Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. We need to let this process work, allow the Secretary of Labor to evaluate these comments and continue her process of establishing fair and modernized overtime regulations. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to bring to the attention of my colleagues and all of our constituents across the Nation that March is National Eye Donor Month. The first eye bank opened in 1944 and since then, over half a million Americans have received the gift of sight. Now, Americans throughout the country have the power to help restore sight to thousands of people in need. Mrs. Jeanne Bross, 65, can return to college in South Carolina with restored sight after receiving a corneal transplant in a Birmingham, AL hospital. This amazing turn in her life would not have been easy without someone giving the precious gift of sight. The purpose of Eye Donor Month is to educate each and every American family to the opportunity to give the gift of sight and to make a terrific difference in someone's life. This month marks an opportunity to celebrate the gift of sight, to raise public awareness and to honor past donors and their families. The process to become a donor takes just minutes. All a donor needs to do is sign a donor card and most importantly, discuss their donation wishes with their family. Last year over 46,000 Americans had their sight restored through the miracle of corneal transplantation. This year, thousands of Americans will require a sight restoring cornea transplant due to the continual need for cornea and tissue. Our eye banks across the Nation, along with the Eye Bank Association of America, work to ensure that all of these Americans will receive the tissue they need. It is also important to note that there are ever changing strict standards, screening procedures and accreditation programs in place to ensure that each of the recipients receives safe tissue, achieving a success rate of over 90 percent. As National Eye Donor Month proceeds, I encourage my colleagues to work with their local eye banks to increase public awareness of corneal transplantation and the continuous need for donors. I appreciate the opportunity to highlight Eye Donor Month and again, encourage all Americans to sign a donor card and speak with their families about their wishes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS. I know Senator Nickles talked about the economy and who is responsible. We can all debate how much the President actually has influence over it. I don't know. But when President Roosevelt took office, there was a high unemployment rate. I think it was 20 percent, or maybe it even increased under his administration initially. He inherited an economy that was in trouble. Is it not a fact that when President Bush took office, contrary to the myth that is out there, that the third quarter of his last year in office was negative growth, and that the first quarter that President Bush inherited, before he had any time to do anything, was negative growth, and that President Bush actually inherited an economy that was in trouble? That is a big part of some of the difficulties we have had today.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Nickles, for his leadership. We will miss him desperately in this Senate. He has chosen not to seek reelection, which he would have handled easily, and we are certainly going to miss him. His handling of this budget process this year was particularly skillful, principled, filled with integrity and good judgment. I also appreciate the ranking member, Senator Conrad. He is a skilled man with the numbers of this budget. He can find more bad numbers in this budget than most anybody I know, but a lot of those numbers need to be talked about. He is correct. We have some long-term problems with financial stability. It is great to debate and have people discuss our challenges and have the numbers put out there and not hide anything as we go forward. I believe we have produced a budget that is responsible, that the American people, if they understand it, could appreciate and would support in general. We will continue to debate it, and it will pass I believe, much as it has been written. What we had to do is confront the situation of declining revenue to our Government. It has come from a number of different reasons, primarily because the economy has not been as healthy as we would like it, although we have seen some positive rebound. We ought to talk about that and we should consider that as we evaluate how we are going to handle the country's financial situation. To sum up where we are, President Bush submitted a budget he believed funded the Government's discretionary accounts, including defense and homeland security and all other discretionary accounts, at $818 billion. We were operating in the Senate under a budget of last year that called for us to stay at $814 billion, $4 billion less. So we decided the right thing for us to do was produce a budget at 814. Then, as we continued to score the proposals in the President's budget, that budget came in at $823 billion. So to go from $823 billion to $814 billion there was $9 billion we had to confront as we worked from the President's budget. Unfortunately, we had to take a sizable sum from the proposed increase in defense spending. The budget called for an increase of $26 billion for defense, 7 percent, the largest aggregate increase in the budget. We were forced to come in at a $20 billion increase for defense. We made other decisions and reduction changes. Certainly, I hope this Congress will support the President's proposals to eliminate some 50 or 60 programs that need to be eliminated. Everybody knows that we too seldom confront spending programs that have a certain value on the surface but, if examined carefully and with an eye toward efficiency and productivity and wise use of the taxpayers' dollars, don't meet the test. But we seldom, if ever, eliminate one. The President said it is time to do that. I, too, believe it truly is. I spoke to the National Association of State Treasurers this morning and shared with them, a story of when I became attorney general of Alabama in 1994. My predecessor had left our office in a colossal, disastrous situation financially. We were forced, because we had a balanced budget constitutional amendment in the State of Alabama, to terminate the employment of one-third of the employees of the attorney general's office. It was a very difficult and painful decision for me. All those terminated were noncivil servants. They were hired under the political system that the attorney general could use at that time. But still many of them were good people, and I hated to terminate their employment. But we reorganized that office. We worked hard. I believe we thereafter produced as much or more good legal work, even though we lost one-third of the employees. I say that to illustrate there is a myth in this Senate, in this Congress, that somehow money only tells whether something is being productive, and if you don't give an agency more money, somehow they can't do as much work as they were doing before. That is wrong. It is not so. Every business in America understands they can do more for less work hard to do so. I think that is one reason why so many Americans today are cautious and concerned about how our Government spends their money. It is because they are at their workplaces every day, working with ingenuity and technology and training and new systems to produce widgets better and cheaper for the consumer so they can stay in business. They expect the same out of Government, and they have every right to. This budget comes in at 814. I believe we can make that work, but there will be, throughout this process, a host of amendments to spend more for every item you can imagine. Many of them have every resonance of good and worthwhile programs. In fact, some of them will be. But we simply don't have the money we want to spend on all these programs. We need to show discipline. If we show discipline, and we do this for several years, we can bring this budget back into balance again. Senator Nickles believes, if we stay at this constrained spending rate, we will cut the deficit in half within 3 years. That is a good goal. I would like to exceed that. Maybe we can exceed that. We will just see. I will share my personal view that economic growth will be a big part of accomplishing our goal. When President Bush was elected President, the economy was in trouble. In the third quarter of President Clinton's last year in office, negative growth occurred. The first quarter that President Bush was in office--had negative growth. Not good. But, that is what he inherited from his predecessor. I say that because people say this slowdown was President Bush's fault. The NASDAQ exchange had lost one-half of its value by the time President Bush took office. The bubble had already burst and that value out there, on paper at least, was gone, leaving companies strained and unable to borrow and hurting the economy in a number of different ways. The economy began to come back, and in September 2001 we had the attack on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon. That hurt us, too. So we are bouncing back from that. The President did not sit around and not do anything. He acted. He had a number of programs. One was to stimulate this economy through allowing the American citizens to keep more of the money they earn. I think that was a good idea. First of all, it is always good policy in this land of freedom and individual responsibility to allow the people who earn their wages to keep as much of it as they possibly can. That is who we are as a people. We are not part of the socialist ideal of Europe, other countries. We have a heritage of freedom and individual responsibility. First, I thought President Bush's actions were good philosophically. Secondly, it has helped our economy. We have seen continual growth since. The third quarter of this past year, the growth of GDP in America was at 8.2 percent. That is the highest growth in over 20 years in this country. The fourth quarter of last year was over 4 percent. The combined two quarters were higher than any two quarters President Clinton had when he was in office, I have been told. It was a good end to last year. I think we are going to have good growth this year. The stock market is coming back up. Mr. Greenspan said interest rates are expected to stay low. He expects growth to continue. Jobs have continued to increase for the last three or four quarters. Not as much as we would like; we need to see more growth in the job area. But the household survey numbers look a lot better than the numbers that are most often cited, the wage number. Regardless, we want to see continued growth in jobs. Economists tell us as the economy grows, it takes some time before employers start adding permanent employees. In other words, they will pay overtime and do other things before they hire a permanent employee. But if their business stays healthy and continues to grow, they will hire people over a period of time. Jobs lag behind growth. Despite the fact that we have people running for President who have been going around for months saying how terrible everything is, how unemployment is hurting us so badly, how the economy has been damaged by President Bush, consumer confidence is up there pretty healthy and strong. So we have to be pleased with that. With regard to the unemployment numbers, in June of last year, the unemployment rate was 6.3 percent. The fourth quarter's unemployment was reported at 5.6 percent--which is a significant drop--is about the average over 20 years for unemployment in America. Do we want it to get better? Absolutely. Do we need to take steps to continue the growth and continue job enhancement in America? Yes. I am willing to consider any good proposals toward that idea. Mr. President, this economy seems to be coming back on solid footing and trusting the individual American citizens who work hard, manage their money carefully, and businesses to increase productivity. Oddly, increased productivity is not good for jobs. If businesses improve productivity, they can make more widgets with less employees. I think almost every economist who would be consulted on this subject would say that in the long run productivity increases are good because productivity is what will allow us to be competitive in the world marketplace. Without increases in productivity, we will not be able to compete with low-wage nations. So productivity is a good and bad thing. In the long run, it is going to be good. But I think it has delayed the surge of hiring we would like to see, but I think we will see hiring increase as time goes by. There are a lot of reasons our country had a decline in revenue. A small portion of the decline--maybe a quarter--was the tax cut. But the tax cuts, I am absolutely convinced, were key cause of that 8-percent growth we saw--4 percent in the last quarter--which is surging out there and which will lift us out of this slowdown. I believe the fundamental problem with the lack of income to America has come about because our taxes in this country are focused on the highest income wage earners. I know my colleague on the other side said we are reducing taxes on the rich. But after all the tax cuts, the highest 1 percent, highest 10 percent will still pay a larger percentage of the total taxes to America than the lower income people will pay--a higher percentage of total tax revenue will still come from the rich. But the deal is this: If you have money invested in the stock market and the market drops by one-half or more, as NASDAQ did, and you sell your stock, what can you do? You take a loss. You don't show a gain and pay a tax on the gain. You show a loss. The loss claim is limited to $3,000. But $3,000 for a lot of people who sell stock means loss of revenue to the Government. For those in the top brackets who are paying 38 percent, that is a large loss in tax revenue to America. Corporations that were making profits in good times and who are now showing losses are not paying taxes. People who were being paid bonuses because companies were doing fine, they don't get those now, and they are not paying more taxes. So it seems to me that by taxing heavily our highest income people and depending on them substantially for our base revenue from income taxes, we have created a pretty volatile situation in how the income comes in. If you have 6 months of growth like we are having now, I don't think you will see a lot of bonuses