the mistake recognized by the intelligence community from 9/11. That had been in process, and this legislation takes a very important step beyond what is in existence at the present time, putting it into a statutory form. I have conferred with the top officials of the FBI, and the Judiciary Committee has oversight over the FBI. This is something which requires very substantial oversight. It is my hope, depending on how the Judiciary Committee is structured next year, that this is something which the Judiciary Committee can accomplish. But the Intelligence Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee and perhaps other relevant committees, Armed Services Committee, will have a big job in not resting on our laurels on legislation which will be enacted today. We ought not to take too much solace in laurels, although though it is justifiable to some extent. But there is a great deal more which needs to be done to see to it that there is the kind of coordination and that we have made a successful attack on the cultures of concealment which are present in the intelligence community. I have seen that culture of concealment from the work that I have done on the Judiciary Committee on oversight for the past 24 years. I saw that culture of concealment in the Central Intelligence Agency in the 8 years I was on the Intelligence Committee. It may be that what has happened with the events of 9/11 and with the pressure of the 9/11 Commission, with the legislation on the Department of Homeland Security, that the intelligence community has been sensitized, perhaps even more than sensitized, perhaps more accurately stated, bludgeoned by congressional criticism and by public criticism over their failures to coordinate intelligence activities which, had they been coordinated, 9/11 might have been prevented. In conclusion--the two most popular words in every speech--I urge my colleagues to adopt this legislation. I further urge my colleagues in both this body, the Senate, and the House to be vigilant, to pursue oversight, to see to it that the ultimate objective of coordination and centralized direction is obtained with this legislation as a significant starting point. Far from perfect, it nonetheless provides a valuable foundation for future legislation and puts us on the path to meaningful intelligence reform. As such, I believe it is preferable to act now on a finite number of matters that can be accomplished immediately. Any attempt in the future to enact intelligence reform legislation from scratch, especially reform of intelligence budget matters, will be subject to the bitter turf battles involving the self-protection of entrenched bureaucratic prerogatives that have characterized this and past efforts at reform. And while the contentious issues of State driver's license standards and refugee asylum must be addressed, it is far better to do so in the context of hearings and additional input from interested parties. But simply starting over in the next Congress will likely accomplish little, if anything. Passage of this legislation--which includes a statutory requirement for the issuance of Presidential guidelines assuring that the statutory responsibilities of the heads of various departments of our government will not be abrogated--will provide a legislative base for Congress to build upon, while preserving the requisite military chain of command. Valuable preliminary objectives have been accomplished in this legislation, consistent with the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. This legislation creates a Presidential-appointed, Senate confirmed director of national intelligence, DNI, who, while not serving as the head of CIA, will 1. oversee national intelligence and provide all-source analysis on specific subjects of interest across the U.S. government, and plan intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems such as counterterrorism; 2. manage the national intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute to it; and 3. ``manage and direct'' the tasking of collection and analysis. The legislation also will establish a national counterterrorism center, with a Senate-confirmed director, for developing joint counterterrorism plans covering key missions, objectives to be achieved, tasks to be performed, interagency coordination of operational activities, and the assignment of roles and responsibilities in the consolidated counterterrorism mission. Also, under this bill the President must establish a national counterproliferation center which, as envisioned by the provision's sponsor, Majority Leader Frist, implements a key recommendation of my 1999 Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. And the legislation will enable the implementation of other policy objectives that I have favored such as expansion of the electromagnetic spectrum to enhance first responder interoperability, deployment and use of explosives detection equipment at airport screening checkpoints, improved watch lists for passenger prescreening, improved border security, including an increase in full-time border patrol agents and detention beds, an increase in criminal penalties for alien smuggling, and for those who seek to use weapons of mass destruction, an increase in the number of serious criminal offenses designated as ``Federal crimes of terrorism,'' improvements in financial crime enforcement and terror financing abatement, authority to use our Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act powers against ``lone wolf' terrorists, authorization to share grand jury information about terrorist threats with State and local officials, and development of a national strategy on terrorist travel and travel documents. Many crucial objectives