Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. If that is appropriate, I will be honored to follow the Senator.

Mr. SESSIONS. That is fine. I have no objection.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the chairman. I am honored to serve with him.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I join with my colleagues in expressing my support for the Defense authorization bill. I salute Senator Warner and Senator Levin, the ranking member, for the work they have given in creating a bill that strengthens our Nation's defenses and allows us to be more efficient and innovative as we move forward into the future. I wish we could have done more, but irregardless, we will in the future. I must give Senator Warner credit. Under his leadership, for the last 2 years, we have produced a defense budget with real increases in defense spending. A defense spending increase that has outpaced the inflation rate. For 15 consecutive years, we had a net reduction in the defense budget. As a result, we have some real problems today, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff told us 2 weeks ago in a very important Armed Services Committee hearing. We need to focus on the It is also important for us, all of us who care about the men and women in uniform, to pause and remember the men and women of this Nation who risk their lives daily, including the five who were killed in a dastardly attack by terrorists in the Middle East today. Unfortunately, this is the kind of world we live in. I wish it weren't so. This is a $310 billion bill. In fact, it is $4 billion above what the President requested. It is above what the Joint Chiefs, who are appointed by the President, said they needed to maintain an adequate force, although they told us after the budget had been written they really needed a lot more over a sustained period of time. Two weeks ago, in the Armed Services Committee, which I am honored to be a member of, we had the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shelton, and the Chiefs for each of the service branches--Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. They were asked by Senator Warner: Tell us the truth, what is the situation in with the military? Each one of these men were appointees of this administration, but under oath they came forward and told the truth. That is, they testified that they have thankfully restored and maintained the readiness of two Army divisions that had fallen to the lowest readiness rating possible last fall. In other words, the Chiefs in the past were forced to take resources from other areas to maintain readiness. I believe Senator Roberts, who will speak in a minute, used the phrase, ``The point of the spear then is OK, but it is the shaft that is wrong.'' That is what they agreed to. At least three of the five used the phrase, ``We are mortgaging our future.'' What did they mean by that? They meant that this Nation has been robbing research and development, recapitalization, new equipment, and the kinds of things we need to maintain the greatest military in the world. But to maintain that, you have to continue to invest in those requirements. We are not doing that. The Chiefs stated it plain and simple, and I emplore anybody who doubts it to read the transcript of that hearing. They agreed with the phrase that one Senator used, quoting the Clinton Assistant Secretary of Defense, that the defense budget is in a death spiral. What he meant by that was that when you spend more and more money to try to maintain equipment that is worn out, you are pouring money down a bottomless pit. What we should have done, and what we have not done these past 8 years when we have had good economic times, is increase this defense budget. We could have recapitalized and replaced wornout equipment. But we haven't been doing that. As a result, we will face a future readiness crisis. The Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, testified earlier this year that this Nation has been living off Ronald Reagan's military buildup of the 1980s. He said we are going to be facing a crisis in the years to come. That is testimony by the Secretary of Defense and this administration has not listened to that warning. They are going to let this burden fall on the American people in the immediate future. The Secretary of Defense says it, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that, and the chairman of our committee who has been involved in these issues for so many years says that. It has been complicated, as they testified, with our excessive and unusually high number of deployments of our men and women around the world. This wears out equipment, it drains additional resources, and it tires our men and women in uniform. In addition, it separates them from their families for extraordinary periods of time. We have a real problem because we have a peace dividend. Oh, they say, President Bush cut the Defense Department when he was in there. Well, of course, he did. We had a legitimate peace dividend. The Berlin wall fell. We had a tremendous change as a result of the will of President Reagan and President Bush to maintain an unwavering stand against the Soviet Union. Consequently, we were able to save a lot of money. So, yes, he was cutting; yes, we wanted to reduce manpower and reduce any costs we could, and use those savings to strengthen this country. But he didn't pretend to have it go on forever. So that is where we are. I have to say that we have not yet faced up to the challenges of our future. I am reminded by the gulf war and our soldiers taking on the Iraqis. Our fighting men and women did an outstanding job. At that time, I heard the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, say we needed more preschool teachers and we needed more guidance counselors, and anything else you can think of that he would spend money on, but when we committed those men and women in the desert, what did they use? They used the finest equipment the world had ever seen. We were able to put missiles in the windows of buildings and our tanks were able to destroy the enemy's before they new it. Our forces were able to defeat the enemy and devastate them with minimum loss of life on our side. That is what we want to do. We do not want to get into a war in which this Nation is not able to carry out its just national interests and suffer a huge loss of life. We want to be able to carry out our just national interests effectively. We do not want to over extend ourselves and become engaged in conflicts all over the world. But we need to be ready to execute to defend our legitimate national interests. We can't do that if we don't spend some money on it. We are heading to a time where we can't live off the Reagan buildup anymore. We are going to be at a time where we will have to do something about it. We will be at a time when we need to improve our cruise missiles and our smart bombs and during the gulf war, we had superiority in the Middle East. We avoid wars by being strong. Senator Stevens, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, understood these issues and fought for them. When the conflict occurred, we prevailed at minimum loss of life to American citizens. I agree with Senator Warner. This bill does not need to be jeopardized by adding such measures as hate crimes legislation, that should have come out of Judiciary on a law enforcement bill, rather than on a Defense bill. This type of ploy only adds to the complication on these matters. I think we are making a solid step forward. It would have been better if the Commander in Chief had told us we needed more money and challenged us to find more. It is hard for Congress to find more money when the President says, as Commander in Chief, he doesn't need it. Nevertheless, we spent $4 billion more than he asked for, which is hard to do. But the core function of Government ultimately is to defend our national sovereignty. We have a leadership role in this world, whether we want to have it or not. We have the ability to lead this world into the greatest century in the history of mankind. We can avoid wars if we remain strong. If we have competent leadership, we can maintain peace. We need a steady, mature funding of defense so that we are always above and ahead of our competitors. We do not want to go into a war on a level playing field. If we do have to go to war, we must have the resources available to prevail at a minimum loss of life. All of this could create a more stable world order, and promote peace. Goodness knows, the events in the last few days are enough to make an impact and to see what happens in Belgrade, to see what happens in the Middle East, to see what happens now with an attack on our warship. Doesn't that tell us we live in a very dangerous world? The history of the world hasn't changed. There will always be struggles, fights, and wars, it seems. But if we are prepared, if we lead, and if we have a strong military that allows us to speak softly but carry a big stick, we can do great things. We can fulfill our destiny at this point in time; that is, to lead this world into a peaceful future. I will just say this: We need to maintain the ability to act unilaterally when we need to. This Nation cannot allow some multinational group to decide for us how to use the power that we have. Of course we want the support and friendship of every nation in the world, but we don't need to be in a position where we have to have NATO votes to tell us whether or not we can deploy our forces. We don't need to have the U.N. voting with a single veto in the security council stopping us from deploying either. Would that be wiser than the leadership within the United States? Not at this point in time. I believe we can help the world. We need to maintain our independence. We need to maintain a strong national defense. If I haven't used my time, I will yield it back and thank the chairman for giving me this opportunity. Once again, I thank Senator Warner and Senator Levin for their leadership and bringing a bill that I believe will help preserve this Nation's strength in the future.