Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, they said the ABA rating was the gold standard, but that didn't help them in this argument because the ABA unanimously voted that Priscilla Owen was well qualified for the Eleventh Circuit. They had seen her practice law, they had seen her as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and they found that she was well qualified, giving her the highest rating. The bar association, as I recall, has 15 members of the committee that actually does that vote. Heretofore, they didn't say anything about whether you were qualified, well qualified, or unqualified. Now they tell you whether or not it was unanimous. It is hard to get 15 of them to be unanimous. They select the committee that evaluates them, and it is a fairly sizable committee. Many are civil rights attorneys, some are big law firm attorneys, some are individual practitioners, and others are officials in the State bar. It is a big committee, and it is hard to get a unanimous vote of well qualified, but she was so rated. They said: We don't want anybody who would reverse the right of a woman to have an abortion--reverse Roe v. Wade. Well, everybody knows a judge on the Fifth Circuit cannot overrule the Supreme Court's opinions on abortion. They cannot overrule any Supreme Court decision, including Roe v. Wade. In fact, the Fifth Circuit has explicitly adopted Roe v. Wade in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Both of those are big-time, important abortion cases. They have already affirmed those. Priscilla Owen has never voted on or opposed Roe v. Wade, as Justice Byron White did when he was on the Court. She never called Roe v. Wade a ``heavy handed judicial intervention,'' as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Clinton's nominee to the Supreme Court, did. She never voted for a statute to ban abortion, as Al Gore did, or never supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, as Dick Gephardt, the would- be Speaker of the House, has done in the past. Would all of these individuals be blackballed and fail to pass a lockstep test of the Democratic majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee if they were nominated for a Federal judgeship? I think this is going a bit far. So we have heard that we cannot have a conservative judicial activist on the court. I agree with that. You can have people who are so conservative that they force their agenda by reinterpreting the words of statutes, as well as you can have a liberal do that. The traditional conservative theory of law is that you respect the laws passed by the legislature and enforce them as written, whether you like it or not. Traditionally, the ideology of the left--as is dominating in our law schools today, unfortunately--is that--really, today they are getting awfully cynical--the law is truly a tool of one group to oppress another group, that words don't have any finite meaning and you can make them mean whatever you want to say, and that the law is a tool for social progress and not a protection of rights, as we have understood it. Traditionally, in the last 30 years, most of the activism has come from the left. We have actual people who assert with quite a strong conviction that if the legislature didn't act, the court had to act. Have you ever heard that? I think we hear that pretty often. But think about it. Particularly in Federal Court when you have a lifetime- appointed judge. Well, let's see. The legislature didn't act, so now we can do whatever we want to as a judge, or as the court. Well, if the legislature did not act, and they are the duly elected representatives of the people, then in fact they have acted, haven't they? They have decided not to act on whatever political agenda somebody has. And that does not justify a judge becoming a legislator because of that. I think this is important also. This nominee, Priscilla Owen, has just been magnificent and disciplined in her view of the law. One of the things they complained about was her interpretation of a single Texas statute, passed by the legislature--the parental notification statute. She clearly followed the legitimate sources of law in interpreting that. She read the statute clearly. She interpreted the words of the statute using the pro-abortion cases of the U.S. Supreme Court upon which the statute was based, and it was not an act of activism. In fact, Senator DeWine carefully analyzed these matters, and in the 12 cases under this statute--and this was the biggest point made against this fine nominee's record--in 3 of them she voted with a minority of the judges on the Texas Supreme Court. Most of the time, 9 cases, she voted with a majority. By the way, in every case that reached the Supreme Court of Texas, the Texas law was vaguely written and difficult to interpret, and it involved a situation in which a trial judge and an intermediate court of criminal appeals had both ruled that notification of a parent had to occur before an abortion by a minor could be conducted. So she was, in each instance, voting on a case in which a trial judge saw the situation firsthand, and an intermediate court of appeals had ruled in the same way Justice Owen ruled. In each case that she ruled against the majority, she ruled in favor of the intermediate court of appeals and the trial judge--not an extreme record, trust me. We looked at this hard. Senator DeWine's analysis of it was very thoughtful and persuasive. Well, they say, that is bad, we don't want a parent to be notified. Some states have parental consent, where a parent has to consent to an abortion for a teenager. In some States, they have to have consent to get a tattoo, or an earring, or a nose ring, but they don't need to have consent to get an abortion. All it said was they had to tell at least one parent, unless there was an excuse not to. It did not require permission of that parent. And 82 percent of the people in this country, when polled, say they favor parental notification. So who is extreme here? Is it the group smearing her for enforcing a rather modest Texas law, or is it the nominee herself? Actually, her study of that was very carefully done, I thought, and actually utilized definitions in the U.S. Supreme Court opinion to help clarify the definitional tools of Texas law on the correct presumption that when Texas had the parental notification law, they tried to make it compatible with the Supreme Court ruling, which is what a great judge does. Well, only the most extreme liberal groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU, that have been active against her, could see anything wrong in this, in my opinion. Well, they said you can't get into politics. That is something to discuss. This nominee hardly has any politics. Senator Gramm from Texas said when people asked her to run for the Supreme Court of Texas, she could not remember, when asked, which primary she voted in last time, Republican or Democrat. She finished third in her class at Baylor Law School and was one of the finest litigators in Texas, well respected. When she was approached to run, she was a single mom. She gave up a highly lucrative law practice to take on the race for the supreme court. She won, and then won again, with 84 percent of the vote. She had the endorsement of every single newspaper in Texas of any size. She was an exceptional candidate in every way. She is not a person who is a political warrior. As Senator Gramm said, ``I am a political warrior, I know what one is.'' This lady is not. As Senator Hutchison of Texas, who knows her and supports her, assures us, this is a legal professional who goes about her day trying to do the right thing. The danger in all this, to my way of thinking, is that we are sliding into a concept that the courts in America are inherently political and they cannot be trusted to enforce the law as written. Indeed, these professors assert and many of them are teaching in law school today-- and it is quite a source of debate in law school--that they believe you cannot know anything, that nothing is really knowable, that there is really no truth, that character really does not count, that there are just winners and losers. If you do not get your judge on the court, you do not win. That is a dangerous philosophy. In fact, I raised it with Professor Laurence Tribe, the brilliant activist liberal law professor. In his written statement to our Judiciary Committee when we had hearings, he flat out said, that we might as well reject the Olympian ideal of justice under law--that an Olympian ideal was an illusory concept. That theory is a threat to the rule of law in America, and I think we saw it played out in Committee this morning because they basically said: This lady did not agree with parental notification; we heard she was a conservative; we cannot trust her to interpret the thousands and thousands of cases that come before her. That is not true. I practiced as a Federal prosecutor before Federal judges and tried hundreds of cases. I was there for years. There may be a case every now and then that a judge's philosophy of life--you would expect one more likely to buy this argument than that argument. But if you had the cases, if you had the law, if you had the authority, whether the judges were Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, routinely, day after day in my court and every court in America, judges followed that. This is a dangerous concept to be selling around here. Yes, we have politics in this body. There is nothing in the Senate that is not involved in politics. Of course, we are a political body. That is not true in courts, and if it is, we are in big trouble. Why should you respect a court if you do not believe they are enforcing the law? We have people who believe that rules of property ownership are ways to oppress people who do not have property by people who have property and that the enforcement of a deed is somehow an act of class warfare against the poor. If you do not own the property, you do not own it in America. They want to say you ought to get a part of it anyway. It is a dangerous philosophy we are about. Mr. President, I will conclude. I feel deeply about this issue because what was unique about this rejection of this superb nominee who testified brilliantly in addition to having a brilliant record, what was most disturbing about this process was that she was ignored. Her answers were ignored, and she was just voted down--Raw power. Maybe that is supposed to send a message to the President, but this is a real person who has a real family, who has dedicated her life to the rule of law. She is popular in her home State. She had the confidence of the President of the United States who was Governor of the State of Texas, and he knows the people in Texas. She has the support of Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm, the Senators from Texas, and she should have been confirmed. The failure to do so troubles me because I am afraid we may be adopting this postmodernism view that nothing is knowable, that there is no truth, that there is no objectivity, and that there is no such a thing as a rule of law because it is all just a manipulation; that whoever has the power writes the laws to benefit themselves and oppress everybody else. If that is what we are heading to, I think we have a problem. Maybe that is not so. Some have said: Are we going to retaliate? I have been asked a lot about that. Is that the way Republicans are going to do the Democrats if we get a Democratic President and he submits nominees? Let me just say it this way: I do not give up. I am hoping that a number of the members of the Judiciary Committee maybe made premature commitments on this case, maybe did not realize the full consequences of their votes, and that we will not continue to see this kind of overt politicalization of the process. I think that should avert a historic alteration in the process by which we have dealt with judges in confirmation. We have to maybe take a deep breath. I am very upset and most of the Republican members of our committee are very upset and wonder what happened. Under President Clinton, only one nominee in 8 years was voted down in committee or on the floor of the Senate. We have already had two voted down in committee on a party-line vote, and in both cases, the nominee would have passed had they been on the floor of the Senate. In both cases, there was a majority vote on the floor of the Senate to pass them had they gotten out of committee. This is not healthy. I respect the talent and ability and commitment of my Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, but they are very much a Northeast-West Coast group. They do not represent the legal thinking of a majority of Americans, much less a majority of the Senate. This little group, by sticking together in lockstep fashion, have asserted and demonstrated a power to kill nominees before they even get a full vote, superb nominees such as Judge Pickering. He had been on the Federal bench for 12 years. He was No. 1 in his class in law school. He was well qualified by the American Bar Association for the Court of Appeals, and he was voted down. I think it is a big deal. I am very frustrated about it. There is a lot of unease. I do not know of anything to do but to continue to go forward, continue to talk to my colleagues, ask them to back off; let's go back to the traditional respect given to Presidential nominees, and I think we can make progress there. Some said a lot of nominees who received well-qualified ratings did not get voted on. True, most of those overwhelmingly had objections from home State Senators. As soon as the Democratic Members of Congress got the majority and Senator Leahy became chairman, they asserted not only did they want to maintain that power, but they wanted to strengthen it further than they have in the past. I do not see how anybody can complain on the senatorial courtesy rule if they, in fact, are asserting not only should it be maintained but strengthened. If President Bush nominates a judge from New York and Senator Schumer objects to that judge, that judge will not move and will not be confirmed even though that judge is voted well qualified. That is just the way it has been here. Sometimes it is unfair, but that is how it has been. As Senator Hatch, who just came into the Chamber, who so ably chaired the Judiciary Committee, knows, that is just the way it has been. I do not see any call for weakening of that rule. I would say we have a long way to go in the future to work through this unfortunate event. I hope we can. It would be a tragic event, indeed, if this Senate were to abandon its historical system of evaluating judges. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, last week I had the honor of swearing in the American Legion Auxiliary Girls Nation president. I am proud to announce that Kasdin Miller of Montgomery, Alabama, was elected president by the other participants in this fine program. Three of the last six presidents of Girls Nation have come from my home State of Alabama. Girls Nation celebrated its 56th year this year, and 96 teenage girls from 48 states participated. These teenagers were selected through their participation in the American Legion Auxiliary's Girls State program. I would also note that Alabama Girls State celebrated its 60th anniversary this year, making its program one of the oldest in the country. The Girls State and Girls Nation programs of electing senators and creating state legislatures and local governments is an extraordinary learning process. Participants in Girls State and Girls Nation, and their counterparts in Boys State and Boys Nation, gain first-hand experience in how our laws are made. Each summer, some 20,000 enthusiastic young women participate in Girls State sessions across the nation, where they study local, county, and state government processes. These young people are our leaders of tomorrow, and I salute them for their interest in government. Former participants in Girls State include three current members of the U.S. House of Representatives- Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, Connie Morella of Maryland, and Jennifer Dunn of Washington. Perhaps one day we may see Kasdin and other Girls Nation participants on the floor of the Senate and House. Kasdin, a rising senior at the Montgomery Academy, also had the high honor of being elected Governor of the Alabama YMCA Youth in Government program. I enjoyed meeting her when she came to Washington as Alabama's Youth Governor in June. She has been a leader on her school's debate team and earned a spot in the national tournament this year. She excels in the classroom as well. Kasdin is an intelligent young lady who has a bright future, and she is to be commended for her achievements. Indeed, I congratulate all of the participants in both Girls Nation and Boys Nation for their accomplishments and encourage them to continue to prepare themselves to be America's future leaders.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to just take a brief moment of the Senate's time to commend the interns who have worked in my office this summer and express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for their dedication to public service. Therefore I would like to commend: David Abroms; Matt Anderson, Peyton Bean, Rebecca Beers, Gabe Bonfield, David Burkholder, Katie Cassady, Robin Cooper, Mary Alise Cosby, Emily Costarides, Mary Katherine Davis, Lyle Dubois, Will Dumas, Beth Fanning, Ben Ford, Jonathan Hooks, Jonathan Macklem, Molly McKenzie, Christy Olinger, Blake Oliver, Matt Peterson, Craig Pittman, Jr., Melanie Rainey, Walker Rutherfurd, Anna Smith, Austill Stuart, Jason Wells. All of my interns worked very hard and produced great work products, and I just wanted to take a minute of the Senate's time to thank them for their service and their parents for providing them the opportunity to come up here and serve their country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to Mrs. Marian C. O'Donnell, an outstanding Civil Servant who will retire from the Federal Government on August 3, 2002 after distinguishing herself with over 31 years of dedicated service. During her career, Mrs. O'Donnell has served in a succession of key positions where she has established a pattern of clearly exceptional performance and service leading to outstanding results in all her duties for the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense. Mrs. O'Donnell served in a succession of administrative and secretarial positions of ever increasing responsibility in Germany and the United States culminating in her current assignment for the past 15 years as the personal assistant to the Army's Chief of Legislative Liaison. Marian O'Donnell's efforts and accomplishments are examples of extraordinary dedication and professionalism. Throughout her career, she was honored repeatedly by her superiors because of her efficiency, meticulous attention to detail, and ability to handle a multitude of tasks simultaneously. Marion's understated charm resulted in numerous outstanding performance ratings, quality step increases, and two Commander's Award for Civilian Service which so many of her peers have tried to emulate. While serving as the personal assistant to the Chief, Legislative Liaison Marian O'Donnell played a key role in the Army's congressional liaison efforts. She is the conduit though which Members of Congress, their staffs, senior Army and Defense officials dealt with the Army's leadership. A competent and unflappable professional, Marion has always placed the Army and our Nation first. Throughout her service, Marian O'Donnell was regarded as the thread resulting in smooth and flawless changes to the Army's congressional liaison leadership. Despite the demands of her career Marian still found time to do volunteer work with her Church and serve as counselor with its Pregnancy Crisis Center. She is truly a civil servant of the first order and an outstanding citizen. On behalf of the Congress of the United States and the people of this great Nation, I offer my heartfelt thanks for her years of service and best wishes for a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. My friend from Alaska is correct. And I must commend him for the work that he did with the help of the House foreign Operations Subcommittee on this issue. The conferees were able to ensure that organizations that are working for the benefit of developing communities on behalf of the United States government and charitable organizations receive the assistance they need to execute their much laudable goals. I am very grateful to him for this support.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would be glad to discuss the national Forum Foundation's TRANSFORM Program. With the help of my good friend from Alaska, I offered an amendment to the supplemental that was accepted by the Senate. I understand that it was modified during conference--but will now permit organizations, such as the National Forum Foundation's TRANSFORM program, to receive the much needed authority to receive funds to pay for administrative expenses. TRANSFORM began 3 years ago as a natural extrapolation of the Denton Program. The Denton Program allows U.S. Air Force Transport aircraft under the control of CINCTRANS to deliver overseas on a space available basis, humanitarian aid donated by 501(c)(3) charity organizations. In analyzing the transportation of humanitarian aid, the National Forum Foundation has learned that commercial ships have 2000 times the space than our Air Force aircraft and with the export-import imbalance, are usually relatively empty departing our ports. The TRANSFORM program brings the 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, which collect and wish to distribute these goods, to the commercial shipping lines willing to carry them space-available. The charity has to be indoctrinated to conform to the loading dates and times, port locations and the specific loading manner required by the ship-line. TRANSFORM exercises special means to ensure no delays in ports or customs issues. Finally, TRANSFORM's system has a leverage of 250-1 meaning that for every dollar of its budgetary expenses, TRANSFORM gets $250 to needy recipients.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for his courtesies, as always. Mr. President, I serve on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and am pleased that we reported out a bill to improve generic drug competition in America and to address the high cost of prescription drugs. The Hatch-Waxman Act, which passed in 1984, is considered to be a remarkable piece of legislation. It strives to provide patent protection to companies that invests hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new drugs. At the same time, it limits that protection by allowing generic competition. It allows generic drug manufacturers to take a patented drug, produce it, and sell it at a much lower price, a competitive price, driving down the price of the drug for consumers. Since 1984 the scales, it appears, have tilted too much in favor of the name-brand producer of the drug, the patent holder of the drug, and too much against the generic manufacturers. There have been some problems on both sides of this issue. Loopholes of the Hatch-Waxman Act are being exploited, giving one side an advantage over the other. In fact, one of the things that has occurred is some generic companies have challenged patents and have gotten the right to produce patented drugs, because they have challenged it using the procedures of the act. Then they enter into an agreement with the original patent holder to not produce the generic drug--thereby agreeing to not compete with the name-brand manufacturer. This is a loophole that needs to be eliminated. I believe S.812 will help recover the delicate balance that was originally intended by the Hatch-Waxman Act. I believe it will help contain the rising costs of prescription drugs. I believe it will also encourage production of drugs the way we intended, but at the same time will eliminate unfair patent extensions. I believe that by reporting this bill out of committee, we are moving in the right direction. I salute Senators Edwards, Collins, Schumer, and McCain who have worked to produce this legislation. I think it is going to be something we can all support. I know we will be beginning to talk about prescription drugs in general later this week, and I think it is time to do so. This Congress voted--I voted--for a budget last year that set aside $300 billion for a prescription drug benefit. However, we were not able to pass a prescription drug benefit last year, and it remains to be seen whether we will be successful this year. There are a lot of different views about how prescription drugs should be handled. Over the Fourth of July weekend, I visited two assisted care living facilities in Alabama: Chateau Vestavia near Birmingham and Westminster in Mobile, Alabama. I talked with seniors who have high drug bills and listened to what they had to say. I wanted to have their input as the Senate moved toward considering a prescription drug proposal. They told me that they are most concerned about high drug prices. I spoke with seniors that are struggling to pay for their drugs. My mother is in her eighties. She has a $300-a-month drug bill. She is in relatively good health, although she has arthritis and high blood pressure. Her sister's drug bill is even higher than that each month. They are both in an assisted living center. They are getting by, but it is not easy. For people who rely on their Social Security as their sole income, they are not able to get by with those drug prices. We know we have a problem. The theory is this: If this federal government, through Medicare, will pay for the removal of a kidney, or will pay for the amputation of a leg, is it not irrational that we would not pay to fund drugs that would keep people from having to have a kidney removed or keep people from having to have an amputation because they are diabetic? We are at a point where drugs are such a central part of health care in America, that we cannot leave them out of Medicare. The seniors I visited with in Alabama want us here in the Senate to address the high cost of drugs. They believe they are higher than they need to be--and I agree. They would like to see less paperwork in the process, less bureaucracy, and less fraud. They would also like to see that they can go to their local pharmacy and buy the drugs there and talk to a pharmacist about them if they choose. They would like to be able to buy through direct mail and mail order if they choose. Those are things we will have to wrestle with. I intend to be talking with more seniors as time goes by so we can listen to their concerns and desires and see what we can do to pass a responsible bill. We are not doing anything to help Medicare beneficiaries pay for drugs today. We should not fail to act at all and do nothing simply because we can't do everything we would like to do today. We need to have some relief now. We have people this day who are having to choose between food and rent and drugs. They often are not able to buy the drugs they need to keep themselves healthy, and that leads to complications and even greater health care costs. We need to quit putting this off. If we cannot afford the Cadillac, we need a Ford. We need to do something to move forward. Seniors need help now. People who need drugs, seniors who need drugs, all Medicare beneficiaries who need them and simply cannot afford them need help. We can do that through the budget we passed last year. There is, through President Bush's plan, an idea of using group purchasing power to reduce the cost through a prescription drug discount card. A number of my pharmacist friends are concerned that could hurt them. That was not the intent. They have challenged this card. But a card plan should not harm our pharmacists. We ought to be able to drive down the cost of prescription drugs by up to 20, 30, or 40 percent. That would be a tremendous savings. It would be good if we could do that today--and not wait any longer. It would be a monumental step forward. We want our seniors to have choice and to not have to give up their current coverage plans. We do not want them to have to enter into some sort of mandatory plan that costs them more and provides less benefits. Beneficiaries should have information and the choice to choose between whether they want generic drugs or name-brand drugs. That is a choice that many can make. We need to make sure that option is available to them. We did vote for a budget last year that provides for $300 billion for prescription drugs. We have allowed our spending here to get out of control. Our discretionary spending last year hit about a 7 percent increase. This year, likewise, with defense and supplementals, it could be greater than that. If we get our spending under control and contain excessive spending, we ought to be able to fund a plan that would meet the needs of thousands of seniors who are in a crisis situation today. Politics should be put on the back burner. It is time to ask ourselves how we can accomplish passing a piece of legislation that we all can support, that the American people would like to see passed, and that we can afford. We can do this, if we watch our cost and do not let it get out of control. If we are smart and work at it and do it in a way that is bipartisan as this generic bill we passed out of the HELP Committee last week, we can make good progress for America. I look forward to the debate and hope we can achieve that before the recess. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to speak in support of the legislation proposed by Senator Hutchinson from Arkansas. I am a cosponsor and helped draft this legislation. I would say this: This is not an itty-bitty issue. This is a big issue. The Congress and States and cities have been expressing a desire to have, and be allowed to have, an expression of faith in the public life of America. The courts have been on a trend for decades now to constrict that. The opinion out of the Ninth Circuit is not as aberrational as some would think. The Supreme Court, in my view, has been inconsistent and unclear. It has cracked down on some very small instances of public expression of faith. Our courts have made decisions such as constraining a valedictorian's address at a high school. Certainly our prayer in schools has been rigorously constricted or eliminated in any kind of normal classroom setting, as has the prayer at football games. I will just say we hope the courts will reconsider some of their interpretations of the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the first amendment and help heal the hurt in this country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is, indeed, a shocking culmination of a decade-long trend of liberal activist courts that have been misreading the first amendment of the Constitution. The first amendment protects the free exercise of religion. That is what it says. It says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. There is no word in the Constitution, the document ratified by the people of the United States, about a wall of separation. There is nothing in the Constitution that says we cannot have any reference in public life in America to a higher being. As the Senator from West Virginia has eloquently stated, our founding documents make multiple references to God. Indeed, the Declaration says we are created with certain inalienable rights. We did not create ourselves but were, indeed, created by a higher being. That is a strong part of our belief as a nation. Our courts have been on the wrong track for a long time. They have consistently gotten this thing wrong. Not all the courts, but the Federal courts to a large degree. Particularly the Ninth Circuit is out of the main stream, in my view. This trend has been there for some time. It is not part of the American tradition. In America, we need to respect people's religion. We need to give people a full chance to express their faith wherever they may choose. We should not put down or laugh or demean somebody else's religious belief. That is a cornerstone of our country. Madison was passionate that no State had the right to mandate somebody's religious faith. However, the entire trend of this country and the whole understanding of what we are about is that we have the free exercise of religion. We are entitled to exercise that faith in a public way. It has been part of our public life since the founding of our country. Somehow, the courts have gotten the idea that they should reverse this. Some say this is just one court and they are out of step. It is deeper than that. We have been affirming judges who have shared these philosophies without looking into it very closely. We have allowed judges to carry on a more activist view of what they think life is about. We had a recent decision of the Supreme Court, that is activist, when the author of the opinion declared that evolving standards call us to not execute a retarded person. I am not for executing retarded persons. I am willing to support a law to that effect. What is that saying? This justice and a majority on the Supreme Court were saying that they could change the law if they thought somebody was ``evolving'' and changing their views about life in general. Who reflects the American people in the changed views? It is the legislative branch. Federal judges are given lifetime appointments. They hold office for the rest of their life. They are required to discipline themselves. If they love the law, if they love the Constitution, as all in this country must do, they must discipline themselves and simply enforce that law. This trend has been unhealthy. We have allowed it to continue unchallenged. It is afoot in our law schools. They teach you cannot have any reference to faith. Right on the wall we have ``In God We Trust.'' The anteroom has a picture of a woman on the wall holding a Bible in her hand. There are three words engraved on the sides of the wall: One is ``government,'' one is ``philosophy,'' and one is ``religion.'' That is the nature of the founding of our country. We never doubted that religion played a part in American life. What we did not want was the Government to dictate to someone how they ought to worship. We have never done that. I defend anyone who thinks they are being forced to do anything with which they disagree. Life is complex. We work together and live together in harmony. If someone does not like the Declaration of Independence, if someone does not like the Constitution, they do not have to read them. If someone does not believe in the Pledge, they do not have to recite it. That is clear constitutional law. This is a big mistake by the court. I hope this Senate will take action to express the views of the people of the United States. I hope we will not hear talk that this is something that will be dismissed. It is a serious, pernicious, antireligious trend. There is a tendency and a trend in America by the courts to eliminate from public life any reference to a higher being and anybody who reads the newspapers or reads court opinions knows that is true. The Ninth Circuit is the worst. One year 27 out of 28 cases were reversed. They have consistently been reversed more than any other circuit in America. The New York Times, in writing about the Ninth Circuit, says a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States considers the Ninth Circuit to be a rogue circuit. I have been the most outspoken Member of this Senate in the years I have been here, over 5 years, in expressing my concern about some of these trends in the court, particularly in the Ninth Circuit. I have talked about the issues in the Ninth Circuit. We have to do better. I encouraged President Clinton and I encourage President Bush to send nominees to that circuit who will bring it back into the mainstream of American law. I hope on full rehearing en banc, the court will reverse the opinion. I am not absolutely sure it will, because there are others on that court I have no doubt will join in this opinion. Then it will go to the Supreme Court of the United States. They are going to have to wrestle with this a little bit more. They have not yet fully thought through their position on the free expression of religious faith in American life. It is a difficult thing. We have to cherish our freedom of religion, our freedom to practice religion, as well as our freedom not to have someone coerce any American into any religious belief. That is so much a part of our life that so much distinguished America from nations that want to have a government founded strictly on their view of faith. That is unhealthy. I hope we can adopt an expression in this Senate of our disapproval of this decision, but, at the same time, we do not need to treat it lightly. We need to go back to the grassroots, the initial heritage of faith in America. We need to look at some of these decisions of the court that have gone beyond prohibiting the establishment of a religion, to prohibiting any expression of religious faith at all. I remember Judge Griffin Bell, a great judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, President Carter's Attorney General. He was speaking to an Alabama Bar Association meeting when President Reagan was in office, not long after he left as Attorney General. The bar members asked: Judge Bell, what do you think about this litmus test that President Reagan is supposed to be applying to judges? I will never forget, he walked up to the microphone and said: We need a litmus test for judges. We don't need anybody on the Supreme Court who does not believe in prayer at football games. This is where we are. We have the courts of the United States prepared to send in the 82nd Airborne to some high school that allows a voluntary prayer to be said before the ball game starts--an expression that there is something more important than who is the biggest, meanest, and toughest out on the football field. I think we have a serious problem with the understanding of the first amendment. I am glad this body is taking it seriously. Hopefully, we can do something about it, but it is going to take a longtime effort. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise to discuss a few items. The inflation index is an index that is in all of our budgetary projections. We figure out how our budget is going to be. When that index altered, it did free up some money previously committed to inflationary cost increases. It left that money available. I point out that in our Armed Services Committee, as we discussed this, we did not hear, when the budget passed, that we had to have more money for homeland defense or any particular item that amendments were offered on and voted down. It was only after this index became altered and funds were freed up. The President said: I will accept what the Senate Democrats offered in the Armed Services Committee for extra spending. He said: The money they took from missile defense--that he requested and was spent on other items that they wanted--I will allow that to go. I suggest we use this extra money so I can complete my projections for national missile defense. That is where we are today. Hopefully, we will be able to work through this and be happy with it. But I think we will have that inflation index money. I think it will be available. There is strong bipartisan support in this country for developing a national missile defense program and keeping it on track. The House passed their Defense authorization bill recently. They increased the President's request for national missile defense by $21 million. The House bill passed by a huge margin, 359 to 58. It is a totally bipartisan bill. Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, and Republicans supported it. It had more in it for national missile defense than the President is asking for or that Senator Warner has asked for. I suggest that before we get real pure about spending money for a critical national need such as national missile defense, and developing this program, that we ask ourselves what we did a few weeks ago when the President asked for a $28 billion fiscal year 2002 emergency supplemental for homeland defense and the war on terrorism. Members of the body have increased that supplemental to $32 billion and it has all kind of pork and special interest items in it. So I do not know where we are going to go on that supplemental, but the President is very concerned about this additional spending and pork that went into that. Those are just some comments I wanted to make. I believe we are on track to maintain the steady development of national missile defense. It is something I support. I point out, with regard to the threat, that threats are not exclusive. In our Armed Services Committee, which Senator Levin chairs so ably, the Director of CIA, George Tenet, testified that we don't have the luxury of choosing between threats. He noted that missile defense threats have sometimes developed more rapidly than the intelligence community has predicted. And, indeed, the Rumsfeld commission, in 1999, unanimously concluded that missile programs of some of the rogue nations, and some other nations hostile to the United States, were developing far faster than had previously been predicted. Then there is this question about the money that is building up in to the counter-terrorism account. There is some $10 billion available for missile defense in the year 2003 if the bill is approved as is. But I think to do so would really be creative bookkeeping. The new budget authority for missile defense in this bill is $6.8 billion. That is $1 billion less than was appropriated last year. And the President proposed a modest reduction this year. There is another $814.3 million by the committee. That is a big cut by any standard. Senator Reed gets his $10 billion figure by mixing apples and oranges or, precisely, old fiscal year 2002 funding and new fiscal year 2003 funding. All funding for the Missile Defense Agency is for research and development. Research and development is what we are funding. R&D funding is available for obligations for 2 years and for expenditures over 5 years. That is the way we do it. We do not give money for research and development and say you have to spend it all this year, ready or not. That is by design because R&D projects, by their nature, require some flexibility in execution and stability in funding and planning. If Senators disagree with that, we can take away that extended availability of funds. But most Senators, I suspect, would say that the flexibility in execution and stability in funding and planning is a good thing. I think that is the way we need to continue to proceed. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I sometimes think we are like ships in the night as we discuss this issue and what the priorities of this country ought to be. I know Senator Reed is an esteemed colleague and a capable advocate, but I would like to talk about a few of the things he said that I think really do not give us the right perspective. Of course, terrorism is the No. 1 issue. We voted on a $40 billion FY01 supplemental budget. We have an FY02 supplemental in conference. A huge part of what we are spending in defense, transportation, and in all agencies of our Government, from the FBI to the CIA, is focused on securing this homeland. The arguments the Senator from Rhode Island make that suggests any other expenditure is not as valuable as homeland defense and that we can spend on nothing else apparently but homeland defense I do not believe are sound. In other words, are we going to stop all R&D for missile defense? Are we going to stop developing the future combat system we have been working on down the road that may be a decade in development? Are we just going to stop that because we have an immediate threat? The Navy's DD(X)program or other weapons systems we are developing, the new and superbly efficient precision guided munitions, should we continue to develop them? Well, of course we should. We cannot stop all that because we are into this war on terrorism. We need to fund every dime that is needed on homeland defense. As a matter of fact, I just left a hearing in Judiciary where we heard from Governor Ridge as he laid out the proposal to completely reorganize our Government, one of the biggest reorganizations in the history of the U.S. Government. The homeland security Cabinet agency that is being proposed by President Bush would be an unprecedented move to focus a host of existing Federal agencies on one thing: Making sure their top priority is defending America. Back in 1999, a study done by a commission authorized by Congress came back and unanimously concluded we are under a growing threat from nations around the world, that 16 nations now have missile capability-- many of them are developing long-range capability--and that by 2005 this Nation will be faced with and vulnerable to a missile attack. That is a reality with which we are faced. We voted in this Senate 97 to 3--and I quote--to deploy a national missile defense system as soon as technologically feasible. President Clinton signed that and supported it. Vice President Gore supported it during the past campaign. Senator Joe Lieberman, his Vice Presidential candidate, has been a champion of establishing a national missile defense system. President Bush made it a priority in his campaign, and he spoke openly about it. I submit this past election by the American people affirmed that commitment. So the President proposed a larger budget. Last year, he proposed $7.8 billion for national missile defense, $2.5 billion more than President Clinton had proposed over his $5.3 billion budget. This year, he is proposing roughly $200 million less for national missile defense, but fundamentally the President has laid out a sophisticated, long-term plan to get us prepared by the rapidly approaching time when we will be vulnerable to a potential missile attack. I know one of my colleagues quoted from the National Intelligence Estimate by the CIA on foreign missile developments that was issued earlier this year, and some other things in that report that I think are noteworthy. This is what the report says: The probability that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be used against the United States forces or interests is higher today than during most of the cold war. That was when we were facing the Russians and their missiles. And it will continue to grow as the capabilities of our potential adversaries mature. Is there anybody in this body who is sorry we invested money in precision guided munitions? Are they sorry we invested money in developing a satellite system that has been the key to our communications and our military capabilities in Afghanistan? Are they sorry we developed bombers capable of delivering those things in the past, recognizing it would be necessary in the future? So that is what we are talking about: How do we get ready for this? The report adds further comments: Some of the states--these are countries--armed with missiles have exhibited a willingness to use chemical weapons with other delivery means. In addition, some non-state entities are seeking chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials and would be willing to use them in other ways than employing them simply on a missile. In fact, the U.S. territory is more likely to be attacked on the ground with these materials primarily because a non-missile delivery system is less costly, easier to acquire and more reliable and accurate. They can also be used without attribution. Nevertheless, the missile threat will continue to grow, in part because missiles have become important regional weapons in the arsenals of numerous countries. Moreover, missile systems provide a level of prestige, coercive diplomacy and deterrence that non-missile systems do not. We are dealing with a threat that is developing and is really here to some degree right now. We need to recognize that. I point out some of the other testimony we have heard in the Armed Services Committee. In addition to the 1999 Rumsfeld report, we have received a number of other bits of information and important reports in the Armed Services Committee and I am sure in the Intelligence Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee. These are areas I share with Members as we think about the question of the type of threats we face from hostile nations with missiles. Vice Admiral Wilson, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in his testimony about Iran, said that they continue ``the development and acquisition of longer range missiles and weapons of mass destruction''--that is nuclear, biological, chemical weapons--``to deter the United States and to intimidate Iran's neighbors.'' Also, he says: Iran is buying and developing longer range missiles. They are buying these missiles and developing these missiles right now. This is a nation the President referred to as part of the ``axis of evil,'' a nation whose government is not in the hands of its people, and a nation which could veer off into the extreme at any time. Admiral Wilson further notes that Iran already has chemical weapons and is ``pursuing biological and nuclear capability.'' Admiral Wilson concludes on Iran that it will ``likely acquire a full range of weapons of mass destruction capabilities, field substantial numbers of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, including perhaps an ICBM,'' capable of reaching this country. That is what they are seeking to do. That is what we need to prepare for today. We do not need to end up in 2005, 2006, or 2007 being totally vulnerable to a missile attack from Iran. With regard to Iraq, Admiral Wilson said: Baghdad continues to work on short-range 150 kilometer missiles and can use this expertise for future long-range missile development. Is that not a threat to us? It troubles me. He adds: Iraq may also have begun to reconstitute a chemical and biological weapons program. That seems to be clear. He has rejected any inspection that he at one time agreed to. Admiral Wilson continues: It is possible that Iraq could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015. On North Korea, Admiral Wilson said: North Korea continues to place heavy emphasis on the improvement of its military capabilities and continues its robust efforts to develop more capable ballistic missiles. They made a good deal of progress, as everyone knows and read in the papers, about the launches they have demonstrated. Specifically, as to North Korea, Admiral Wilson said: It is developing an ICBM capability with its Tapeo Dong 2 missile, judged capable of delivering a several hundred kilogram payload to Alaska or Hawaii and a lighter payload to the western half of the United States. This is one of the most bizarre nations in the world, or in the history of the world. I was in South Korea in January 2002. I was on the DMZ. I saw what was occurring. It is one of the most dramatic demonstrations anyone could ever see on the difference between a free society and a totalitarian Communist society. The people of North Korea cannot feed themselves. Yet their obsessed leadership is driving the nation to spend more and more money on missiles, technology, and war while their people cannot feed themselves. Go just south of that DMZ in South Korea. I was in Seoul and traveled around that country. We visited our military people. It is a nation of impressive progress. They are producing some of the finest materials and products the world knows. I was pleased this year South Korea announced they would invest $1 billion in my State of Alabama to build an automobile plant. They continue to have greater increases in sales than almost any other automobile country. This is free South Korea compared to the totalitarian north. I asked why we could not send messages to the group in North Korea, do a Radio Free Europe-type message, to get our message out and maybe destabilize this regime. I was told the television stations only have two or three channels, and those are all government channels. You cannot even turn to another channel. The same is true with the radio. It is virtually impossible to get an outside message in there. People are afraid that the leadership in North Korea could act in a bizarre and illogical way and even trigger an attack on the United States. For example, Admiral Wilson noted that North Korea ``probably has the capability to field an ICBM within the next couple of years.'' That is frightening. When our President gets into a dispute, an argument, a disagreement with the leadership in North Korea or Iraq or Iran, and they end up in the final analysis saying: You do that, and we are going to launch our missiles, and you know we can hit your cities and you have no defense. It affects our foreign policy and affects deeply the ability of the President to lead and be bold and courageous on behalf of the just interests of the United States and freedom in the world. He also noted with regard to North Korea that they continue to ``proliferate weapons of mass destruction, especially missile technology.'' So they are selling missile technology around the world to countries, leaving them, although they may not have the development capability, leaving them capable of threatening us. CIA Director George Tenet, March 19 of this year--and the reports I have been reading from earlier this year--March 19, Director Tenet said this about the Chinese military: They announced a 17.6-percent increase in defense spending replicating last year's increase of 17.7 percent. If this trend continues, China could double its announced defense spending between 2000 and 2005. Tenet, on China, continues that they are near ``toward fielding its first generation of road mobile strategic missiles, the DF-31, a longer range version capable of reaching targets in the United States that will become operational later in the decade.'' Those are some of the reasons we made a decision in 1999 to start now to develop a missile defense system. We have a clear threat to our military in the field. They are subject to the shorter range missiles, the 150-kilometer type missiles. Those type threats are also important. The proposal floated earlier that came out of committee, unfortunately, on a party line vote, would have cut our research into THAAD, our theater missile defense system. We cannot put our troops in the battlefield and have them subject to missile attack. We lost more people from missile attack in the gulf war than anything else. It is definitely a threat to us and our allies in the region. We need our allies to know we can deploy missile defense systems in the case of combat in their region that can give them hope of being protected from attack, or how can they support us when they go forward? We need to go forward with this. I believe if we can give the President the authority to go forward, we will have done a good day's work. Frankly, I do not want to vote, and I hope we are not required to cast a vote that says this is less important than other defense spending items. I think it is part of the whole defense bill. I think it is critical to our national defense. I think it is an integral part of it. I would not like to have a vote here to say we think it is not critical, that it is not somehow as important as any other effort to defend America. But I do say it appears we are making some progress. I hope we can reach an agreement on this. The American people expect us to protect this country. The American people still do not fully understand we have absolutely no defense against incoming missiles. When they are told that, and when this matter is discussed with them, and when they are told that we have an officer such as Lieutenant General Ron Kadish, directing this program providing it extraordinary leadership, professionalism, and production, and that he is moving this national missile defense program forward and will soon be able to deploy a successful missile defense system, they are frustrated some might try and slow down the progress needed to provide the nation the protection it requires. That is where we need to go. Let's protect our homeland through attacks on terrorism around the globe. Let's harden our defenses here at home in every way possible. Let's also continue this steady development of a national missile defense system that can save the lives of innocent Americans who are now vulnerable to attack. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we have been discussing with some passion this afternoon, the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the Pledge of Allegiance, their ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance violates the Constitution of the United States. I think it is important for us to note that this is not a total surprise, although it has been a surprise. It should not have been a total surprise, let me say, because we have had a number of decisions by courts in America that have lost sight of the balance contained in the first amendment and have rendered opinions that go beyond the intent of the Framers of the Constitution. When we say go beyond the intent of the Framers, that is really not quite strong enough. The Constitution starts off saying: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. We, the people, ordain and establish this Constitution--the one that we have, not one somebody would like it to be, not one that they wish it would be, but the one that we ordained, passed, the one that was ratified by the people of the United States. Over the years, we have amended that Constitution, as we have chosen to do so, from time to time. That is the way it should be amended. What the Constitution does not give is the power to judges to amend the Constitution. Some judges say: We will just redefine the Constitution. We are just matching it up with modern, enlightened standards. They may have meant that back then, but we want to reinterpret it today in the light of the standards and values that we have. And whose standards and values are they? It is the standards and values of the judge. I was very troubled about this recent ruling, the way it occurred, involving the death penalty law with regard to retarded individuals. The Court seemed to say that they had divined, somehow, that the American people had evolved in their thinking and, therefore, the laws their legislatures had passed were not valid anymore; that they could not execute people who were retarded. However you feel about that, that is a dangerous philosophy, but it is a philosophy afoot in America today. It is a philosophy, I think, that is dangerous to liberty. If you care about the Constitution, really respect the Constitution, as Professor Van Alstyne, of Duke University, one time said: If you respect the document, you will enforce it, the good and bad parts. You will enforce the parts you do not agree with, if you love, respect, and revere the Constitution. The way to erode the power of the Constitution to protect our liberties is to start playing around with the meaning of words, just redefining those words, and they come to mean