were not achieved, however. The budget execution authority deemed essential for the DNI to exercise genuine control over the intelligence community has been removed from the bill, so that the appropriation for the national intelligence program does not go directly to the DNI, and the DNI does not have authority to direct the allocation of funds to the various elements of the intelligence community. Further, the top line budget figure for the national intelligence program will be kept secret, and thus intelligence spending will remain unaccountable to the American people. The DNI is left with the power to ``develop and determine'' the national intelligence program budget, which is effectively the same authority that the current DCI is given over the National Foreign Intelligence Program budget by executive order. Also, personnel and transfer authority has been further diluted in this final legislation. Specifically, while the DNI can move intelligence community funds in their year of execution, the heads of the intelligence community agencies will have a right of refusal over any reprogramming or transfer exceeding 5 percent of their agency's aggregate budget, or exceeding $150 million, or involving the termination of an acquisition program, e.g., satellite procurement. Personnel transfer is also tightly circumscribed and can be accomplished only with the approval of the Office of Management and Budget. Beyond budget and transfer authority, the new DNI has not been granted authority that approximates what I consider to be the appropriate level of operational control over the various elements of the intelligence community. The DNI also does not have, as the 9/11 Commission recommended, ``hire and fire'' authority over senior intelligence community officials, but rather has the right of concurrence in the hiring of senior intelligence community officials and the right to be consulted in the appointment of the head of DIA. Nor does the DNI control information infrastructure standards. I also believe that the failure to include a statutory inspector general weakens the oversight of the new DNI and thus raises additional privacy and civil liberties concerns. Finally, the legislation sets up an inadequate structure within which the DNI must operate. I had initially proposed that the DNI serve as the head of an independent agency, or department, and the final Senate bill arrived at a similar ``National Intelligence Authority'' to house the office of the DNI and the national counterterrorism center. Contrary to the concepts conceived in the Senate, the NCTC and the DNI's officers under this legislation will be housed within the office of the DNI. In other words, there is no power base from which the DNI can operate. He will have no ``troops'' other than those that filter through the NCTC and the office, and no actual authority with which to influence, direct, or control intelligence community entities and personnel. These shortcomings must be addressed in future legislation if we are to have an intelligence apparatus that can be effective against 21st century threats, while protecting constitutional rights. It will not be easy, however, to overcome the ingrained bureaucratic tendencies to protect turf and the status quo. It has recently been reported that the Department of Defense fought extremely hard during the conference committee negotiations to further reduce the powers that would be accorded to the DNI. My experience in attempting to enhance the budget and operational authority of the Director of Central Intelligence in 1996 led me to the conclusion that the same turf battles existing prior to 9/11 would endure during the process of formulating this most recent attempt at intelligence reform. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has occurred this year and, like in 1996, the Pentagon has successfully attenuated intelligence reform legislation. Thus, while we have gained marginal advantages over current law and practice in this legislation, the conference report in its totality should be viewed as the basis for building upon the powers of the DNI in future legislation. Conversely, if we reject this bill, it is ``back to the drawing board'' when we reconvene with an entirely new set of priorities to tackle in the next Congress. This delay will allow reform opponents the time and renewed vigor to marshal their resources in opposition to changing the status quo. It is far less likely that we will accomplish anything meaningful on intelligence reform next year if we must start from scratch, lacking the momentum of the 9/11 report and without the pressure of the congressional and presidential elections. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak briefly about medical research in the United States. The Senate is now working through, as we all know, an Omnibus appropriation bill, which includes the appropriations bill for the subcommittee which I chair on the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. One of the component parts of this bill involves the funding for the National Institutes of Health. Our allocation is grossly insufficient. It impacts on many areas. It impacts on education. It impacts on worker training. It impacts on many aspects of the delivery of health services. One line which I think is particularly troublesome is the absence of adequate funding for the National Institutes of Health. I say that because of the very remarkable advances which NIH has made in the past, and the enormous potential for the future. I was elected to the Senate in 1980. In the first year I served on the subcommittee, which I have for the full 24 years of service, the NIH funding was something less than $3.6 billion. By this current fiscal