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today in tribute to the men and women who participated in a little known covert operation in World War II--Operation Ivory Soap. During World War II, ``island hopping'' was a critical element in the U.S. Pacific strategy. The idea was to capture Japanese held islands of tactical or strategic importance and by-pass any far-flung or inconsequential bases. Once an island was taken it was used as a forward airfield for aircraft returning from long-range missions where they were repaired, rearmed, and made ready for the next vital mission. General Henry H. ``Hap'' Arnold, Commander of the Army Air Forces, recognized the need for forward-based, mobile air depots to support American bombers and fighters in the Pacific war. General Arnold and a panel of military officers determined the need for converting naval repair ships into hybrid aircraft depot ships. Eventually, six 440- foot-long Liberty ships and 18 smaller 180-foot-long auxiliary vessels would be modified into Aircraft Repair Units, carrying 344 men, and Aircraft Maintenance Units, manned by 48 troops. Everything from the smallest aircraft parts to complete fighter wings were carried on these ships. The repair and maintenance facilities were manned 24-hours a day and the Liberty ships included platforms to land the ``new'' helicopter for quick ship-to-shore repair transport. The Army Air Force crews that manned these ships had to be trained to understand the nautical aspect of life at sea. Colonel Matthew Thompson of the Army Air Force was given the mission to turn airmen into seamen. Called back from Anzio in Italy, the Colonel had less than two weeks to organize the training program. The Grand Hotel in Point Clear, AL, was the focal point for ``Operation Ivory Soap'' training. Colonel Thompson contacted the then owner, Mr. Strat White-Spunner, regarding the use of the hotel as his base of operations where he intended to instill basic seamanship, marine and aquatic training in the Army officers and men of the aircraft repair and maintenance units. As a donation to the war effort, Mr. Roberts turned the Grand Hotel and its facilities over to the US Army Air Force to be used as its Maritime Training School. Operation Ivory Soap training began on July 10, 1944. Using the Grand Hotel, officers and men moved in and began living in ``Navy style.'' All personnel referred to the floors as decks, kept time by a ship's bell and indulged in the use of tobacco only when the ``smoking lamp'' was lit. The courses included swimming, special calisthenics, marching, drill, navigation, ship identification, signaling, cargo handling, ship orientation, sail making, amphibious operations, and more. Two men from each ship were also trained to be underwater divers. During a five month period, the school turned out 5,000 highly-trained Air Force seamen. When they and their ships went to war, so did Colonel Thompson. The men of the operation participated in the landings in the Philippines, Guam, Tinian, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Fighter aircraft and B-29s taking off from these bases flew continuous missions over Japan. Many lives, as well as aircraft, were saved because of the men of the aircraft repair and maintenance units. Perhaps the greatest tribute I can make to the exploits of these sea- going airmen is to paraphrase the Merchant Marines who worked with them and who praised them as ``equal to any sea-going combatants they had ever served with.'' This is a testament to their skill and professionalism and the ability of this nation to adjust its resources to defeat the enemy. The Grand Hotel still stands elegantly on the banks of the Mobile Bay. A hotel whose rich southern history embodies the best traditions of this country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I object.

Mr. SESSIONS. Five minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. SESSIONS. I want to respond.

Mr. SESSIONS. I object. Will the Senator from Arizona yield?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I will.

Mr. SESSIONS. I know the Senator from Arizona cares deeply about his legislation. He cares deeply about every legislative piece he pushes. I have some important legislation pending, too, and I haven't had time to debate them. The Paul Coverdell Criminal Laboratory for Forensic bill will probably save more lives than this bill. However, I think his request is not unreasonable. I do believe the bill has problems. As a person who prosecuted for over 15 years, I do not believe in a continual blurring of the lines between what is criminal liability and civil liability. We are talking about making crimes out of defective building of an automobile. I think we have to be careful about that. It has not gone through the Judiciary Committee. I have not had a chance to see it and I was very concerned about it. I indicated my concern to others. As I have been briefed on this just 5 minutes ago, by my staff--they provided a memorandum which I have not had a chance to even read--I was prepared to go forward with the Senator's request and not object. However, I find that several people expected that I would be objecting who also wanted to object, and I felt I was obligated, due to that miscommunication, to file an objection. Two hours from now I will not object if no one else does. I am prepared to debate these problems and see if we can cure these problems, but I do not feel it would be a collegial thing for me to do, when apparently it was thought that I would object, so that is why I object.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for sharing those serious concerns. It was not long ago that a group of us wrote the major department stores in the country asking them not to sell this violent material to minors, and they responded as good corporate citizens. They said: We have a constitutional right to sell it, but we are not going to do it. Either we are not going to sell it at all, or we are going to make sure children produce an ID so we know they are old enough to buy the material. I thought that was a good corporate response. Yes, the NBA may not legally be able to stop this stuff, but they ought to express their concern about it. The Senator makes a valid point, and I salute him for it. (The remarks of Mr. SESSIONS pertaining to the introduction of S. 3169 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to bring attention to a problem that unfortunately goes largely unnoticed except by those who are directly affected. Livestock and food animal producers, pet owners, zoo and wildlife biologists, and animals themselves are facing a severe shortage of approved animal drugs for minor species. Minor species include thousands of animal species, including all fish, birds, and sheep. By definition, they are any animals other than cattle, horses, chickens, swine, turkeys, dogs and cats, the most common animals. There are millions of those animals. A similar shortage of drugs and medicines for major animal species exists for diseases which occur infrequently or which occur in limited geographic areas. Due to the lack of availability for these minor-use drugs, millions of animals go untreated or treatment is delayed. Unnecessary animal physical and human emotional suffering results, and human health may be threatened as well. Without access to these necessary minor-use drugs, farmers and ranchers will also suffer. An unhealthy animal left untreated can spread disease throughout an entire stock. This causes severe economic hardship to struggling ranchers and farmers. For example, sheep ranchers lost nearly $45 million worth of livestock alone in 1999. The sheep industry estimates that if it had access to effective and necessary drugs, growers' reproduction costs for their animals could be cut by up to 15 percent. In addition, feedlot deaths from disease would be reduced by 1 to 2 percent, adding approximately $8 million to the revenue of the industry. The catfish industry is the No. 2 agriculture industry in Alabama. Though it is not the State's only aquacultural commodity, catfish is by far its largest. The catfish industry generates enormous economic opportunity in the State, particularly in west Alabama, one of the poorest regions of the State and where I grew up. The catfish industry estimates its losses at $60 million a year, attributable to diseases for which drugs are not available. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a catfish producer to lose half his stock in a pond due to disease. The U.S. aquaculture industry overall, including food fish and ornamental fish, produces and raises over 800 different species. Unfortunately, this industry has only five drugs that are approved for treating these diseases. This results in tremendous economic hardship and suffering. Because of limited market opportunity, low profit margins, and the enormous capital investment required, it is seldom economically feasible for drug manufacturers to pursue research and development and then seek approval of it by FDA for drugs used in treating these minor species and for infrequent conditions and diseases in all animals. As a result, a group of people have come together, an effective professional coalition, to deal with this problem. I, along with Senator Bingaman from New Mexico, Senator Allard, Senator Crapo, Senator Lincoln, and Senator Johnson resolve to improve this situation by introducing the Minor Animal Species Health and Welfare Act of 2000. This legislation will allow animal drug manufacturers the opportunity to develop and obtain approval for minor- use drugs which are vitally needed by a wide variety of animal industries. Our legislation incorporates the major proposals of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine to increase the availability of drugs for minor animal species and rare diseases in all animals. It actually creates incentives for animal drug manufacturers to invest in product development and obtain FDA marketing approvals. This legislation creates a program very similar to the very successful human orphan drug program that has dramatically increased the availability of drugs to treat rare human diseases over the past 20 years. Besides providing benefits to livestock producers and animal owners, this measure will develop incentives and sanctioning programs for the pharmaceutical industry, while maintaining and ensuring public health. The Minor Animal Species Health and Welfare Act will not alter FDA drug approval responsibilities that ensure the safety of animal drugs to the public. The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine currently evaluates new animal drug products prior to approval and use. This rigorous testing and review process provides consumers with the confidence that animal drugs are safe for animals and consumers of products derived from treated animals. Current FDA requirements include guidelines to prevent harmful residues and evaluations to examine the potential for the selection of resistant pathogens. Any food animal medicine or drug considered for approval under this bill would be subject to these same assessments. The Minor Animal Species Health and Welfare Act is supported by 25 organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Health Institute, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and the National Aquaculture Association. It is vital legislation. This act will reduce the economic risks and hardship which fall upon ranchers and farmers as a result of diseases. It will benefit pets and their owners and benefit various endangered species of aquatic animals. The act will also promote the health of all animal species while protecting human health and will alleviate unnecessary animal suffering. This is commonsense legislation which will benefit millions of American pet owners, farmers, and ranchers. It is the result of a tremendous cooperative effort by virtually every entity concerned with this problem. They have worked with the Food and Drug Administration and continue to work with the FDA on this bill. I believe we are on the verge of taking a big step to facilitate the introduction of more drugs that help treat animals in our country. I thank the people who have all worked to make this a reality. I particularly thank Mary Alice Tyson on my staff who has worked so hard on this project. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. That is all right with me. I respect that. Senator Bryan will be the last. I defer to him. Will the Senator restate the agreement? The Senator from New Mexico has 20 minutes, Senator Bryan has 10 minutes, and I have 5 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have been fascinated and informed by the colloquy that has been ongoing between the Senator from Kansas and the Senator from Georgia. I have been honored to serve on the Armed Services Committee with the two of them. I know they take these issues seriously, and it is, indeed, appropriate we begin to think through clearly what the role of the United States is and what the role of Congress is in establishing U.S. policy. I thank them for those observations. They are very valuable. I agree with them that we need to involve the American people in this. The great American experiment that has guided us so far has allowed the people to rule. We do not need to do it under the table without full and open debate. I strongly believe we must not as a nation abdicate our ability to act unilaterally when our national interest is at stake, or else why have we invested so greatly to establish this magnificent military? We cannot rely on a majority vote of the U.N. We cannot rely on the fact that we may override or avoid a veto in the Security Council. We have to be prepared to take care of our own interests. I thank my colleagues for the dialog.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, energy prices are going up; gasoline prices are up. I doubt there are many families who do not spend $60 a month on gasoline. Those who commute, those who have children with vehicles, a husband and wife working may have two or three vehicles per family and not be wealthy. They may be paying $100 a month or more for gasoline. If they were paying $60 a month for gasoline 18 months ago, they are now paying over $90 a month. If they were paying $100 a month last year, they are probably paying over $150 a month this year. That is $50 a month or $30 a month, perhaps more in some families, withdrawn from the usable income of that family, money with which they no longer can buy shoes, a new set of tires for their car, to go on a vacation with their children, take the kids to a ball game, buy shoes for them to play soccer or basketball, baseball, or volley ball. That is $50 a month extra of aftertax money that American citizens had 15, 18 months ago and no longer have today. That is because the price of energy has gone up. In addition, businesses are facing those same increases. I traveled a couple of months ago with a full-time truck driver and his wife. I traveled from north of Birmingham to Clanton to Montgomery and discussed with them the problems they are facing. They are paying up to $800 to $1,000 a month extra to operate their truck. They try to pass it on, which increases the costs down the road, but they are not able to pass it all on and it is reducing their standard of living. They have, in fact, less money with which to go to the store and buy products. What does that ultimately mean? It means there are going to be fewer widgets bought, there are going to be fewer shoes bought, there are going to be fewer new cars bought, fewer new houses bought and many other things we would like to purchase. We will not be able to purchase those items because OPEC, through its price-gouging cartel, has fixed the oil and gas prices and driven them up to an extraordinary degree. As a result, it is hurting us. We know this. We know the economy appears to have some slowing. We know that profit margins across the board have been shrinking significantly, and we know that higher energy costs are a big reason for that. I say that because we are talking about some very big issues. If you do not have money to purchase, let's say you purchase 8 things this month instead of what you would normally purchase, 10, there is somebody who would have made those other 2 items, somebody who would have sold those other 2 items; they may not be able to continue to do that. What does that do to the producing business? It puts stress on them. It can cool off this robust economy with which we have been blessed for quite a number of years. Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the U.N., wrote an editorial recently which I was pleased to read. He pointed out how it hurts poor nations more than wealthy nations, but it hurts wealthy nations, too. Wealthy nations are hurt when poor nations do not have money to buy products from us. We sell all over the world. Whatever cools off the entire world economy cools off the American economy and jeopardizes jobs. What caused us to come to this point? I say with confidence that it is the Clinton-Gore policies, primarily Vice President Al Gore's energy policies, that have been involved here. The simple fact is that those policies are driven by and motivated at the deepest level by his adoption of a radical, no-growth agenda that is playing in his book. He set it out some years ago. People are astounded when they read that book because he is deeply revealing of a philosophy that we ought to reduce spending on energy and that will somehow drive up costs and we will use less oil, less gas, we will ride bicycles and use solar cells, and that is how we are going to meet our national energy policy. The trouble is that solar cells cost 4, 5, 10 times as much as fossil fuels do to produce energy. Who is going to pay for that? Working Americans are going to pay for that while some elite people think it is a cool idea and for which they are not paying the price. They can afford to pay it perhaps. We are into that mood now. This radical agenda is demonstrated by the policies that