whatever a judge says they do. That is a particularly pernicious thing because, you see, judges are not accountable. Federal judges are not accountable to the public. They are given a lifetime appointment. The one thing we have is a moment in time to review their record, to make sure they are committed to follow the Constitution. We vote on them in the Senate, they are confirmed or not, and they go on to serve, and then they are there forever. I think from a point of view of a democracy, our judges must show self-restraint. That is what President Bush has talked about in his judicial nominees--finding judges who follow the law, for the layman. Not make up law, not expand law, not make it say what they think the American people want it to say today--even though they may be correct. They may not be correct. They do not have the power to do that. It is an antidemocratic act when an unelected, lifetime-appointed judge simply takes a political view and imposes that through the reinterpretation of words. I remember Hodding Carter, President Carter's aide, was on ``Meet The Press.'' He used to be on there regularly. One time he said: 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. I think that touched a nerve, really. I think that is too close to what I think is a problem in the legal system today. I don't expect the courts to carry out my political agenda. I want them just to enforce the law. I will be satisfied with that. As one professor testified with regard to the Bush nominees: If you appoint a nominee who says he is going to be faithful and in fact he is consistently faithful to the meaning of the words in the statutes and the Constitution, then what do we have to fear of that? How does that threaten us? What does threaten us is if a judge goes beyond that. I have been a big critic of the Ninth Circuit. I have spoken in this body more on this subject than any other Senator. I have been shocked by the rate of reversals they have had. Senator Brownback from Kansas had something to say about that. There was a Law Review article published recently that went into even more detail. The University of Oregon Law Review discussed this particularly troublesome trend. They said: Another interesting phenomenon is that the Supreme Court unanimously agrees---- That means the U.S. Supreme Court, across the political spectrum, unanimously agrees that the Ninth Circuit was wrong 17 times during the 1996-1997 term. This is a fairly remarkable record considering that the rest of the circuits combined logged in with only 20 unanimous votes, 7 of which were affirmative. We have liberals and conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, and 13 of these cases were unanimous reversals of the Ninth Circuit. This article goes on to say that only 13 unanimous reversals were found throughout the rest of the United States but 17 in the Ninth Circuit. So that is the problem for us. We need to be concerned about it. I opposed two judges I sincerely believed were good people but who clearly--I had concluded clearly--had activist tendencies. And I was particularly concerned when President Clinton pushed those nominees because they were going to this circuit that has been out of step. We have to understand why we need to confirm judges who will consistently follow the law, whether they like it or not. That is what President Bush campaigned on; that is what he promised to do. That is what he has been submitting--men and women of the highest possible integrity, and high legal ability. These men and women are clear in their record as being people who just follow the law, whether they like it or not. That is what we expect out of a judge. It is important or it undermines democracy otherwise. I wanted to mention that. I also want to discuss just briefly the trouble we are having throughout the court system of America. The U.S. Supreme Court is not blameless in this issue. Somehow they have got it in their heads that virtually any expression of religious faith in a public activity violates the Constitution. We have problems with valedictorians making speeches out of their own hearts. They cannot say certain things because we have gotten to that point, as I mentioned earlier. That was criticized by Judge Griffin Bell, former Attorney of the United States under President Carter. Judge Bell said we ought to have a litmus test. Nobody ought to serve on the Court who doesn't believe in prayer at football games. How did we get to this point? How did we get to the point that a voluntary prayer--you don't have to bow your head. There is no requirement that anybody has to do anything before football games. We take a minute, and somebody says a little prayer that acknowledges something more important than who is the toughest football player on the field. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I don't believe that violates anybody's right. Just as I believe I should respect somebody who has a different faith than mine, just as I am required to respect the person who believes in no God whatsoever, and to have a decent respect for the opinions of others who would say to me: If we want to have a little prayer and everybody wants to have a little prayer, it is not going to bother me. I don't believe in God anyway. Let them have it. It is a part of our culture. It is not legitimate, in my view, for the Supreme Court or its subsidiary courts to come in and declare that it is in violation of the Constitution. After all, what does the Constitution say? The first amendment is the only reference to religion. It says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof. That is what the Constitution says. There is nothing in the Constitution about a law of separation between church and state. Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Baptist Association not long before he died in which he expressed an opinion that there ought to be a wall of separation. What he meant by that, who knows? But judges have seized on that and rendered these opinions, many of them citing that quote as if it is somehow part of the Constitution. But the American people didn't ratify that. They ratified the Constitution. That is the law of the land. What he wrote in a letter before he died is of no benefit in interpreting the Constitution--or a minuscule benefit, if any. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wasn't even at the Constitutional Convention when they were drafting the Constitution. He was off in France. We are off base here. Somehow, under the idea that we have raised the establishment clause higher than all reason dictates that it be raised, we are saying anything that expresses religious faith publicly is somehow an establishment of a religion. But everybody who knows the history of the deal understands that Virginia had an established church, and England had the established Church of England--the Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church. Other countries had the Catholic Church as the established church. We didn't establish a church. No church was going to be given preferential treatment over another one. That is what the Constitution was all about. That cannot be denied, in my view. Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of a religion. That is what the Founding Fathers wanted to prohibit. They didn't want to prohibit nor want to go back and strike the language from the Declaration of Independence, for Heaven's sake. For 150 years, we never had a problem with this. We rolled on--no problem. We have chaplains. We have thanksgiving days. We have all kinds of things occurring that reflect an acknowledgment in general terms of religious beliefs, and of a higher being. The Supreme Court said some things over the years. In recent years-- during the last 50 or 70 years--they have been inconsistent about it. I think that has given some circuits, like the Ninth Circuit, and some judges the opportunity to perhaps run with some liberty to go further than I hope the Supreme Court wants them to go. But the Supreme Court has some fault here. We have had a long period of these kinds of opinions that go beyond reason, in my view. For example, in Lynch v. Donnelly, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 recognized ``an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789.'' And it adds, ``Our history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance in the deliberation and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders.'' We just have to be relaxed here, and be natural in our understanding of what we mean by not establishing a religion. We also do not need to forget the free exercise clause of the first amendment that we shall not be denied the free exercise of our religion. That is of equal value with nonestablishment of religion. Other things are important. Engraved on the top of the Washington Monument are the words ``Praise be to God.'' I suppose the judges out there that rendered the opinion are going to have to take a chisel up there and go after it. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: At that tomb are these words engraved: ``Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.'' Is somebody going to take the chisel to that? Let me mention this final quote. It shows how, in the middle of this past century, we were not so far out of sync about what the first amendment really means. Justice William O. Douglas, whom many would recognize as perhaps the most liberal member ever to serve on the Court--certainly one of the most, maybe, radical members of the Court; his background was quite unusual, but he was a brilliant man--he wrote many interesting opinions. This one, writing for the majority on the Court, in 1952, in Zorach v. Clauson, he stated this: The First Amendment . . . does not say that in every and all respects there should be a separation of Church and State. . . . Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other--hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. . . . Prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals to the Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the proclamations making Thanksgiving Day a holiday; ``so help me God'' in our courtroom oaths--these and all other references to the Almighty that run through our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies would be flouting the First Amendment. If that were the way we were going to interpret it. He is exactly correct. So my concern is that we would be in error if we simply stood up and said that the Ninth Circuit made a mistake and somehow it is all going to get corrected. There are Members of this body who have advocated aggressively for these kinds of opinions. There are Members of this body who have fought hard to confirm the kind of judges who render these rulings. In fact, this ruling, I assume, is going to be compatible with the views, probably, of a majority of law professors in America today-- maybe not, hopefully not--but a whole lot of them because that is what a lot of the people think. We have had a radicalized version of the establishment clause that is being taught, that has been adopted, and in significant part adopted by the Supreme Court. So they have a problem now, as I see it. They are going to have to deal with this. They say a schoolchild cannot say a prayer, cannot express religious faith through a prayer that nobody has to listen to, but we can chisel on a wall of the Senate: ``In God we trust.'' They are saying we can have paid chaplains in this Senate and in the Armed Forces by the taxpayers of the United States, but nonmandatory, free expressions of faith all over the country they strike down in many different ways. So I think they have a problem. I hope this Supreme Court will reevaluate what they have done. I hope they will go back to the 1940s and 1950s, and all the century and a half of the founding of this country, and follow that history of jurisprudence. If they do so, they can get us out of this thicket. What we simply need to do is to respect other people's religion. If a group of kids want to have a little prayer, so be it. Let's let them have it. It does not hurt me. I do not think it hurts anybody else. That is the way I was raised: to respect people's faith, and not to denigrate someone else's faith when they do not agree with you. I hope that as we go through this whole debate, this resolution will have some impact. I doubt it will have much. But I hope in the course of responding to this opinion, which is, unfortunately, too consistent with some of the rulings of courts in America, that we will once again reattach ourselves to the great historic principles of America that venerate respect and further and nourish religious faith, not attempt to eliminate it from public life, but, at the same time, not allow anybody to impose their will on somebody else. I think we can reach that balance. I think we can show courtesy to one another. I hope we will be able to do so. If we do, America will be better off for it. It is time for us to get to the bottom of it, confront the issues honestly, and head on, and maybe we can make some improvements.