year, funding had increased to some $28 billion, significantly as a result of the leadership of Senator Tom Harkin, who is the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, and my pressure to increase the funding, backed up by the full committee and by the full subcommittee, Senator Stevens, Senator Byrd, and then approved most of the time by the full body. This year, our funding is very insufficient. If we look at where medical research has brought us, it is remarkable. Life expectancy has increased from 47 years in the year 1900 to 77 years in the year 2001. Polio, smallpox, and other infectious diseases no longer kill or cause suffering to large numbers of people. The rate of death due to heart disease has been cut by more than half since 1950. Death rates from cancer for 11 of the top 15 cancers in men have decreased; 8 of the top 15 cancers in women have been decreased. Diagnoses with multiple myelomas have been reduced from a death sentence to living with a chronic condition as a result of new drugs developed through biomedical research. But there is still an enormous challenge. Heart disease continues to be the number one killer; cancer, the number 2 killer, not far behind. The tragic aspect of these deadly diseases is that they could all be cured, I do believe, if we had sufficient funding. Two of my closest friends have died recently as a result of breast cancer. Being the chairman of this subcommittee for many years has brought me into contact with many people who have maladies, whose children have maladies, who suffer from Parkinson's, whose family suffers from Alzheimer's, and varying categories of cancer. My Chief of Staff, a young woman named Carey Lackman Slease--well known in the Senate community--died on July 14 of this year at the tender age of 48. She was known by practically everybody in the Senate. She came to the Senate to work for Senator Heinz 24 years ago when she was 24. She left the Senate for a time for a variety of private enterprises, but her heart and soul belonged to the Senate, and she came back as my Chief of Staff and did a spectacular job. The breast cancer disease lingered in her body, and notwithstanding the pain, suffering, and torture she went through; she stayed at the job. And she stayed at her desk, insisting on staying, although many of us tried, including me personally, to have her ease off. She was in love with the Senate and found the Senate work the best therapy, so that when she passed, it was a shock to people who had been working with her in very recent periods of time before. All of us took her death very hard, especially in the context of our thinking that her death could have been avoided had medical research had sufficient funds and sufficient resources to do the job. A few days ago, on November 11, a very close personal friend, Paula Kline, who was the wife of my son's law partner, who I was very close to, who was practically a daughter, died at the age of 54 of breast cancer. In a very valiant and very courageous way, Paula Kline struggled with all of the advanced protocols and possibilities which might have spared her or elongated her life. And going through the various forms of treatment, they turned out to be worse than the cancers themselves. But again, the tragedy is that Paula Kline's death could have been avoided had sufficient resources been devoted by this very wealthy country to medical research. We have a gross national product in excess of $11 trillion. We have a Federal budget of $2.4 trillion this year, and it will be more next year. And when we take a look at the budget for the National Institutes of Health at $28 billion, it is, candidly, scandalous that with our resources, our resource capability, research capability in biomedical science, that people are still dying of breast cancer or colon cancer or heart disease. There is a long list of maladies that people suffer from where there could be cures: autism, Parkinson's, scleroderma, muscular dystrophy, osteoporosis, cervical cancer, lymphoma, prostate cancer, colon cancer, brain cancer, pediatric renal disorders, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord injury, arthritis, a variety of mental health disorders, hepatitis, deafness, stroke, Alzheimer's, spinal muscular atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease-- diabetes, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, multiple myeloma, pancreatic cancer, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, heart disease, infant sudden death syndrome, schizophrenia, polycystic kidney disease, Cooley's anemia, stroke, primary immune deficiency disorders. That list was compiled by Bettilou Taylor, who is the most--I was about to say the most extraordinary staffer; we have a lot of extraordinary staffers in the Senate family--but a most devoted worker. I will take just a moment to commend her and the staff on the Appropriations Subcommittee of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. They have been working around the clock, home for an early morning shower, and back at work, turning out an omnibus bill for some eight of the subcommittees which had not been able to turn out bills before. It continues to be mystifying to me, after being here for 24 years, that we cannot complete our work in a more orderly way. It is a regrettable fact of life, but it is a fact of life that everything is done in the Congress at 11:59 if there is a 12 o'clock curfew. Some of it does not get done until after midnight, until after the curfew. We have worked the bill every which way. A couple years ago, we had the bill concluded on June 29, floor action by the Senate. But by the time we get through the complex conferencing--and I do not ascribe any fault anywhere, to