Jim Talent

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Madam President, I congratulate my friend from Oregon for his fine work. Briefly, as a very strong supporter of exploring for oil in the Arctic, one of the big reasons we are doing it is to enhance our national security and our own domestic oil supply, which is why I support the amendment I am cosponsoring.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. I thank the Senator for his ingenuous unanimous consent request allowing me to go forward, and I will just take a few minutes to talk about ANWR in general. I am going to offer an amendment relating to this portion of the bill later, but right now I just want to tick this down for a minute as to what I see as the essentials of this issue. With the greatest respect to those who oppose this operation, the exploration of oil, I don't understand what coherent philosophy-- regardless of whether you are a liberal or a conservative, I don't understand what coherent philosophy would advocate cutting your own nation off from oil within its borders. Now, I know I have heard the argument that we need an energy future that is not anywhere near as dependent on traditional sources of energy, and I agree with that. I am the last person in the world to argue with that. I led the fight on this side of the aisle for the renewable fuels standard, which mandates that by the year 2001, 27.5 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel be in the Nation's fuel supply to replace oil and gasoline. I am a huge believer that within a few years we are going to be filling up with fuel that we get from corn and from soybeans and other sources. I think that is the future of our country, but we are still going to need some oil, and certainly in the short term we are going to need oil and, to me, it makes sense to be able to produce it ourselves. Concerns have been raised about the environment, and if we were not requiring that it be done in the environmentally most sensitive way, I would not support it. But the same people who raise those concerns place tremendous confidence in the ability of American technology to create alternative sources of energy, the technology of which is embryonic--hydrogen or wind. Now, I support those, as well, but if you believe that technology can get us to the point where we can do those things and create a lot of energy in that fashion, and that is a long way down the read, you have to believe the technology is adequate to be able to explore for this oil in a way that will be sensitive to the environment. We are already using that technology here and around the world. If we don't get the oil in the Arctic using the most environmentally sensitive means, we are going to have to import it from countries where I have no confidence in what they are doing to the environment. Concerns have been raised about the oil companies. Whatever you think we should do with the oil companies, whatever restrictions we should put on them or other kinds of measures to make sure they don't gouge for the price of oil, we still need the oil. Socialist countries explore for oil within their own boundaries. So I am down to the point of saying, Mr. President, I do not see why we should not do this, and I do know it is going to create jobs. I did want to rise and make that point because this makes a lot of difference to people in Missouri. The Senator from Alaska talked very compellingly about the difference it makes on the ground for people in Alaska. It makes a difference in Missouri, too. An estimated 14,000 new jobs, good jobs will be created in Missouri alone if we explore for oil in the Arctic because of the collateral-related jobs around the country. That is one of the reasons the Missouri Laborers Council, the Carpenters' District Counsel of St. Louis, that represent, respectively, 13,000 and 22,000 members, strongly support this measure. Mr. President, we should do it carefully. We should do it with a view toward the concerns that have been raised, but the concerns are not a reason not to do it. I know people have said, well, it is not going to produce much oil. A conservative estimate is 10 billion gallons. I think it will be a lot more than that. Prudhoe Bay was estimated to hold only 9 billion barrels of oil. The production today is at 13 billion, and it is still producing. I think there is a lot of oil in the ANWR to get, but even if there is not so much there, it is no reason not to get it. We can do it the right way. We should have done it a long time ago, and we certainly should do it now. I yield back any time I have not used.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, let me make a parliamentary inquiry. How much time do I have now?

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, that is the time remaining on our side?

Mr. TALENT. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. TALENT. As always, the Senator speaks with candor, and I very much appreciate that. I want to hone in on the last point the Senator made. We are not voting on this now, and we don't have to consider it now. If we can keep an open mind to see if there is some way we can work this out in the meantime, I am sure the Senator from Oregon feels the same way. I understand entirely his reservations.