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will give a few remarks. If anyone needs the floor, I will be glad to yield. I think it is important for us to recognize, as we go forward with this new national missile defense system, that we are moving into a new era. We had the ABM Treaty in 1972 that was the cornerstone of a mutual assured destruction strategy between the United States and the Soviet Union. We both agreed we would not launch missiles against one another and we would not, under the treaty, explicitly build an antimissile defense system. Not one of us would, leaving each other vulnerable to one another. The treaty only has six or seven pages. It is in the appendix of this book that I have in the Chamber. The reason I want to share it is because a lot of people wondered why, 6 months ago, President Bush chose to get out of the treaty. And that took effect just a few days ago when the 6 months ran from the notice he gave in December. This treaty really kept us from defending ourselves. In the first article it says: Each Party undertakes not to deploy ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its country and not to provide a base for such a defense, and not to deploy ABM systems for defense of an individual region. . . . We basically said we could not deploy one. It says that again in several places here. Article V says--and this was the conflict we were having, the problems we were having: Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space- based, or mobile land-based. Much of our new scientific development in recent years indicates that sea-based, air-based, space-based has the capacity to help us protect our homeland from missile attack. Earlier this afternoon I read some quotes from the vice admiral in charge of the Defense Intelligence Agency in which he said China was developing a mobile-based IBM system. China was not party to the treaty; neither was Korea, neither was Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. They were not a party to the treaty. All those countries are striving to develop a missile system. China, according to the intelligence report, is, in fact, developing a mobile land-based system. According to this treaty we had with the Soviet Union--a country that no longer exists--that treaty prohibited us from doing that or having a sea-based or an air-based system. This was getting really out of control. In other words, we had a treaty in 1972 that made sense, when we had no other nations, virtually, except the Soviet Union with a ballistic missile system. We are moving into an age where 16 countries have a missile system. Some of those are virulent rogue nations that desire us harm. We had this treaty that kept us from preparing a defense to that. Some people forgot, also, that under the treaty there were some exceptions. We chose one route and the Soviet Union chose another one, which was to build a national missile defense around Moscow. They, in fact, deployed a missile defense system, under their option, around Moscow. But we were prohibited from doing that. President Bush took a lot of grief. You remember it. They said he was acting unilaterally. And the Socialist left in Europe went up in arms that the United States should not get out of this treaty. Some in Russia said it was a mistake, and they objected. But the truth is, I think they were just negotiating with us for a good deal. President Bush was steadfast. He stayed the course. The National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was consistent; she never backed off. They made clear that at this point in history the mutual assured destruction that existed between us and the Soviet Union was out of date. We now hope to have in Russia a friend, not an enemy. It was an entirely different nation. What our threat was--and we learned on September 11 just how real this was--was from rogue nations. And we ought to be able to begin to prepare as to how to defend ourselves from that. In 1999, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld chaired a commission to study the threat posed to the United States from ballistic missile attack. That was a bipartisan commission. And they studied the issue intensely. The commission unanimously voted that the United States was facing a threat from missile attack by other nations. They unanimously agreed that the threat was coming much quicker than had been predicted earlier, and that by the year 2005 we could be subject to missile attack from other nations. So that is why the Nation decided, in 1999, to go forward. It was a dramatic vote in this Senate when we voted 97 to 3, with Senator Thad Cochran, who spoke earlier this afternoon, being the prime proponent of the legislation. But in addition to Senator Cochran, one of his prime cosponsors was Senator Lieberman, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate last year, and one of the leading senior members of the Armed Services Committee. They proposed the language that, in 1999, stated we would deploy a national missile defense system as soon as technologically feasible. We made that decision. We funded it. President Clinton proposed a $5.3 billion budget for national missile defense to carry out that objective. President Bush, during the campaign, said he believed we ought to be moving more aggressively, that the threat was more real than some thought. He wanted to step up the pace, and he did do that. He proposed an increase when he became President of about $2.5 billion over the $5.3 billion, making it a $7.7 billion national missile defense budget. That was passed by this body. We had a dispute in committee, and on a party-line vote the increase was not backed in the committee. But when we got to the floor, the full amount was affirmed on voting. So this year the President asked for a little bit less. He asked for a $7.6 billion or so expenditure for national missile defense. He did not ask for an increase over last year but actually asked for a small reduction as compared to last year's expenditure. But, again, that was one issue that we disputed in the Armed Services Committee, and on a straight--unfortunately, I thought--party-line vote, $800 million was taken out of the national missile defense fund. It was taken out in a way that General Kadish, who has managed this program with integrity and skill and determination, said would damage the program significantly. I don't believe we ought to allow that to stand. I believe the full Senate needs to review it and replace that money. Let's do what the President asked. Let's give him the money he requested. Let's keep this plan to build a national missile defense that will include sea-based, mobile land-based, multiple land-based, and space-based, if appropriate, capabilities that will allow us to hit the incoming missiles in their launch phase, midphase, and in the terminal phase, all of which we have the capability to do. The tests that have been running have been successful. We have been able to have head-to-head collision, bullet-hitting-bullet, high-over- the-ocean, smashing and destroying missiles. We are going to continue to test it under the most rigorous conditions. I believe this process we are undergoing will be successful, and we will prove that we have the capability to destroy incoming missiles even with decoys, even under the most hostile conditions. That is what we ought to do. The total price of it, the $7.6 billion the President asked, out of a $386 billion defense budget that we are putting up this year, is reasonable and appropriate. It represents not a step to cold war but a step to a new, positive relationship, away from mutually assured destruction, away from the hostility we had with the Soviet Union for so long, to a new open day in which we are actively engaged in the world, but a day in which we don't have rogue nations being able to intimidate us, being able to intimidate the President, being able to threaten our country with attack that would have to cause him to pause. It would have to affect our defense policy, if that were to be the case. I believe this will move us away from it, give us freedom to act in our just national interest. I urge the Senate to move forward with approval of our President's budget and the Warner amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have in many ways a good Defense authorization bill. I am sorry we are debating again this year over national missile defense. Last year, the same debate occurred. It was about the only major disagreement we had over the Defense authorization bill, but it is a very important issue. It is important to the people of the United States. It is important to the President and the Secretary of Defense who are charged with defending our homeland against attack. We have to debate it again this year. That is healthy. That is what this body is all about. In 1999, it is important to recall, the Senate voted 97 to 3 to ``deploy as soon as technologically feasible a national missile defense system.'' That represented the overwhelming consensus of opinion in this body. President Clinton signed that bill. President Clinton stated that he favored the deployment of a national missile defense system. During the 2000 campaign, Vice President Gore said he was for it. President Bush made quite clear in his campaign for the Presidency that he considered the deployment of a national missile defense system a high priority for America. We should not fail to note that Vice President Gore's candidate for Vice President, Senator Joe Lieberman, was a cosponsor with Senator Cochran of the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 and a supporter of national missile defense. He quite clearly stated that position during the campaign for the Presidency. It is a bipartisan issue. There is no doubt about it. President Bush had it somewhat higher on his priority than President Clinton, but everybody was on board about the issue in general. When President Bush became President, he proposed last year for the 2002 budget a $7.8 billion national missile defense budget. President Clinton had proposed a $5.3 billion national defense budget, so he was a little over $2 billion above what President Clinton proposed. We voted on it in committee. On a party-line vote, the Democratic majority struck that increase--or a significant portion of it--from the bill. We took it to the floor last year and, after full debate, that money was restored. Again this year the President asked for missile defense funds. It is not correct, however, to say he asked for an increase. He actually asked for less this year for national missile defense. He asked for, I believe, $7.6 billion this year as opposed to $7.8 billion last year, all of which was necessary to complete the research and development and testing that is necessary to bring this system online. Let me note, people say that is billions and billions of dollars. It is a lot of money, no doubt about it; but we have a $376.2 billion defense budget. The $7.6 billion needed to deploy and bring online a national missile defense system to protect us from missile attack is not too much, in my opinion, and is a rather small part of the overall defense budget. So, again, we had in committee a 13 to 12 party-line vote on a motion that cut the President's request by over $814.3 million this year. And the way those cuts were made--as Senator Cochran and others have noted, those cuts took parts of programs and undermined the brain trust or the capabilities of many of the systems--some of the testing capabilities that the people who have been a critic of the system say we ought to do. It undermined our ability to do that. It is an unwise act, in my view. We need a continual, steady funding source that the Defense Department can count on so that they can develop, over a period of years, an effective national missile defense system. We would be very unwise if every year we cut a little bit and try to fight to put that back and go up and down in the budget. That costs more money in the long run and is not healthy. It was one of the President's top priorities when he took office. It is a top priority, I believe, of all Americans. I believe we should go forward with it. Well, people say: Why do we need this budget? Why do we need a national missile defense? There are a lot of threats to America, but we don't believe we are threatened by intercontinental ballistic missiles--or words to that effect. Several years ago, when President Clinton was President, he appointed a bipartisan commission, or one was selected and put together. The chairman turned out to be the now Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. That commission, after studying the intelligence situation, the threats facing America--Republicans and Democrats of both parties-- unanimously agreed that we were facing an increased threat; that we would, indeed, be facing a ballistic missile threat to this country sooner than had been projected; and that we needed to prepare ourselves. So I would like people to know how these things occur. We don't just, out of the blue, come up with ideas that we need to have a national missile defense. We deal with some of the best experts. We listen to their testimony in the Senate Armed Services Committee and, based on that testimony under oath, recognizing that what witnesses say has great import, they help us decide how to spend our resources. Admiral Wilson, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told us this recently, on March 19 of this year, about Iran: Iran continues ``the development and acquisition of longer range missiles and weapons of mass destruction to deter the United States and to intimidate Iran's neighbors.'' He added about Iran, ``It is buying and developing longer range missiles.'' He notes that Iran already has chemical weapons and is ``pursuing biological and nuclear capabilities,'' both of which can be placed inside an intercontinental ballistic missile. He concludes on Iran that Iran will ``likely acquire a full range of weapons of mass destruction capability, field substantial numbers of ballistic and cruise missiles, including perhaps an ICBM, that will be capable of hitting the United States.'' Admiral Wilson on Iraq: ``Baghdad continues to work on short-range-- 150 kilometer--missiles and can use this expertise for future long- range missile development.'' He adds, ``Iraq may also have begun to reconstitute chemical and biological weapons programs,'' as we have heard so much concern expressed about, all of which can be delivered by missile. Wilson concludes that ``it is possible that Iraq can develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015.'' Admiral Wilson on North Korea: ``Korea continues to place heavy emphasis on the improvement of its military capability and North Korea continues its robust efforts to develop more capable ballistic missiles.'' We know North Korea has been doing that for some time and testing those missiles. Admiral Wilson said this specifically as to North Korea: It is ``developing an ICBM capability with its Taepo Dong 2 missile, judged capable of delivering a several hundred kilogram payload to Alaska and Hawaii, and a lighter payload to the western half of the United States.'' They have that capability in North Korea now. The President of the United States has to deal with these issues. He has to consider what might happen as he deals with these countries. Admiral Wilson, further on North Korea, added this: ``It probably has the capability to field''--that means put into place right now--``an ICBM within the next couple of years.'' That is a frightening thought. ``North Korea continues,'' he added, ``to proliferate''--that is to sell or distribute--``weapons of mass destruction, and especially weapons technology.'' CIA Director George Tenet, in March of this year before the Armed Services Committee, said this about the Chinese military buildup: Earlier this month, Beijing announced a 17.6 increase in defense spending, replicating last year's increase of 17.7 percent. If this trend continues, China could double its announced defense spending between 2000 and 2005. Tenet added further on China: China continues to make progress toward fielding its first generation of road-mobile strategic missiles, the DF-31, a longer range version, capable of reaching targets in the United States, which will become operational later this decade. In the CIA's unclassified report of January 10 of this year, entitled ``Foreign Missile Development,'' they wrote this: China has about 20 liquid propellant missiles, silo based, that