the other body or to this body--it seems to be endemic of the way we do our business. But we are about to have a bill filed. There have been various predictions. The most recent one is for 5 o'clock. We will see if that happens. There are so many items that our constituents come to us for, and they want included in the bill. It is such a complex and difficult matter. We struggle with it. And the House will take it up some time tonight. I do not know how anybody can intelligently or intelligibly read that bill, let alone to comprehend it, through the limited period of time which is available. In struggling through the bill this year, for my subcommittee, there are many disappointments, but the biggest one is on the National Institutes of Health. I focus particularly on the tragic death of my Chief of Staff, Carey Lackman Slease, who died July 14 at the age of 48, and a very close personal friend, Mrs. Paula Kline, who died on November 11, just a few days ago, at the age of 54. The deaths are marked by the tragedy of the fact they could have been eliminated had we devoted sufficient resources to medical research. I call this to the attention of my colleagues in the Congress and the people who may be watching on C-SPAN or who may read the Congressional Record of the importance of renewing our efforts, in a wealthy country with a gross national product of $11 trillion and a Federal budget of $2.4 trillion, that we could do better than $28 billion for this very important subject. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the senior Senator from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, be recognized.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I seek recognition to describe legislation that I plan to introduce in the 109th Congress. I have been asked to pursue this legislation on behalf of the 158 families of the brave servicemen who died when the terrorist faction Hezbollah--with the support of the Government of Iran--sent a suicide bomber into the Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 23, 1983, killing 241 U.S. servicemen--18 sailors, 3 soldiers, and 220 Marines. This legislation will provide an explicit private right of action for United States citizens against state sponsors of terrorism in our Federal courts, and will ultimately allow victims of such acts to collect court-ordered damages against state-sponsors of terrorism. The specific provisions of the legislation have been drafted to harmonize existing statutory law with the recent direction of the District of Columbia circuit in Cicippio-Puleo v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 353 F.3d 1024 (D.C. Cir. 2004), which held that ``neither 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1605(a)(7) nor the Flatow Amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act . . ., nor the two considered in tandem, creates a private right of action against a foreign government.'' 353 F.3d 1024, 1032-33 (D.C. Cir. 2004). In 1996, I supported the legislation that ultimately was enacted into the statutes that I have just cited. These statutes have been interpreted by the D.C. Circuit in Cicippio-Puleo to provide the following: No. 1, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1605(a)(7) provides an exception to sovereign immunity for state sponsors of terrorism and permits Federal courts to hear claims seeking money damages for personal injury or death against such nations and arising from terrorist acts they commit, or direct to be committed, against American citizens or nationals outside of the foreign state's territory; and No. 2, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1605(a)(7)(note), also known as the ``Flatow Amendment,'' named for New Jersey student Alisa Flatow, who was killed when Palestinian Islamic Jihad bombed a Gaza bus on which she was riding, imposes liability upon an official, employee, or agent of a foreign state that is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, only if that official, employee or agent is acting in their ``official capacity.'' On October 23, 2004, in Philadelphia, I was privileged to take part in a memorial service held in honor of the servicemen killed in the 1983 Beirut attack. Some of the family members of those killed attended the event. Their moving comments about how they have been denied the ability to seek legal redress, despite clear findings implicating Hezbollah and Iran in the attacks, were both poignant and persuasive. It is vitally important to victims' families that they have a private right of action against the state sponsor itself, not just its officials, employees or agents acting in their official capacity. These victims and their families deserve not simply a day in court, but also the ability to recover damages against terrorist states that commit, direct, or materially support terrorist acts against American citizens or nationals. The former, in isolation, is a hollow right--in legal terms, a right without a remedy. The D.C. Circuit in Cicippio-Puleo tells us that only Congress can provide such a remedy. That is my intent. I ask unanimous consent that the October 23, 2004, remarks by Lynn Smith Derbyshire, the sister of deceased Marine CPT Vincent Smith and a leader of the families advocating for this legislation, be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on a substitute amendment I propose to make to S. 2485, the ``Veterans Health Programs Improvements Act of 2004,'' as part of my request that the bill, as so amended, be approved by the Senate. The underlying bill, S. 2485, was reported by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on July 20, 2004, and is explained in detail in Senate Report 108-358. My comments at this time are limited