Mr. TALENT. I can do it in about 5 minutes.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I understand we are under time constraints, and I will be brief. I think the Senator from Oregon has made the case very persuasively. I congratulate him for raising this important issue in committee. I was concerned that if we attached this provision in committee, it might subject the whole provision relating to the ANWR part of the bill to a budget point of order, and I did not want to imperil that part of the bill. As I said before, when I spoke on the Senate floor, I simply do not see any reason why we should cut ourselves off from accessing oil in our own country. But I think the Senator's amendment, and my amendment, is a natural supplement to the underlying purpose of exploring for oil in the Arctic. It is to increase our national security. It is to lower prices in the United States. It is to make certain we have access to oil when we need it. In order to do that, I think we have to be certain that the oil does not go on the world market but, rather, is reserved for the needs of the United States. Not only is this right economically because, as the Senator said, it is important, if we are going to meet the budget targets in this bill, that we have access to this oil here in the United States, it is also very important as a hedge against foreign boycotts or threats or oil blackmail that somebody may want to use against the United States. The Senator is correct, this is not something the oil companies are going to like, but this is something that is in the interest of the national security of the United States. I am grateful to him for bringing forward this idea and happy to support him in it and grateful also to the bill managers for their attitude toward it. I yield back my time.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of an amendment that the Senate has agreed to, the amendment offered by Senator Cochran adding $12 million for health care for historically underserved communities, including $2 million to help fund the Sickle Cell Treatment Act that was passed last year. I thank Senator Cochran for his concern and sensitivity on the issue of funding the Sickle Cell Treatment Act. I thank Senators Specter and Harkin for similarly showing sensitivity to the importance of funding this bill and funding health care in historically underserved areas. With this additional $2 million, we will be able to get the program off the ground, begin designating sickle cell disease outreach centers, and provide additional grants for medical treatment, education, and other health care services for sickle cell patients. I can't emphasize enough how much the leadership of these Senators means to the community of people who are affected by this disease, not just the 70,000 Americans who have it, not just the 2.5 million Americans who have the trait, but their families and friends who struggle every day with this disease. I thank the bill managers for accepting the amendment and thank Senator Cochran for offering it. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT

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

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next hour under majority control be allocated as follows: 15 minutes for Senator Talent, 10 minutes for Senator Vitter, 15 minutes for Senator Thune, and 20 minutes for Senator Bunning.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, it is really a privilege for me to spend a few minutes visiting with the Senate about Judge Roberts. He is probably the most analyzed and evaluated Supreme Court nominee ever. Based on my study of his record and my discussions with him--which have certainly not been extensive but have been enough to help me get a feel for the man--I believe that he will turn out to be one of the best Chief Justices ever. We have learned a great deal about who he is. We know about his extraordinary professional accomplishments. We have seen the overwhelming bipartisan support that he has earned from his colleagues in the legal profession. We heard from John Roberts himself on the rule of law, on the judicial role, and the kind of service he intends to provide to the Nation as Chief Justice should the Senate confirm him. I said before he is one of the most analyzed and evaluated Supreme Court nominees. He spent almost 20 hours before the Judiciary Committee while Senators asked him 673 questions. Senators then asked him 243 more questions in writing. And I am sure he thought the bar exam was a struggle. Judge Roberts provided nearly 3,000 pages to the Judiciary Committee, including his published articles, congressional testimony, transcripts from interviews, speeches, and panel discussions, and material related to the dozens of cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Judiciary Committee obtained more than 14,000 pages of material in the public domain. And as if all of that were not enough, the committee obtained a staggering 82,943 pages of additional material from the National Archives and both the Reagan and Bush Libraries regarding Judge Roberts' service in those administrations. If you total that up, there was more than 100,000 pages of material on a 50-year-old nominee, which amounts to 2,000 pages for every year of his life. What did all that material reveal? Simply put, that Judge Roberts is one of the finest nominees ever to come before the Senate. His professional record speaks for itself, but