Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, it is wonderful that the Senator has done that. I feel as if we are two trains passing in the night on this bill. I hope the Senator will understand something that is extremely, extremely important: that the juvenile accountability block grant-- which has been referred to as nothing but a ``lock them up'' program and that what we need is prevention money--is to encourage just the kind of situation the Senator is talking about because had those children just been released again, and not been sent to a well-run, well-organized drug treatment school, detention facility, in which they were removed from their community, they probably would be on the streets now, maybe committing a more serious crime or a victim themselves of a serious crime. So I think there is a false contrast between what is prevention and what is not. I would say that a child who is already running into trouble with the law--as these children are--has to be confronted. There has to be an effective intervention in a life going wrong. And these kinds of facilities are going on around the country. I visited one in Illinois. Judge Grossman gave us a tour. The county and the State, and some Federal moneys, have helped create a panoply of options when a young person comes before him for sentencing. He has a number of options. Instead of the juvenile going to where there are a few bed spaces in the State pen or released with nothing, the judge has a series of things right there in the community he can do. The accountability block grant, with graduated sanctions, provides that opportunity. So I would hope the Senator, as he studies this, would realize that the prevention money that we put in would not go to support that, but the block grant accountability money would support the judiciary as it seeks to intervene. Sometimes you have to be tough--some of these kids have really been on a bad road a long time-- to intervene effectively. Thank you for taking the time to personally visit and study one of those centers.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his leadership on this. I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, the Boston project has been a very successful project and contrary to his understanding of our legislation, it does model itself after the key successes of the Boston project. I have had members of my staff visit Boston. The number of murders and decline in crime have been remarkable. It is driven, if you talk to the people there, by a coordinated effort by the entire community, really led by the judiciary, the courts, the police and the probation officers. When judges give a young person probation in Boston, if he is a member of a gang and he is supposed to be in at 7 o'clock at night, a probation officer, along with a uniformed policeman, will go out at night, knock on the door and make sure he or she is home. This is not being done anyplace else in America. They are taking these young people seriously. They are following up. Judges and parole officers in Boston have the capacity to discipline them through detention facilities and other forms of discipline if they violate their probation, which most juvenile judges do not. The whole purpose, what we are doing here, is to try to empower other court systems in America to do the same type of innovative research. In fact, our bill, on page 230, requires this coordinated local effort, which was the key to Boston and several other cities which are making progress in juvenile crime. This requires, prior to receiving a grant under this section, that . . . a unit of local government shall certify that it has or will establish a coordinated enforcement plan-- That is what they have in Boston. for reducing juvenile crime within the jurisdiction of the unit of local government developed by a juvenile crime enforcement coalition, such coalition consisting of individuals within the jurisdiction representing police, sheriff, the prosecutor, State or local probation services, juvenile court, schools, business, and religious affiliated, fraternal, nonprofit and social service organizations involved in crime prevention. So I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, this is what we are doing here. The key to the success of the Boston project, in my opinion, is a coordinated effort among Federal, State and local agencies under the jurisdiction of the court and probation officer, who actually monitors young people who started to be involved in violations of the law, with an intense interest, an intense interest borne out of love and concern, to insist that they stop their bad activities and, in fact, return to the rule of law. If we do that effectively, I do believe we have the capacity to reduce crime in America. I yield the remainder of my time to Chairman Hatch.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements related to the measure appear in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is what we are doing today. The juvenile justice system in America really does need to be strengthened. When young people are being picked up on burglaries, small-time offenses, they are treated as if they are in a revolving door. The court systems are overwhelmed. There is no detention. There is no alternative to schools. There is no treatment for many of them. As a result, we are not intervening effectively in these young peoples' lives. To say money spent--as we do in about half of this bill--to strengthen the court system and strengthen its ability to intervene effectively with young people is not prevention is an error. It is prevention. Almost every one of these mass-murdering young people who has gone into these schools--not almost, I believe every single one of them, because I have watched it--has had some prior criminal record. Had they been effectively dealt with then, maybe they would not have gone on to these more serious offenses. That is where we are. I wish we could afford to spend as much as the Senator would like to on this panoply of prevention programs. We simply are not able to do that. We battled for every dollar we could as the bill is today. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to say that I am excited about where we are at this point with this legislation. It has been a 2-year struggle. Senator Biden is a great advocate and strong believer in his views. I have some strong views about it. I believe that at this point we have made a compromise, an agreement that both of us can live with, which will allow us to effectively respond at this time to assist State and local governments, State and local court systems and juvenile systems, and educational systems to better focus and better prevent and deter crime by young people. I firmly believe we have seen over the last 20 years an extraordinary increase in the amount of juvenile crime in America. Hopefully, it will plateau out a bit. But between 1993 and 1997, juvenile crime was up another 14 percent and has been increasing even more rapidly than prior thereto. What we have is a piece of legislation which I believe will allow us to effectively deal with that. Prevention: What is prevention? A good, consistent court system that has credibility and respect among young people helps prevent crime. A court system that is known for not being credible does not prevent crime. Police officers tell me: They are laughing at us. They know we can't do anything to them. We have no place to put these kids. We have no detention, no punishment that we can impose. Nothing happens to them. We arrest them and they are let go. That is what is happening too often in America. This bill will begin to turn the tide on that. We will spend more money also on trying to prevent crime. I think we are making a good step forward. The House passed this bill. We passed it with bipartisan support last year in committee. I believe we will have a strong vote this time. Thank you, Mr. President. I again congratulate Senator Hatch for the outstanding leadership he has given as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and for his efforts to make this bill a reality. I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent for 2 extra minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah for his steadfast leadership, his skill, and efforts on behalf of this legislation on which we have been working for 2 years. I hope now we are at a point where we can bring it to a conclusion. It passed last year out of committee with bipartisan support, 12 to 6. We continue to have problems getting the bill up. I believe we will this time. There is support across the aisle. But I know there are those who believe we can somehow pass out a few billion dollars and we can prevent all crime in America. That is an awfully broad category, just to say ``prevention.'' What does that mean? How do you spend that money wisely? My concept, as a prosecutor of 15 years, was to try to have the money where, first of all, our first focus would be to make sure the juvenile judges, who are seeing these kids come before them, have a full panoply of options with which to deal with them. They need to be able to drug test them. They need to be able to have them get drug treatment if need be. If they need to go to work camps, they ought to go to work camps or weekend work programs. If they need to have a boot camp, they ought to have that option. If they need to have detention, they should have that. Some do. I wish it were not so. So we have helped craft a bill to have the judge intervene effectively in the life of those youngsters when they first start getting arrested, when they first get in trouble with the law. We have had a lot of talk and created this dichotomy, saying those kinds of programs are not prevention. I believe they are. I believe a program which has a school-based boot camp, like the one in my hometown of Mobile, that I have visited where kids go and have physical exercise, they have discipline, and they have intensive schoolwork on their level--it is working for them. They have after-care to make sure they do not slide back into bad habits after they leave. So I think we have a lot of good things going. I believe that is prevention. We, in this legislation, have half the money going for what they, on the other side of the aisle, would say is prevention. I want to show this chart. It says some things that are important. It was done by the University of Maryland at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice. They did a prevention evaluation report. We have billions of dollars being spent on programs for high-risk youth to try to keep them from heading down the road of a life of crime. A lot of those programs work. A lot of them are not very effective. Our bill, Senator Hatch's bill, has $40 million to research programs to see if they are working. They have already done some research. This is the study the Department of Justice, President Clinton's Department of Justice, did. They found most crime prevention funds are being spent where they are needed least. Is that not a horrible thing to say? We do not have unlimited budgets. I have learned that here. We talk in big numbers but there is a limit to how many millions of dollars we can spend on projects. The conclusion of their own study was, these prevention moneys are being spent where they are needed least. Second, they concluded most crime prevention programs have never been evaluated. Third, among the evaluated programs, some of the least effective receive the most money. That is a real indictment of us. I hope this research and evaluation money we have put in this legislation will help confront that problem. The amendment that has been offered to spend over $1 billion more on prevention--that effort is pretty troubling to me. There have not been intensive hearings on these proposals, as the Senator from Utah noted. We have not evaluated them carefully. In effect, it appears to me we would be throwing money at the problem. Our history tells us that is precisely what we ought not to do. What we have found is there are $4.4 billion now in juvenile prevention money from 117 different programs, according to the General Accounting Office study done very recently on our behalf --117 programs. I used to be in the 4-H Club. Being in the 4-H Club was probably a good thing for me. I got to go to Auburn one time. That was big for me. I had the award for the best hog in Wilcox County. But now they have 4-H Club programs in inner cities, for crime prevention. It may work. But the Department of Agriculture has programs to build 4-H Clubs in the inner cities as some sort of crime prevention program. I have my doubts about whether those are the best ways to spend that money. We need to evaluate these programs. What we found is that money actually dedicated to law enforcement programs for juvenile justice, a juvenile justice system which is in a state of collapse in America, is zero.