have been carried out systematically since this administration took office. It has been steady, and it has been regular. They have not said our policy is to raise prices. They are too clever for that. They are not going to allow that spin to get about. What have they done against the consistent opposition of Members in this body who have warned over and over that reducing production of American fuels was going to lead us to a crisis? What have they done? They have opposed drilling in the ANWR region of Alaska which has huge reserves equal to 30 years of the production in Saudi Arabia. This one little area amounts to the size of Dulles Airport. It is a very small area with huge reserves. They vetoed legislation that would have allowed us to produce oil and gas to help meet our needs. Over vigorous debate in this Senate and a strong majority vote, it was vetoed by the Clinton-Gore administration. What else? They steadfastly oppose nuclear power. France has gone from 60 percent of their power nuclear to 80 percent. Industrialized nations realize it is the cleanest, safest of all sources of energy with unlimited capacity to produce electricity, with no air pollution-- virtually no air pollution, and only a small amount of waste that we can easily store in the Nevada desert. Oh, no, President Clinton and Vice President Gore vetoed the ability for us to store that waste in the Nevada desert, therefore, helping shut down our nuclear energy. We have not brought on a nuclear plant in over 20 years in this country. We are denying ourselves that capacity to produce energy. There are huge reserves of natural gas in the Rocky Mountain areas. Natural gas is the cleanest burning of all our fossil fuels. All our electric- generating plants today are natural gas plants. We are hitting a crisis in the production of natural gas. They refuse to allow those Federal lands in the Rocky Mountain areas, almost all of it owned by the Federal Government, to produce natural gas, which isn't a dangerous fuel to produce. It doesn't pour oil all out on the ground; it is an evaporative gas. It is safe to produce. Certainly we could do that. They are opposed to drilling offshore. In fact, Vice President Gore, during his campaigning in New Hampshire, promised not only to not approve any additional offshore drilling of natural gas but to consider rolling back existing leases that have already been issued. How are we going to meet our energy needs for natural gas if we cannot produce it? There are many other areas where, through regulation, we basically shut off coal as a viable option for expanding our energy needs. In fact, even though we are much more efficient than we have ever been with electric energy, we need more. The projections are that we will have a substantial increase in demand even though we are improving our efficiency steadily. So that is the problem we are facing. The problem is that when OPEC realized our demand was increasing, and the world demand was increasing, and our own domestic production was decreasing 14 percent, while demand was going up 18 to 20 percent, they were able to reduce production, force the price up to exorbitant levels, and make themselves rich. In fact, it was a political decision by governmental leaders to force up the price. It was not even a free market decision. It was a political decision by the leaders of these oil-producing nations because of our failure to produce energy and because we have become dependent on their oil. So they have been able to demand what they want to in price. Our politicians lost to their politicians. Their politicians beat our politicians. And who is paying the price? The American citizen, when he goes to the gas pump, when he buys his heating oil, when he goes and buys a product. It is more expensive today to buy that product than it was before because of increased gasoline prices in the whole production system. That is what has happened. We have been taken to the cleaners. To me it is as if we put a tax on the gasoline, but instead of taxing gasoline 50, 60 cents a gallon extra where the revenue comes to Washington so it at least can be spent in the United States, it is, in effect, a 50-, 60-cent tax that goes to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the Middle East. The OPEC cartel gets our tax. They are taxing our wealth and sending it abroad. This has the capacity to kill the economic growth this Nation has been experiencing. It has the capacity to drain our wealth to the degree that this economy could slow down. It could even go into recession because we have done nothing to deal with it. We have done nothing. The only thing, in the long run, that we can do is to make sure we produce what we have. We have virtually unlimited reserves of natural gas and oil in the United States--certainly for decades to come. There are myths that we do not have enough. We have large reserves. We should have been producing those more effectively. But the policies of this administration have been to reduce our production. And as night follows day, the price is going to go up. It threatens not only the pocketbook of a mother who is trying to now get by--she was paying $100 a month for the family's gasoline; now she is paying $150 a month for the family's gasoline. She cannot buy things at the store she used to buy. And the producers of those products are now going to have to lay off workers because people are not buying those products at the rate they were previously buying them. This is not an itty-bitty issue. This is a tremendous issue for our country. I hope it will be discussed tonight in the debate. I hope it will be made a part of this campaign. I believe, with an absolute conviction, that if we allow these international greedy producing nations to jerk us around, to take money from the average mother and father and working American when they go to the gas pump, having their money sent to those nations, they can hurt us badly. It hurts a lot of people. I pumped gas a few months ago and washed people's windshields. I talked to them about the costs they were facing. I talked to a young lady in her early twenties. She was going to college 3 days a week. The college she attended was 30 miles up the road. She talked about how much her gas bill was. She was trying to save money for tuition. Her car was not a new car. She said she would like to have a new car, but she could not afford it. That extra cost was coming out of her pocket. This is a real issue. It hurts our families. They have less money in their pocket and in the family budget because it has to be spent on gasoline. It is hurting businesses. Their profits are down. Home building is down. What will happen in the future? I don't know. But if we do not get in this ballgame, if we do not challenge OPEC and figure out a way to break that cartel, and if we do not increase our own production of energy, we will have what we have had numerous times before; and that is, a recession driven by increased energy costs. What a tragedy that will be. It should not happen. Our projections are and our needs as a nation are to continue this prosperity, to continue the surplus we have been able to generate in this Government, and to pay down our debt and to be able to do some things we wish we could have done before. This is a glorious time for us. I believe we have to take strong action. I have been frustrated that this administration remains steadfast in blocking, time and again, any step to increase our production of energy. And that has no more consequence but one: When you reduce production, it will drive up costs. I thank the Chair and, again, express my appreciation for his fine remarks on national defense. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am concerned that we as a Congress have not been effective enough in oversight; that is, looking at the Federal agencies and Departments of this Government to make sure they are operating effectively. We ooh and ah and make complaints and express concern, but we do not often follow through. I know fundamentally it is the responsibility of the administration to run the executive branch, but Congress does fund that branch and has every right to insist that branch does its duty effectively, expeditiously, and economically with minimum waste, fraud, and abuse. I had the pleasure about a year ago to have a conversation with a wonderful lady, Melanie DeMayo, who used to work with Senator Proxmire and was involved in his ``Golden Fleece Award'' presentations. She convinced me I could play a role in helping to make sure, when a dollar is extracted from a hard-working American citizen and is brought to this Senate, this Government, to be spent, that it is spent wisely and not wasted or abused or ineffectively utilized to carry out whatever worthwhile program was intended. I appreciate her insight and help in thinking this through. I have developed what I call Integrity Watch. I spent a number of years as a Federal prosecutor. I believe we can do a better job of maintaining integrity in this Government. When we are spending $1.7 trillion a year, it is incumbent upon us to make sure there is oversight over these programs. I have come to realize that we have a very large student loan program, and there are some problems with it. Today I am offering legislation to create a 12-month fraud control pilot program to reduce the incidence of fraud in the Federal Family