I am going to speak about it for a minute. He was an excellent student. He graduated from Harvard--I can forgive him that--in only 3 years as an undergrad. I am a University of Chicago lawyer myself. He became the top graduate in law school and became editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review. He served as clerk for Judge Friendly, who was, by consensus, one of the greatest circuit court judges ever. He served as clerk for Chief Justice Rehnquist. He went on to become Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He became one of the top partners in one of the top law firms in the country and argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court. In 2003, he was confirmed unanimously by this Senate to be a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. We learned a lot about him as a person as well. He embodies the idea of being fair, being thoughtful, and being capable. He is certainly hard working. He is certainly brilliant. He managed his testimony before the Judiciary Committee without a note. He is a man of integrity, he is honest, and he is devoted to his family. Those are the qualities we want in the men and women who serve our Nation on the High Court. They are the kind of qualities that will move America forward and move the judicial branch forward, and more on that in a minute or two. He has proven beyond any doubt that he has the qualifications, the temperament, the knowledge, and the understanding to serve as America's next Chief Justice. I was particularly impressed by the humility he showed through the process. I think it is very important that judges have a judicial temperament and, for me, that begins with the idea of service. When you are a judge, the people who come before you have to treat you with respect because of your position. You should conduct yourself in that position so they want to treat you with respect, they feel that is owing to you, not just because of your office but because of how you conduct yourself in office. I would hazard to say even those who will oppose his nomination for other reasons would agree that he has that kind of a temperament. He wants to be on the Court because he loves the law, and he wants to be a judge because he wants to serve the United States of America. Those are the right reasons to want to be on the Supreme Court of the United States. We have had this opinion ratified by the individuals who know him the best--by his colleagues on the bar, Democrats and Republicans alike, who have overwhelmingly supported his elevation to the Supreme Court. I think it is very important when you look at judicial nominees to make certain they have support from people from all parts of the political spectrum and all parts of the jurisprudential spectrum. A point I made on other occasions on this floor about judicial nominations is that it is misleading in a way to talk about a judicial nominee being in or out of the mainstream of American jurisprudence because the truth is, there is more than one mainstream. Lawyers are divided over which jurisprudential theory ought to guide judges in interpreting statutes and interpreting the Constitution. They may differ as to theories or constructs, if you will, as they approach different parts of the Constitution. There is not one mainstream, and often there is not any one completely correct answer when you are interpreting a vague provision of the Constitution. But that does not mean there are no incorrect answers. Just because reasonable people looking at the history and the text of the document might disagree as to what is exactly the right answer does not mean there are no wrong answers. The wrong answer, as Judge Roberts said so eloquently and so often in his testimony, is one that does not respect the rule of law. A wrong answer is one that is based on an idea of the judicial role that allows the judge to do whatever he or she thinks they would want to do if they were in control of the policy in issue. Whatever their theory of interpreting the Constitution is, they should be consistent in applying it. They should be circumscribed by their own jurisprudence. They should have a standard against which they measure their decisions, and that standard has to be other than their own predilections on the underlying issue. It is one thing to be ruled, to some extent, by judges. We are talking about officers of the Government. So the decisions have the power of law, and we have always, to some extent and in appropriate ways, been ruled by judges. It is another point to be ruled by judicial whim. This is the distinction Judge Roberts made over and over again, for which I think we should all be grateful. Because of his attitude in that respect, more than 150 Democratic and Republican members of the DC Bar, including well-known Democrats such as Lloyd Cutler and Seth Waxman, wrote to the Senate calling Judge Roberts one of the very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the Nation. The American Bar Association has given Judge Roberts a rating of ``unanimously well-qualified,'' its highest possible rating. As Steve Tober, the chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, explained: Judge Roberts has the admiration and respect of his colleagues on and off the bench, and he is, as we have found, the very definition of collegial. This is another quality that I hope and believe Judge Roberts will bring to the role of Chief Justice. I think he can operate in that Court in a way that pulls the Justices together where their convictions honestly allow them to be pulled together. It is one thing to disagree when you have strongly different opinions on the jurisprudential matters before the Court; it is another to disagree because over time you have become part of one faction or you have become alienated or estranged on some other grounds from some of the other Justices. That is not good, and I believe, just my gut opinion after talking with him and watching him is that this is a person who can lower the temperature on the Court, who can shed light rather than just heat on many of the issues that are before the Court. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. TALENT. I did not want my eloquence to outstrip the time I had available, Mr. President, so thank you for that. We have heard a lot from Judge Roberts himself, and maybe it is good for me to close by quoting some of what he has said about the judicial function. I thought he did an excellent job of explaining to people what the judicial role is. Of course, to explain something clearly you have to, to some extent, oversimplify it, and he admitted the times he was doing that. He talked about the judge being the umpire, and somebody else basically writes the rules. The judge is the umpire. Believe me, that gives plenty of discretion and authority to the judge to develop the law in one direction or another but to develop it within the constraints of an objective rule of law. Judge Roberts said about this: If the people who framed our Constitution were jealous of their freedom and liberty, they would not have sat around and said, ``Let's take all the hard issues and give them over to the judges.'' That would have been the farthest thing from their mind. Now judges have to decide hard questions when they come up in the context of a particular case. That is their obligation. But they have to decide those questions according to the rule of law, not their own social preferences, not their policy views, not their personal preferences, but according to the rule of law. That leaves room for Supreme Court Justices, for the rule of law, to include their views developed over time carefully with respect to colleagues and arguments from litigants about how particular provisions of the Constitution ought best to be interpreted in a range of cases so as to reflect the purposes of the document and the impulses of the Framers. There is room there for that, but always according to the rule of law, not according to a desire to make the case or make the result be a particular thing, or to make Americans live the way the judge wants them to live, rather than the way they have chosen to live in the decisions they make about their own lives or the decisions they make through their representatives. I think Judge Roberts understands that. He understands that is a judicial role with which we can all live. He clerked for Judge Henry Friendly. Another great court of appeals judge--he had an interesting name--was Learned Hand. If I had met his parents, I would have asked them why they called him Learned Hand, but they did. Judge Hand said one time, and he was referring to the same thing Judge Roberts was referring to about the rule of law: I would not choose to be governed by a bevy of platonic guardians even if I knew how to choose them, which I most assuredly do not. The first right, the first birthright of every American, is to participate through the representative process in their own governance. The first and most basic right is the right to govern yourself through the processes set up in our Constitution. And it is not out of a desire to avoid difficult decisions but out of a respect for that right that Judge Roberts talked about the rule of law. He manifested in those hearings a confidence that I think we should all reflect on in the judgment and the decency of the American people. It is OK, whether your views about social policy are on the rightwing or whether they are on the leftwing, whether they are someplace in the middle, it is OK basically to leave the development of our culture and our society to the wisdom and the decency of the American people. The center will hold. The people will move us in an orderly and decent direction as they have for 200 years. We don't need to be ruled by platonic guardians or dictators, whether they are in the form of judges or anybody else. There is plenty of scope, in the Senate, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and in the Supreme Court building as well, for the exercise of individual leadership and appropriate discretion to try to move the people in a direction that we think is appropriate, with their consent. But there is no reason to feel out of some fit of desperation or panic that courts or anybody else have to make the American people do something they have not chosen the orderly processes to do. That is what Judge Roberts meant when he was talking about the rule of law. That is why I believe, because of that and also his professional qualifications, he is going to do an outstanding job as Chief Justice of the United States, and that is why I think he will be confirmed by an overwhelming majority of this body. I thank the Chair, and I yield back whatever remains of my time.