to explaining how the proposed substitute amendment, which reflects a bipartisan agreement between Senate and House Veterans' Affairs Committees on veterans' medical benefits-related issues, differs from the provisions of S. 2485, as reported. The House has approved a number of bills--H.R. 1318, H.R. 4231, H.R. 4248, H.R. 4317, H.R. 4608, H.R. 4768, and H.R. 4836--that overlap with provisions drawn from various Senate bills that are contained in S. 2485, as reported. The language of the substitute amendment, in some cases, fine tunes language to harmonize these overlapping provisions without significant or substantive modification. Further, the substitute amendment adds provisions that are drawn from House-approved bills that had not been considered by the Senate. Among those provisions are measures which will assist the Department of Veterans Affairs--VA--and State veterans homes in procuring needed nursing services; provisions which authorize VA major medical facility leases and grant programs to assist providers of services to homeless veterans; and measures requiring VA reports on historic properties and medical waste management activities. Also included are VA facility ``naming'' provisions which, in addition to a measure already approved by the Veterans' Committee, would name VA facilities in Amarillo, TX; Peoria, IL; Lufkin, TX; and Sunnyside, Queens, NY. All of these additional provisions, and all clarifications and modifications to language contained in the reported bill, are outlined in the ``Explanatory Statement'' which I will append to this statement. Each of the additions to S. 2485 that have resulted from negotiations with our colleagues in the House are all useful and productive. The bill as it would be modified by the managers' amendment, then, merits the Senate's approval. I yield the floor and ask unanimous consent that the Explanatory Statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on a substitute amendment I propose to make to S. 2486, the Veterans' Benefits Improvements Act of 2004, as part of my request that the bill, as so amended, be approved by the Senate. The underlying bill, S. 2486, was reported by the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on July 20, 2004, and is explained in detail in Senate Report 108-352. My comments at this time are limited to explaining how the proposed substitute amendment, which reflects a bipartisan agreement between Senate and House Veterans' Affairs Committees on issues related to veterans' non- medical benefits and services, differ from the provisions of S. 2486, as reported. Almost all of the provisions set forth in S. 2486, as reported, are included in the substitute agreement that I present to the Senate today. Changes made, for the most part, simply reflect provisions that the House has approved which are acceptable to the Senate. There is, however, one notable excision of material from the Committee-reported bill: a provision crafted by Committee Member Zell Miller that would have increased educational assistance benefits for Reserves who are activated for extended periods. That provision is not included in the substitute amendment. Similar legislation, however, is in the offing via another legislative vehicle. After S. 2486 was reported by the Veterans' Committee, the President requested that the Armed Services Committees, in the course of their conferencing on the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization bill, approve enhancements to educational assistance benefits that are substantially the same as those which are included in S. 2486, as reported. I have been given every indication that the President's proposal will be included in the conference agreement on the Defense Authorization bill. Expecting this to be the case, Senator Miller's provision--a provision that was a centerpiece of the Committee-reported bill--has been laid aside. In its place, the substitute amendment includes a provision that would increase benefits to the neediest survivors of service members who are killed in combat or who subsequently die from service-related injuries or illnesses. Under current law, the surviving spouse of a service member who is killed in service is eligible for dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC) benefits. The new provision, which is drawn from a provision contained in a bill, S. 1132, that I introduced last year, would provide, for a two-year period, an additional $250 per month of DIC to a surviving spouse who has dependent children. VA estimates that approximately 27 percent of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are survived by spouses who have at least one dependent child. These survivors need an additional measure of help; the substitute amendment would provide it. The substitute amendment also makes substantial improvements, authored by the House, to VA educational assistance benefits provided to service members and veterans who pursue apprenticeship and on-the- job training programs. VA programs for supporting those who pursue such opportunities have not been updated for over 50 years. These amendments are overdue. I applaud Chairman Chris Smith, the author of these provisions, for his efforts to expand employment and training opportunities afforded to veterans. There are many other fine additions to the reported bill contained in the substitute amendment. They include provisions to strengthen the oversight of VA fiduciaries, to enhance the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, and to improve on a myriad of other veterans' benefits and services. I encourage my colleagues to read the accompanying Explanatory Statement, which I ask be printed in the Record, for a better accounting of these worthy items. This