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I would like to say that Senator Leahy has been a prosecutor, has been interested in these issues, and has spent a lot of time and effort on it. We indeed attempted to respond, as you know, to a number of the concerns he has had. Some of the suggestions and concerns he has raised I believe are worthy. We made a number of corrections which I think would be helpful to that. I know Senator Hatch has also worked hard on it. Let me say first that juvenile crime is in fact a serious national problem. We have had some very real progress in the crime situation in America. We had some reductions in the 1980s. Then, in the mid-1980s, we had a crack epidemic which I think drove the number up some. But it has been declining among adult criminals steadfastly for quite a number of years. I have watched those numbers carefully--not as a Senator but as an attorney general of Alabama and as a U.S. attorney and Federal prosecutor in Alabama. I have observed the numbers and what has been happening. There are some good trends. We need to keep those trends going. A lot of people may not realize that from about 1980 until today we have quadrupled--four times--the number of people in prison as there were before. During a time when many people thought the crime rate was going to continue to go up, this Nation--mostly at the State level--has begun to step forward and identify repeat, dangerous offenders, and not just act as a revolving door but to incarcerate them for longer periods of time, keeping them off the streets, keeping them from being gang leaders and involving other, more impressionable young people in their criminal activity. We have had some nice reductions in violent crimes and, in crimes generally, some reduction among adults. We have not had the same kind of success in juvenile crime. There are a lot of reasons for that. I would like to suggest the fundamental reason, in my opinion; that is, we have not responded as a nation to juvenile crime as we have to adult crime. Most people may not know that 99.9999 percent of all juvenile cases are tried in State court. There are almost no juvenile cases tried in Federal court. I was a Federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney, for 12 years. I think I prosecuted one juvenile case in 12 years. There are so many impediments to it, so many difficulties, that it kept those prosecutions from going forward even when they should have gone forward. We need to improve that and make it a little bit better and easier in appropriate cases for U.S. attorneys, Federal prosecutors, to prosecute juvenile cases. But the thrust of our reform and the thrust of S. 254 is to encourage and strengthen the ability of State and local governments to prosecute and handle and deal with young people who are committing crimes, are about to commit crimes, and who are running afoul of the law. We know that in the last several years there has been a reduction in juvenile violent murders and the rates have gone down--not dramatically, but it has been a good number. Overall, from 1993 through 1997, however, there has been an increase of 14 percent in arrests of juveniles for criminal activities; we are not seeing a decline. This is after an incredible period of explosive growth in the last 15 or 20 years in juvenile crime--maybe even 25 or 30 years in juvenile crime. We have an extraordinarily high, unprecedented level of juvenile crime. Unfortunately, we have not responded to that. Mr. President, I have seen it in my State. And my State is typical. We have increased adult prisoners, but we have not done anything to deal with what happens when a youngster is arrested for a serious crime. Judges don't have options. They don't have the ability to deal with them in an effective way, and they are coming back time and time and time again. There was a murder in Montgomery, AL, when I was attorney general, by three young people. They were 16 and 15. I asked the police chief what kind of criminal history those three young people had. They were out on the streets. They were free, running loose. One had 5 prior arrests; another one had 5 prior arrests; and the third one had 15 prior arrests. A New York Times writer, Mr. Butterfield, within the last year did an analysis of what is happening in juvenile courts. He went to Chicago IL, a major city. What he found there is too typical of what is going on in juvenile justice. What he found was that judges were spending 5 minutes per case--5 minutes per case--because of the crush of these cases. That is unacceptable. It is our responsibility, if we care about those young people coming before that judge, standing in court having been apprehended for a serious crime--if we care about them, if we really love them--to do something with them. We will not spend 5 minutes on their case; we will confront youngsters of 13, 14, or 15 years of age and find out what has been troubling them, find out what their problems are, and intervene effectively. Some say, Well, Senator Sessions, you just want to spend money on courts and lock kids up. I don't want to lock kids up. But what we are doing today is not doing anything to help them. Some kids have to be locked up, unfortunately. I wish it weren't so. Some do. Some have been back 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 times. Finally, if a judge at some point does not have the capacity to validate the integrity of his order of probation which prohibits them from committing further crimes, and he just ignores it time and time again, the whole law becomes a mockery. It becomes a joke. It undermines respect for law. It undermines respect for the police officer who is out doing his duty. Some of these youngsters will kill you. A police officer goes out and makes arrest after arrest, and one of them is liable to pull a gun. One of them is liable to pull a knife. This is a dangerous world. Why should he go out and do his best to apprehend and commit himself to those cases if the judges and prosecutors are unable to proceed with effective punishment? I want to say, first of all, that if we care about what is happening in America, I suggest we look at what is happening in our communities, talk to our police officers, juvenile probation officers, juvenile judges, and ask them: What is happening? Are you sufficiently funded and do you have the resources to intervene effectively at the earliest possible stage of criminality by a young person? If we do that, we can perhaps avoid more serious consequences down the road. I know a lot of people have talked about Littleton, Jonesboro, Paducah, and other mass shootings that have occurred in school. I don't know if those could have been prevented. In my own personal survey, reading the newspapers, I have found that in every one of those cases those young people had been before a judge previously for a serious offense. Had that judge had the time and the resources--an alternative school, a boot camp, a detention facility, mental health treatment, drug treatment, a drug testing program to determine whether or not these kids were in serious trouble--perhaps these crimes could have been prevented. I know people say what we really need is prevention. I think the phrase is ``primary prevention.'' I am not against prevention. This bill has an awful lot of money in it for prevention. I will show you in a moment some of the prevention programs that already exist. Based on my experience and what I know with a virtual certainty in my own mind, if we want to prevent serious criminal behavior and we have a limited amount of money--and we do; for every project that comes before this body, our money is limited--then we ought to focus on that group of people who can be best served by the application of that money. Who is it? It is the ones who are already getting in trouble with the law, the ones who are already being arrested. They are the ones on whom we ought to focus. I assure Members, all over this country we are not able to do that effectively. Call the juvenile judge in your community, if you know him, call your police officer or your prosecutors, and talk to them and see if they don't think we could do better. I have visited with Judge Grossman in Ohio. He has a magnificent court system that Senator DeWine and I visited. When those kids are arrested, they are interviewed by probation officers. Backgrounds are done. The judge studies it. He promptly analyzes their case. He has a school there, a drug treatment program, mental health treatment, family counseling--all these things--when that child comes before him and his team of judges; they have a program to deal with it effectively. That is what I want to see happen all over America. In fact, I believe local communities are considering that all over America. I know in Alabama they are. Cities are sending people up to Boston, which has some terrific innovative programs that have dramatically reduced their murder rate by young people. They are thinking about what to do. How can we help this? We are a Federal Government. How can we help our local county juvenile judge, local county probation officer, do that job? We ought to encourage them to study programs that are working. I think we ought to encourage them to visit programs such as the one in Boston and to develop their own programs. The problem is they need, oftentimes, more money to accomplish that than they have in the immediate short term. What we have is a block grant program that will allow them to receive partial funding from the Federal Government as an encouragement, as an inducement, to create the kind of programs that take place in Ohio and Boston and in my hometown of Mobile, AL. Judge John Butler, who serves on the board of the Juvenile Judges Association, is a long-time friend. He has probably the finest boot camp in the United States. It has an education program. I have been there. I have visited that boot camp. I helped start it years ago. I supported it for years. We have a drug court in Mobile where young people--and adults, too, for that matter--are examined for drug problems. Those are the kind of things that ought to be done. The school is so good that a lot of the young people who have been arrested and put into that detention boot camp facility with an education component want to continue their education there. They don't want to go back to their regular school. They want to stay in that school. That is what we need. That is the absolute best application of limited dollars to reduce serious violent crime, in my opinion. We can find out if there is a serious problem at home. Maybe it is child abuse. Maybe one of the parents is a drug addict or an alcoholic. Maybe the child is totally neglected and there is psychological abuse going on in the home. Maybe they are running around with very bad friends and gang members. If the family is brought in, if the probation officers are brought in, if they are drug tested, if they are analyzed carefully, then progress can be made to turn around some of those young people. Some of them will continue a life of crime. We care about our young people. Most of the victims of crimes by young people are other young people. We simply have to remove some of them from the community because they are not safe. Innocent kids who have done nothing wrong can be shot, killed, or abused by violent youngsters who are not able to be changed by the court system. That is basically the philosophy. We call it ``graduated sanctions.'' That is the phrase we are using in this bill, S. 254. It says if you receive money under this grant program, develop a system that is consistent with your own philosophy, your own local community, that increases punishment for repeat offenders. This idea a lot of people have that we are putting young people in jail for light or transient crimes is not true. It is not true. They know it. Minor kids don't get sent to jail. I recently talked to a judge who had a serious case, a repeat of two or three household burglaries. He said he had one bed in the State juvenile system. If it is not an approved juvenile facility, according to the Federal Government, they can't even spend one night in it. He said he had one minor there for assault with intent to murder and he was not going to let him out to put the burglar in jail, so he had to let him go. That is what is happening in the America. If we are not serious about it and don't invest in it and allow our judges, in a humane, disciplined, and effective way, to validate the rule of law, to validate decency and morality, to establish a system that disciplines wrongdoing instead of accommodating to it, we will continue to have more juvenile crime. I believe that is a significant way to prevent crime. I know, regarding general prevention programs, it is the politically correct thing for people to say we need to spend more money. I am not opposed to it, if they work. I will say this: Our program had $40 million spent for the National Institute of Justice to research and evaluate the effectiveness of the various juvenile prevention programs. I know Senator Fred Thompson, from Tennessee, who worked on this committee, used to say: We don't know what works. We need to study more effectively what we are doing. We have had a commitment in this bill to research, to analyze, what really does work to reduce crime. Mr. President, I have no pride of authorship. I want to spend the resources we are prepared to spend as a Congress as wisely as we possibly can so we can get an effective reduction of crime. School programs probably ought to be funded through the school and not through a crime bill. The general philosophy of most experts in dealing with juvenile crime is to make that young person's first brush with the law their last. That does not mean they have to be locked up for weeks on end, but it means a meaningful confrontation about their wrongdoing must occur. Families need to be involved. A probation officer needs to be involved, one who has the time to analyze the problem--perhaps in the family or perhaps that child's own problem. Sometimes it is not a family problem; sometimes the child has the problem-- to confront it and take the steps necessary to improve that circumstance. Police officers all over America tell me this is what is happening. They are out patrolling. They catch a young person who is burglarizing a house or business. The child is arrested and taken down to the police station. I would say the overwhelming majority of communities in America do not have a juvenile jail facility in their community, so that means the nearest jail is some hours away. They are not able to keep that child for 1 hour in an adult prison, even if it is on a separate floor or separate wing, totally apart from adults. They cannot keep that child 1 hour. They leave the child sitting in the police station lobby waiting for mother and daddy to come and take them home. Some say, oh, that is not true. It is true. That is what is happening all over America, and a lot of it is because the Federal regulations on detaining young people are too severe, in my opinion. I know some think, oh, you want to put young people in jail with adults. I don't want to put them in jail with adults. But I don't