Education Loan Program and other programs under title IV. In recent years, there have been a number of cases of so-called students falsely claiming they are attending foreign schools, directing that their student loan checks be paid directly to them and not to the school, and then taking the money and spending it on themselves and not attending the foreign school. This fraud has been documented with many examples listed in a 1997 Department of Education inspector general's report. In addition, the report contains recommendations on tightening controls for the program. Too often these reports are dry, detailed, and complicated. Nobody in this body even reads them, much less acts on them. Certainly, I doubt the President, who says he wants to increase foreign student loans, has read the report. We certainly have not seen any request from the administration to improve this. I believe we can and should do it in Congress. It is time, I believe, for this Congress to close the loopholes which allow these phantom students to defraud the Government. On April 19, 2000, President Clinton and Secretary of Education Riley declared that international education is a priority with them. They want to encourage more students to study abroad. In fact, the President issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies stating that the United States is committed to promoting study abroad by U.S. students. He stated: The Secretaries of State and Education shall support the efforts of schools and colleges to improve access to high- quality international educational experiences by increasing the number and diversity of students who study and intern abroad, encouraging students and institutions to choose nontraditional study-abroad locations, and helping under- represented United States institutions offer and promote study-abroad opportunities for their students. Study abroad can be a wonderful experience for a student, and I do not oppose some form of student loan aid to students who want to take advantage of that. It can be an extraordinarily enriching experience. We do need to ensure that the program involves study and not a European vacation at the expense of hard-working American taxpayers for whom a visit to the ball park is often beyond their budget. This new initiative by the administration will increase the risk of fraud unless we institute sound controls immediately. I am not referring to U.S. universities that have foreign programs or cooperative programs with foreign universities. I am talking about mainly the unsupervised foreign-based institutions. Some of these institutions have already been criticized by General Accounting Office studies. Often these marginal schools are the very schools the so-called students use in their fraud scam. Their fraud is committed when they state they are registering in these schools and then simply pocket the money with no one the wiser. Since 1995, there have been 25 felony convictions of students who fraudulently claimed they were attending a foreign school, and then they just cashed their Government loan check and simply did not attend class. In the United States, the check is made out to the school and the student, but with regard to foreign schools, the check is made out simply to the students. These are only the students who were caught doing their fraudulent activity. I have no doubt there are many more who have not been apprehended. That is why we ought to take action. We must prevent cases such as this one. Mr. Conrad Cortez claimed to be such a student, and he applied for student loans. In March of 2000, he admitted to charges of submitting 19 fraudulent student loan applications over a 3-year period. He pled guilty before a U.S. district court judge to numerous accounts of mail fraud, bank fraud, and Social Security account number fraud in the State of Massachusetts. The prosecutor told the court in that case that Cortez was responsible for dozens of other loans filed outside Massachusetts--in Florida and Texas. The absolute disregard for the American taxpayers was epitomized by Conrad Cortez. Mr. Cortez was living high at the expense of American taxpayers and in violation of law by filing false documents to receive loan money from the Government. During the period from 1996 through 1999, he bought gifts for his friends, including jewelry and cars, paid for private tennis lessons, made a downpayment on a house, sent some money back to his native Colombia, ate in the best restaurants, and even paid restitution for a previous charge of defrauding the Government, and he did this all with the American taxpayers' money. Mr. Cortez' fraud only ended when he was turned in by his sister's boyfriend, who claimed that Mr. Cortez had used his identity to obtain additional loans. In fact, Mr. Cortez was about to help himself to $800,000 that you and I pay in income taxes. He had filed 37 false claims in all, spending the money as fast as it came in to him. The inspector general's office of the Department of Education, with the FBI, and the attorney general's office in Boston combined forces to apprehend him before he could get all the money that was coming to him through those false loans. He did, however, pocket about $300,000 before he was caught. This is not an isolated case. In 1994, the General Accounting Office found that the Department of Education had approved student loans to hundreds of students attending 91 foreign medical schools. Frankly, I am not sure there are 91 medical schools out there in this world, outside the United States, for which we ought to be funding education. If somebody comes to this country expecting to be a doctor, we need to know they have met certain quality education standards. But, at any rate, that is what we hear. In applying its standards, the Department of Education relies exclusively on information submitted by those foreign schools as to their viability. Enforcement and oversight problems at the Department still abound. Who is to say how many students have fraudulently applied for loans? There isn't a report on that. Those are unknown unknowns, as they say in management. We cannot measure what we do not know. Most likely, the greatest abuse of the system occurs when the student, for various reasons, just pockets the money and never goes to class. Under the present system, who will know? We do know that the system is broken. This legislation is one step toward fixing it. Another abuse occurs when a foreign school is actually paid the tuition but does not insist that the student attend class and provides no real education to the student. I guess a foreign school could simply be glad to get the American money, the American check, and at that point it is up to the student whether or not he or she actually attends class or learns anything. I think we need to have the Department of Education look into that and make sure students are actually attending class and not taking a European vacation. Mr. Cortez demonstrated a perfect example of why this program is high risk. There simply is not enough oversight. Currently, the methodology for approving and releasing student loan funds is vulnerable. Current law states that the student may request a check be issued directly to him or her, when claiming they are attending a foreign school, and a check will be sent directly to them, without the requirement of a cosignature by the school. The Office of Inspector General at the Department of Education identified weaknesses and deficiencies in the following areas of the foreign school attendance programs: Verification of enrollment, the disbursement process, the determination of the borrowers' eligibility, standards of administrative and financial capability on the part of the foreign school, and general oversight of foreign schools. The same Office of Inspector General report--that is the Department of Education's own inspector general's office within that Department-- stated that the number of students claiming to attend foreign schools and applying for loans increased each academic year from 1993 to 1997 and went from 4,594 students to 10,715 students. Later figures show the number continues to increase. Indeed, in 1998-1999 there were 12,000 foreign loans. My legislation will require the Secretary of Education to initiate a 12-month fraud control pilot program involving guaranty agencies--those are the people who put up the loan money guaranteed by the Federal Government--lenders, and a representative group of foreign schools to reduce the incidence of fraud in the student loan program. I believe the Secretary should look into a number of solutions. Maybe the guaranty agencies should confirm that the student is enrolled in the foreign school before the loan is actually disbursed. After the money has been disbursed to the student, maybe the guaranty agencies should confirm that the student remains registered. The Secretary should also determine whether it would be advantageous to require a loan check to be endorsed by both the student and the foreign institution. I am inclined to think it is. But we shall see. Maybe this evaluation period can help us determine that. The question then becomes, Why are we paying for students to go to foreign schools? These are American taxpayers' dollars flowing to foreign economies where the standards of education may not be as high as ours. I have checked with the higher education systems in my