to executives. But if you have a year, 2 years, of growth, and improvement and profits begin to come back in a company, you will see other things happening that will generate profits for the corporation. More people will be hired, more people will be working overtime making that extra money, and they get taxed at the higher bracket rate. All those things, to me, indicate the President is correct to decide to take strong action, to inject an infusion of American ingenuity into the economy by allowing them to keep their wealth, what they have earned. As a result of that, we will get growth and, as the growth stays out there, I hope our budget numbers are going to look better. Will growth solve all our problems quickly? I don't think so. I think we are going to have to sustain a long period of managing our spending habits, keeping spending growth down. Some areas need to be reduced. Some areas need to be increased modestly. We are going to have to resist starting a whole lot of new programs, and I am indeed troubled by the expansion already of the expected cost of the prescription drug program. If we do those kind of things, and this economy comes back and we hold the line, we will begin to see the deficit be reduced. That is what we desperately need to do. We simply cannot sustain the size of the deficits we have today, and it is not necessary that we have the kind of deficits we have today. I feel that strongly. I believe we will see progress happen. I offer as support for my belief the fact that as of June last year, the experts--CBO or OMB--predicted the deficit would be $450 billion for the fiscal year ending September 30 of last year. But when the numbers came in, it was not $450 billion, it was $375 billion, $75 billion less than they were predicting a few months before, and that was because of some containment in spending and because of the economy coming back. We are not going to see huge, dramatic improvements, but we can believe and hope that if this economy remains strong and we remain firmly in control of spending, we will see some good things happen. This budget does that. It is less than a 4-percent increase overall, about a 3.5-percent increase in spending. Frankly, we would have done better coming in with lower spending, but most of our spending is entitlement spending that goes up on its own on a trajectory we have not figured out how to control. We are going to need to figure out how to control it as the years go by and bring sanity and wisdom to that process. I think our President has submitted a good budget that does not go hog wild. I believe our committee, after a long period of intense debate--Republicans and Democrats engaged in offering amendment after amendment and their philosophies and debates--has produced a frugal budget, even more frugal than the one the President submitted; that if we pass this budget and do not lose our discipline with the inevitable proposals for spending that are about to come, then we will be in good shape to chop away at this deficit. We must not do it, however, at the threat or expense of those marvelous tax cuts that are so important to our economy and to our American family. First, the child tax credit. Instead of $700, we raised it to $1,000 per child. I believe that is important. The marriage tax penalty. The very idea that this Congress would penalize people who get married by increasing their taxes is just an anathema to me. I cannot believe we would do that. This marriage penalty fix went a long way toward eliminating that problem. It is not a gift to married people; it is simply allowing them to get back on a level playing field. A tax is a penalty. We should not penalize marriage. The third provision up for renewal is expanding the lowest bracket, the 10-percent bracket, covering a lot of people who were paying 15 percent on their income taxes, the lower income bracket. That bracket will be increased so more people will be paying at 10 percent rather than 15 percent. All of these provisions are critical. They will strengthen the family. In fact, we need more young couples to have children today. Somebody has to take care of us when we become aged. A lot of people are not having children. One reason is they do not think they have the money to raise children, and the child tax credit and the marriage penalty might well strengthen our families in ways we cannot measure in terms of economics but, in the long run, will be good for this country. I believe that very deeply. That is why I am particularly supportive of those two reductions in taxes. I thank Senator Nickles for his leadership. I appreciate this opportunity to share a few words at this time. I see Senator Nickles, the chairman of the Budget Committee, is back in the Chamber. I, again, congratulate him for the extraordinarily capable way in which he handled this process. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership on this important matter. I feel very strongly that our country is not fully aware--at least the public debate on the television and so forth have not shown a full awareness of the leadership that President Bush has given this country to help us deal with the challenges facing us. I thank Senator Chambliss for his comments about the intelligence- gathering functions. I wish to share some of my insights into where we are and where we can expect to be going. After 9/11, the President of the United States was a challenged leader. He faced difficult times. We lost 3,000 people. Some decisions had to be made. He decided that business as usual would not continue and the United States was going to have to take a leadership role against terrorism. About that time, former Secretary of Defense and former Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger, who served in President Carter's Cabinet, testified before our Armed Services Committee, of which the Chair is a member. Mr. Schlesinger talked about the U.N. and its inability to make decisions and take action. He referred, quoting another writer, to the UN as being ``an institution given only to talk.'' Well, in the last decade, before President Bush took office, during the 8 years under President Clinton's leadership, we did a lot of talking about the problems facing the world. We did a lot of talking about Iraq. We passed a resolution in this body that declared it to be the policy of the United States to effect a regime change in Iraq. President Clinton signed it but we didn't do anything. We talked but we didn't do anything. We now have a President who decided that we need to show some courage and leadership, and he did that. One of the first things he did, and I ask the American people to recall, was that he confronted a great country, Pakistan. Pakistan's intelligence agencies, Senator Kyl knows as a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, were collaborating with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Everybody knew that and that there was a lot of partnership there. We now know they were participating in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. President Bush challenged them and he said: President Musharraf, you have to choose. This is very serious. Are you going to allow Pakistan to be a country associated with the Taliban and terrorism, or are you going to stand your country in the future against that kind of activity? To his credit, President Musharraf made a decision. It was not academic. It was not talk. It was: Mr. Musharraf, you must make a decision. Since that time, he has been helpful to us in many ways, at risk of his own life. His opponents have attempted to assassinate him. Would anybody suggest that had our President been weak and waffling and vacillating, that the President of Pakistan would have made that decision, would he have put his very life on the line against terrorism? Then he made the same challenge to Mullah Omar in Afghanistan where, as you remember, Bin Laden was training his terrorist soldiers. He said: You must reject that; you must turn against the al-Qaida; you must turn to your country; and you must choose. Mullah Omar chose. He chose to remain friends with Bin Laden and al-Qaida terrorist groups. He chose not to side with the nations who turned against terrorism. Mullah Omar, I suppose, is hiding in some cave somewhere in Afghanistan. His government is completely gone. Yes, Bin Laden, who was in his country, attacked and damaged our Pentagon, and killed our soldiers right out here at the Pentagon. But his pentagon no longer exists. It is rubble. And there is a new government with a new constitution in the works to preside over a new Afghanistan where women have a chance to have freedom and prosperity; when I was there I saw that the people are re-building all over that country. Houses that had been destroyed are being refurbished, and people seemed to be making real progress there. That is such a tremendous step forward for the world. Then the challenge was placed before Saddam Hussein. We had the U.N. try to find these weapons. We know he used these kinds of weapons. We know he was not complying with the U.N. resolutions. The U.N. found him in violation of those resolutions and voted in 1441 that he was in violation of the resolutions. We gave him every chance to renounce weapons of mass destruction, and to demonstrate that he had complied with multiple U.N resolutions. Because he lost the first gulf war he made a commitment to eliminate these kinds of weapons and to comply with U.N. resolutions, but he refused to do so. And President Bush acted. Saddam Hussein was dug out of a hole in the ground and is now in the Bastille where he used to put his people and kill them. But he is not going to be killed. He will be given a fair trial. The people of Iraq are forming a new government. Production is up. Electricity production is up. I know the chief of police there, and there are 70,000 new police officers, some of them being killed this day, but they are standing firmly for freedom in a new Iraq. Lo and behold, after we dug Saddam Hussein out of the ground, Muammar Qadhafi of Libya, known as one of the world's most significant terrorists in the past, renounced his terrorism and called for the United States and Great Britain--he did not talk to the U.N., but he wanted us to be involved in his renunciation of terrorism and he has allowed inspections. During the former administration--and I am not criticizing, but I was frustrated--when President Clinton was in office, we talked all the time about nuclear proliferation but accomplished little. But only recently, we had Abdul Khan, the chief nuclear scientist in Pakistan come forward. What did he say? He said he was proliferating weapons from Pakistan to North Korea to Iraq to Libya and to Iraq. That had been going on but it is not going on now because he has renounced it and told all that he had done to the world. Iran is now allowing the United Nations to come in and inspect their nuclear program. The nations in the East--China, Japan, and South Korea--are confronting North Korea. We are not going to keep rewarding North Korea for bad activity, as has been done in the past. We are going to insist they step up like these other nations and assume a place among the decent nations in the world, or they are not going to get any benefits from us. We are going to keep the pressure on, and that is exactly the right thing for us to do. These events have occurred for one reason and one reason only: We have a President of the United States who loves this country, who believes in our values. He believes in freedom. He believes in democracy. He wants to see the world be a better place. He does not want to just preside over the office of President. He wants to do something good for this world, and he is doing it. As a direct result of his leadership, we made extraordinary progress in just 2 years, progress not seen in decades. It has been tough. Our soldiers are at risk, and they are putting their lives at risk every day to effect a policy that those of us in this Senate voted for by an overwhelming vote. Some of them voted for it and then turned around and voted not to support our troops. But most of the Senators here, Republicans and Democrats, have stayed. Yes, we have had complaints, but when has there ever been a war when everything has gone perfectly smoothly? I urge the Members of this body, my Senate colleagues, to look at what has occurred, to recognize that we are seeing the benefits of extraordinary and courageous leadership. When they do so, we shall hear less carping, less complaining, less whining, and less second-guessing than we have heard. We are making progress. We are going to continue to make progress. We are going to make this world a better place and safer place for the people of the United States. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I say to my distinguished colleague from New Mexico, who has grown up with guns as I have, the first principle of a firearm is you assume it is loaded. Yet you have to be very knowledgeable of that fact.