want every local community in America to have to build a separate juvenile jail when they may have no more than two or three people. They have new facilities and they can carve our wings or sections of those jails for short-term detention of young people, because if they are arrested, bail has to be set. If they are not able to make it right away, they have to have a hearing within 72 hours. So if they have to take them to a distant facility at night--maybe there is only one police officer still on duty. I know the Senator from New York has more police officers on duty than one, but there are a lot of communities in New York State and Alabama that may only have one officer on duty. So it is just not a practical thing. I believe we ought to be more realistic because juvenile judges do not want children to be harmed. Police chiefs do not want children to be harmed. They are not going to put them in these places so they can be abused. That is ``Easy Rider'' myth, that stuff. That is myth. People get sued if you allow somebody in prison to be abused while in prison. We ought not allow that to happen. I just say that first of all. That is my general view of where we are. We did make a commitment--and Senator Leahy referred to it --not to federalize juvenile justice. I really do not believe that is an appropriate thing for us to do. As I said, virtually all juvenile cases are handled in State courts. They have procedures for it. They have detention systems that ought to be expanded, but they have them already. They have their own laws that have been set up. They have juvenile judges. They have, many times, prosecutors who specialize in juvenile cases. They have probation officers who specialize in it. They have boot camps, halfway houses, mental health treatment, drug treatment--systems already set up around these systems, and we ought to encourage that and encourage them to invest more and not create a new Federal system for it. There has been some concern. I think anyone who reads this bill will realize we have not made any move to federalize juvenile justice. Let me mention a few things now. There is some question about what does it require to get a grant out of this bill if you are going to improve your juvenile justice system, if you want to help your judge in your town have an expanded capacity to confront youngsters and deal with them. You need to have a graduated sanctions. We just do not believe we ought to give money where there is business as usual and a revolving door. You ought to have some plan--it doesn't tell you how--of graduated punishments so when they come back the second and third time, there is an ability for the judge to impose more serious punishments. You need to have a policy of drug testing upon arrest. If we care about young people who are committing crime and we want to improve them and see they do not continue a life of crime, we ought to test them for illegal drugs. We have known for the last 20 years--there was a survey by, I believe, the National Institute of Justice, of major cities around the country that showed that almost 70 percent--everywhere it usually runs 67 to 70 percent--of the people arrested in those cities when drug tested upon arrest test positive for an illegal drug. That drugs are an accelerator to crime cannot be denied. There is no doubt about it. What I believe is every court system--this doesn't mandate exactly the way I would like to see it--but it does encourage every court system to have a program to drug test young people when they are arrested. Because if they are on drugs, we need to start treating them. We need to start dealing with it effectively. You say, even for small crimes like theft? Yes. Because oftentimes the thief, the person who is stealing, is stealing to get money for drugs. Frequently those people who show up with drug use, who are more likely to have a drug problem, are more likely to shoot somebody than someone who gets mad at a football game. So you just don't know. In Washington, DC, it has been done for years. I met with the director here 15 years ago and I have studied this problem. I really believe we need to do a better job. So it says you should have a plan. Then we need to recognize the rights of victims. We continually have the complaint, if you are burglarized or robbed by a young person, oftentimes you do not even know when they are tried or what the prosecutor and judge decide to do about it. Your opinion is not asked. It gets settled. There is never a court hearing and you are not told anything about it. Victims have rights in juvenile court, too. So we are asking them to address that and establish some policy that will improve the victims' right to participate. Some States do, some do not. These are some of the things we try to do in funding this bill. It is one thing to say you ought to do these things; it is another thing for the Federal Government to ante up and help pay for it. So our block grant proposal deals with that. It provides money that can be used for graduated sanctions. It helps them build detention facilities. There are a lot of them that are modern, are first rate, that have a lot of good things about them. We need to encourage every community in America to analyze its detention facilities and see if it can do a better job. I think we ought to provide matching funds for it, which this bill does. We have been doing some of that for the last 2 years in our budget, but I would like to make it permanent with this. We have money for drug testing. If you set up a drug testing program, you can have the Federal Government, basically, pay for it--because we believe it is important. Recordkeeping--there is a famous case about a youngster in New York who committed an assault with intent to murder; went to New Jersey, committed another violent crime and was released on bail and then murdered a police officer. A judge in New Jersey did not know about the serious violent crime in New York. We were not putting those records in the National Crime Information Center. I know some will say this is juvenile, but I say this is serious. People who are committing serious violent crimes need to have their records in the National Crime Information Center, because when they are arrested again--that is the pattern; they will be arrested again--the judges will not know their prior history. We have a good bit of money for that in this legislation which I believe will help States set up a first-class program; Mr. President, $75 million, in fact, for them to update their criminal records. We need to encourage the States to start putting their records in the National Crime Information Center. Director Louis Freeh said they will accept those records, they want those records, and they do not need any money from the Federal Government to receive them. They can receive them without additional cost. We want to promote restitution programs. That is what this grant money can be spent for. We want to promote programs requiring juveniles to attend and complete school programs and vocational programs. We want to require parents to work and pay for some of these programs. We want antitruancy programs. Truancy is a serious problem. It is an indicator of an oftentimes deeper problem. If we can create a better truancy program in America, we can improve and reduce crime. We want identification and treatment of serious juvenile offenders, those who have real problems, and prevention and disruption of gangs, technology and training programs for juvenile crime control, and moneys for programs that punish adults who knowingly and intentionally use a juvenile during the commission of a crime. There are, in fact, in America today cold-blooded drug dealers and other criminals who actually use juvenile offenders to commit crimes because not much will be done to them if they are caught. We believe that is a horrible thing and we ought to have a program to end it. I am going to talk about prevention now. Again, I have no objection to good prevention programs, but since 1974, we have put no money--and in my hometown of Mobile, AL, the juvenile detention center there was built in 1974 or 1975, partly with Federal funds. It encouraged them to create what, at the time, was a first-rate, state-of-the-art facility. But that all ended many, many years ago. We have no money dedicated today to help juvenile law enforcement, detention or otherwise. There are no dedicated moneys for that, except what we have as part of our effort last year, which is not enough. We are spending $4.4 billion per year on juvenile prevention programs. GAO has found there are 117 of these programs--117 juvenile programs, spending $4.4 billion a year. We are asking for $450 million only for juvenile accountability in a block grant and only a portion of that so we can improve our detention facilities. Look at this chart. I think we ought to understand this. There is a lot of money being spent now on prevention programs, and some of it is not being spent wisely. That is why we have money in this bill, to review the effectiveness of these programs. Listen to this: There are 62 programs that provide training and technical assistance for young people who may be in trouble; 62 for counseling; 55 for research and evaluation; violence prevention, 53 programs; parental and family intervention, 52; support service, 51; substance abuse prevention, 47; self-sufficiency skills--I don't know what that means, but I guess it is a good program--46; mentoring, 46; job assistance training--people say we need to get these young people jobs. All right, we have 45 programs doing that; substance abuse treatment, 26, and there are others. That is some of the money we are already spending. I am not sure we are spending it well. What we probably should do is have a total analysis of all that is being spent in the different agencies and departments. I used to be in the 4-H Club. I had the best hog in Wilcox County. I received a little pin for it from the 4-H Club. I was able to go to Auburn. It was a big deal to go to Auburn University. My friend almost won the tractor driving contest in Auburn. That was a big deal for me, but they have a 4-H Club program now for the inner city. That sounds like a good idea, I guess. Maybe it is a good idea. I don't know whether it is working or not. Maybe we ought to see if money we are spending on inner-city 4-H Clubs as prevention projects is well spent and whether those programs are working. I would like to look at that. There is also a strong feeling that after we have a tragic shooting, as we did in Littleton, CO, we ought to do something about guns; we ought to do more about guns. We have quite a number of Federal gun laws on the books today. I served as a prosecutor for 12 years. President Bush sent out a message that he wanted a crackdown on illegal guns in America. He wanted us as prosecutors--there were three districts in Alabama and 92 Federal districts, 92 U.S. attorneys in America. He said: I want you to crack down on these gun cases and prosecute criminals who are using guns. We started a project called Triggerlock. In 1992, when I left office, there were 7,048 prosecutions under existing Federal gun laws. After President Clinton took office, he said we have to have more gun laws. Since he has been in office, he has pushed for more, more, more, more, shoving the second-amendment right to bear arms as far as it can be shoved. Those of us who believe in the second amendment and the right of people individually to bear arms find that troubling. It is always more, more, more, but at the same time, the prosecutors he appoints, the U.S. attorneys who are Presidential appointments, are allowing the cases to drop. It dropped, in 1998, to 3,807. That comes right out of the U.S. attorneys' statistical report. You say, ``Jeff, I don't know what that proves.'' I say to you, if Attorney General Reno tomorrow made a commitment and sent a message to all U.S. attorneys that she wanted these cases prosecuted, those numbers would be up to the rate of 7,000 within a month or two. These are not complicated questions. It is a question of the priority of the Department of Justice. A good prosecutor can prosecute 100 gun cases in the time he can spend on one complex tax case, for example. I am telling you, they can prosecute 100 of them for one complex tax case, one corruption case. We ought not to abandon tax cases and corruption cases, but just a little emphasis on this will help. Since the President took office, he said we have to have a lot of new gun laws because this will reduce violence. We want new laws. The Congress responded and gave him new laws. One of them is possession of firearms on school grounds. The First Lady said the other day there were 6,000 incidents of guns being brought onto school grounds last year--6,000. Look at how many this Department of Justice, President Clinton's personally appointed prosecutors, prosecuted. In 1997, they prosecuted five defendants for that violation. They had to have this law. In 1998, they prosecuted eight. That is not going to affect the crime rate in America. That is all I am saying. I am not saying how many cases ought to be prosecuted. What I am saying is we need to get away from symbolism and we need to strengthen our juvenile justice system in America. Look at this one: Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles. It is not a bad law. If you transfer a gun to a juvenile, it is against the law. It ought to be a crime. It was not a crime until it was passed, 922 (x)(1). Five were prosecuted in 1997 and six in 1998. Look at this one: Possession or transfer of semiautomatic weapons, assault weapons. That was the assault weapons bill that was so controversial. An assault weapon looks horrible, but it is, in effect, a semiautomatic rifle. It fires one time when you pull the trigger. It is not fully automatic, which is already illegal and has been illegal for years. There was debate on it, and Congress voted to make it illegal. It was the first time that a semiautomatic was made illegal. In 1997, four cases were prosecuted; in 1998, four