legislation will affect positively the lives of many deserving service members, veterans, and survivors. It merits the support of my colleagues. I request that support. I yield the floor and I request the unanimous consent of the Senate that the ``Explanatory Statement'' that accompanies this statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to recommend that Francis Joseph Harvey, of California, confirmed to be Secretary of the Army. I met with Secretary Harvey on October 5, 2004 in my office. I found Secretary Harvey to be not only very well qualified, but also to have a great deal of enthusiasm for the task ahead. I was particularly impressed with Secretary Harvey's background. He was born and educated in Pennsylvania. His mother still resides in Latrobe, PA. Mr. Harvey is currently serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration. Prior to his nomination by the Army, he served as vice chairman of Duratek, Inc. in Columbia, MD, and has served as the chief operating officer of the Industries and Technology Group for Westinghouse Electric Corporation where he earlier served as president of the Electronic Systems Group and as president of the Government and Environmental Service Company. Dr. Harvey earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dam and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a rich Army tradition. Pennsylavnia is home to several bases, and the Army War College and Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks. If confirmed, Secretary Harvey will no doubt apply his expertise, energy, and enthusiasm to serve the soldiers of the United States Army and our country with distinction.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona for a number of reasons. First, the Intelligence Committee, with its current responsibilities, has a very heavy workload. I was on the Intelligence Committee for 8 years and chaired the Intelligence Committee in the 104th Congress. It is a very time-consuming job. I think it would be unwise to give them the additional burden of deciding appropriations. As a member of the Appropriations Committee--and I do not make this argument on a turf basis--we spend a lot of time making the allocations among the 13 subcommittees which we have. We have a budget resolution. We have a specific amount of money and we have to make the allocations. If we have a committee such as the Intelligence Committee not a part of the appropriations process, to evaluate intelligence appropriations in contrast to the other appropriations functions, it simply does not give the full picture. We, obviously, never have as much money as the individual members would like to have for their respective subcommittees, but when the committee makes a decision as to allocations, it is keeping the entire budget in mind. That would be lost if you had the Intelligence Committee with the authority simply to carve out whatever amount of money they chose without regard to the other appropriations processes. In addition, the experience as detailed by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the Senator from Alaska, has been that when authorization and appropriations were combined, there were enormous appropriations. At a time of deficits and at a time of large national debt, we ought not create another structure which would add to the burden of additional funding. The separateness of an intelligence appropriations subcommittee from the intelligence authorizing committee also lends for more congressional Senate oversight. With all of the work we have to do, there is insufficient time to give appropriate oversight to the intelligence functions. A separate appropriations subcommittee would have an opportunity to add to that oversight and would have an opportunity to add as a check and balance to what the authorizers may do. We are proposing some very far-reaching changes here. I believe the resolution is a sound one in that it strengthens the hand of the intelligence authorizing committee by taking away term limits so the members of that committee will develop real expertise. But we should not abandon the traditional division of responsibility between authorizers and appropriators. I have great respect for what the Senator from Arizona seeks to do. He has made very cogent critiques of the Appropriations Committee from time to time when the Appropriations Committee seeks to take on the authorizing role. There are not supposed to be authorizations on the appropriations bill. We know, as a practical matter, that happens on occasion. Really, it happens with excessive frequency. But just as the separateness ought to be maintained with appropriators not authorizing; so, too, the separators ought to be made with authorizers not appropriating. It is for these reasons that I oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak in support of legislation which I am sponsoring with the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden--the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004. This year, more than 650,000 inmates will be released from the United States' prisons. Nearly two-thirds of released prisoners are re-arrested for either a felony or a serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release. This ``revolving door'' of criminals endangers our communities. Yet, it should really come as no surprise that an individual who is released and who is illiterate or lacks the necessary skills to get a job returns to a life of crime. The need to address the issue of recidivism to protect the public is apparent and the Enhanced Second Chance Act is designed to address that need and stop the ``revolving door'' at our Nation's correctional facilities. This bill gives criminal offenders a