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Idaho for his leadership on this issue. We really do need to deal with the question of excessive lawsuits in America and try to restore the classical understanding about fault and who is at fault and who ought to be responsible when bad things happen. The legal system has never understood that somebody has to pay every time somebody is hurt. What the legal system has always contemplated is that people who do wrong get sued, not the people who do right. People who are responsible for the activity are the ones who are subject to the lawsuit--not the person who is the victim of the activity. I just had a number of doctors from Alabama in my office. They feel so strongly that lawsuits are driving up the cost of their doing business and their insurance rates. Every time we come in with a proposal to constrict that and reduce it, we have all kinds of complaints at the margin about this or that would be wrong and how it could be harmful. As a young law student in Alabama, we had courses on common law pleadings. I think Massachusetts and Alabama were the last two in the Nation that still had that. You had to plead with specificity in replevin and trover and trespass. It goes back to the English days. You had to say exactly what your cause of action was and why you were entitled to relief. If you did not state it properly, the judge threw it out before trial. It became so complex that it was abused. So we went to the more common law pleading like every other State had done. But I think we have gone too far the other way. I want to share this story that was in Saturday's Washington Times about an incident that occurred in Maryland. The story is as follows: Sometime after closing on Friday night, March 16, and Saturday night, March 17, 2001, thieves broke into Back River Supply's Glyndon plant, owned by the Geckle brothers. They made off with equipment, including saws, a laser and a fax machine. Most ominously, they took a gun. Matt and Tony called the police and filled out the requisite reports. On March 18, they tried to install a security camera, but could not get it to work. Matt (who told the Baltimore Sun he was worried that the burglars would steal the company computers, which were needed to operate the plant) decided that he would stay over on Sunday night to drive off the burglars if they decided to come back for a third evening in a row. Tony reluctantly agreed, and the pair brought their rifles with them. Early on the morning of March 19, the burglars returned. Tony, armed and standing guard, ordered them to stop, but says the intruders ran toward him in the darkness. He fired and killed one of the burglars. No criminal charges were brought. That should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, the Steinbach estate has now filed a lawsuit demanding $13 million from Geckles and Back River Supply company. The lawsuit contends that the 4- year-old child of the criminal has suffered because of his father's death. One of our Senators--Friday, I believe it was--in carrying on the debate here talked about a circumstance in which someone stole a weapon from a gun dealer and went out and committed a crime with it and said that something was wrong if we would keep the victim of this criminal act from suing this gun dealer. But in these circumstances, the gun dealer is a victim of a crime. How did we get to the point where we are suing criminal victims instead of the person who sold the gun and committed a criminal act? What are we doing having burglars suing people who are defending their property? This is contrary to the rule of law on which our American Republic was founded. It is contrary to the Anglo law that we inherited from England. It is contrary to our traditions. Somebody said: Well, police officers might want to sue a gun dealer or a gun manufacturer if a criminal got a gun and shot one of them and that we ought not to stop that. But I don't know police officers who want to sue the gun manufacturer when a criminal shoots them. They carry on their hip a gun made by a gun manufacturer every day. This bill, to its credit, is moving forward. Our amendment, which was agreed to, will allow officers not on active duty to carry guns so they can be available to help defend American citizens if they come upon someone in trouble from a criminal act. I guess what I want to emphasize--and I express my appreciation to Senator Craig and others who have brought this liability bill--is they are not doing something wrong. They are changing the law as it has historically been. They are dealing with a situation in which a group of activist attorneys or a group of activist politicians--sometimes mayors, sometimes DAs--are filing lawsuits in jurisdictions that are less friendly to guns than other jurisdictions. They are seeking million-dollar verdicts against perfectly innocent manufacturers who have complied with the law, who have done everything the Federal Government has said they should, has sent the guns down to a dealer who has a whole complex series of rules that he must comply with before selling a gun. And if a person does that, they still want to sue because of an intervening criminal act. I have dealt with this, as I said on the Senate floor the other day, in defense of a lawsuit. Under the law, a person is not expected to foresee and, therefore, be liable for an intervening criminal act. It is just not right. But if a gun dealer has a gun and sells it loaded, and it goes off and injures somebody, he should be sued. If a gun manufacturer produces a gun that blows up and knocks somebody's eye out, they ought to be sued. But if the gun performs according to its manufacturer's requirement, and a criminal uses it to harm somebody, then they should not be sued. That has always been the law. I do not know where we have gotten to this idea that we are going to politicize the law to the extent that we are to go against lawfully and regulated businesses. Another Senator in the debate said if we cannot pass it, somebody has to stand up and do something about these guns. If it is not done by the legislature, we ought to let them do it by lawsuits. That is the very definition of activism. We are the people elected to pass gun laws. We have had a lot of debate on that. People have disagreements about where we should draw the line, about what is legal or illegal. That is the way it should be. We are accountable to the people. If we do something wrong, we can be voted out of office. It is in a lot of political campaigns on both sides, what a Senator or Congressman did with regard to gun rights in America. That is what we are paid for. To have a judge who is elected to decide lawsuits or a mayor in some city that is hostile to guns twist the law around to carry out a political agenda that affects the whole United States and changes the law in that fashion, not voted for by elected representatives, is not good policy. I thank the Senator from Idaho. We had many, many examples of these kinds of lawsuits that are unwise, not sound as a matter of public policy. This legislation fundamentally is designed to deal with that and to say that we are not going to have frivolous lawsuits brought. We are not going to have individuals who comply with the law in this highly regulated environment and do what they are supposed to do, comply with the Government regulations, have them sued because of what a criminal did. It does not make sense, not correct. I wanted to share those remarks, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am delighted to yield.

Mr. SESSIONS. If the dealer handed a customer a gun that was loaded, perhaps that dealer could be held liable. I think probably they should. The dealer should have checked before they handed it to them. But I don't think you want a circumstance where you say a gun that does not clearly show whether or not it is loaded creates a liability. We have never had that before. I have never had a gun that I know of that shows clearly whether it is loaded or not. You have to open it up to see if it is loaded. My time has expired.

Mr. SESSIONS. I say this to the Senator. The Senator has to understand, and everybody does who deals with a firearm, you have to be careful. You cannot assume because you put a clip, a magazine, in it and take it out that a cartridge has not been put in the chamber. You want the manufacturer of this gun to be liable for the action of one of those kids with regard to another one who was reckless or negligent? That is what I am saying. I am not saying the other person who handled the gun in an unsafe manner should not be liable if they did. But I don't think the manufacturer should be liable for that. Of course drawing these lines, as the Senator knows because he is skilled and knowledgeable in these matters, is difficult, but having a clear line about what we are going to allow in this country under classical rules of law is what we ought to strive for more. I think your amendment is just chipping away and pushing further in this instance about which you feel strongly.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Craig and Senator Kennedy for the opportunity to speak. I am pleased to hear the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, speak in favor of this amendment. It does indeed have 67 cosponsors. It is designed to allow qualified law enforcement officers to carry a concealed weapon while they are off duty. Back at my home in Alabama, when I drive into the neighborhood, I know that a police officer lives at the corner. It gives me some comfort and my wife comfort. We have discussed it. When we pass that police car parked there, I know if something happened in that neighborhood and somebody needed help, he would respond. I also hope when he is traveling around off duty that he would be allowed to carry his weapon. We pay him to do it when he is on active duty. We pay him to carry that weapon and to be ready to respond. It is one of the greatest bargains Americans have for safety and security--that law officers would voluntarily, on their own time, be willing to carry a gun and oftentimes step forward at their own risk to help those in danger. I think it is a very good piece of legislation. If officers who have been trained for 30 years in carrying weapons retire, we ought to be glad they are willing to carry them as they travel. We should be glad that active-duty police officers who have weapons are able to carry them as long as they have proper identification and the proper training. It would certainly be a tremendous cost-free-effort project to improve safety throughout America. Qualified law enforcement officers are the only ones who can carry a firearm. They are defined as an employee of a government agency who is authorized by law to engage in or supervise the prevention, detection, and investigation or prosecution of, or the incarceration of any person for any violation of law. They have statutory powers. The officer must be authorized to carry a firearm and meet the standards established by the agency which requires the employee to regularly qualify in the use of a firearm. A qualified law officer is defined as an individual who has retired in good standing. A qualified retired law enforcement officer is one who has retired in good standing from service in a government agency for an aggregate of 5 years or more. The officer must have fit the above definition while active, must have a nonforfeitable right to the benefits under a retirement plan during the most recent 12-month period, and have met at his or her own expense the State standard for training and qualification to carry a firearm. Both active and retired law officers will be required to carry photographic identification by the agency for which they were or are employed as a law officer before they can qualify under this effort. Why do police officers need it? First of all, they are often at risk themselves. People forget that there is a war on crime and that many of the criminals are seriously deadly individuals who hold grudges against those who have arrested them. As a former prosecutor for well over 15 years, I have many close friends who are police officers and prosecutors. I know everyone has in the back of their minds the possibility that some dangerous criminal they apprehended, arrested, or prosecuted could utilize force against them. This, first and foremost, provides the officers with a sense of comfort and personal security. But more than that, it is a free, available asset to America to protect citizens. We have terrorists out there. If we had a terrorist attack in a shopping mall, or on the streets, or in some building, or an attack going on in our community, wouldn't we be pleased that a law officer with a gun was there who would plug this guy if need be to save innocent lives? Wouldn't that be good for America? I think so. It is a frustrating thing, however, for law officers as they move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This country has a host of different gun laws. Gun dealers, gun possessors, and gun manufacturers are subject to the most intense Federal, State, and local regulations. An officer who goes about his duties and goes from one town to the next could find himself going through Boston, MA, and end up in a slammer for doing nothing but being prepared to defend a Boston citizen from a mugging or assault or a terrorist attack; or coming to Washington, DC; they could end up in jail. They have some of the toughest laws here-- maybe even tougher than Boston. They could end up in jail for doing nothing but being prepared to defend people in this community who may be under attack. I think this makes good sense. I think it makes good sense for Federal legal action because you can't do it piecemeal. Every community has a different rule and a different law. Under the interstate commerce clause, I think we have a constitutional right and power to enact this legislation. The question is: Is it good policy? Is it something we should do? I think it is good policy, especially in light of all the proliferating rules around this country, all the requirements in every county in Alabama, or Massachusetts, every city regulation in Philadelphia where they sue gun dealers--the mayor sues gun dealers, and they get the attorneys general in these States to gang up on them and sue them. They are doing nothing but manufacturing a firearm consistent with what the Federal and State laws are in America. But because somebody used it illegally, they want to sue them and put them out of business because they do not like guns. They are not able to do it completely; they are not able to pass legislation in their States or in the Federal Government to deal with this problem. So they want to use the power of lawsuits to do it. That is why I support the underlying bill. I think it is good public policy because all it does is make clear what existing law is, has been, and should continue to be--that a manufacturer of a legal product who manufacturers it according to the laws and the distributors of that product who distribute it according to the complex laws all over this country should not be responsible if there is an intervening criminal act by a person who gets his hand on that weapon. What are lawsuits for? Lawsuits historically have been when something fails to perform--if a weapon blows up, knocks out your eye, shoots off at an angle and hits something it is not supposed to, you should be able to sue the manufacturer. But if the gun is legal, if it is prepared according to the law and sold, and if some criminal gets it and commits a crime with it, why should the manufacturer be responsible for that? It goes against all of our understanding of what appropriate rule of liability in America is. We are losing those distinctions. We want to politicize the law. We have Members who, because they cannot win a political vote, want to have some lawsuit--some favorable jurisdiction, whether it is in Philadelphia, or Boston, and they find a judge who is hostile to gun ownership end up getting the case. They say there are only 30 lawsuits of this kind, but if you keep filing these lawsuits, pretty soon you may find 12 people who agree with you, or a judge who agrees with you. The next thing you know, you have a big verdict. The question is: Is it justified? Should a company have to defend itself from this kind of a political attack? If they are irresponsible, yes. If they violated the law, yes. They should be sued. If the gun is defective, yes. They should be sued. But again, I think there is no more strongly felt issue among law enforcement officers in America than their willingness to carry a gun and the risk they undertake in doing it because they may even forget they are crossing the State line into another city and end up being prosecuted for being prepared to defend the citizens of that community. They do not like that. It is troubling to them. Many talk to me about it personally. I am glad we have overwhelming support in this body to pass this amendment. I thank the Senator from Idaho for it. I support it and I believe we will pass it. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I was a prosecutor for a number of years. Some of my best friends are police officers. I try to meet with them when I am in my State. I met with 11 or 12 of them in Cherokee on the Georgia line last week. They are not telling me that if they are shot or one of their fellow officers are shot they want to sue the gun manufacturers. None of them have ever suggested that to me. They believe that criminals with guns ought to be prosecuted aggressively and go to jail for it when they catch them. They ought to be punished. And if they shoot and kill a police officer, they want to see them go to jail or be executed. A lot of people who are opposing this legislation oppose the death penalty for those who kill police officers. The point of this is very simple. In American law, from our ancient traditions, wrongdoers are the people who ought to be sued. If a terrorist comes in here and shoots a policeman, a cold-blooded criminal shoots any American citizen, you should sue the person who shot you. That is what we are all about. That is what the law has been about. Now we are in a situation in which the law has been politicized and used to carry out an agenda. To say that a gun dealer or a gun manufacturer that has complied with all the extensive regulations for the sale of firearms, has done everything right, that somehow they should be the ones to be sued if a criminal in an intervening action obtains a weapon from another person perhaps and commits a crime with it and shoots someone, that is not what American law is about. It is an abuse of the liability system in America. It is consistent with current law and our traditions. It is why, to date, none of these lawsuits against gun manufacturers has been successful and why few are successful against gun dealers. However, if a gun manufacturer or if a gun dealer, in particular, sells a weapon contrary to the complex and detailed regulations the Federal Government, State, and cities required, that person can be not only sued for damages, that person can be prosecuted. When I was a Federal prosecutor, I prosecuted criminals who used guns; I prosecuted gun dealers who sold guns illegally. They have to get an ID from the purchaser. They make him sign an affidavit that he is not a felon. They do a gun check. They have to be a resident of the State, as I recall. They cannot be a drug addict. If they know there is an impropriety and sell the gun anyway, they can be responsible and be sued for it and should be--and should be prosecuted, for that matter. What we need to focus on in America today is that the Constitution of this country allows the American people to keep and bear arms. Those who do not agree, get over it. That is where the American people are. That is what the Constitution says. That is what the rules are. If you want to offer legislation to put further controls on the right of an individual in America to keep and bear arms, put it out here and let's debate it and see if it has enough votes to win. This idea of mayors, attorneys general, district attorneys, and governmental officials filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers who complied with the law, to try to make them responsible in an end run effort to carry out an antigun agenda in some of our big, liberal cities in America--they do not understand where most Americans are about hunting and guns--is improper. It is not the way we ought to go about this business. The Senator from Idaho is correct; this liability question is one we need to deal with. There is a concerted effort in America to utilize the legal system in some of our liberal courts to try to knock down the right to manufacture and sell guns. It is protected by Federal law. It is controlled by Federal law. It is mandated by Federal law. People who comply with the law should not be sued. If they do not comply, they should be sued and prosecuted. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today before the Senate to recognize a great American and one of the finest patriots this Nation, and my home State of Alabama, has ever produced. We are truly saddened by the loss of Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from July 1970 to June 1974 and former Chief of Naval Operations from 1967 to 1970. Admiral Moorer's distinguished service in our great Navy spanned 41 remarkable years during which he dutifully stood the watch against our adversaries. He was our 7th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 18th Chief of Naval Operations. These accomplishments were consistent with his outstanding service record that had placed Admiral Moorer on our front lines throughout his career. Admiral Moorer was serving in Pearl Harbor with Patrol Squadron Twenty-Two on December 7, 1941. He witnessed that ``day of infamy'' and answered with bravery as he was one of the first pilots to get his aircraft airborne after the Japanese attack. Never shying from battle, he was wounded in aerial combat when his aircraft was shot down near the Australian coastline. Indeed, indicative of the ferocity of the combat, the rescue ship that recovered him was sunk by enemy action the same day as his rescue. Still, he would not quit and went on to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross for valor. He flew through hostile areas with full knowledge of overpowering enemy aircraft superiority flying badly needed supplies into the besieged island of Timor and flying evacuations of the wounded. He also stood watch during the Korean conflict, during the Cuban Missile crisis, during our engagement in Vietnam and during our outreach to China. Admiral Moorer distinguished himself in many positions including command of our Seventh Fleet, arriving at full Admiral in June 1964 when appointed to Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. He was the first naval officer to command both the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets. Admiral Moorer stood his watch as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest position any military officer can achieve, under President Nixon as the Nation extracted itself from our conflict in Vietnam. Writing in White House Years, Dr. Henry Kissinger remarked that Admiral Moorer `` had spent the 1960s in command positions which, while not without their frustrations, did not produce the physical and psychological exhaustion of high-level Washington. A canny bureaucratic infighter, Moorer made no pretense of academic subtlety. If anything, he exaggerated the attitude of an innocent country boy caught up in a jungle of sharpies. What his views lacked in elegance they made up in explicitness. By the time he took office, Vietnam had become a rearguard action. He conducted its heartbreaking phaseout with dignity. No President could have had a more stalwart military advisor.'' He did not waiver. Admiral Moorer strongly disagreed with the Panama Canal giveaway. In fact, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee several years ago on this subject. The public had again become concerned about this issue as a Chinese company had won the contract to operate both ends of the canal. Admiral Moorer noted the danger this posed to the movement of our fleet. As a young Alabamian, I followed Admiral Moorer's career. He was from the small rural community of Mt. Willing. Mt. Willing was on the road to Montgomery from my home in the rural community of Hybart near Camden. I would frequently go through Camden up Highway 21 through Mt. Willing on my way to Huntingdon College in Montgomery where I was a student. I would pass Moorer's grocery operated by a relative, and have the chance to think of the extraordinary accomplishments of this remarkable Admiral from the heart of Alabama. He carried those values with him as can be seen from Dr. Kissinger's comments and those who knew him. Mt. Willing is an old community. Its post office was established not long after Alabama became a State in 1819. Admiral Moorer actually attended a one-room schoolhouse. Later, his family moved to Montgomery which is where he graduated from high school. He was the Valedictorian of his class, graduating at the age of 15. Two years later he entered the Naval Academy. During this period his family moved to Eufaula, AL, which is where he met his wonderful life partner, Carrie Foy. Mrs. Moorer, a most delightful person in her own right, was tremendously supportive of Admiral Moorer's career and his beliefs, and remains proud of his exceptional service, as well she should. It is appropriate that we reflect today on the sacrifices made by this veteran Sailor and great military leader. I am proud of him for serving our great country through challenging times. And I join all of the citizens of Alabama in prayer for one of our own, this country boy from Mt. Willing, Alabama who turned top Admiral. His story is one that all Americans can be proud of. We wish him and his family Godspeed and fair winds and following seas as he leaves us for his final watch. He came from rural America. He was learned of the greatness of America. He was not bombarded by the ``blame America first-crowd.'' Because of his recognized ability, he was selected for the Naval Academy. Because of his record of accomplishment he rose to the highest position a uniformed military officer can achieve--Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He delivered for his beloved homeland there just as he did in all his previous positions. These values, taught best in our small towns, sustain us in difficult times. Admiral Moorer, like all the other wonderful Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, fully understood that when he put on that uniform, he was prepared to give his life for his country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to discuss this matter on the level I think it should be discussed; and that is, is it good public policy, is it the right thing to do in light of the litigation we are seeing against gun dealers and gun manufacturers that is going on in America today? I do not believe in any way this is a blanket immunity for wrongdoing or total immunity for wrongdoing. In fact, it is not that. What it says is, classical rules of law ought to be enforced. Some could ask why we even need this law. Because how can you sue the person who manufacturers a can of Campbell's soup if somebody buys that can of Campbell's soup legally and kills somebody by hitting them on the head with it? What if you buy an automobile, and you run somebody over on the street, are we going to sue the automobile manufacturer for that? What is happening in America is the classical concepts, the classical rules of litigation are being eroded. The courts are being politicized. That is a very dangerous thing. As a result, lawsuits are occurring in ways they should not occur and are impacting our daily lives. I conducted a hearing in the Subcommittee on Courts of the Judiciary Committee on the food industry. Should we sue the manufacturer of food, Little Debbie's, because somebody bought too many of them and became overweight and obese? Thirty, 40 years ago those lawsuits would have been laughed out of court. They don't meet the principle. A person is responsible for what they eat and how much, not the person who provides the cakes and cookies and Cokes and those kinds of things, unless that product is inherently dangerous and harmful to a person and the consumer does not know about it. We are getting away from that. With regard to gun dealers and manufacturers, this is the worst of all. The Federal Government and State governments have taken over the sale of guns. Regulations are many. I was a Federal prosecutor for nearly 14 years. I prosecuted people for selling guns. If they file off the serial number, that is a crime. If the gun dealer does not write down the serial number, he can be prosecuted and put in jail. If he does not get an ID from a person who buys a gun, if he does not ascertain and make that person sign a statement that they don't have a criminal record or make them sign a statement they are not addicted to drugs or mentally unstable, or if the dealer knows that and he sells the gun anyway, then he is in violation of the law. There are waiting lists in States and counties that dealers must comply with. If they don't comply with those rules, they can be sued-- not only sued, they can be prosecuted and put in jail. I have prosecuted and put in jail people who sold guns illegally. That is a fact. If we want more regulations on how guns ought to be sold, let's debate it right here and see if it is justified. We have had all kinds of amendments to put rules and bans and restrictions on innocent, law- abiding people who choose to take advantage of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is what we are talking about. Gun dealers have to comply with these rules, just like the gun manufacturers. And if they don't comply with them, they can be sued. This legislation would not keep them from being sued. What we are talking about is manufacturers who comply with the laws of manufacturing, and they sell the gun according to the rules, and a dealer takes it and sells it according to their rules, without any knowledge of the manufacturer in Massachusetts or wherever they make them. The gun dealer in California or Alabama or South Carolina sells it according to the law. Then some activist groups that believe we need to conduct guerilla warfare against a lawful industry want to promote these lawsuits. One of our Members said earlier: If litigation is the only thing to keep the gun industry in check, we ought to sue them. That is not right. If there