could reach targets in the United States. The report also said China continues ``a long-running modernizational program and expects within 15 years to have 75 to 100 ICBM's deployed primarily against the United States.'' Admiral Wilson, testifying about the China situation, noted: One of Beijing's top military priorities is to strengthen and modernize its small daily strategic nuclear deterrent force. He continues: The number, reliability, survivability, and accuracy of Chinese strategic missiles, capable of hitting the United States, will increase during the next 10 years. There are about 15 to 16 countries now that have these kinds of missiles. I shared those from some recent testimonies we have had before our committee. This is not a myth. We are not talking about an abstract idea. We are talking about a different world. In the previous world, the Soviet Union had missiles, we had missiles, and we entered into a treaty to bar the deployment of a national missile defense system. We agreed to that, and it worked for some time. Unfortunately--or fortunately in some ways--the country we had a treaty with, the Soviet Union, no longer exists, but Russia exists. The treaty was with the Soviet Union. During that same period of time, all these other countries were developing the capabilities to threaten us. So we now had a treaty with a country that used to be our enemy, and it no longer is, that was barring us from deploying and producing a defensive system for our country. That did not make sense, and the President had the gumption, the courage, and the wisdom to say we did not need to be in this treaty any longer, that it did not serve our interests. He worked with the Russians, and we had Members of this body about to have a conniption fit that if we violated or took steps to get out of this treaty, as the treaty gave us the right to do, somehow this would cause another cold war, an arms race with Russia, and do all kinds of damage to our relationship. President Bush worked on this, and the Russians knew this was not critical to their defense. We knew it was not critical to the Russian defense. What was important about it was it was complicating our ability to develop a missile system that made sense. Under that treaty, we were trying to build a system that could have only one location for the missiles. It has to cover the entire United States from that one system. The treaty explicitly prohibited mobile systems such as ship- based; it kept us from developing a system that would take out missiles in the launch phase; it would have kept us from doing space-based defense systems, all of which were prohibited by the treaty. President Bush was serious about national missile defense, and he took the steps to eliminate that. Indeed, Phil Coyle, who has been a big critic of the national missile defense system, in a recent quote in the newspaper said, with grudging admiration--I think he said, well, they are serious about it. And that is correct. This President is serious about producing a layered defense system for America. We are doing it for the $7.6 billion in this year's budget. If we do this over a period of years, we are going to be able to successfully implement a system that can protect us from limited missile attack. It cannot protect us from the kind of attack the Russians could have launched, but it can protect us against limited attack, accidental attack, or rogue nation attack. We have that capability, and we should do it. We do not need President Bush sitting down eyeball to eyeball with Saddam Hussein, knowing Saddam Hussein can push a button and a nuclear weapon or a chemical or biological weapon that he has can hit New York City or some other American city. We do not need him in that position. He does not need to be there, and we can avoid that. Great nations do not allow themselves to be in a situation where the ability to act in their national interest will be compromised by these kinds of threats by nations that have not shown themselves to have a commitment to civilized behavior. That is simply where we are. So I believe this country needs to deploy this national missile defense system. I am sorry there are some who do not agree, and they have been consistent in opposing it in every way possible. I have to respect that, but we voted 97 to 3 to deploy it. Both Presidential candidates said they wanted it. We funded it last year at $7.8 billion, after a full floor debate, and we did not do it thinking that was going to be the only year we funded national missile defense. When we voted last year to fund national missile defense, we contemplated and considered that we would be funding it on a steady basis to complete a program as the President envisioned. We have to start now. They say these missiles are not able to reach us today. Well, it takes a number of years to develop, get the bugs out, and study this system so we have the best system. The President has been tough about this. He cancelled the Navy theater-wide program that many people believed in, but it was behind schedule, over budget, and not performing, so he cancelled it. He said that is not getting us to where we need to go. He has shown he is willing to make tough calls, but the ultimate goal is to reach a situation in which we can deploy a system by the time our enemies have the capability of reaching us. This Senate is at its best when we talk about important issues. I believe in many ways this one has been settled. The American people voted for two candidates who favored it in the last election. The President has pushed it forward. We funded it last year at the President's request; we should not come in now to take a big whack out of it and target programs that really are pretty key. These cuts have the unfortunate impact of undermining some of the work that would be done. For example, it eliminates 10 THAAD missiles. Those are the theater missiles. When we have troops out on the battlefield in the theater of operations, if Saddam Hussein has a missile that will go 150 kilometers, then he can hit them if he cannot hit the United States. So we cannot deploy our people and leave them vulnerable to being annihilated by an enemy attack if we have the capability to defend it, and we do. The THAAD is going to be a highly successful program, but this bill, as it was voted out of committee over my objection, would eliminate 10 THAAD missiles that would be used for future testing and it would put the success of the program in jeopardy by not allowing it to fly through failures. In other words, these programs have to be tested, robust tested. Some of the critics are probably correct in saying we did not have enough testing in the system. The President's budget will enhance testing. The bill, as proposed on the floor today, delays or eliminates planning for promising boost phase programs. In other words, one of the best ways to knock down an incoming missile is when it is coming off the ground in the foreign country. So if it falls back, it falls back on their country. If it is missed, there still may be an ABM system in the United States that can knock it down later. If those systems could be knocked down through absolute communications capabilities in the region, sea-based capabilities, that would be ideal. All of that was prohibited in the treaty. That is one of the reasons the President got rid of it. This bill, as it is today, would eliminate planning for promising boost phase programs. It eliminates sea- and space-based kinetic kill experiments in the field. It imposes serious risk to the airborne laser program by eliminating funding for a second aircraft testing program. It will not allow the airborne laser program to fly through failure, to figure out what will really work and make it successful. It imposes numerous tests and evaluation restrictions and duplicative oversight requirements on the Missile Defense Agency. We have been very fortunate that General Kadish is head of this program. He is a man of ability, integrity, and steadfastness. He has nurtured it through good and ill. He has seen it hit successfully time and again in recent months, and he is leading it on through quite a successful program. It has been well managed. He is very concerned about these cuts. It will complicate his strategic vision of how to produce and deploy this system as we have told him we want him to do. It is important to know that we have a man in charge who is capable and knows how to get the job done, and he is very troubled that we are cutting back in this fashion. In sum, I note these cuts will expose the United States to unnecessary risks if we enact them. I do not believe they will be enacted. I believe we will vote to restore the cuts. I know the bill passed in the House of Representatives has this funding in it, and they will insist on it. I am not sure the President will accept the bill that has these large cuts in our national missile defense. It is time to move ahead. I believe we can deploy a system that is layered in nature, that will have a shot at knocking down an attacking missile in a boost phase, that can hit in midcourse and defend again with a layer system on the land of the United States. Then we will not be in the bizarre situation of several years ago when we were trying to maneuver our national missile defense system to fit the ABM Treaty, to allow just one site to produce, that would limit testing and development in a lot of different areas. We are on the right track. Let's stay the course. Let's not back up now. Let's not manipulate this program and endanger it. This is a small part, $800 million out of a $386 billion budget. Let's not gimmick around with it. Let's get on with it. Let's stay committed. We will save money in the long run and have a system that will protect the people of the United States from rogue attack, from nations that are desperately attempting to have an ICBM system such as Korea and Iraq. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I see my friend in the Chamber, Senator Dorgan. I will just finish up, if I can, and say that we are making progress. We will have a debate on national missile defense. If we can get the money back for that, I believe we will have a defense budget of which we can all be proud. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we have had a good process in the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member. Senator Levin is a marvelous chairman, and leads in a very skilled and wise way. Our ranking member, Senator John Warner, former Secretary of the Navy and a patriot, in many ways lends his wisdom to the debate. We have come out, except I suppose on national missile defense, with a bill with which we feel comfortable. I think a large amount of the credit goes to President Bush for stepping forward and providing leadership in calling for a strong budget. I thought I would just share a few remarks about my view of where we are, what we are spending, what we have been spending in the past, and where we need to go in the future. Many people may not know that 10 years ago, under the last budget of former President Bush, the appropriated amount for defense was $327 billion. We started, since that time, a continuous downgrade movement in spending for the defense of this country, which has really put us in a bad position. Several years ago, one of our key witnesses said we are facing a bow wave of unmet needs. We know that since the late 1980s personnel has dropped 40 percent in our services. They are better trained and better equipped than before. They are doing a terrific job, but we are down about 40 percent from the height of our personnel at that time. So what is it that has really happened? We have had inflation. In many ways, we have had increased demands on us around the world. We have a demand that we have all agreed to in this body of which I think everybody is on board; and that is, we need to transform our defense. We need to reach our objective force. We have set an objective as to what we want our military to look like and be. We want it lighter. We want it more mobile. We want it more lethal, more scientific, and technologically based. That has been our goal, and we have been moving in that direction, but it costs money. But despite those demands, we have not done very well, until recent years, frankly, in our spending. In 1993, our defense budget was $327 billion. That is what we appropriated, $327 billion. In 1994, it dropped significantly in one year to $304 billion. In 1995, it dropped again to $299 billion, falling below $300 billion. In 1996, it dropped again to $295 billion. In 1997, it dropped again to $289 billion. In 1998, it hit the bottom, $287 billion. During this time, we had inflation, we had other demands, and we had salary increases for our people in uniform, but the defense amount was going down steadily. In 1999, we had the first increase in the defense budget from $287 billion in 1998 to $292 billion in 1999--not enough, really, to meet the cost of inflation, but in real dollars, actual dollars, it was the first increase in many years. In 2000, we had another minor increase to $296 billion. In 2001, we got over $300 billion again, for the first time in many years, and appropriated $309 billion. That is not a very good record. It emphasizes how we began to lose sight and take for granted the forces that defend us around the world. It represented a dramatic reduction in real dollars, adjusted for inflation, which is even larger than the amount that appears on paper because, as you know, the dollars were becoming always a little bit less valuable each year. So when President Bush campaigned on strengthening the military, he took action to do that. So in 2002, we hit, under his leadership and his direction--and I think he deserves great credit for this--we raised the budget to $329 billion, exceeding, for the first time in many years, the 1993 budget of $327 billion. Then, in the course of that, we have had the war effort that we have been carrying on now against terrorism, and there has been a supplemental defense budget of around $40 billion for defense this past year to help us meet those crisis needs. In this year's budget, President Bush has proposed--and we are pretty much on track to meet his request--$376 billion for defense. I think that is a step in the right direction. I am saying these things because a lot of people think we cannot afford anything, that defense is taking up all the money in the budget. But as a percentage of the total gross domestic product of America, what America produces--all the goods and services we produce--our budget today, for the year 2003, is much less than the percentage of the gross domestic product we had in 1993 when we had an only slightly smaller defense budget in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, as well as in