second chance at rehabilitation and gainful employment by creating successful reentry programs focused on education and job training. There are two categories of individuals that we must focus our concern on in our fight to reduce recidivism--the career criminal and the person who will one day return back to his or her community. As for the career criminal, I wrote the Armed Career Criminal Bill that was adopted in 1984, which provides for life sentences for career criminals. These individuals, who have committed three or more major offenses and caught in possession of a firearm, receive mandatory sentences up to life. The second category of individuals--individuals who will one day be released--are a special circumstance because this is not about locking them up forever but about making sure they have an opportunity to turn their life around. It is about focusing on literacy and job training in order to reduce recidivism and prevent those individuals from becoming career criminals. The Enhanced Second Chance Act is aimed at better equipping the community, increasing public safety, and helping States and communities address the growing population of ex-offenders returning to communities. The act authorizes a $130 million a year grant program for State and local governments aimed at creating programs to help reduce recidivism rates and to create procedures to ensure that dangerous felons are not released from prison prematurely. It also calls for either establishing or expanding the use of State reentry courts to monitor ex-offenders returning to the community and to provide them with drug and alcohol treatment as well as necessary mental and medical services. One of the most significant concerns that our communities face with regards to prisoners is the impact on their children and communities. Between 1991 and 1999, the number of children with a parent in a Federal or State correction facility increased by more than 100 percent from approximately 900,000 to approximately 2 million. This legislation deals with the issues and obstacles that these children face. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 creates a new program designed to support the relationship between parent and child while the parent is incarcerated and to help with family unification when the parent is released. It also instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to re-examine the current programs that are in place to help support the parent-child relationship while the parent is incarcerated and to establish the necessary services to help preserve the family relationship. Another major concern is incarcerated juveniles. Juveniles have a recidivism rate ranging from 55 to 75 percent. These figures are staggering and that is why I have pushed for so many years for legislation aimed at educating these young offenders prior to their release. I have consistently sponsored legislation that would provide for workplace and community transition training for incarcerated youth offenders while in prison and would provide employment counseling and other services that would continue while the individual was on parole. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 builds upon my earlier efforts and provides effective reentry and aftercare programs so that these young individuals will have a chance at a successful transition back into the community. This bill encourages State and local governments to assess the literacy and educational needs of incarcerated individuals and to identify appropriate services to meet those needs while they are incarcerated. Moreover, this bill provides for collaboration with community colleges and employment services to connect inmates with employment opportunities before they are released back into the community. The New York Times recently reported that 5 million people, or roughly 2.3 percent of the electorate, will be barred from voting in November by State laws that strip felons of voting rights. However many ex-felons are in fact eligible to vote but do not do so simply because they are not aware that they have this right. The Enhanced Second Chance Act helps remove the confusion and mandates that prison officials provide each ex-offender released from Federal prison information on how the reentering offender can restore his or her voting rights. Information must be provided to each ex-offender in writing and in a language that he or she can understand. This will allow ex-offenders to feel more connected to their communities and is another important tool in the fight to reduce recidivism. I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from Delaware in introducing this important and much-needed legislation. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 is a very positive step forward in providing realistic rehabilitation to individuals needing a second chance. I wholeheartedly agree with President Bush's statement that ``America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.'' The President urged us to work in a bipartisan fashion and I believe that this bill is the first step in the right direction.