is not a cause of action, you should not sue them. They are being sued and are having to expend hundreds of millions of dollars in their defense. They tend to win those cases at the bottom line. But they bring them, frankly, in big cities a lot of times, where there is an anti-gun hostility, where mayors want to crack down and eliminate gun ownership. We virtually have eliminated gun ownership in Washington, DC. They are not happy with what the legislation will do in passing the law. The elected representatives won't pass restrictions as tight as they would like to have or to eliminate gun ownership anyway, so they want to do it through the backdoor, through litigation. I don't like their idea: If they can't do it this way through law and regulations, we ought to do it through litigation. I remember Hodding Carter, who used to work for former President Carter. He was on ``Meet the Press'' one time. He said something to the effect that: We liberals have gotten to the point where we want the courts to do for us that which we can no longer win at the ballot box. If we need to tighten up on gun restrictions, let's put the rule out here and debate that. But we don't need to be creating bogus lawsuits against people who are not doing wrong. I know the Presiding Officer was a JAG officer and served in the military. I defended a lawsuit against the United States Government because a veteran in a veterans hospital walked off the grounds and was murdered. They sued the hospital. There is a classical rule I have not forgotten: A criminal act is not foreseeable. You are not normally expected, anyone, to foresee someone will commit a criminal act. I defended that lawsuit on the grounds that, well, maybe he had gotten lost and this or that, got hit in the accident, maybe. But the principle that the hospital is responsible for an intervening criminal act did not justify the lawsuit. We won the lawsuit. That was a long time ago. I don't know if that would happen today, liberalizing the old principle of law. A gun manufacturer is not required and cannot be expected legally to foresee criminals will use the gun and who those criminals are. If we think they should not have guns, we have to pass laws. We have to amend the Constitution, frankly, to stop that. They are doing what is lawful. It is a good effort today. It would be healthy for our entire legal system that we confront this issue and allow the classical rules of liability to be followed again and not allow the abuse of it. We almost voted earlier on constraining liability of doctors who deliver babies. They are getting sued in incredible numbers. That is a difficult thing. How do you deal with it? We voted on it. Forty-eight Members of this body voted for that. But to a much more significant principle, a violation of the established rule of law, is this idea you can sue a manufacturer who produces a gun that does what it is supposed to do and gets in the hands of a criminal and they use it. How should you normally think you would sue a gun manufacturer? If he buys a gun and you fire it and it blows up and knocks out your eye. That is what you are supposed to sue the manufacturer for. If a person buys a gun from Smith & Wesson and he aims it and fires it and it hits the target exactly where he aimed it, the gun dealer is not responsible, if that was a lawful sale of the weapon. We set in this Congress and the cities and the States set additional restrictions on the sale of guns. When they do that and when dealers comply with that, they ought not to be sued. If they violate those laws, don't comply with the laws, or if they have absolute knowledge or actual knowledge a purchaser of a gun is going to use it for a bad purpose, then they have a responsibility. Absent that, they don't. And they should not be sued. This would be a good step in removing from our overburdened courts a host of abusive lawsuits that have no basis in principle and indeed should not be brought anyway. In fact, this legislation does not change any principle of American law, but basically clarifies it so these cases can be dismissed promptly rather than having to go through the length of time and the great cost that is going on in some of the areas of this country where the lawsuits are being brought. I know others want to speak on this issue. I see the Senator from Ohio and others. I believe this is good public policy. It is time for us to work hard to establish a more clear understanding of litigation in America. It has become confused. Congress has always had the power to define litigation and the parameters of it when it is in confusion and not working according to good public policy. We ought to speak out. I am glad there is bipartisan support for this. I think we will pass this bill and it will be a great step forward to improve the rule of law in America. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are, indeed, losing physicians in the practice of medicine throughout America. Senator Durbin expressed concern in the conversations he has been having with doctors in his State, even though he opposes this bill. I traveled to Alabama this past week and visited five or six hospitals. I was at Fayette and Wedowee and Gadsden and Alexander City. As I traveled the State talking to doctors, to hospitals about their insurance premiums, it is a very real problem. This is not a new issue. We have been talking about it for a number of years. The reform of litigation of malpractice cases in California is the model for this legislation. It has worked very well in California. The people who are paying the premiums, people who are subjected to lawsuits, people who care about this every day, people who are giving up their practice every day as a result of abusive lawsuits, they support this legislation. Do they not know what this is all about? Do they not know what they are asking for? These are matters that are quite serious. I believe capping noneconomic damages has a good effect. When you look at a doctor who delivers a baby, is that doctor a guarantor of a healthy baby? They can't do that. They cannot be the guarantor that every birth they preside over will result in a healthy baby. They are responsible if they are negligent and that negligence causes damage to a child. There is no doubt about that. So that is what we need to focus on. The limit on damages does not limit damages for injuries in care for a child who lives many years with a great disability. They can recover unlimited amounts for that. Under California law, these are some of the verdicts that have been rendered to compensate families for children who were born with serious disabilities: In December, an $84 million verdict was rendered because of a 5-year-old with cerebral palsy after a mishandled birth; $25 million in San Diego County because a boy had severe brain damage; $27 million in San Bernardino for a woman who was a quadriplegic because of failure to diagnose a spinal injury; $21 million in Los Angeles for a newborn girl with cerebral palsy and mental retardation as a result of a birth-related injury. They go on. These are real recoveries to compensate people for economic losses they will have in the future and to allow them every possibility to see that the child or the person who is injured can be taken care of with the best conditions we can make. We are concerned about the explosion of punitive damages. Some people say the person who did wrong ought to be punished. As a matter that we need to think about, the system is out of whack. The person who commits malpractice is not the one who is punished. The person who commits malpractice--for the most part, hopefully, certainly, all of them doctors--has insurance. They don't pay the verdict. The insurance company pays the verdict. How do they get the $21 million or whatever they have to pay out in the verdict? How do they get that money to compensate the victims? They raise the rates on everybody; the innocent and those who commit errors. It is driving up the cost to practice. I have a wonderful friend, an OB/GYN, in my hometown of Mobile. We go to church together. He was telling me about a doctor that just gave up his practice. He handled 60 or 80 births a year. His insurance was $60,000 a year. That is almost $1,000 per birth. This week, I was in a hospital in Alabama. They told me 3 years ago they gave up deliveries-- there were 200 deliveries a year in this small town, and the hospital had less than 50 beds--because they could not afford the insurance. The hospital quit doing it. The physician in the community also quit delivering. This is a fact, a reality, and it is driving good physicians out of health care. No group of doctors in America has the hammer falling harder on them than the doctors who deliver our babies. They are getting hit with extraordinary increases. They are getting sued to an extraordinary degree. We need to do something about it. We have bills here, and whatever the bill is, they say ``we need to do something, but this isn't the way to do it; but we want to do something.'' They say ``there are problems, I will admit, Senator, but this isn't the right bill.'' They say ``you have not done this or that,'' and on and on. The result of that is we never pass anything. I believe it is time to do something about this issue. We can do something about this. When you look at the cost of delivering babies in America today, the liability cost is a very significant portion of it. Not only that, doctors--particularly those who have been practicing for a number of years--do not like the agony of going through a lawsuit. There is the combination of premiums and the threat of being dragged through court for long periods of time, and that is not good. That is why they are quitting. I was at one of the hospitals in Gadsden this week. One of the nurse supervisors came up to me after I had been asked in the meeting whether we were going to do anything about the liability problem. She said she and the hospital had been in litigation. She had been away from the hospital for 10 days during the trial of this case. They were not negligent and they won the lawsuit, but millions of dollars were spent on that litigation. This is happening all over America. Most of the cases are defendants' verdicts, but many cases are coming in with extraordinarily high verdicts. The BMW case out of Alabama, decided by the Supreme Court, raised real questions about how do you decide what punitive damages ought to be. Does the jury just feel bad this day or look at the victim and feel sympathetic, or are they more sympathetic to one person than another? They come up with $50 million for one person, and maybe in a similar situation they would come up with $500,000. These are aberrational verdicts in the country. We are saying that there should be a limit for compensating noneconomic damages. It is modeled on a successful program in California. I believe we are facing a national crisis in health care. It is a crisis that ought to be confronted. It is not going to go away. A big part of it is litigation. If you don't believe it, ask any doctor or hospital you know. They sue everybody, including the nurses, doctors, the aides, the hospital, the manufacturer of the hospital bed, or whatever, that might be possibly construed as being connected. All of that adds up to a tremendous burden, a tremendous cost on our health care system. The truth is health care costs are continuing to go up. One of the factors is litigation costs, which are going up even faster than other costs. We need to contain that and bring some rationality into it. I am willing to listen to other ideas. I am not sure California is perfect, but I will say it is working there. I believe it will work for our country. I thank our majority leader, Dr. Bill Frist, for bringing this up. It is time to debate this. We need to pass something soon to protect the availability of health care. We need to make sure hospitals and doctors are not quitting delivering babies. That hurts us in America and hurts health care in America. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a great American a true patriot: Hospital Corpsman, First Class Petty Officer Frederica Monique Williams, a resident of Selma, AL. Petty Officer Williams began her career as a deck Seaman Recruit at Naval Hospital Great Lakes as an administrative clerk. There she was selected for Hospital Corpsman ``A'' School at Great Lakes in October 1984, and upon graduation, she was assigned to Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune as a general duty corpsman where she refined her exceptional patient care and organizations skills, and developed into a strong leader and manager. Petty Officer Williams served overseas on numerous occasions to include a tour at Naval Hospital Rota, Spain. While in Rota, she worked on a busy Labor and Delivery Unit. Once again her proven clinical experience, caring demeanor, organizational ability and ``can-do'' leadership style allowed her to excel. While assigned to National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Maryland, Petty Officer Williams deployed on the Hospital Ship USNS Comfort, T-AH-20, during Desert Shield/Desert Storm as member of the Surgical Directorate. There she cared for hundreds of reservists that sustained orthopaedic injuries. For her final assignment, she was assigned as the Administrative Department Head at the TRICARE Mid-Atlantic, Lead Agent Office Norfolk, VA. In every assignment, First Class Petty Officer Williams met the challenge, and was rewarded with greater responsibilities and opportunities. Her talent for teaching and mentoring junior personnel about the delivery of quality patient care, customer service, and administrative attention to detail was instrumental in providing Navy Medicine, the fine cadre of hospital corpsman serving today. She is a hospital corpsman and leader who always put the welfare of her staff and patients first. Petty Officer William's performance reflects greatly on herself, the United States Navy, and our country. I extend my deepest appreciation to Hospital Corpsman First Class Petty Officer Frederica Monique Williams for her 20 years of dedicated military service and wish her and her family all the best in the years to follow. I am glad to hear that she expects to be returning to Selma. Our State will greatly benefit from her return.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. If the Senator will yield, does he think it is possible they saw Miguel Estrada as a threat because he is a brilliant mainstream lawyer, a Hispanic, who would make a highly qualified appointment to the Supreme Court?