State. They certainly are not at full capacity and certainly can handle more students. Perhaps there should be some limit on the number of years of study abroad. How many? Five? Six? Seven? Is that limited today? No, it is not. Maybe we ought to limit the number of years that the taxpayers will fund foreign education. Today there is no limit. Students can complete their entire education abroad, supported by the taxpayers, sometimes not in good institutions. Perhaps the quality of the institution should be verified, among other things. But this will not be an issue raised by our legislation today. Our legislation will simply go to the question of whether or not we can improve the way we guard against actual fraud in these loans. It will begin the process of erasing the fraudulent behavior of ``students'' claiming they are attending foreign schools and then pocketing the money for their personal lifestyle. So I introduce this legislation today and hope my colleagues will quickly support such a measure as this because I believe it will reduce the fraud that has been plainly demonstrated in a critical report by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education. In the course of working on this, I would like to express my appreciation to a number of people who have played an important role in this. I thank the cosponsors of this legislation, including Senator Jeffords, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is here, who has been a supporter and has had a great interest in this as a cosponsor; along with Senators Brownback and Collins. I also express my appreciation to Scott Giles of Senator Jeffords's office; to Melanie DeMayo, who has done such a tremendous job helping us identify and research this problem; and Anthony Leigh of my staff, who is with me now, who has helped me work on this. We believe this is perhaps not a glamorous issue but an important issue, an important step we can take to eliminate plain fraud that is clearly occurring around this country to a substantial degree, defrauding the taxpayers of the money they have sent to Washington. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a comment on his previous remarks?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Grassley for speaking forthrightly and with integrity. He chairs our drug caucus in the Senate. He personally travels his State and has led efforts against methamphetamines, Ecstacy, and other drugs. He understands those issues clearly. He is correct; there is too much spin. These drugs do not justify the positive spin being put on them. During the administrations of Presidents Bush and Reagan, I served as a Federal prosecutor. According to the University of Michigan Authoritative Study of Drug Use Among High School Students, drug use fell every single year for 12 consecutive years; it jumped after this administration took office. They have, in fact, made a number of mistakes that have undermined the progress made. I appreciate serving with Senator Grassley on the drug caucus and in the Judiciary Committee where we have discussed these issues.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Grassley for his wise remarks about our energy policy. Certainly natural gas is the cleanest burning of our fossil fuels. We will need it more and more because every electric powerplant that is being built is a natural gas plant. The Senator makes an outstanding and valuable point that we have to do a better job of producing more. (The remarks of Mr. Sessions and Mr. Hutchinson pertaining to the introduction of S. 3143 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am concerned that we as a Congress have not been effective enough in oversight; that is, looking at the Federal agencies and Departments of this Government to make sure they are operating effectively. We ooh and ah and make complaints and express concern, but we do not often follow through. I know fundamentally it is the responsibility of the administration to run the executive branch, but Congress does fund that branch and has every right to insist that branch does its duty effectively, expeditiously, and economically with minimum waste, fraud, and abuse. I had the pleasure about a year ago to have a conversation with a wonderful lady, Melanie DeMayo, who used to work with Senator Proxmire and was involved in his ``Golden Fleece Award'' presentations. She convinced me I could play a role in helping to make sure, when a dollar is extracted from a hard-working American citizen and is brought to this Senate, this Government, to be spent, that it is spent wisely and not wasted or abused or ineffectively utilized to carry out whatever worthwhile program was intended. I appreciate her insight and help in thinking this through. I have developed what I call Integrity Watch. I spent a number of years as a Federal prosecutor. I believe we can do a better job of maintaining integrity in this Government. When we are spending $1.7 trillion a year, it is incumbent upon us to make sure there is oversight over these programs. I have come to realize that we have a very large student loan program, and there are some problems with it. Today I am offering legislation to create a 12-month fraud control pilot program to reduce the incidence of fraud in the Federal Family Education Loan Program and other programs under title IV. In recent years, there have been a number of cases of so-called students falsely claiming they are attending foreign schools, directing that their student loan checks be paid directly to them and not to the school, and then taking the money and spending it on themselves and not attending the foreign school. This fraud has been documented with many examples listed in a 1997 Department of Education inspector general's report. In addition, the report contains recommendations on tightening controls for the program. Too often these reports are dry, detailed, and complicated. Nobody in this body even reads them, much less acts on them. Certainly, I doubt the President, who says he wants to increase foreign student loans, has read the report. We certainly have not seen any request from the administration to improve this. I believe we can and should do it in Congress. It is time, I believe, for this Congress to close the loopholes which allow these phantom students to defraud the Government. On April 19, 2000, President Clinton and Secretary of Education Riley declared that international education is a priority with them. They want to encourage more students to study abroad. In fact, the President issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies stating that the United States is committed to promoting study abroad by U.S. students. He stated: The Secretaries of State and Education shall support the efforts of schools and colleges to improve access to high- quality international educational experiences by increasing the number and diversity of students who study and intern abroad, encouraging students and institutions to choose nontraditional study-abroad locations, and helping under- represented United States institutions offer and promote study-abroad opportunities for their students. Study abroad can be a wonderful experience for a student, and I do not oppose some form of student loan aid to students who want to take advantage of that. It can be an extraordinarily enriching experience. We do need to ensure that the program involves study and not a European vacation at the expense of hard-working American taxpayers for whom a visit to the ball park is often beyond their budget. This new initiative by the administration will increase the risk of fraud unless we institute sound controls immediately. I am not referring to U.S. universities that have foreign programs or cooperative programs with foreign universities. I am talking about mainly the unsupervised foreign-based institutions. Some of these institutions have already been criticized by General Accounting Office studies. Often these marginal schools are the very schools the so-called students use in their fraud scam. Their fraud is committed when they state they are registering in these schools and then simply pocket the money with no one the wiser. Since 1995, there have been 25 felony convictions of students who fraudulently claimed they were attending a foreign school, and then they just cashed their Government loan check and simply did not attend class. In the United States, the check is made out to the school and the student, but with regard to foreign schools, the check is made out simply to the students. These are only the students who were caught doing their fraudulent activity. I have no doubt there are many more who have not been apprehended. That is why we ought to take action. We must prevent cases such as this one. Mr. Conrad Cortez claimed to be such a student, and he applied for student loans. In March of 2000, he admitted to charges of submitting 19 fraudulent student loan applications over a 3-year period. He pled guilty before a U.S. district court judge to numerous accounts of mail fraud, bank fraud, and Social Security account number fraud in the State of Massachusetts. The prosecutor told the court in that case that Cortez was responsible for dozens of other loans filed outside Massachusetts--in Florida and Texas. The absolute disregard for the American taxpayers was epitomized by Conrad Cortez. Mr. Cortez was living high at the expense of American