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a historically significant anniversary for one of Southeast Missouri's most widely recognized and respected institutions. For the past year, the Southeast Missourian, located in Cape Girardeau, MO, has been celebrating its grand centennial. Its first issue rolled off the presses on October 3, 1904, with George and Fred Naeter at the helm. The brothers had purchased the small business with hopes of one day transforming it into the thriving company thousands of faithful readers are familiar with today. After a number changes, the Southeast Missourian was formally dedicated on September 11, 1925, at 301 Broadway. Over the past several decades, the Southeast Missourian has provided timely reporting of the important changes in the region. Much of the area surrounding Cape Girardeau is rural. The Southeast Missourian has been a primary source of information to those readers. They depend on the Southeast Missourian for local, statewide, national and world news. From the reports on flooding along the banks of the Mississippi River, to the birth announcements in the Sunday edition, the Southeast Missourian has a unique appeal that is difficult to match. They have set a precedent for excellence in print journalism with the underlying theme of community and public service. It's been a personal privilege over the years to be covered by the paper's news department and to discuss ideas with its editorial board. The Southeast Missourian has been instrumental in collaborating with its host city of Cape Girardeau to strengthen the community through local enterprise. And year after year the newspaper continues to give back countless chartable donations and sponsorships to the community. I express my sincerest gratitude to the entire staff, past and present, for their contribution and dedication in making the Southeast Missourian the publication it is today. I extend warm congratulations to the Rust family, which has continued to raise the bar year after year in achieving excellence for fair and objective journalism. Joe Sullivan, the editor of the paper, in particular deserves credit for his hard work and professionalism. I hope for the next 100 years, the Southeast Missourian will continue to make a difference for the good in Southeast Missouri.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. TALENT

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

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, this amendment, which I am offering on behalf of myself and Mr. Pryor, the Senator from Arkansas, is an attempt to address a development within the Department of Agriculture. The Department is proposing closing about a quarter to a third of the Farm Service Agency's local offices around the country, including, as far as we can tell, around 30 out of the 90 offices in Missouri, the object, according to the Department, being to modernize and consolidate functions and to provide better service. Certainly nobody is opposed to better service. But I want to emphasize something here. The key with regard to how we handle FSA offices has to be service to the agricultural community and to our producers. The idea is accessibility. The idea is responsiveness. The idea is not necessarily somebody's planning in Washington about how they would organize everything in the United States if they could do it exactly the way they wanted. I am a little concerned about changing our FSA offices when, from what I am told back in Missouri, there has been little or no consultation either with local FSA people or with producer organizations, more particularly farmers or the affected communities. I don't know how we can do this in a way that emphasizes service, acceptability, and accountability without having to talk to the people whom we are trying to serve. The amendment basically says hold up on this until we have an opportunity for that kind of accessibility and that kind of accountability. Again, I am not saying--and I don't think Mr. Pryor is saying either--that no consolidation is possible. I imagine it is possible in Missouri. We certainly want to look at how we can modernize these offices so we can perform better service. But we have to remember that these are the offices our producers have to go to any time they want to deal with any of the Government's various programs that affect them. Some of them in Missouri are already driving 30, 40 minutes, or more than that, and if they drive and they don't have all the forms they need, or they left something at home, they have to go all the way home, get it, and turn around and come back. When you are proposing eliminating some of those offices when they are already difficult to access, in many cases, I think that is something we need to look at. I certainly believe we need more consolidation, at least in Missouri, than we have had now. That is all this amendment says. I appreciate very much the bill managers working with us. I understand they are going to be willing to accept the amendment. I appreciate that. I pledge to work with them in conference. This language isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all with regard to this issue. I think they see what Senator Pryor and I are driving at, and I think everybody would agree this is something we want to do with consultation and discussions with the affected communities--in particular the affected producer and producer groups. They are not opposed to making the Farm Service Agency work better. We all know the problems that have sometimes occurred. But we have potentially disaster relief coming down the pike, and I certainly hope so for producers who