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, during the debate on the judges, the opponents, the Democrats who were obstructing an up-or-down vote, asserted that these judges were ``extreme,'' and they repeated that. They used that word repeatedly. They really cited no specific reason they were extreme. I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, who has been so eloquent on this issue, how he can explain, in light of the groups we now know are opposing these nominees, who are extreme? I think we can demonstrate, without any doubt, these nominees, such as Janice Rogers Brown of California, who got 76 percent of the vote, and Judge Priscilla Owen, who got 84 percent of the vote are not extreme. Is the Senator from Pennsylvania aware that among the groups blocking these judges, and actually appearing to pull the strings of Members of the Senate, they have views on their Web sites? For example, they say there should be no pornography laws, even child pornography. They oppose any change in abortion whatsoever, even partial-birth abortion, which 84 percent of the American people believe ought to be dealt with. Some of them believe in legalization of drugs. I ask the Senator, who is extreme here?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 1003. Senator Miller and I have taken the lead in encouraging a culture of cooperation of all levels of immigration law enforcement--Federal, State, and local--and seek to build an immigration law enforcement system that uses unified databases for information sharing from one level to another. The subject matter of the bill introduced today is one I care very deeply about--the ability of State and local law enforcement to voluntarily aid the Federal Government in the Enforcement of immigration law. Let me be clear, this bill is not about the commandeering of State and local police forces or about forcing them to dedicate resources toward immigration law enforcement, it is simply about their authority to participate in immigration law enforcement if they so choose. I am convinced that our ability to successfully enforce our immigration laws is a test of whether we will be a Nation governed by laws. Many of the immigration reforms enacted by this Congress since 9/11 have been aimed at fixing the first half of our broken immigration system, the visa issuance process that allowed terrorists to enter our country under the guise of legality. It is now time to look at the second half of our broken immigration system--the half that allows people to remain here illegally for indefinite time periods, regardless of how they came here. We know that Americans strongly value our heritage as a Nation of immigrants. Americans openly welcome legal immigrants and new citizens with character, ability, decency, and a strong work ethic. However, it is also clear Americans do not feel the same way about illegal immigration. The fact is that a large majority of Americans feel that State and local governments should be aiding the Federal Government in stopping illegal immigration. A RoperASW poll published in March of this year titled ``Americans Talk About Illegal Immigration'' found that 88 percent of Americans agree, and 68 percent ``strongly'' agree, that Congress should require State and local government agencies to notify the INS, now ICE, and their local law enforcement when they determine that a person is here illegally or has presented fraudulent documentation. Additionally, 85 percent of Americans agree, and 62 percent ``strongly'' agree that Congress should pass a law requiring State and local governments and law enforcement agencies, to apprehend and turn over to the INS, now ICE, illegal immigrants with whom they come in contact. Those numbers speak volumes about the desires of the American population. It is important to note that those numbers were collected on requiring state and local action. It is very likely that a poll on this bill, a bill that is about volunteer State and local action would yield even stronger support. America's strength is based on its commitment to the rule of law. Inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court Building just down the street are the words, ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' In the world of immigration laws, a facade of enforcement that holds no real consequences for law breakers is both dangerous and irresponsible. If the only real consequence of coming to this country illegally is a social label, then our immigration laws are but a brightly painted sepulcher full of dead bones, for it is impossible to be a Nation governed by the rule of law, if our laws have no real effect on the lives of the people they govern. Our illegal alien population is at a record high. The lack of immigration enforcement in our country's interior has resulted in 8-10 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. with another estimated 800,000 illegal aliens joining them every year--that is on top of the more than 1 million that legally immigrate each year. These numbers make it easy for criminal aliens to disappear inside our borders. Of the 8-10 million illegal aliens present today, the Department of Homeland Security has estimated that 450,000 are ``alien absconders''-- people that have been issued final deportation orders but have not shown up for their hearings. An estimated 86,000 of them are criminal illegal aliens--people convicted of crimes they committed in the U.S. who should have been deported, but have slipped through the cracks and are still here. The next number is perhaps the most concerning--3,000 of the ``alien absconders'' within our borders are from one of the countries that the State Department has designated to be a ``state sponsor of terrorism.'' The number of illegal aliens outweighs the number of federal agents whose job it is to find them within our borders by 5,000 to 1. The enforcement arm of the old INS, now called The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a mere 2,000 interior agents inside the borders. Leaving the job of interior immigration enforcement solely to them will guarantee failure. State and local police, a force 650,000 strong, are the eyes and ears of our communities. They are sworn to uphold the law. They police our streets and neighborhoods every day. Their role is critical to the success of our immigration system. For that critical role to be effective, a few very important things need to happen: 1. State and local law enforcement need clear authority to voluntarily act; 2. the NCIC needs to contain critical immigration related information that can be accessed on the roadside; 3. Federal immigration officials have to take custody of illegal aliens apprehended by State officers, they can not continue to tell them to just let them go; 4. the Institutional Removal Program has to be expanded so that criminal aliens are detained after their State sentences until deportation, they can't be released back into the community just to be searched for by federal officials at a later date; and 5. critically needed federal bedspace has to be given to DHS for they can not guarantee effective removal without adequate detention space. The Homeland Security Enhancement Act that Senator Miller and I are introducing today will do all of those things. Let me tell you about a few of the problems in immigration enforcement that started my interest in this area and prompted me to author this bill. A few years ago, police chiefs and sheriffs in Alabama began to tell me that they had been shut out of the system and felt powerless to do anything about Alabama's growing illegal immigrant population. As I went to town hall meetings and conferences with police, I heard the same story--``we have given up calling the INS because INS tells us we have to have 15 or more illegal aliens in custody or they will not even come pick them up.'' Even worse is that Alabama police were told that the aliens could not be detained until the INS could manage to send someone. They were told they had to just let them go! They were being told this, even though I thought the legal authority of State and local officers to voluntarily act on violations of immigration law was clear. If there is any doubt that State and local officers have this authority, Congress needs to fix that, which is what this bill will do. Only two circuits have expressly ruled on State and local law enforcement authority to make an arrest on an immigration law violation. In 1983, the Ninth Circuit, while not mentioning a preexisting general authority, held that nothing in federal law precludes the police from enforcing the criminal provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. See Gonzales v. City of Peoria, 722 F.2d 468 (9th Cir. 1983). The Tenth Circuit has reviewed this question on several occasions, concluding squarely that a ``State trooper has general investigatory authority to inquire into possible immigration violations.'' United States v. Salinas-Calderon, 728 f.2d 1298, 1301 n.3 (10th Cir. 1984). As the Tenth Circuit has described it, there is a ``preexisting general authority of State or local police officers to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws.,'' United States v. Vasquez-Alvares, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295 (10th Cir. 1999). And again, in 2001, the Tenth Circuit reiterated that ``State and local police officers [have] implicit authority within their respective jurisdictions `to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws.' '' United States v. Santana-Garcia, 264 F.3d 1188, 1194 (citing United States v. Vasquez-Alvarez, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295). None of these Tenth Circuit holdings drew any distinction between criminal violations of the INA and civil provisions that render an alien deportable. It appears that the Ninth Circuit started the confusion regarding the distinction between civil and criminal violations in Gonzales v. City of Peoria by asserting in dicta that the civil provisions of the INA are a persuasive regulatory scheme, and therefore only the federal government has the power to enforce civil violations. See Gonzales v. City of Peoria, 722 F.2d 468 (9th Cir. 1983). This confusion was, to some extent, fostered by an erroneous 1996 opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the department of Justice, the relevant part of which has since been withdrawn by OLC. Why was the Federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement telling my police chiefs in Alabama to just let illegal aliens go? To be fair, ICE probably does not have the manpower or detention space to take custody and detain all illegal aliens. With less than 20,000 appropriated detention beds, ICE tells my office that they do not have the bed space to detain all the illegal aliens that they apprehend; instead, they have to give first priority to detaining the worst of the worst--individuals such as convicted felon aliens. It is shocking to me that even though we know that detention is a key element of effective removal, we do not even detail all illegal aliens that have been convicted of crimes, even convicted of felonies, before removal. Last February, in a report titled ``the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders'' the Department of Justice Inspector General found that 87 percent of those not detained before removal never get deported. Even in high risk categories, the IG found that only fractions of non-detained violators are ever removed--35 percent of those with criminal records and 6 percent of those from ``state sponsors of terrorism.'' These percentages have not changed substantially since 1996, when the last IG report issued on the ability to remove aliens found that 89 percent of aliens with final deportation orders that are not detained are never removed. But we cannot lay all the blame on DHS--they can only detain illegal aliens that they have space to detain. They are using all of the bedspace that they have and are releasing people that should be detained because there is no more room. The Homeland Security Enhancement Act would add the critical bedspace DHS needs to fulfill its mission of interior enforcement. The third problem that has been brought to my attention is the inadequate way we share immigration information with State and local police. We have databases full or information on criminal aliens and aliens with final deportation orders, but that information is not directly available to state and local police. They have to make a special second inquiry to the immigration center in Vermont just to see if an illegal alien is a wanted by DHS. Without easy access to immigration database information, and with ICE unwilling to come and identify every suspected illegal alien, State and local police cannot quickly and accurately identify who they have detained and who they will be releasing back into the community if they follow ICE's instruction to ``just let them go.'' State and local police are accustomed to checking for criminal information in the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database, which is maintained by the FBI. They can and routinely do access the NCIC on the roadside when they pull over a car or stop a suspect. An NCIC check, which takes just minutes, includes information about individuals with outstanding warrants. Even fugitives that use false identification can be identified on the roadside through use of the NCIC when, as is often the case, a police officer has access to an instant fingerprint scanner in his car. Separately, ICE operates the Law Enforcement Support Center, which makes immigration information available to State and local police, but requires a second additional check after NCIC that most State and local police either don't know about or don't have the time to perform. The Hart Rudman Report, ``America Still Unprepared--America Still In Danger,'' found that one problem America still confronts is ``650,000 local and State police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum, without access to terrorist watchlists.'' The first recommendation of the report was to ``tap the eyes and ears of local and State law enforcement officers in preventing attacks.'' On page 19, the report specifically cited the burden of finding hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens living among the population of more than 8.5 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. and suggested that the burden could and should be shared with 650,000 local, county, and State law enforcement officers if they could be brought