taxpayers and in violation of law by filing false documents to receive loan money from the Government. During the period from 1996 through 1999, he bought gifts for his friends, including jewelry and cars, paid for private tennis lessons, made a downpayment on a house, sent some money back to his native Colombia, ate in the best restaurants, and even paid restitution for a previous charge of defrauding the Government, and he did this all with the American taxpayers' money. Mr. Cortez' fraud only ended when he was turned in by his sister's boyfriend, who claimed that Mr. Cortez had used his identity to obtain additional loans. In fact, Mr. Cortez was about to help himself to $800,000 that you and I pay in income taxes. He had filed 37 false claims in all, spending the money as fast as it came in to him. The inspector general's office of the Department of Education, with the FBI, and the attorney general's office in Boston combined forces to apprehend him before he could get all the money that was coming to him through those false loans. He did, however, pocket about $300,000 before he was caught. This is not an isolated case. In 1994, the General Accounting Office found that the Department of Education had approved student loans to hundreds of students attending 91 foreign medical schools. Frankly, I am not sure there are 91 medical schools out there in this world, outside the United States, for which we ought to be funding education. If somebody comes to this country expecting to be a doctor, we need to know they have met certain quality education standards. But, at any rate, that is what we hear. In applying its standards, the Department of Education relies exclusively on information submitted by those foreign schools as to their viability. Enforcement and oversight problems at the Department still abound. Who is to say how many students have fraudulently applied for loans? There isn't a report on that. Those are unknown unknowns, as they say in management. We cannot measure what we do not know. Most likely, the greatest abuse of the system occurs when the student, for various reasons, just pockets the money and never goes to class. Under the present system, who will know? We do know that the system is broken. This legislation is one step toward fixing it. Another abuse occurs when a foreign school is actually paid the tuition but does not insist that the student attend class and provides no real education to the student. I guess a foreign school could simply be glad to get the American money, the American check, and at that point it is up to the student whether or not he or she actually attends class or learns anything. I think we need to have the Department of Education look into that and make sure students are actually attending class and not taking a European vacation. Mr. Cortez demonstrated a perfect example of why this program is high risk. There simply is not enough oversight. Currently, the methodology for approving and releasing student loan funds is vulnerable. Current law states that the student may request a check be issued directly to him or her, when claiming they are attending a foreign school, and a check will be sent directly to them, without the requirement of a cosignature by the school. The Office of Inspector General at the Department of Education identified weaknesses and deficiencies in the following areas of the foreign school attendance programs: Verification of enrollment, the disbursement process, the determination of the borrowers' eligibility, standards of administrative and financial capability on the part of the foreign school, and general oversight of foreign schools. The same Office of Inspector General report--that is the Department of Education's own inspector general's office within that Department-- stated that the number of students claiming to attend foreign schools and applying for loans increased each academic year from 1993 to 1997 and went from 4,594 students to 10,715 students. Later figures show the number continues to increase. Indeed, in 1998-1999 there were 12,000 foreign loans. My legislation will require the Secretary of Education to initiate a 12-month fraud control pilot program involving guaranty agencies--those are the people who put up the loan money guaranteed by the Federal Government--lenders, and a representative group of foreign schools to reduce the incidence of fraud in the student loan program. I believe the Secretary should look into a number of solutions. Maybe the guaranty agencies should confirm that the student is enrolled in the foreign school before the loan is actually disbursed. After the money has been disbursed to the student, maybe the guaranty agencies should confirm that the student remains registered. The Secretary should also determine whether it would be advantageous to require a loan check to be endorsed by both the student and the foreign institution. I am inclined to think it is. But we shall see. Maybe this evaluation period can help us determine that. The question then becomes, Why are we paying for students to go to foreign schools? These are American taxpayers' dollars flowing to foreign economies where the standards of education may not be as high as ours. I have checked with the higher education systems in my State. They certainly are not at full capacity and certainly can handle more students. Perhaps there should be some limit on the number of years of study abroad. How many? Five? Six? Seven? Is that limited today? No, it is not. Maybe we ought to limit the number of years that the taxpayers will fund foreign education. Today there is no limit. Students can complete their entire education abroad, supported by the taxpayers, sometimes not in good institutions. Perhaps the quality of the institution should be verified, among other things. But this will not be an issue raised by our legislation today. Our legislation will simply go to the question of whether or not we can improve the way we guard against actual fraud in these loans. It will begin the process of erasing the fraudulent behavior of ``students'' claiming they are attending foreign schools and then pocketing the money for their personal lifestyle. So I introduce this legislation today and hope my colleagues will quickly support such a measure as this because I believe it will reduce the fraud that has been plainly demonstrated in a critical report by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education. In the course of working on this, I would like to express my appreciation to a number of people who have played an important role in this. I thank the cosponsors of this legislation, including Senator Jeffords, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is here, who has been a supporter and has had a great interest in this as a cosponsor; along with Senators Brownback and Collins. I also express my appreciation to Scott Giles of Senator Jeffords's office; to Melanie DeMayo, who has done such a tremendous job helping us identify and research this problem; and Anthony Leigh of my staff, who is with me now, who has helped me work on this. We believe this is perhaps not a glamorous issue but an important issue, an important step we can take to eliminate plain fraud that is clearly occurring around this country to a substantial degree, defrauding the taxpayers of the money they have sent to Washington. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I think my colleague also makes an excellent point about this percentage of the total gross domestic product. People say we cannot afford a tax cut, but we have reached record levels of a total gross domestic product that is being taken by the Government. These suggestions the Senator makes are worthwhile. We need to be working on that and the marriage penalty and the estate tax and a lot of other things around here which we can afford. I thank my colleague.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, March 16, 2001, will mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, who clearly earned the title: Father of our Constitution. This great American devoted his life to the service of his country and his fellow man, and that service played an essential role in creating and protecting the constitutional liberty that we enjoy today. Accordingly, I intend to offer the bipartisan James Madison Commemoration Commission Act to celebrate the life and contributions of this small man who was a giant of liberty. James Madison was born on March 16, 1751 in Port Conway, VA. He was raised at Montpelier, his family's estate in Orange County, VA. He attended the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University, where he excelled academically and graduated in 1771. Shortly after his graduation, Madison embarked on a legal career. In 1774, at the age of 23, Madison entered political life. He was first elected to the Orange County Committee of Safety. Following that, he was elected as delegate to the Constitutional Convention of Virginia in 1776. He next served as a member of the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1783. This provided him marvelous insight into the nature of our early American government and ideals. After America won its freedom at Yorktown, the country looked to strengthen the government that had proven too helpless under the Articles of Confederation. A Constitutional Convention was called in Philadelphia. It was here that Madison was