terms of the actual drain on the economy. So what we need to do is ask ourselves where we are going. This budget does not call for an increase in personnel. It calls for, again, some pay increases, a cost for more training, bonuses for people in high-specialty areas whom we have to have in a military which operates with as much technological sophistication as we operate in today. That does not produce anything. We have risen to the challenge and have met the needs of our veterans for health care coverage for life, which they were promised and were not receiving. We have done that. We will do some other things in that regard. Military housing has fallen behind in its needs. Military health care has not been what it has needed to be. We have fallen off there. So all of these things, I guess I am saying, are unmet needs that we have had to fund out of the increases that we have had. And it has left us not as good as we would like to be in recapitalizing our military. It is not as good as where we would need to be to step forward to reach that objective we have for a future combat system that allows us to be agile, mobile, and hostile, as Eddie Robinson said, to make our military able to project its power wherever the legitimate interests of the United States are threatened around the globe. So I think we do have some good increases. We are going to have increases for smart munitions, the kind of precision-guided munitions that proved exceedingly valuable in Afghanistan. Sixty, almost 70 percent of the munitions we expended in Afghanistan were precision- guided munitions. We can drop a 2,000-pound JDAM from an airplane, and it can hit-- precision guided with global positioning systems--within 10 meters of a target. That is a precision weapon of extraordinary capability. We need to have plenty of those. We have an increase in what we have expended for that. Frankly, I am not sure we have quite enough yet there. We dog gone sure don't want to be in a war and not be able to call down sufficient numbers of those kinds of weapons that are so effective today. So we have done that. We made a tough call--the Defense Secretary did--on the Crusader artillery piece. It is an $11 billion item. It was not considered part of the objective force but an interim weapon system before we could get that. It was going to drain us of $11 billion. For example, it would not have been deployed by the Army in Korea. It would have been kept in this country in the counterattack force. The Secretary of Defense and the President concluded we could not afford that new weapon and that we need to leap forward to a new type of artillery piece that had precision-guided capability. We have those, really, right now. If we work and develop them, we could bring those in, and they would be part of that new combat system we are looking forward to having. So the President and Secretary Rumsfeld had to make that tough call. A lot of people wanted that system. They had invested a lot of years in it and developing it. They testified in favor of it, and they voted in favor of it. But I think the President did the right thing. I supported him on that. It will free up $11 billion for increased investment in smarter munitions that will help us better in the future. So the other big conflict I guess we have had--and I believe it is very significant, and I hope the American people will be engaged on it--is the question of national missile defense. We know, from unclassified testimony by professionals from the Director of the CIA, George Tenet, and from the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who studies these things exceedingly closely, that Korea will have an intercontinental ballistic missile from which they can deliver weapons of mass destruction to Alaska and Hawaii and the United States proper very soon.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to share a few remarks about the Defense bill that we will be back on in a few minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President. I rise today along with my colleague, Senator Hutchinson, to introduce legislation to reauthorize the 1996 welfare reform law. Based on the President's welfare improvement initiatives, including promoting independence through work, State innovation and promoting health marriage and family foundation, this bill builds upon the success of the 1996 welfare reforms. Since Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, welfare rolls have fallen dramatically. Poverty has declined across all categories. Child hunger has declined. More single mothers are employed and their income is still increasing. Out-of-wedlock births have begun to level off. And more children are growing up in married households. By tying welfare to work, the 1996 reforms succeeded in making people self-sufficient and independent. Yet there is still more that needs to be done. Our bill will continue to promote independence through work by gradually increasing the work participation standards and allowing workers to use up to 16 hours a week for activities to prepare them for the workforce including education and training, substance abuse treatment, and job readiness assistance. These 16 hours will enable welfare recipients to not only find employment, but to open up opportunities to become independent and self-sufficient. States need the resources and the flexibility that will allow them to continue to help families leave welfare for work. This legislation will implement the President's ``state flexibility waivers'' which allow states to integrate anti-poverty programs from different federal departments. Senator Hutchinson and I, as members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will continue to work with our colleagues to develop meaningful and comprehensive child care legislation to complement the welfare reform bill. I believe that we must work hard to create child care programs that focus on school readiness and an end to the welfare cycle. Part of this legislation includes $200 million in grants to states for marriage promotion. One of President Bush's top priorities this year has been to remove the financial penalties against marriage within the welfare system and to provide services and supports to couples who choose marriage for themselves. Our bill will assist them in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to form and sustain healthy, loving and protective marriages. Study after study has shown the unquestionable benefits marriage has on our society. I look forward to working with my colleagues to passing meaningful welfare reform legislation that continues to improve upon the welfare reforms of 1996 and gives states the resources and flexibility they need to help families become stronger and more self-sufficient. I thank my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Hutchinson for his work and dedication to welfare reform, and I thank President Bush for his vision and his dedication to getting this done.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Levin and Senator Warner, Senator Inhofe, Senator Nickles, and Senator Dayton, who just spoke, for the work they have done to try to reach an agreement on the Crusader system that we can all live with and is the right thing to do. I believe we have made steps in that direction. I am proud to support this amendment. Let me just say a couple things about it. I am a strong believer in doing what we need to do to defend our soldiers and to defend our interests around the world. I did conclude that the administration was correct that the $11 billion projected on the Crusader was not the wisest investment of that $11 billion. It is not considered to be a part of our Future Combat System that we look to establish. It is an interim weapon system. It would drain $11 billion that could help us create the Future Combat System that we are all striving to achieve. You have to make tough decisions. That is what we pay the Secretary of Defense to do. It is not an easy call. A lot of people believed in this system and supported it for years and years. But we cannot expect them, just on a dime, to come in--generals and so forth, our Defense Department officials and contractors--and to now say: Oh, yes, we need to cancel it. That is why it is tough. But the Secretary of Defense understands these issues deeply and wrestled with them. They said they wished it could have been done smoother and maybe with more notice. Perhaps not quite as jerky in the process. Well, everybody knew, and had known for a long time, that the Department of Defense was examining the Crusader system very closely. Everybody knew that many believed it was not the wisest use of $11 billion. I am glad they made the call. It is a tough call, and I believe it is the right call. I note, for example, many have cited it as a good weapon that could be utilized in Korea where we do face a large number of tanks by the North Koreans, and that it might be utilized in that kind of combat. But I note that the Army states their intent is not to even deploy the Crusader to Korea. It would not be on the ground in Korea. It would be maintained in the United States as part of a Counterattack Corps. So it is not the kind of weapon we would be normally deploying in situations where you would expect we could have a pretty violent conflict that could occur. I think we are doing the right thing. I believe the administration deserves credit for that. The administration also had to deal with some tough choices about funding. We know we are not going to continue to see the kind of increases that President Bush has fought for in the last 2 years in the Defense budget as we go along. We know these are not going to be sustained. We had a $48 billion increase this year. A lot of that had to go for the pay, retirement, and health care benefits we promised our men and women in uniform and our retirees. But we do know that we have to spend some more money on capital, moving us to the Future Combat System, buying the new equipment that will transform us, continually, to maintain the greatest military force in the world. One of the things we have to be honest about is that by 2008, 2009 or 2010, we are going to be facing a train wreck in expenditures. We have the V-22 Osprey coming on line, the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22, other programs that have been in the works for many years, all of which are going to be hitting about that time period. If we are not going to be able to sustain all of those weapons systems, do we wait until 2006, 2005--after we have spent billions of dollars on them--to then decide we cannot complete them and that something else on line is better? I think not. The sooner we do it the better. Let me just mention that the budget submitted by the Defense Department to use the money that would not be spent for Crusader are investments in strengthening the Army's capability and, indeed, are the budget items that the Army requested if they did not have the Crusader. They include $57 million for a Netfires missile system that could be effective for our troops on the battlefield; $195.5 million on indirect fire for the objective force--our objective that we seek to establish-- $48.3 million for the Excalibur advanced system; $11.4 million for the tactical unmanned aerial vehicles--we need more unmanned aerial vehicles--$10.8 million for precision-guided mortar munitions--they would be precision guided instead of the indirect fire mortar weapons we have today. That can be done, and we can achieve that. They also include the guided multiple launch rockets that are precision guided; high-mobility artillery rocket systems; the Abrams tank engine, and other items that the Army requested. I thank the Chair, and I thank our leaders, Senator Levin and Senator Warner. I believe we are on the right track.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President. I rise today along with my colleague, Senator Hutchinson, to introduce legislation to reauthorize the 1996 welfare reform law. Based on the President's welfare improvement initiatives, including promoting independence through work, State innovation and promoting health marriage and family foundation, this bill builds upon the success of the 1996 welfare reforms. Since Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, welfare rolls have fallen dramatically. Poverty has declined across all categories. Child hunger has declined. More single mothers are employed and their income is still increasing. Out-of-wedlock births have begun to level off. And more children are growing up in married households. By tying welfare to work, the 1996 reforms succeeded in making people self-sufficient and independent. Yet there is still more that needs to be done. Our bill will continue to promote independence through work by gradually increasing the work participation standards and allowing workers to use up to 16 hours a week for activities to prepare them for the workforce including education and training, substance abuse treatment, and job readiness assistance. These 16 hours will enable welfare recipients to not only find employment, but to open up opportunities to become independent and self-sufficient. States need the resources and the flexibility that will allow them to continue to help families leave welfare for work. This legislation will implement the President's ``state flexibility waivers'' which allow states to integrate anti-poverty programs from different federal departments. Senator Hutchinson and I, as members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will continue to work with our colleagues to develop meaningful and comprehensive child care legislation to complement the welfare reform bill. I believe that we must work hard to create child care programs that focus on school readiness and an end to the welfare cycle. Part of this legislation includes $200 million in grants to states for marriage promotion. One of President Bush's top priorities this year has been to remove the financial penalties against marriage within the welfare system and to provide services and supports to couples who choose marriage for themselves. Our bill will assist them in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to form and sustain healthy, loving and protective marriages. Study after study has shown the unquestionable benefits marriage has on our society. I look forward to working with my colleagues to passing meaningful welfare reform legislation that continues to improve upon the welfare reforms of 1996 and gives states the resources and flexibility they need to help families become stronger and more self-sufficient. I thank my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Hutchinson for his work and dedication to welfare reform, and I thank President Bush for his vision and his dedication to getting this done.