cases. My view is that if we have a good gun law that needs to be passed that can make our communities safer, I am willing to support it as long as it does not violate the second amendment of the Constitution. But I took an oath to uphold the Constitution. This legislation has a good provision called the Juvenile Brady provision which says if a youngster is convicted of a crime of violence, that record has to be maintained, and they cannot get a weapon when they get older. Adults who have been convicted of a felony cannot possess a firearm in America. That is against the law. But if you were convicted of a serious crime as a juvenile, it did not count against you and you could possess a gun as an adult when you became an adult. So we are going to close that loophole. Finally, this legislation has gained great support throughout America. The Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America have endorsed this legislation. The National Troopers Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the National Collaboration for Youth have commented extremely favorably on the bill, as has the National Juvenile Judges Association, which has been much involved in helping us draft it. They are very positive about this. I strongly believe that we have responded to the concerns of the Democratic Members and have tried to craft a bill that would be acceptable to them. I know Senator Leahy has worked on it, and Senator Biden. I see he would like the floor. He has sponsored many crime bills over the years and has been active in his interest in this legislation. As ranking member on our subcommittee, he will be talking about the legislation in a minute. I believe we have a good bill. I think it is time for America to respond to juvenile crime in an effective way. This bill will do many of the things that are necessary--not all, but it will do many of the things necessary for us to create an effective response to juvenile violence in America. I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that until 2:15 today debate only be in order on the pending legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I know you, the Senator from Arkansas, are familiar with tragedies in high schools involving our young people who create havoc and take the lives of fellow students and others. The event in Colorado is the most glaring and stunning example of the kind of violence that we are apparently capable of as a nation today. As chairman the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Youth Violence, I have given an awful lot of thought to it. But I am perplexed. A few things occur to me. There is what appears to me a pattern here that would suggest how we have gotten to this point. It strikes me that an extremely small number of young people today have gotten on a very destructive path. They have headed down the road of anger and violence. They have not been acculturated with the kind of gentlemanliness and gentlewomanliness, not inculcated with religious faith and discipline, maybe a lack of values or whatever--somehow it did not take. Maybe their parents tried. Maybe they did not. But, in addition to that, they are alienated and angry. They are able to hook into the Internet and play video games that are extraordinarily violent, that cause the blood pressure to rise and the adrenalin level to go up, games that cause people to be killed and the players to die themselves. It is a very intense experience. They are able to get into Internet chatrooms and, if there are no nuts or people of the same mentality in their hometown, hook up with people around the country. They are able to rent from the video store--not just go down and see ``Natural Born Killers'' or ``The Basketball Diaries''--but they are able to bring it home and watch it repeatedly. In this case even maybe make their own violent film. Many have said this murder was very much akin to ``The Basketball Diaries,'' in which a student goes in and shoots others in the classroom. I have seen a video of that, and many others may have. In music, there is Marilyn Manson, an individual who chooses the name of a mass murderer as part of his name. The lyrics of his music are consistent with his choice of name. They are violent and nihilistic and there are groups all over the world who do this, some German groups and others. I guess what I am saying is, a person already troubled in this modern high-tech world can be in their car and hear the music, they can be in their room and see the video, they can go into the chatrooms and act out these video games and even take it to real life. Something there is very much of a problem. All of us have to look for the signs of children who may be moving deeper and deeper into death, violence, nihilism, and other bad trends. We ought to say and we ought to encourage our teachers and our school administrators and our parents to intervene and to assert that life is better than death, that peace is better than violence, and honesty is better than falsehood; that respect for your brothers and tolerance and patience, even in the face of adverse actions by somebody toward you, is essential in a civilized society. I am concerned about that. What I really want to mention today, because I have been through this for a number of years, is the question of what we do about firearms in America. I was at a church event, not too many months ago, and the preacher prayed against guns. I thought that was odd for him to pray against an inanimate object that does what the holder tells it to do. But I think we would do well to focus on what it is that is eating at the soul of too many people in America today, No. 1. What about this problem with guns? I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 years, 12 as U.S. attorney under Presidents Reagan and Bush. They created a program called Project Triggerlock. In that program, this Congress passed legislation that said if you are convicted of carrying a firearm during a crime, a felony, it is 5 years without parole consecutive for the underlying offense. If you are a felon and you possess a firearm and you are guilty of a felony, you can get 2 or 3 more years in jail. Those are bread-and-butter gun laws focusing on people who commit crimes with firearms. There are a lot of others: having a firearm without a serial number, having a sawed-off shotgun, a fully automatic weapon, and now assault weapons. There are literally hundreds of gun laws. The directive came down from the President of the United States that he wanted these people prosecuted for violating those gun laws. I took the directive. I was one of the lieutenants in the war, and we went to work. I created a newsletter and sent it to every sheriff. I said: If you have the kind of criminal that needs prosecuting under Federal gun laws, you bring those cases to me and we will prosecute them. Our numbers went up tremendously, and the word began to get out. The word got out in the streets: If you have a gun, they will take you to Federal court. By the way, most people do not realize that some good laws have been passed for Federal court. Ask your sheriffs and police chiefs which has the fastest justice system, which has the most severe punishment and the most certainty of punishment, which one is the felon least likely to get out of jail on parole, and every one of them will tell you the Federal system is tougher than any State. Whatever State you are in, the Federal justice system is tougher: We have a 70-day speedy trial act; whatever the sentence is, you have to serve at least 85 percent of it. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines mandate tough sentences. The judges have to impose them. If not, the prosecutor can appeal, and they go to jail. They do not want to go to Federal court for a gun violation. I am telling you, the word gets out, in my professional opinion, having been a prosecutor, as I said, for 15 years in the Federal system and two as Attorney General. I actually believe there was a deterrence in the number of people carrying guns in criminal activities. That is where people get killed. When I was elected to the Senate in 1996 after I left as a Federal prosecutor in 1992, I began to look at the Department of Justice statistics on the kinds of cases they are prosecuting, because I served 15 years in the Department of Justice, and I know how to read those numbers. I want to show you what we discovered. What we found is in 1992, when President Bush's U.S. attorneys left office, they were prosecuting 7,048 gun cases each year in 1992. They prosecuted over 7,000. Notice this chart shows the decline in those cases. It was 3,800 in 1998, a 40-percent decline. This is particularly shocking to me because this President is always talking about guns and how we need to have more laws and we need to prosecute more people for guns, and they are not doing it. His own Attorney General, Janet Reno, has overseen a 40-percent decline. This is not a secret. Since I have been here, for 2 years, when the Attorney General has come before our committee, the Deputy Attorney General, Eric Holder, the Chief of the Criminal Division for confirmation and other hearings, I have pulled out this very chart. I have gone over these numbers with them and have asked them why they are not prosecuting these cases. I have not yet received a good answer, other than they are just not putting the message out to the U.S. attorneys that they expect them to enforce these laws. But what we have is a President who wants to call press conferences, as he did yesterday, to announce more laws; that we need to pass more laws. The bread-and-butter laws are already on the books, and we have added scores of other laws, which I support and I willingly prosecuted aggressively. It concerns me that people say, ``Oh, you just don't believe in gun laws, Jeff. You are just NRA bought and paid for and you don't want to do this.'' They believe in the second amendment right to bear arms, and so do I. If you want to change it, let's talk about changing it, but there is a constitutional right to bear arms. There also is a right for the Government to place reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms. I have spent a big part, a major part of my professional career actively engaged with people who violate those reasonable restrictions. Machine guns, fully automatic weapons have been outlawed since the thirties, the Al Capone days. Sawed-off shotguns have been outlawed for many years. Bombs are outlawed today and have been for many years. First of all, it concerns me, and I think it is hypocritical and really dishonest for the President to suggest that the way to deal with violations of gun laws is to pass more laws, if you are not prosecuting the ones we have. But, oh, that is the big deal: Are you for coming a little further to that second amendment core principle that protects the right to bear arms? Let's see how far we can go and make people vote against it because they have a concern for the Constitution and a general belief that the Government has gone too far and then say they don't care about guns, all the time presiding over an administration that is showing this dramatic decrease, a 40-percent decrease in the prosecutions. That is not an imaginary number. I have raised it with the Attorney General, and we pulled it out of their statistics. In addition to that, we have in the last several years, at the behest of gun control advocates, passed a number of bills, some of which are good, some of which are marginal, but we passed them. We were told that these were critical to prevent violence in America. And we need these gun laws. I want to show you this chart. We pulled it out of the Department of Justice statistics. And I questioned them about it in hearings before this tragedy, because this isn't a recent deal, this is something that has been going on for several years, and it is well known. One of the best things, I suppose, is, the possession of firearms on school grounds is a Federal crime. The First Lady, who sometimes it had been suggested was a de facto Attorney General at the beginning of this administration, yesterday was speaking about gun laws. And that is all right. But she has not had the experience I have had in prosecuting these cases. And she talks about, we need more of them. And this is one of them they highlighted. But look at this. In 1997, the Clinton administration nationwide prosecuted five. In 1998, they prosecuted eight. ``But we're committed, Jeff.'' But they said--the First Lady did in her speech yesterday--that there were 6,000 incidents last year in schools of weapons being brought to school. So how come her prosecutors are prosecuting so few of them? Let me ask you. I think it is a good question. Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles. I support that. And right now it is unlawful for a firearms dealer to transfer a pistol to a juvenile, a person under 21. Look at this. In 1997, they prosecuted five. In 1998, they prosecuted six. What difference does it make if we pass laws if nobody is being prosecuted for them? Possession or transfer of semiautomatic weapons. Those are the assault weapons. The assault weapon is a weapon that looks like one of these fully automatic military weapons; it has the handles on it, but it is really a semiautomatic weapon that fires one time when you pull the trigger. Traditionally, a lot of rifles are semiautomatic. But in that configuration it was made illegal. Remember all the debate about that? We had tremendous debate over the first time a semiautomatic rifle had been made illegal. But the administration's position was, it just had to have the law. They just had to have it. And it is an unpleasant weapon, I assure you. I do not think you have to have it to go hunting. But at any rate, in 1997, four of those cases were prosecuted in the entire United States; in 1998, four. I say all that to say this: I believe we have to quit doing symbolic things. We need to quit doing things for headlines. We need to sit down and figure out how to reduce crime in America. With regard to this very odd group of people we have seen in five States going on rampages in high schools, that is a unique and special group. And if they are determined to build a bomb, and can build one by looking it up on the Internet, whether or not they have to go down to the store to buy a weapon and give their name or whatever is not going to make much difference. That is real. And if they are seeing this on television, in videos, whether or not there is a law about it, as clever as these kids are, it is not likely to make much difference. But I just say that that is a crucial matter for us. I would think, as one who has been at this for a long time, we need to maintain our discipline now. And if something good can come out of this tragedy in Colorado, I pray that it will. When that young girl affirmed her faith with a gun at her head, subjecting herself to summary execution by a laughing, diabolical shooter, I think we ought to take time to pause a minute and think about that, because this is really serious. It is deeper than whether or not you prosecute with 4 or 20 gun laws in the United States. It is deeper than that. That is what I am saying. But it does not mean that effective prosecutions of gun laws can't reduce crime. Let me tell you this story. Within the last month I, as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Crime, called a hearing. We were going to discuss a program known as Project Exile in Richmond which the leader of it called ``Trigger Lock with Steroids.'' Not only did they prosecute every gun violation they could find in Richmond, they ran ads on television saying: ``We will prosecute you.'' They put up signs saying how long you would serve in the Federal slammer if you carried a gun during a crime or illegality. Their prosecutions went sky-high. But there were questions in the Department of Justice. The program was not supported because it was not the trend with this Department of Justice. But they kept doing it. And just last year they found they had over a 40-percent reduction in violent crime in Richmond. And the U.S. attorney, appointed by the President of the United States, President Clinton, testified and others involved with it--the chief of police in Richmond--testified that they were convinced that aggressive criminal prosecutions in a trigger-lock- type fashion of violent criminals, and other criminals who carried guns, helped drive down the murder rate. I thought we ought to have a hearing about it. I wanted to highlight that and encourage it. What I want to say to you is funny, almost; and maybe something good came from that hearing. The hearing was set for Monday in our little, lowly committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Juvenile Crime. On Saturday, before that hearing, the President went on his national radio show and said he wanted to adopt the Richmond project and promote and expand it. So I hope maybe our hearing had something to do with getting the attention of the Department of Justice. But I have not seen any numbers to indicate that. It is easy to say words. But what we most often heard is that, we want new laws--which are not being prosecuted--and if we can pass a law, then we can say we did something. I have been in this body just 2 years. I think there is a real problem here. Whenever there is a national matter of intense interest, what happens? We up and pass a law and say we did something. ``Hey, give me a medal. I passed a law. I am against assault weapons. I am fighting crime.'' If you have been in the pit and dealt with criminals professionally for a long time, you know it takes more than that. It takes a sustained effort. If you do it consistently and aggressively, and you crack down on gun violations, you can in fact reduce the crime rate. Ask the U.S. Attorney and the chief of police in Richmond if it is not so. I do hope the statement that the President made in his radio show really indicates a commitment to get these numbers up, because this is not acceptable for any administration, but particularly one which claims that the prosecuting of criminals and violations of Federal gun laws is a high priority of theirs. Obviously it is not. We have a 40- percent reduction. So, maybe somebody says, ``Jeff, that is just political.'' It is not political with me. It is something I have lived with. I prosecuted these kinds of cases. I believe it reduces murders. I believe it saves the lives of innocent people. And I would like to see an effective program conducted by this administration. And it has in fact been demolished, as these numbers show. It undermines the effectiveness of that effort. There are innocent people, I will assure you, today who have been shot and wounded--some people who have been killed--who would not have been had the Triggerlock Project continued. So it is something that I have been raising since I first got to this Senate--at virtually every Judiciary Committee hearing I have had. I hope this tragedy will do one thing: It will get the attention of the President and the Attorney General and the Chief of the Criminal Division and the Associate Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, and they will start sending the word out to their prosecutors. And they have more of them now than they had in 1992 when I was there. They ought to be putting more of these people in jail. If we do, they will make some difference. But I really don't think even those prosecutions are likely to have any significant impact on the bizarre few people who are willing to go to a school and slaughter their own classmates, commit suicide, worship Adolf Hitler, and think of Marilyn Manson as something cool. That is a different matter with which we have to deal. I hope as a nation we will confront it honestly and directly and begin to bring back in every school system, because some parents apparently are not doing it, a program that teaches character and good values like we are used to in America. There are those who say, well, you cannot do that, that is violating civil liberties, you cannot express a concern about right and wrong in a classroom because that is a value judgment. Well, we are suffering today from 30 or 40 years of liberalism, relativism, that anything goes. Well, some will say that is just old- fashioned talk. No, it is not. No nation, in my view, can remain strong in which there are no values which we can affirm. If we can't affirm that Adolf Hitler is bad, what are we? If we can't affirm that Charles Manson is not a fit person to emulate, then what are we as a nation? If we can't say that telling the truth is more important than telling a lie, that reality is better than spin, then we are in trouble. I hope we have not reached that. I think the American people are good. I hope this tragedy has some ability to cause us to confront that and, if so, our Nation would be better for it. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for allowing me to address this body on this important issue. I have shared with the Senate some thoughts and concerns of mine that have been a part of me for a long time. I believe it is something our Nation has to consider, and I hope and pray we will. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to express my support for a bill that was introduced yesterday by Senator Jeffords--the Northeastern and Southern Dairy Compact. This bill would reauthorize the Northeastern Dairy Compact and grant the consent of Congress for a Southern Dairy Compact. The Southern Dairy Compact, which has been passed by Alabama and 10 other southeastern States, authorizes an interstate Compact Commission to take whatever measures are necessary to assure customers of an adequate local supply of fresh fluid milk while encouraging the continued viability of dairy farming within the region encompassing the compact States. The current milk marketing order pricing system does not adequately account for regional differences in the costs of producing milk; furthermore, the Federal milk marketing order system establishes only minimum prices for milk. Due to these inconsistencies in milk prices, surplus milk is flooding the southeast and shutting down the family dairy farmer. By design, the Federal program relies on State regulation to account for regional differences. However, milk usually crosses State lines, so courts have ruled that individual States do not have the authority to regulate milk prices under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. To account for these regional price differences, states can gain regulatory authority by entering into a compact. States are now joining these compacts to maintain their dairy industry and are asking us to approve of the legislation they have already passed in their respective states. The support at the State level has been overwhelming and unanimous and I am hopeful this body will adopt these compacts unanimously as well. The compact benefits everyone. Farmers are assured of more stable milk prices, thereby affording them the opportunity for better planning and recovery of production costs. Consumers will benefit as prices for fluid milk stabilize in the supermarket. According to the USDA and GAO accounting figures, there was a 40 percent increase in the market price of fluid milk between 1985 and 1997. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the compact established in the Northeast in 1996 increased the income of dairy farmers by 6 percent while maintaining prices to the consumer at 5 cents/gallon below the national average price for milk. In addition, OMB found no adverse effect on states outside of the compact. The compact is a win-win piece of legislation. Dairy farming is an important industry in my State of Alabama, and I am a strong supporter of the family farmer. Their hard work and dedication is at the heart of the greatness of this nation. In Alabama, there are more than 2,000 employees in the dairy industry supporting a $48 million payroll. Last year, the dairy industry in Alabama generated a total of $204 million in economic activity. However, recent production capacity has deteriorated and further decreases may push production past the point of no return. From 1995 to 1998, milk production in Alabama decreased by 26 million pounds. The establishment of the dairy compact will ensure fair prices to farmers so that they can maintain a profitable level of milk production. The creation of a compact will bring stability to an important industry in Alabama and all over the Southeast. Consumers will be assured of fair prices and farmers will be confident in their production decisions. The States have voiced their concerns. The States have developed a solution. It is now our responsibility to stamp our approval onto the compacts which have been passed in States throughout the Northeast and Southeast.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise and make some comments about the Y2K legislation designed to make sure that we spend our time and effort fixing this problem and not suing one another. I really believe in the legal system. I had served as a lawyer my entire adult life, until 2 years ago, when I joined this Senate. I served as attorney general of Alabama. I was in private practice 12 years as U.S. attorney for the southern district of Alabama. During that time, I was involved in a lot of important legal issues. I respect the law. I believe in our Constitution and our legal system. I have been to China, and I have heard the people in China say that what they need most of all right now for a modern economy is a good legal system. I have been to Russia. I have heard the people in Russia talk about their need for an honest, fair, and efficient legal system. We have a great legal system. We certainly ought not, as the Senator from South Carolina suggests, have a rush to judgment. But the problems that have occurred over a period of years involving excess litigation are not new. It has been occurring for a number of years, and it calls on us to think objectively and fairly as to how we are going to handle disputes. This piece of legislation involves, as the Senator from Oregon just noted, one problem, a Y2K computer problem. It will terminate itself when that problem is over. But most of all, it is a commonsense and reasonable way for us to get through this problem without damaging our economy. Let me share this story. These numbers that I am about to give were produced during a hearing at the Judiciary Committee not too long ago. We had some inquiry about the litigation involving asbestos and people at shipyards, and so forth, who breathe asbestos and had their health adversely affected. What we learned was that over 200,000 cases had been filed, many of them taking years to reach conclusion. Two hundred thousand more were pending, and it was expected that another 200,000 would be filed out of that tragic problem. What we also found was, when we made inquiry, we asked how much of the money actually paid by those defendant corporations got to the victims of asbestos. I am a person who believes in the legal system. I respect it. I was shocked and embarrassed to find out that the expert testimony was that only 40 percent of the money paid out by the asbestos companies actually got to the people who needed it, who were sick because of it. The legal fees are 30 and 40 percent. Court fees and costs all added to it take up 60 percent. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable if we care about a problem and how to fix it. That figure did not count the court systems that were clogged and remain clogged to this day by hundreds, even thousands of asbestos lawsuits. I say to the Senate, we are facing a crisis. These are some of the comments at the recent ABA, American Bar Association, convention in Toronto last August. A panel of experts predicted that the legal costs associated with the Y2K would exceed that of asbestos, breast implants, tobacco, and Superfund litigation combined. By the way, with regard to these asbestos companies, even with regard to big companies, there are limits to how much they can pay. Every single asbestos company in America that is still in business is in bankruptcy. Every asbestos company still in business is in bankruptcy. These are tremendous costs. What this American Bar Association study showed was that the cost of this litigation would exceed asbestos, breast implants, a huge amount of litigation, tobacco, and Superfund combined. They note that this is more than three times the total annual estimated cost of all civil litigation in the United States. We have too much litigation now. Seminars on how to try a Y2K case-- these are lawyers' seminars, trying to teach each other how to file them--are well underway. Approximately 500 law firms across the country have put together Y2K litigation teams to capitalize on the event. They can't wait. Also, several lawsuits have already been filed, making trial attorneys confident that a large number of businesses, big and small, will end up in court as both plaintiffs and defendants. They are going to be suing because something went wrong with their computer, and the people they sold the computer to, or are doing business with, are going to be suing them for problems arising from the computers. We are going to be spending more money on litigation than on fixing the problem. This report indicates this litigation problem ``would reduce investment and slow income growth for American workers. Indeed, innovation and economic growth would be stifled by the rapacity of strident litigators.'' Well, I would say it is not a matter of whether there is a problem. There have been estimates of $1 trillion in legal costs for this thing. I think we do have a problem. What is needed? I think this legislation goes a long way in meeting what is needed. What is needed is to spend our time and effort fixing the problem promptly. If we have all of our computer companies spending time hiring $500-per-hour lawyers to defend them in court, draining their resources from which to actually fix the problem, that is not the right direction to go in, I submit. In addition to that, when you are in litigation, you are not as open and willing to discuss the problem honestly with somebody because you are afraid anything you say and do will be used against you in a lawsuit. Lawyers are always saying, ``Don't talk about it.'' What we really want is the computer companies to get in there with the businesses that are relying on the computers and try to fix the problem at the lowest possible cost. Now, we had one witness who didn't favor this in the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee voted out a bill very similar to Senator McCain's bill. I am pleased to support his bill, as well as the one in the Judiciary Committee. But this company that filed a lawsuit and received a substantial verdict was not in favor of the legislation, he said. I asked him how long it took to get his case over. He said 2 years. It took him 2 years to get the case to a conclusion. Now, we are going to have hundreds of thousands of lawsuits in every county in America, every Federal court, clogged up with these kinds of cases, and it will take years to get to a conclusion, and that is not a healthy circumstance for America. I really mean that. That is not good for us, if we care about the American economy. So we need to do that. We need to get compensation to people who suffer losses promptly, with the least possible overhead, the least possible need to pay attorney fees, the least possible need to have expert witnesses and prolonged times to get to it. We need to get it promptly and effectively, and we need to make sure that people who have been fraudulent and irresponsible can be sued and can be taken to court and taken to trial. That will happen in this case. Now, some have suggested that we are violating the Constitution if we do that. Well, that is not so. We believe in litigation and in being able to get redress in court. This law would provide for that. Historically, the U.S. Senate and the State legislatures, every day, set standards for lawsuits. They set the bases of liability. They say how long it takes before you can file a lawsuit. Sometimes the statute of limitations is 2 years, sometimes it is 1 year, sometimes it is 6 years. Legislatures set standards for litigation. That is what they do. We are a legislative body and we have a right and an obligation to consider what is best for America in the face of this unique crisis and to deal with it effectively. Let me ask, if we don't have such a law as this, what will happen? Well, I submit that there will be thousands of lawsuits filed. You may file it in one court and maybe they don't have many cases; maybe you have an expeditious judge and you get to trial within a matter of 6 months. Maybe in another court, it takes 2 years because they have a backlog. But you get to trial within 6 months. And say two people in that court get to trial within 6 months. One of them goes to a jury and the jury says, wait a minute, computer companies can't be responsible for all this; we don't think they are liable. No verdict. Down the hall, where another trial is going on, they come forward with a verdict of $10 million, or whatever, for this lawsuit. Lawsuits are wonderful things for redressing wrongs, but in mass difficulties like this, they tend to promote aberrational distributions of limited amounts of resources. So we have a limited amount of resources and, as far as possible, we ought to create a legal system that gets prompt payment, consistently evaluating the kind of people who ought to get it. In some States, you will be able to recover huge verdicts because the State law would be very favorable. In other States, it would not be. Some have suggested that it would be a horrendous retreat to eliminate joint and several liability. That is, if six people are involved in producing and distributing this computer system--six different defendants--and one is 5 percent at fault, one of them is 60 percent at fault and the others are somewhere in between, and the ones most at fault are bankrupt, they want the one least at fault to pay it all if they have the money to do so. Now, people argue about that. That is a major legal policy debate throughout America today. Many States limit joint and several liability. Others have it in its entirety, and many are in between. So for us to make a decision on that with regard to this unique problem of computer Y2K is certainly not irrational. It is important for us. Now, I say to you that the more lawsuits are filed, the longer the delays will be in actually getting compensation to the people who need it. Literally, when you talk to people in your hometown and they are involved in litigation, ask them about major litigation and they will tell you it would be unusual, in most circumstances, to get a case disposed of and tried within 1 year. Sometimes it is 3, 4, and 5 years before they are brought to a conclusion. So I say that a system that promotes prompt payment of damages and prompt resolution of the matter is good for everyone. Allocating funds to fix this problem is a difficult thing. But the way you do it through the lawsuit system is not good in a situation where we have a massive nationwide problem. It is not a good way to do it. We are, again, talking about extraordinary costs and the clogging of courts. So the focus is taken away from actually fixing the problem and more to assigning blame, trying to encourage a jury to render the largest possible verdict. Now, some would say, why do you have to limit the amount of punitive damages? Well, three times the amount of damages under this bill-- damages are limited to three times the actual damages incurred for punitive, or $250,000, whichever is greater. They say, why do you want to do that? As long as there is a possibility that a jury might render a verdict for $10 million, lawyers have an incentive not to settle and take that case to a jury. I have talked to lawyers. I know how they think. They say, well, we can settle this case for $200,000. They have offered that. I don't think we are likely to get much more than that, but there is a chance that we can get $1 million or $2 million. I believe we have a couple of jurors there who are sympathetic with us, and I am inclined to say, let's roll the dice and see. We are not likely to get a whole lot less, but we can get 5 or 10 times as much. That is what I advise you, Mr. Client; let's go for it. So what happens is this possibility of unlimited verdicts makes it more and more difficult in a practical setting for cases to be settled. You will have more realistic settlements if you have this kind of limitation on the top end of punitive damages. This bill will encourage remediation. It actually encourages prompt negotiation, consolidation, and problem solving. That is the focus of it. That is why I favor it. I would just say this. Mr. President, the Y2K problem is a unique problem. It has the potential of hurting our economy. One of the greatest assets this Nation has--I can't stress this too much--is the strength and viability of our computer industry. We are world leaders. There is not a State in this Nation that doesn't have some computer manufacturing going on, and certainly not a community in America that does not depend on the innovation and creativity of the computer industry. They benefit from that creativity. As a matter of fact, I heard one expert say that his belief is, the reason our economy is so strong, the reason inflation is not going up, even though salaries of our workers are going up faster than inflation, is because computers have made our workers more productive and that they can afford to pay them more, because using the high-tech computers, that are really just now in America coming on line fully and effectively and wisely utilized by American business, is really helping us increase productivity. This is a marvelous asset for us. Some years ago many of these companies focusing on innovation and creativity apparently did not fully focus on the problem that is going to happen at the year 2000. I mentioned earlier in my remarks how every asbestos company in America is now in bankruptcy. Many of those had a lot more business than just bankruptcy. They made asbestos. They made a lot more things than just asbestos. Yet their whole company was pulled down by this. If we don't get a handle on this, think about it. We have the capacity to severely damage, by placing in bankruptcy, the most innovative, creative, beneficial industry perhaps this Nation has today, the thing that is leading us into the 21st century. I think this is a matter of critical importance. It is quite appropriate for the Congress to legislate on it. It is clearly a matter of interstate commerce. These computers are produced in one State and sold in all 50 States. I really believe it is a situation that is appropriate for the Congress to respond to. It is appropriate for us to bring some rationality to the damages that will be paid out by these companies, to limit the amount of money they spend on litigation, to make sure the money gets promptly to those who need it, and otherwise to allow them to continue as viable entities producing every year more, better, and more creative products that make us more competitive in the marketplace. Mr. President, I don't have any Microsoft business in my State. But I know the Department of Justice sued them for antitrust. I think that is fine. We will just see how that chase comes out. In a way, it is sort of odd. I remember saying at the time that most countries which have a strong industry in their nation that is exporting and selling all over the world and improving the lives of millions of people do not sue them; they support them. But in America we tend to sue them when they get big. This idea that you are big, you have a deep pocket, and we ought to sue, I think, is not a healthy thing at this time. Again, I think, as the Senator from Oregon mentioned, this is a one- time piece of legislation. For those who are troubled about any changes in our tort system, I really think that is not a wise approach. We need to make some changes. We have always changed our legal system. When there is a problem, we ought not hesitate to improve it. But if you are, remember, this is just a one-time problem. Looking at a report from the Progressive Policy Institute, they concluded with these remarks: Perhaps the most important big winner from liability limitation [that is, this bill] will be the United States economy and by extension U.S. consumers who will not have to indirectly bear up to $1 trillion in cost with a healthy share going to lawyers. I like lawyers. I respect them. But they are not producers. They are not making computers. They are not fixing computers. What they are doing is filing lawsuits and taking big fees for it. And they will have at least a one-third contingent fee and usually maybe more than 40 percent. By promoting attempts to Y2K remediation and lowering the likelihood of litigation, the rules instituted by this legislation will benefit everyone, not just a few. In the last State of the Union address, President Clinton urged Congress to find solutions that would make the Y2K problem the last headache of the 20th century rather than the first crisis of the 21st. I think that is a good policy. The President has recognized the need for that. It has had bipartisan support in our committee, bipartisan support in this Senate--Republicans and Democrats. But there do remain a few who, through any way possible, are really frustrated by this legislation and are attempting to undo it. In light of the crisis we are facing, the threat it poses to small businesses that need their systems fixed, and through our creative and imaginative computer industry which leads the world, I believe we must act. I very much appreciate the leadership of Senator John McCain. He is a true leader in every sense of the word. He is a man of courage; he understands technology. He has done a great job on it. I also express my appreciation to Senator Orrin Hatch and the Members of the Judiciary Committee who have likewise worked on this legislation. There are two separate bills. But they are very similar, and in conclusion they are very similar. Mr. President, I thank the Members of this body for their attention. I yield the floor. Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Today is a special day for me. I remember a number of weeks ago when Senator Abraham and I discussed the possibility of awarding a congressional gold medal to Rosa Parks. It was an idea that we thought was a good one. I am glad to see it moving rapidly to fruition. I certainly believe the congressional gold medal is a very distinguished award that ought to be preserved for the most exceptional circumstances and persons. And I certainly believe that the person we will honor today has all the qualities for receiving the congressional gold medal. So I am pleased to honor a native Alabamian who, through her life and through her example, has touched both the heart and conscience of an entire Nation. I speak, of course, of Ms. Rosa Parks, a native of Tuskegee, AL, and a former resident of Montgomery, whose dignity in the face of discrimination helped spark a movement to ensure that all citizens were treated equally under the law. Equal treatment under the law is a fundamental pillar upon which our Republic rests. In fact, over the first 2 months of this year this Senate was engaged in a constitutional debate over the scope and meaning of this very concept. As legislators, we should work to strengthen the appreciation for this important fundamental governing principle by recognizing those who make extraordinary contributions towards ensuring that all American citizens have that opportunity, regardless of their race, sex, creed, or national origin, to enjoy the freedoms this country has to offer. Through her efforts, Ms. Parks has come to be a living embodiment of this principle, and it is entirely appropriate that Congress take this opportunity to acknowledge her contribution by authorizing the award of a congressional gold medal to her. Her courage, what we may call ``gumption,'' resulted in historic change. Certainly there is still much to be done. True equality--the total elimination of discrimination and a real sense of ease and acceptance among the races--has not yet been fully achieved, but it is fair to say that in the history of this effort, the most dramatic and productive chapter was ignited by the lady we seek to honor today. Ms. Parks' story is well known but it bears repeating. She was born on February 4, 1913, in the small town of Tuskegee, AL, to Mr. James and Mrs. Leona McCauley. As a young child, she moved to Montgomery with her mother who was a local schoolteacher. Like many southern cities, the Montgomery of Ms. Parks' youth was a segregated city with numerous laws mandating the separate and unequal treatment of people based solely upon the color of their skin. These laws were discriminatory in their intent and divisive, unfair, and humiliating in application. But for years Ms. Parks had suffered with them, until that fateful day of December 1, 1955, when her pride and dignity would not allow her to obey them anymore. On this day, Ms. Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, boarded a city bus after a long, hard day at work. Like other public accommodations, this bus contained separate sections for white passengers and black passengers. White passengers were allocated to the front rows. The black passengers were given the back rows. This bus was particularly crowded that evening. At one of the stops, a white passenger boarded and the bus driver, seeing Ms. Parks, requested that she give up her seat and move to the back of the bus, even though this meant that she would be forced to stand for the rest of the trip. Ms. Parks refused to give up her seat and was arrested for disobeying the bus driver's order. With her act of civic defiance, Ms. Parks set off a chain of events that have led some to refer to her as the mother of the civil rights movement. Her arrest led to the Montgomery bus boycott, an organized movement led by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., who had begun preaching at the historic Baptist church located on Montgomery's Dexter Avenue. The bus boycott lasted 382 days, and its impact directly led to the integration of bus lines, while the attention generated helped lift Dr. King to national prominence. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to rule on the constitutionality of the Montgomery law which Ms. Parks had defied, and the Supreme Court struck it down. This powerful image, that of a hard-working American ordered to the back of the bus just because of her race, was a catalytic event. It was the spark that caused a nation to stop accepting things as they had been and focused everyone on the fundamental issue--whether we could continue as a segregated society. As a result of the movement Ms. Parks helped start, today's Montgomery is a quite different city from the one of her youth. Today the citizens of Montgomery look with a great deal of historical pride upon the church that once heard the sermons of Dr. King. Montgomery is the home of the Civil Rights Memorial, a striking monument of black granite and cascading water which memorializes the individuals who gave their lives in pursuit of equal justice. Today's Montgomery is a city in which its history as the capital of the Confederacy and its history as the birthplace of the civil rights movement are both recognized and reconciled. And soon Troy State University of Montgomery will become the home of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum, built on the very spot upon which Ms. Parks was arrested in 1955, the old Empire Theater. I will briefly describe this important project. Troy State University, Montgomery, is an important university of over 3,400 full-time students. They are in the midst of constructing a 50,000-square-foot library and museum on the land they own which includes the exact location where Ms. Parks was arrested in 1955. When completed, this museum will include a 3,700-square-foot permanent exhibit focusing on the commemoration of the Montgomery civil rights movement. This project memorializes an historic event that changed the city of Montgomery for the better, and I look forward to offering any support I can to aid in its completion. Ms. Parks' efforts helped spark the dynamic social changes which have made it possible for this kind of recognition to be supported by Montgomerians and Alabamians. But, in fact, Ms. Parks' contributions may extend beyond even the borders of our Nation. In his book ``Bus Ride to Justice,'' Mr. Fred Gray, who gained fame while in his twenties as Ms. Parks' attorney in the bus desegregation case and one of the early African American attorneys in Alabama--he was a lead attorney in many of Alabama's other famous civil rights cases--wrote--and I do not believe it is an exaggeration--these words: Little did we know that we had set in motion a force that would ripple through Alabama, the South, and the Nation, and even the world. But from the vantage point of almost 40 years later, there is a direct correlation between what we started in Montgomery and what has subsequently happened in China, eastern Europe, South Africa and, even more recently, in Russia. While it is inaccurate to say that we all sat down and deliberately planned a movement that would echo and reverberate around the world, we did work around the clock, planning strategy and creating an atmosphere that gave strength, courage, faith and hope to people of all races, creeds, colors and religions around the world. And it all started on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, with Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955. For her courage, for her role in changing Alabama, the South, the Nation, and the world for the better, our Nation owes a great debt of thanks to Rosa Parks. I hope that this body will extend its thanks and recognition to her by awarding her the congressional gold medal. Madam President, I thank you for this time and for being able to share these remarks. I also thank Senator Abraham for his skill and work in helping us move this award forward. I think it is a fitting and appropriate thing to do. I have enjoyed working with him on quite a number of other issues. No one in the Senate is more respected by me than the Senator from Michigan. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I understand there is a bill at the desk due for its second reading.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleagues for their attention. (The remarks of Mr. Sessions pertaining to the introduction of S. 768 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. SESSIONS. I object to further reading of this bill at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I also will take just a moment to express my personal appreciation to the Chair for chairing a very important subcommittee hearing this morning on OSHA, hearing at that meeting from an individual from Alabama, Mr. Ron Hayes, whose son tragically was killed in a workplace accident and who has made it his personal cause to confront the problems in OSHA, to make sure that agency is responsive to real needs and is really working to improve the workplace and make it safer and not just be involved in bureaucratic paperwork. It was an extraordinary hearing into a very important matter that can protect the lives and health of many people in the workplace and at the same time reduce bureaucracy and paperwork. I Thank the Senator for his efforts. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Military and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 1999. This bill will close a legal loophole through which civilians who commit crimes while accompanying the Armed Forces overseas evade punishment. Today, when a civilian accompanies the military outside the United States, whether a relative, a dependent, or a civilian contractor--and there are many--the civilian is not subject to prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and does not fall under any of the general Federal criminal laws. These individuals can only be prosecuted for their crimes if the host country chooses to do so. However, there are many circumstances in which the host country does not choose to prosecute. They just often do not have an interest in the case. Additionally, in situations such as Somalia and Haiti, when our troops are rapidly deployed, typically no agreement exists governing how civilians will be prosecuted until months into the operation. Indeed, many times there are no laws in effect really in those countries. So we believe that something must be done in this regard. There is a glaring deficiency here and it has come to my attention through a tragic incident. A U.S. Army dependent, not a soldier, living on an Army base in Germany, sexually molested two dependent children. The Army investigators found probable cause to believe that the sexual acts had occurred. However, under German law, no action could be taken against this juvenile. Sometimes prosecutors are restricted by legal prohibitions, and sometimes they just have no interest in prosecuting a case involving Americans. As of March 31, 1996, there were more than 240,000 family dependents and 96,000 civilian employees overseas. These persons accompany our troops to represent the United States, but many times they are in effect outside the law. In addition to the sexual molestation incident that I have already mentioned, examples of crimes that have gone unpunished due do this loophole are rape, assault, battery, vandalism, and drug dealing. Although the offenders may receive some sort of administrative punishment, such as being barred from certain areas of the base or monetary fines, these administrative noncriminal penalties are inadequate for the more serious violations. Because the military continues to rely heavily on civilian assistance and support, the United States must develop an appropriate and effective criminal process to deal with the misbehavior of civilians. It is important to the morale of our military forces that enlisted men and women working outside the United States along with civilian personnel do not believe that civilians who may commit a crime against them are beyond criminal prosecution. This bill would extend the reach of title 18 of the United States Criminal Code to include those civilians that accompany the military outside the United States. When one of these civilians commits an offense that Congress has established as a maritime crime, the U.S. attorney's office would have the option to exercise jurisdiction and prosecute the offender in the United States. The bill would employ title 18, United States Code section 3238, which provides that an accused be tried in the U.S. district court where the offender first appears when he is brought back to the United States. Finally, in order to prevent legal conflicts with a jurisdiction recognized by the United States, this bill only applies if the host country has already prosecuted or is in the process of prosecuting the accused. The need for this legislation was most recently described in a report submitted by the Overseas Jurisdiction Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and to this Congress. This panel was established in section 1151 of the 1996 National Defense Authorization Act. In the act, Congress recognized this jurisdictional loophole needed to be examined so it established this advisory committee to study the problems of civilians who commit criminal acts when accompanying the Armed Forces overseas. This committee was composed of experts in military and civilian law from all branches of the armed services, the Department of Justice, and the State Department. The advisory committee found that this problem was serious enough that ``legislation is needed to address misconduct by civilians accompanying the forces overseas in peacetime settings.'' These experts believed that the jurisdictional void must be closed to ``maintain order and discipline.'' The American Government must have the authority to discipline people it sends overseas to represent and serve this country. It is inconsistent with the American system of justice that a civilian employee working with service members and dependents of service members not be subject to American criminal laws. This piece of legislation is an important step toward recognizing the changing nature of our Armed Forces and making sure that the Criminal Code is keeping pace with the military's changing dynamic. As a former U.S. attorney for 12 years myself, and one who has met frequently with victims, nothing can be more frustrating than to see a person or a family victimized by some awful act and have to tell them: There is no law that will vindicate you. Even though under various other circumstances it would be a plain crime, for some technical reason there is not a way to legally right this wrong. So I believe this is an important bill. It closes a loophole involving more and more Americans each year. We simply do not need to cede away the authority to prosecute criminal acts to nations that may have no interest whatsoever in vindicating the rights of an American service man or woman who has been a victim of a crime. I believe this is an important act. It has broad support, the support of the military and support of other officials of this Government. We think it is a needed step and I commend it to my fellow Members of the Senate. I also want to express my appreciation for an Alabama family whose child was a victim of a crime, a sexual act, in a foreign country, who is here in this Capitol today, at the Senate today, and without whose support and encouragement this piece of legislation would not become law and would not have reached this point.