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak in support of legislation which I am sponsoring with the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden--the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004. This year, more than 650,000 inmates will be released from the United States' prisons. Nearly two-thirds of released prisoners are re-arrested for either a felony or a serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release. This ``revolving door'' of criminals endangers our communities. Yet, it should really come as no surprise that an individual who is released and who is illiterate or lacks the necessary skills to get a job returns to a life of crime. The need to address the issue of recidivism to protect the public is apparent and the Enhanced Second Chance Act is designed to address that need and stop the ``revolving door'' at our Nation's correctional facilities. This bill gives criminal offenders a second chance at rehabilitation and gainful employment by creating successful reentry programs focused on education and job training. There are two categories of individuals that we must focus our concern on in our fight to reduce recidivism--the career criminal and the person who will one day return back to his or her community. As for the career criminal, I wrote the Armed Career Criminal Bill that was adopted in 1984, which provides for life sentences for career criminals. These individuals, who have committed three or more major offenses and caught in possession of a firearm, receive mandatory sentences up to life. The second category of individuals--individuals who will one day be released--are a special circumstance because this is not about locking them up forever but about making sure they have an opportunity to turn their life around. It is about focusing on literacy and job training in order to reduce recidivism and prevent those individuals from becoming career criminals. The Enhanced Second Chance Act is aimed at better equipping the community, increasing public safety, and helping States and communities address the growing population of ex-offenders returning to communities. The act authorizes a $130 million a year grant program for State and local governments aimed at creating programs to help reduce recidivism rates and to create procedures to ensure that dangerous felons are not released from prison prematurely. It also calls for either establishing or expanding the use of State reentry courts to monitor ex-offenders returning to the community and to provide them with drug and alcohol treatment as well as necessary mental and medical services. One of the most significant concerns that our communities face with regards to prisoners is the impact on their children and communities. Between 1991 and 1999, the number of children with a parent in a Federal or State correction facility increased by more than 100 percent from approximately 900,000 to approximately 2 million. This legislation deals with the issues and obstacles that these children face. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 creates a new program designed to support the relationship between parent and child while the parent is incarcerated and to help with family unification when the parent is released. It also instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to re-examine the current programs that are in place to help support the parent-child relationship while the parent is incarcerated and to establish the necessary services to help preserve the family relationship. Another major concern is incarcerated juveniles. Juveniles have a recidivism rate ranging from 55 to 75 percent. These figures are staggering and that is why I have pushed for so many years for legislation aimed at educating these young offenders prior to their release. I have consistently sponsored legislation that would provide for workplace and community transition training for incarcerated youth offenders while in prison and would provide employment counseling and other services that would continue while the individual was on parole. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 builds upon my earlier efforts and provides effective reentry and aftercare programs so that these young individuals will have a chance at a successful transition back into the community. This bill encourages State and local governments to assess the literacy and educational needs of incarcerated individuals and to identify appropriate services to meet those needs while they are incarcerated. Moreover, this bill provides for collaboration with community colleges and employment services to connect inmates with employment opportunities before they are released back into the community. The New York Times recently reported that 5 million people, or roughly 2.3 percent of the electorate, will be barred from voting in November by State laws that strip felons of voting rights. However many ex-felons are in fact eligible to vote but do not do so simply because they are not aware that they have this right. The Enhanced Second Chance Act helps remove the confusion and mandates that prison officials provide each ex-offender released from Federal prison information on how the reentering offender can restore his or her voting rights. Information must be provided to each ex-offender in writing and in a language that he or she can understand. This will allow ex-offenders to feel more connected to their communities and is another important tool in the fight to reduce recidivism. I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from Delaware in introducing this important and much-needed legislation. The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 is a very positive step forward in providing realistic rehabilitation to individuals needing a second chance. I wholeheartedly agree with President Bush's statement that ``America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.'' The President urged us to work in a bipartisan fashion and I believe that this bill is the first step in the right direction.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, at the conclusion I would like 3 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. If I may, I follow Senator Roberts for just 3 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. I won't be here.

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