out of the information void. If State and local police are not accessing the immigration information we have worked hard to make available, we must find a way to get the information to them, through systems that are used to using. Our bill will get information to them through the system that are already using--the NCIC. As part of its Alien Absconder Initiative, ICE tells us that it is in the process of entering information on the estimated 450,000 alien absconders into NCIC. As of October 31, only information on 15,200 alien absconders had been entered into NCIC. That number is totally unacceptable and is shocking to me. This should only be the beginning. At the least, the NCIC should contain information on all illegal aliens who have received final orders of departure and all illegal aliens who have signed voluntary departure agreements. In truth, the NCIC should contain information on all violations of law. Our bill will ensure that when a NCIC roadside check is done on an individual pulled over for speeding, police will know immediately if the individual has already been ordered to leave the country, has signed a legal document promising to leave, or has overstayed their visa. Understanding the value of getting immigration information to State and local police comes from understanding that they are the ones who will come into contact with the dangerous illegal aliens on a day-to- day basis. Three 9/11 hijackers were stopped by State and local police in the weeks proceeding 9/11. Hijacker Mohammad Atta, believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the World Trade Center's north tower, was stopped twice by police in Florida, Hijacker Ziad S. Jarrah was stopped for speeding by Maryland State Police two days before 9/11. And, Hani Hanjour, who was on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon, was stopped for speeding by police in Arlington, VA. Local police can be our most powerful tool in the war against terrorism. The D.C. Snipers were caught because of the fingerprint collected by local police. John Lee Malvo was identified when the fingerprint collected from a magazine at the scene of the liquor store murder and robbery in Montgomery, Alabama matched with the fingerprints collected by INS agents in Washington State. Had both law enforcement entities not done their job by taking prints, it is possible that the identity of John Lee Malvo could have been a mystery for weeks longer. In February, a 42-year-old woman sitting on a park bench in New York with her boyfriend was dragged away and gang-raped by five deportable illegal immigrants. Although 4 of the 5 had State criminal convictions and 2 had served jail time, the INS claims they were never told about them--thus, they were not deported as the law requires. Fifty-six illegal aliens were caught by State and local police, and convicted of molestation and child abuse, long before ICE's ``Operation Predator'' found them a few weeks ago living in New York and Northern New Jersey after they should have been deported. Of the 56 arrested, one had raped his 10-year-old niece; another has sexually assaulted a 6-year-old boy; one had raped his 7-year-old niece; and another has sexually assaulted a 2-year-old. The 9/11 hijacker cases, the D.C. sniper cases, and a multitude of criminal alien cases clearly illustrate that our State and local police are on the front lines in combating alien crime. To cut them out of the system, as we do now, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is to eliminate our most effective weapon against criminal and terrorist aliens. The opponents of this bill will say that we don't want immigrants to succeed and that we don't want people to come here. That is absolutely not true. We believe in the rule of law. We believe that people should come here to be citizens of this country under the color of law. We want people to come here and reach their fullest potential. But, we believe that a Nation has the right to set the standards by which it accepts people, and if it sets those standards it ought to create a legal system to enforce those standards. This bill will work to enforce the immigration standards our Nation has created. The opposition will say that State and local police can not adequately respect the civil rights of illegal aliens, and that enforcement will cost too much and will discourage the reporting of crimes. It is curious logic to say that we trust our police to enforce laws against citizens but not against non-citizens here illegally. I know that State and local police are trained to protect the civil rights of all types of suspects and defendants and that they do so every day in this country. In Alabama, State troopers receive annual training on racial profiling. In New York, the NYC Police Department operations order #11 strictly prohibits racial profiling in law enforcement actions. If Alabama and New York are consistent in how they instruct and train their State and local police with regards to racial profiling, it is safe to assume that the rest of the Nation does as well. Under this bill, State and local police will have to respect the civil rights of illegal aliens the same way they respect the civil rights of all people against whom they enforce the law. State and local police will continue to be held responsible for violations of civil rights; this bill does not change that fact. The opposition will say that this bill is expensive; that it costs too much. It is always expensive to enforce the law. I do not think this bill is overly expensive. We have made it as cost affordable as we can by electing to efficiently use resources already available to us. Law enforcement is not an area where it pays to pinch pennies. In immigration enforcement, I believe that it costs us too much not to enforce the law. I believe it is time that Congress take responsibility for providing DHS with the resources they need to do the job we have given them. When it comes to immigration enforcement in America, the rule of law is not prevailing. If we are serious about securing the homeland, we simply must get serious about immigration enforcement. It is time to talk about the big picture--time to be honest about what it will really take to fix our broken immigration system. In most cases, we don't need tougher immigration laws, we just need to utilize our existing resources and use some new resources to enforce the laws we already have. If State and local police are confused about their authority to enforce immigration laws, that authority needs to be clarified. This bill will do that. If State and local police can not access immigration background information on individuals quickly enough, we should change that. This bill makes that information more accessible. If DHS is not taking custody of the illegal aliens being apprehended by State and local police, we need to make it possible for them to do so. This bill will address the practice of ``catching and releasing'' illegal aliens. If we do not have enough detection space to hold people that break the law, then we need more detention space. This bill gives DHS 50 percent more bedspace to use in immigration enforcement. If illegal aliens are being released back into the community after their prison sentences instead of being deported, we need to fix the system that releases them. This bill will extend the Institutional Removal Program to ensure that custody is transferred from the state prison to federal officials at the end of the alien's prison sentence. Once again I would like to thank Senator Miller for joining with me to introduce this legislation. It is imperative that we take critical steps toward regaining control of our out-of-control immigration system. This bill is a critical step in the right direction. I encourage my colleagues to study this bill and to join Senator Miller and I as we work to pass the Homeland Security Act of 2003. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 1003. Senator Miller and I have taken the lead in encouraging a culture of cooperation of all levels of immigration law enforcement--Federal, State, and local--and seek to build an immigration law enforcement system that uses unified databases for information sharing from one level to another. The subject matter of the bill introduced today is one I care very deeply about--the ability of State and local law enforcement to voluntarily aid the Federal Government in the Enforcement of immigration law. Let me be clear, this bill is not about the commandeering of State and local police forces or about forcing them to dedicate resources toward immigration law enforcement, it is simply about their authority to participate in immigration law enforcement if they so choose. I am convinced that our ability to successfully enforce our immigration laws is a test of whether we will be a Nation governed by laws. Many of the immigration reforms enacted by this Congress since 9/11 have been aimed at fixing the first half of our broken immigration system, the visa issuance process that allowed terrorists to enter our country under the guise of legality. It is now time to look at the second half of our broken immigration system--the half that allows people to remain here illegally for indefinite time periods, regardless of how they came here. We know that Americans strongly value our heritage as a Nation of immigrants. Americans openly welcome legal immigrants and new citizens with character, ability, decency, and a strong work ethic. However, it is also clear Americans do not feel the same way about illegal immigration. The fact is that a large majority of Americans feel that State and local governments should be aiding the Federal Government in stopping illegal immigration. A RoperASW poll published in March of this year titled ``Americans Talk About Illegal Immigration'' found that 88 percent of Americans agree, and 68 percent ``strongly'' agree, that Congress should require State and local government agencies to notify the INS, now ICE, and their local law enforcement when they determine that a person is here illegally or has presented fraudulent documentation. Additionally, 85 percent of Americans agree, and 62 percent ``strongly'' agree that Congress should pass a law requiring State and local governments and law enforcement agencies, to apprehend and turn over to the INS, now ICE, illegal immigrants with whom they come in contact. Those numbers speak volumes about the desires of the American population. It is important to note that those numbers were collected on requiring state and local action. It is very likely that a poll on this bill, a bill that is about volunteer State and local action would yield even stronger support. America's strength is based on its commitment to the rule of law. Inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court Building just down the street are the words, ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' In the world of immigration laws, a facade of enforcement that holds no real consequences for law breakers is both dangerous and irresponsible. If the only real consequence of coming to this country illegally is a social label, then our immigration laws are but a brightly painted sepulcher full of dead bones, for it is impossible to be a Nation governed by the rule of law, if our laws have no real effect on the lives of the people they govern. Our illegal alien population is at a record high. The lack of immigration enforcement in our country's interior has resulted in 8-10 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. with another estimated 800,000 illegal aliens joining them every year--that is on top of the more than 1 million that legally immigrate each year. These numbers make it easy for criminal aliens to disappear inside our borders. Of the 8-10 million illegal aliens present today, the Department of Homeland Security has estimated that 450,000 are ``alien absconders''-- people that have been issued final deportation orders but have not shown up for their hearings. An estimated 86,000 of them are criminal illegal aliens--people convicted of crimes they committed in the U.S. who should have been deported, but have slipped through the cracks and are still here. The next number is perhaps the most concerning--3,000 of the ``alien absconders'' within our borders are from one of the countries that the State Department has designated to be a ``state sponsor of terrorism.'' The number of illegal aliens outweighs the number of federal agents whose job it is to find them within our borders by 5,000 to 1. The enforcement arm of the old INS, now called The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a mere 2,000 interior agents inside the borders. Leaving the job of interior immigration enforcement solely to them will guarantee failure. State and local police, a force 650,000 strong, are the eyes and ears of our communities. They are sworn to uphold the law. They police our streets and neighborhoods every day. Their role is critical to the success of our immigration system. For that critical role to be effective, a few very important things need to happen: 1. State and local law enforcement need clear authority to voluntarily act; 2. the NCIC needs to contain critical immigration related information that can be accessed on the roadside; 3. Federal immigration officials have to take custody of illegal aliens apprehended by State officers, they can not continue to tell them to just let them go; 4. the Institutional Removal Program has to be expanded so that criminal aliens are detained after their State sentences until deportation, they can't be released back into the community just to be searched for by federal officials at a later date; and 5. critically needed federal bedspace has to be given to DHS for they can not guarantee effective removal without adequate detention space. The Homeland Security Enhancement Act that Senator Miller and I are introducing today will do all of those things. Let me tell you about a few of the problems in immigration enforcement that started my interest in this area and prompted me to author this bill. A few years ago, police chiefs and sheriffs in Alabama began to tell me that they had been shut out of the system and felt powerless to do anything about Alabama's growing illegal immigrant population. As I went to town hall meetings and conferences with police, I heard the same story--``we have given up calling the INS because INS tells us we have to have 15 or more illegal aliens in custody or they will not even come pick them up.'' Even worse is that Alabama police were told that the aliens