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. On behalf of the majority leader, I would like to make a few announcements.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Military and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 1999. This bill will close a legal loophole through which civilians who commit crimes while accompanying the Armed Forces overseas evade punishment. Today, when a civilian accompanies the military outside the United States, whether a relative, a dependent, or a civilian contractor--and there are many--the civilian is not subject to prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and does not fall under any of the general Federal criminal laws. These individuals can only be prosecuted for their crimes if the host country chooses to do so. However, there are many circumstances in which the host country does not choose to prosecute. They just often do not have an interest in the case. Additionally, in situations such as Somalia and Haiti, when our troops are rapidly deployed, typically no agreement exists governing how civilians will be prosecuted until months into the operation. Indeed, many times there are no laws in effect really in those countries. So we believe that something must be done in this regard. There is a glaring deficiency here and it has come to my attention through a tragic incident. A U.S. Army dependent, not a soldier, living on an Army base in Germany, sexually molested two dependent children. The Army investigators found probable cause to believe that the sexual acts had occurred. However, under German law, no action could be taken against this juvenile. Sometimes prosecutors are restricted by legal prohibitions, and sometimes they just have no interest in prosecuting a case involving Americans. As of March 31, 1996, there were more than 240,000 family dependents and 96,000 civilian employees overseas. These persons accompany our troops to represent the United States, but many times they are in effect outside the law. In addition to the sexual molestation incident that I have already mentioned, examples of crimes that have gone unpunished due do this loophole are rape, assault, battery, vandalism, and drug dealing. Although the offenders may receive some sort of administrative punishment, such as being barred from certain areas of the base or monetary fines, these administrative noncriminal penalties are inadequate for the more serious violations. Because the military continues to rely heavily on civilian assistance and support, the United States must develop an appropriate and effective criminal process to deal with the misbehavior of civilians. It is important to the morale of our military forces that enlisted men and women working outside the United States along with civilian personnel do not believe that civilians who may commit a crime against them are beyond criminal prosecution. This bill would extend the reach of title 18 of the United States Criminal Code to include those civilians that accompany the military outside the United States. When one of these civilians commits an offense that Congress has established as a maritime crime, the U.S. attorney's office would have the option to exercise jurisdiction and prosecute the offender in the United States. The bill would employ title 18, United States Code section 3238, which provides that an accused be tried in the U.S. district court where the offender first appears when he is brought back to the United States. Finally, in order to prevent legal conflicts with a jurisdiction recognized by the United States, this bill only applies if the host country has already prosecuted or is in the process of prosecuting the accused. The need for this legislation was most recently described in a report submitted by the Overseas Jurisdiction Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and to this Congress. This panel was established in section 1151 of the 1996 National Defense Authorization Act. In the act, Congress recognized this jurisdictional loophole needed to be examined so it established this advisory committee to study the problems of civilians who commit criminal acts when accompanying the Armed Forces overseas. This committee was composed of experts in military and civilian law from all branches of the armed services, the Department of Justice, and the State Department. The advisory committee found that this problem was serious enough that ``legislation is needed to address misconduct by civilians accompanying the forces overseas in peacetime settings.'' These experts believed that the jurisdictional void must be closed to ``maintain order and discipline.'' The American Government must have the authority to discipline people it sends overseas to represent and serve this country. It is inconsistent with the American system of justice that a civilian employee working with service members and dependents of service members not be subject to American criminal laws. This piece of legislation is an important step toward recognizing the changing nature of our Armed Forces and making sure that the Criminal Code is keeping pace with the military's changing dynamic. As a former U.S. attorney for 12 years myself, and one who has met frequently with victims, nothing can be more frustrating than to see a person or a family victimized by some awful act and have to tell them: There is no law that will vindicate you. Even though under various other circumstances it would be a plain crime, for some technical reason there is not a way to legally right this wrong. So I believe this is an important bill. It closes a loophole involving more and more Americans each year. We simply do not need to cede away the authority to prosecute criminal acts to nations that may have no interest whatsoever in vindicating the rights of an American service man or woman who has been a victim of a crime. I believe this is an important act. It has broad support, the support of the military and support of other officials of this Government. We think it is a needed step and I commend it to my fellow Members of the Senate. I also want to express my appreciation for an Alabama family whose child was a victim of a crime, a sexual act, in a foreign country, who is here in this Capitol today, at the Senate today, and without whose support and encouragement this piece of legislation would not become law and would not have reached this point.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. This morning, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m. Following morning business, the Senate will recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow the weekly party caucuses to meet, and upon reconvening at 2:15 p.m. the Senate will begin immediate consideration of the appointment of conferees with respect to the budget resolution. Therefore, Members should expect rollcall votes during today's session of the Senate. The leader has also expressed his intent to consider the budget conference report this week, with the hope of a final vote on that important legislation by Thursday.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill along with my colleague Senator Inhofe, which makes a technical correction to the Safe Drinking Water Act. This bill will end a frivolous lawsuit, clarify the intent of Congress and allow our State regulators and the Environmental Protection Agency to focus on protecting underground drinking water. This bill clarifies the Safe Drinking Water Act by exempting hydraulic fracturing from the definition of underground injection. Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in the production of coalbed methane. This process uses high pressure water, carbon dioxide and sand to create microscopic fractures in coal seams to release and extract methane, oil and gas. Most states in which hydraulic fracturing is used, including my own state of Alabama, have in place regulations to ensure hydraulic fracturing continues to be a technique used in a safe manner. This technique has been used safely by coalbed methane, oil and gas producers for over fifteen years and has never been attributed to causing even a single case of contamination to an underground drinking water source. On May 3rd of 1994, the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation (LEAF) submitted a Petition for Promulgation of a Rule to withdraw the EPA's approval for the state of Alabama's Underground Injection Control (UIC) program. LEAF cited a case in Alabama of alleged drinking well contamination to justify its lawsuit. The EPA carefully reviewed this petition and on May 5th of 1995 the Administrator of the EPA, Carol Browner wrote to LEAF and stated ``based on that review, I have determined that Alabama's implementation of the UIC program is consistent with the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act''. Administrator Browner continued ``There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water''. I ask unanimous consent that a complete copy of the text of that letter be inserted into the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I am pleased to.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to rise in support and express my support for an amendment called the ``Class Act,'' a sense of the Senate. The purpose of that Act is to deal with a growing problem in America. In the 1990s alone--we are not through the 1990s yet--we have accumulated more debt for college and higher education than we have in the prior three decades, in the prior 30 years. We have an accelerating amount of debt to pay for college education. People are graduating with more debt than they have ever graduated with before. And it is a disruption to them and their families as they start to build their careers. So what is the problem? How has this happened? I don't propose the ``Class Act'' amendment that I have worked to introduce along with Senator Bob Graham of Florida will solve that problem, but at least it is a significant step in the right direction. What we have been doing as a Government is subsidizing debt and taxing savings for college. That is the bottom line to it. If you save money for college, you pay taxes on it. But the Government will subsidize and give you interest rate breaks and delays if you will borrow money for your higher education. Forty-two States will soon have prepaid college tuition plans. They are very popular. They are expanding. Middle-income people are the ones that are taking advantage of it. They are putting money in. They are locking in college tuition at the paid cost so inflation doesn't hurt them on the rising tuition, and then they put the money into those accounts. When it is taken out to pay for the tuition, they have to pay income tax on what it has accumulated. That is, to me, a shortsighted view. It encourages debt and discourages savings. So our public policy is actually to tax, to hinder, and to punish people who wisely save, but to subsidize people who go further into debt. It is a nice bill. We believe in it strongly. It has bipartisan support. It has the strong support in the House of Representatives. It will require, I believe, $197 million in cost; only that much through the first 5 years of the program; and $600 million or so over the 10 years. But it will as a result of that encourage huge amounts of savings because, frankly, it is not all that clear, according to a lot of money managers, that it is the wisest thing in the world to take advantage of these programs, if you have to pay taxes on the increase. If we eliminate that tax on the increase funds, put in prepaid college tuition plans, it will be a clear winner. Every financial manager will urge their clients to take advantage of this program. It will eliminate--which is not considered in the cost analysis of this bill--but, in my opinion, it will in fact reduce the amount of Government loans and maybe Pell grants that will have to be expended by the Government. It will be a good public policy move for our country. I appreciate the chairman's support. I appreciate Senator Bob Graham from Florida, who is on the Finance Committee, who is a cosponsor to this, and a number of other Senators. We believe it is good public policy at a reasonable cost, and will help produce a significant amount of money for higher education.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would be honored.