to play the most important role of his life, dwarfing, in my view, his subsequent excellent service to his country. From 1784 to 1786, Madison was a member of the Constitutional Convention. He served as a primary draftsman of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, who was in France at the time, and who did not participate in the Constitutional Convention, did suggest a number of books that would aid the young draftsman in preparing for his historic task. With these books and others, Madison engaged in an extensive study of the ancient governments of Greece and Rome and of the more modern governments of Italy and England, among others. No one came to Philadelphia so intentionally, practically, and historically prepared to create a new government. Madison posed his task as follows: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. This he wrote in Federalist No. 51. At the convention, delegates made impassioned arguments regarding the relative powers of big States, small States, Northern States, Southern States, and there were those who feared that a strong national government might dominate all States. In month after month of untiring argument, careful persuasion, and creative compromise, Madison reached answers upon which the delegates could agree. There would be a Federal Government of separated and enumerated powers. Large States would have their votes based on population in the House of Representatives. Small States would have equal, two-vote, representation in this body, the Senate. Further, the powers of the Federal Government would be limited to enumerated objects in order to protect all the States from Federal overreaching. Madison described the Federal Republic, states and federal governments, that the Constitution envisioned as follows: In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. He was writing that in Federalist No. 51. In addition to playing a leading role in framing this new government, Madison also made detailed notes on the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention have proven the most extensive and accurate account of how our Founding Fathers framed the greatest form of government in the history of mankind. Once the Constitutional Convention reached an agreement, the States had to ratify the Constitution and make it binding fundamental law. Madison contributed to that fight for ratification in three ways. It was a critical, tough fight. First, he joined with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in drafting the Federalist Papers which were circulated among New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius. These papers contained perhaps the most vivid and profound pages of practical political philosophy ever produced. They answered with force and eloquence the arguments of the anti-federalists and helped sway public opinion toward ratification. Second, Madison fought in the Virginia ratification convention for the adoption of the Constitution. It was critical that Virginia ratify the Constitution. Joining with John Marshall, the future great Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Madison argued against the fiery orator, Patrick Henry. Henry, who argued so forcefully for declaring independence from Great Britain, charged that the new Constitution would vest too much power in the Federal Government. Madison countered that the powers of the Federal Government would be limited to enumerated objects and subject to the control of people. Third, Madison helped to develop the Bill of Rights which limited the power of the Federal Government further and ensured the power of the states and the liberty of the people. He was a critical drafter in the development of the Bill of Rights. Madison's herculean efforts, along with the efforts of others, resulted in the ratification of the Constitution with a Bill of Rights. This constitutional government enabled a fledgling democracy to grow into the most powerful force for liberty the world has ever known. He was the right man at the right time. Notwithstanding Madison's intellectual prowess and the thoughtful, reflective approach he brought to problem-solving, humility was the hallmark of this man. In later years, when he was referred to as the Father of the Constitution, Madison modestly protested that the document was not ``the offspring of a single brain'' but ``the work of many heads and many hands.'' It was true, but it was done under his nurturing care. After Madison's service at the Constitutional Convention, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms. When Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1801, he selected Madison to serve as his Secretary of State. At the conclusion of Jefferson's administration, the American people twice elected James Madison President of the United States. As President, he watched over the very government he played such a crucial role in creating. And his steady leadership in the War of 1812 against Great Britain helped guide America to victory. While these accomplishments are remarkable indeed, the really remarkable thing is the enduring nature of Madison's imprint on American history. Amended only 17 times after its ratification with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution that Madison drafted still provides the same basic structure upon which our government operates today and that we comply with every day in this body. The Supreme Court still quotes the Federalist Papers that Madison drafted. And Madison's concept of federalism is the subject of renewed debate in the Supreme Court and Congress at this time. The Constitution that Madison drafted, and his writings that have guided generations of Americans in interpreting that Constitution, are still the envy of the world. Madison's wisdom and foresight have been proven by the indisputable success of the American constitutional experiment. Indeed, while we are a young country, this nation has the oldest continuous written Constitution in the world. It is a beacon and example for others. Many try and are not able to make it work, but they have modeled their constitutions so often after ours. Why has it worked? Because Madison understood that the law must be suited to the people it is intended to govern. In Federalist No. 51, Madison stated: What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? And a constitution that protects liberty is suited to a people who love liberty to the extent that they are willing to fight and die for it. So, Mr. President, it is with great pride that I join with other Senators on both sides of the aisle, including Senators Byrd, Thurmond, Moynihan, Warner, and Robb, to offer at the appropriate time, this bill establishing the James Madison Commemoration Commission. The Commission will celebrate the 250th anniversary of James Madison's birth on March 16, 2001. The commission will consist of 19 members: The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House, the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, two Members of the Senate selected by the Majority Leader, two Members of the Senate selected by the Minority Leader, two Members of the House of Representatives selected by the Speaker, two Members of the House of Representatives selected by the Minority Leader of the House, and two members of the Executive Branch selected by the President. A person not able to serve may designate a substitute. Members will be chosen based on their position at the end of the 106th Congress and will continue to serve until the expiration of the Commission. The bill will also create an Advisory Committee with 14 members, including: the Archivist of the United States, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, the Executive Director of Montpelier, the President of James Madison University, the Director of the James Madison Center, the President of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, 2 persons who are not Members of Congress selected by the majority leader of the Senate, with expertise on the legal and historical significance of James Madison, 2 persons who are not Members of Congress, selected by the minority leader of the Senate, 2 persons who are not Members of Congress, selected by the Speaker of the House, and 2 persons who are not Members of Congress, selected by the minority leader of the House. With the aid of the Advisory Committee, the Commission will: 1. Publish a collection of Madison's most important writings and tributes to Madison; 2. Coordinate and plan a symposium to provide a better understanding of Madison's contributions to American political culture; 3. Recognize other events celebrating Madison's life and contributions; 4. Accept essay papers from students on Madison's life and contributions and award certificates as appropriate; and 5. Bestow honorary memberships on the Commission and the Advisory Committee. The bill authorizes $250,000 for the Commission. This will be used for the expenses of publishing the book and hosting a symposium. The Commission will expire after its work is done in 2001. Mr. President, I believe this work is truly important to our country. I ask all my colleagues--and we have had a growing number of individuals who have joined as co-sponsors of this bill--to join in this effort to commemorate the Father of our Constitution and perhaps the greatest practical political scientist who ever lived, James Madison. I yield the floor.