could not be detained until the INS could manage to send someone. They were told they had to just let them go! They were being told this, even though I thought the legal authority of State and local officers to voluntarily act on violations of immigration law was clear. If there is any doubt that State and local officers have this authority, Congress needs to fix that, which is what this bill will do. Only two circuits have expressly ruled on State and local law enforcement authority to make an arrest on an immigration law violation. In 1983, the Ninth Circuit, while not mentioning a preexisting general authority, held that nothing in federal law precludes the police from enforcing the criminal provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. See Gonzales v. City of Peoria, 722 F.2d 468 (9th Cir. 1983). The Tenth Circuit has reviewed this question on several occasions, concluding squarely that a ``State trooper has general investigatory authority to inquire into possible immigration violations.'' United States v. Salinas-Calderon, 728 f.2d 1298, 1301 n.3 (10th Cir. 1984). As the Tenth Circuit has described it, there is a ``preexisting general authority of State or local police officers to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws.,'' United States v. Vasquez-Alvares, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295 (10th Cir. 1999). And again, in 2001, the Tenth Circuit reiterated that ``State and local police officers [have] implicit authority within their respective jurisdictions `to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws.' '' United States v. Santana-Garcia, 264 F.3d 1188, 1194 (citing United States v. Vasquez-Alvarez, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295). None of these Tenth Circuit holdings drew any distinction between criminal violations of the INA and civil provisions that render an alien deportable. It appears that the Ninth Circuit started the confusion regarding the distinction between civil and criminal violations in Gonzales v. City of Peoria by asserting in dicta that the civil provisions of the INA are a persuasive regulatory scheme, and therefore only the federal government has the power to enforce civil violations. See Gonzales v. City of Peoria, 722 F.2d 468 (9th Cir. 1983). This confusion was, to some extent, fostered by an erroneous 1996 opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the department of Justice, the relevant part of which has since been withdrawn by OLC. Why was the Federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement telling my police chiefs in Alabama to just let illegal aliens go? To be fair, ICE probably does not have the manpower or detention space to take custody and detain all illegal aliens. With less than 20,000 appropriated detention beds, ICE tells my office that they do not have the bed space to detain all the illegal aliens that they apprehend; instead, they have to give first priority to detaining the worst of the worst--individuals such as convicted felon aliens. It is shocking to me that even though we know that detention is a key element of effective removal, we do not even detail all illegal aliens that have been convicted of crimes, even convicted of felonies, before removal. Last February, in a report titled ``the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders'' the Department of Justice Inspector General found that 87 percent of those not detained before removal never get deported. Even in high risk categories, the IG found that only fractions of non-detained violators are ever removed--35 percent of those with criminal records and 6 percent of those from ``state sponsors of terrorism.'' These percentages have not changed substantially since 1996, when the last IG report issued on the ability to remove aliens found that 89 percent of aliens with final deportation orders that are not detained are never removed. But we cannot lay all the blame on DHS--they can only detain illegal aliens that they have space to detain. They are using all of the bedspace that they have and are releasing people that should be detained because there is no more room. The Homeland Security Enhancement Act would add the critical bedspace DHS needs to fulfill its mission of interior enforcement. The third problem that has been brought to my attention is the inadequate way we share immigration information with State and local police. We have databases full or information on criminal aliens and aliens with final deportation orders, but that information is not directly available to state and local police. They have to make a special second inquiry to the immigration center in Vermont just to see if an illegal alien is a wanted by DHS. Without easy access to immigration database information, and with ICE unwilling to come and identify every suspected illegal alien, State and local police cannot quickly and accurately identify who they have detained and who they will be releasing back into the community if they follow ICE's instruction to ``just let them go.'' State and local police are accustomed to checking for criminal information in the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database, which is maintained by the FBI. They can and routinely do access the NCIC on the roadside when they pull over a car or stop a suspect. An NCIC check, which takes just minutes, includes information about individuals with outstanding warrants. Even fugitives that use false identification can be identified on the roadside through use of the NCIC when, as is often the case, a police officer has access to an instant fingerprint scanner in his car. Separately, ICE operates the Law Enforcement Support Center, which makes immigration information available to State and local police, but requires a second additional check after NCIC that most State and local police either don't know about or don't have the time to perform. The Hart Rudman Report, ``America Still Unprepared--America Still In Danger,'' found that one problem America still confronts is ``650,000 local and State police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum, without access to terrorist watchlists.'' The first recommendation of the report was to ``tap the eyes and ears of local and State law enforcement officers in preventing attacks.'' On page 19, the report specifically cited the burden of finding hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens living among the population of more than 8.5 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. and suggested that the burden could and should be shared with 650,000 local, county, and State law enforcement officers if they could be brought out of the information void. If State and local police are not accessing the immigration information we have worked hard to make available, we must find a way to get the information to them, through systems that are used to using. Our bill will get information to them through the system that are already using--the NCIC. As part of its Alien Absconder Initiative, ICE tells us that it is in the process of entering information on the estimated 450,000 alien absconders into NCIC. As of October 31, only information on 15,200 alien absconders had been entered into NCIC. That number is totally unacceptable and is shocking to me. This should only be the beginning. At the least, the NCIC should contain information on all illegal aliens who have received final orders of departure and all illegal aliens who have signed voluntary departure agreements. In truth, the NCIC should contain information on all violations of law. Our bill will ensure that when a NCIC roadside check is done on an individual pulled over for speeding, police will know immediately if the individual has already been ordered to leave the country, has signed a legal document promising to leave, or has overstayed their visa. Understanding the value of getting immigration information to State and local police comes from understanding that they are the ones who will come into contact with the dangerous illegal aliens on a day-to- day basis. Three 9/11 hijackers were stopped by State and local police in the weeks proceeding 9/11. Hijacker Mohammad Atta, believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the World Trade Center's north tower, was stopped twice by police in Florida, Hijacker Ziad S. Jarrah was stopped for speeding by Maryland State Police two days before 9/11. And, Hani Hanjour, who was on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon, was stopped for speeding by police in Arlington, VA. Local police can be our most powerful tool in the war against terrorism. The D.C. Snipers were caught because of the fingerprint collected by local police. John Lee Malvo was identified when the fingerprint collected from a magazine at the scene of the liquor store murder and robbery in Montgomery, Alabama matched with the fingerprints collected by INS agents in Washington State. Had both law enforcement entities not done their job by taking prints, it is possible that the identity of John Lee Malvo could have been a mystery for weeks longer. In February, a 42-year-old woman sitting on a park bench in New York with her boyfriend was dragged away and gang-raped by five deportable illegal immigrants. Although 4 of the 5 had State criminal convictions and 2 had served jail time, the INS claims they were never told about them--thus, they were not deported as the law requires. Fifty-six illegal aliens were caught by State and local police, and convicted of molestation and child abuse, long before ICE's ``Operation Predator'' found them a few weeks ago living in New York and Northern New Jersey after they should have been deported. Of the 56 arrested, one had raped his 10-year-old niece; another has sexually assaulted a 6-year-old boy; one had raped his 7-year-old niece; and another has sexually assaulted a 2-year-old. The 9/11 hijacker cases, the D.C. sniper cases, and a multitude of criminal alien cases clearly illustrate that our State and local police are on the front lines in combating alien crime. To cut them out of the system, as we do now, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is to eliminate our most effective weapon against criminal and terrorist aliens. The opponents of this bill will say that we don't want immigrants to succeed and that we don't want people to come here. That is absolutely not true. We believe in the rule of law. We believe that people should come here to be citizens of this country under the color of law. We want people to come here and reach their fullest potential. But, we believe that a Nation has the right to set the standards by which it accepts people, and if it sets those standards it ought to create a legal system to enforce those standards. This bill will work to enforce the immigration standards our Nation has created. The opposition will say that State and local police can not adequately respect the civil rights of illegal aliens, and that enforcement will cost too much and will discourage the reporting of crimes. It is curious logic to say that we trust our police to enforce laws against citizens but not against non-citizens here illegally. I know that State and local police are trained to protect the civil rights of all types of suspects and defendants and that they do so every day in this country. In Alabama, State troopers receive annual training on racial profiling. In New York, the NYC Police Department operations order #11 strictly prohibits racial profiling in law enforcement actions. If Alabama and New York are consistent in how they instruct and train their State and local police with regards to racial profiling, it is safe to assume that the rest of the Nation does as well. Under this bill, State and local police will have to respect the civil rights of illegal aliens the same way they respect the civil rights of all people against whom they enforce the law. State and local police will continue to be held responsible for violations of civil rights; this bill does not change that fact. The opposition will say that this bill is expensive; that it costs too much. It is always expensive to enforce the law. I do not think this bill is overly expensive. We have made it as cost affordable as we can by electing to efficiently use resources already available to us. Law enforcement is not an area where it pays to pinch pennies. In immigration enforcement, I believe that it costs us too much not to enforce the law. I believe it is time that Congress take responsibility for providing DHS with the resources they need to do the job we have given them. When it comes to immigration enforcement in America, the rule of law is not prevailing. If we are serious about securing the homeland, we simply must get serious about immigration enforcement. It is time to talk about the big picture--time to be honest about what it will really take to fix our broken immigration system. In most cases, we don't need tougher immigration laws, we just need to utilize our existing resources and use some new resources to enforce the laws we already have. If State and local police are confused about their authority to enforce immigration laws, that authority needs to be clarified. This bill will do that. If State and local police can not access immigration background information on individuals quickly enough, we should change that. This bill makes that information more accessible. If DHS is not taking custody of the illegal aliens being apprehended by State and local police, we need to make it possible for them to do so. This bill will address the practice of ``catching and releasing'' illegal aliens. If we do not have enough detection space to hold people that break the law, then we need more detention space. This bill gives DHS 50 percent more bedspace to use in immigration enforcement. If illegal aliens are being released back into the community after their prison sentences instead of being deported, we need to fix the system that releases them. This bill will extend the Institutional Removal Program to ensure that custody is transferred from the state prison to federal officials at the end of the alien's prison sentence. Once again I would like to thank Senator Miller for joining with me to introduce this legislation. It is imperative that we take critical steps toward regaining control of our out-of-control immigration system. This bill is a critical step in the right direction. I encourage my colleagues to study this bill and to join Senator Miller and I as we work to pass the Homeland Security Act of 2003. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.