have been affected negatively by the hurricane, or by drought. We have another farm bill that is not that far away. We need to do this right, if we are going to do it. That is what the amendment says. I appreciate the support of the Senator from Utah, and certainly pledge to work with him and his ranking member in conference on this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I am here today to discuss a resolution, strongly disapproving of the recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. I am hopeful that the Senate will pass this resolution later today. , The Pledge of Allegiance is a record of American values and history and the words of the Pledge still resonate in the convictions of Americans today. For more than 50 years, the Pledge of Allegiance has included references to the flag, to our country having been established as a union ``under God,'' and to this country being dedicated to securing ``liberty and justice for all.'' The Senate believes, as recognized in a resolution passed unanimously in 2003, that the Pledge is a fully constitutional expression of patriotism. However, some of our courts have either no respect for or understanding of these American traditions. Several years ago--June 26, 2002--in what has become an infamous case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional when recited voluntarily because it uses the phrase ``one nation under God.'' On June 14, the Supreme Court at least temporarily preserved the phrase ``one nation under God,'' in the Pledge of Allegiance, ruling that the plaintiff could not challenge the patriotic oath because he did not have standing in the case. This procedural ruling did not directly address whether the pledge recited by generations of American schoolchildren is constitutional. It left the Pledge vulnerable to another challenge. Not unsurprisingly, on January 3, 2005, the same plaintiff and four others filed a second suit in the Eastern District of California challenging again the words ``under God'' in the Pledge. Yesterday, the Eastern District of California refused to dismiss the case, holding instead that the Ninth Circuit's ruling in 2002--that the words ``under God'' were unconstitutional--was still good law. The effect of the court's ruling is that the Pledge has been deemed unconstitutional in three Sacramento-area school districts. This issue will likely be appealed to the Ninth Circuit again. We are a nation of many faiths and beliefs. Tolerance for dissent is one of our great American values. But so is our common conviction that America is a nation that seeks the will and enjoys the protection of Divine Providence. The fact that some might disagree with that conviction is not a reason to deprive the rest of us of our right to affirm it in the Pledge. I hope this body will join me in expressing support for the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance by passing this resolution that the Senate strongly disapproves of yesterday's decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate the Senate on having just agreed to the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in the form of an amendment, the Talent-Dodd amendment. I will speak a few minutes about it. My friend from Connecticut also will make a few comments about this amendment. The Senate's action will be viewed, if we can get it agreed to by the House, as a historic moment, a blow in favor of civil rights and finding out the truth in cases that have been covered up for years, in a sense, but are still there. Let me briefly address the merits of the amendment that the Senator from Connecticut and I have cosponsored before the Senate. The bill creates an unsolved civil rights crime section of the Civil Rights Division, a cold case section of the Civil Rights Division, the sole purpose of which would be to investigate unsolved murders that were a violation of the civil rights laws at the time they occurred and have never been solved. Many cases, particularly the cases that occurred in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, were not solved because they never were investigated and because no effort was made to solve them. Currently, the Civil Rights Division does investigate those cases. We certainly applaud the efforts both of the Civil Rights Division and in many cases of local prosecutors who have cooperated. We are not suggesting the Civil Rights Division is not trying to investigate those cases now. In many instances, they are. This is what we are hearing from advocates and family members of those who have been murdered in the past. They tell us they are working with the Justice Department and in many cases are pleased with their response. But what we do not have is a regularized, systematic commitment on the part of the Government to find the truth in these cases. We do not have a set of people who are dedicated to doing that and nothing else. We think it is very important to do this for several reasons. In the first place, a section of people who are dedicated to that task will develop a forensic expertise in investigating those kinds of cases that you are not going to get if you occasionally investigate them but do not do it on a regular basis. In the second place, we think once the section exists and it becomes known to the public, it will encourage people to come forward with information, people who might have been afraid to do so to this point, but they will know this Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Section is there, this cold case section is there. They will contact that section and give them information about past offenses and tragedies. Finally, we think the existence of this section will cause those who committed these crimes--and in some cases who are still walking around in the belief they are beyond justice--to not rest easy anymore. As my friend from Connecticut has said, we want them to sweat. We want them to know the Government is trying to find them, that there is a section of the Government that is out to get them for the murders they may have committed 40 or 50 years ago or for which they may have been complicit, for which they may have believed they were safe from investigation. So we think there are a lot of advantages to this section. I will say a little bit about the history of it. I was having a discussion with a man named Alvin Sykes. Alvin is a nationally recognized civil rights advocate from Kansas City, who has been very active in getting the Emmett Till case from mid-1950s reopened, trying to achieve justice in that case. We were talking about that investigation. We were working on that issue. He said: Why don't we have a regularized procedure for looking at cases such as the Emmett Till case? This was the case of a young man from Chicago who went to visit his uncle in Mississippi. He was kidnapped, beaten, murdered, and his body was dumped in the river because he had allegedly, the day before, whistled at a white woman. The two men who were responsible for that were tried actually, but after about 60 minutes of the jury's deliberations, they were acquitted. They subsequently had interviews with national magazines in which they basically admitted their complicity, admitted their guilt, and they were never prosecuted. They died, unfortunately, without being brought to justice. But there are others maybe who were complicit who could be brought to justice. There are a lot of those cases out there such as this. We believe a section such as this will bring them to light and do justice. Mr. Sykes said: Why don't we have a section like this? There is not any reason we shouldn't. So the bill creates this cold case section, if you will, of the Civil Rights Division, requiring they investigate these murders and requiring they report back to the Congress. In some cases they will find the truth and be unable to prosecute anybody, but at least they will uncover the truth and be able to report back and tell us that. Or if they have not been able to uncover the truth, at least they will do their best, at least we will have done our best, even at this late date, to achieve justice in these cases. I think that is very important for two reasons. The first reason is, when you talk to the family members of those who were victimized, those who were in these cases, you realize that the fact the case was 40 or 50 years ago does not mean it has been forgotten. These family members have been unable to reach closure on these cases. They have been unable to put them behind them and move on because there is this tremendous tragedy that occurred where they lost somebody because of a vicious crime. They feel as though the rest of society has not taken an interest in bringing the criminals to justice. We have a chance to allow these family members to find out the truth, and to move on in their own lives. We owe them that. The country owes them that. The country needs closure as well. We need to know what happened, and we need to know, as a country, that we did the best we could in a systematic and planned way to find out the truth in these cases, to bring those to justice where justice is possible, and to mourn with the survivors of these victims, to know the truth, and then be able to pull together and move forward. This bill allows us to do that. I thank very much the managers of the bill on both sides of the aisle, as well as Senator Specter and Senator Leahy for their support. We have not gone through the Judiciary Committee in doing this, but everybody felt it was important to get this done, and that this was the bill we could use as a vehicle for doing it. I think there are a lot of people around the country who have been working tirelessly to get these cases reopened for whom this is going to be the most encouraging news they have had in a long time. I hope my colleagues will take satisfaction in having done a very good thing and having struck this blow for justice, struck this blow for having an opportunity to close these cases and move forward. Mr. President, I yield the floor and defer to my good friend from Connecticut.

Mr. TALENT

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

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise for a few moments to speak in favor of an amendment offered by Senator Dayton, which I am pleased to cosponsor along with many others, that would increase funding for Justice assistance grants by $275,000. Justice assistance grants, as the Senate knows, incorporate what used to be called the Byrne grants and the Local Law Enforcement Program grants and are used to fund a number of important law enforcement initiatives, among which include multijurisdictional task forces. I wish to speak briefly about that side of this important amendment because as the Senate may know, I have done a lot of work on the subject of fighting methamphetamine. Earlier in the debate on this bill, the Senate adopted an amendment which consisted of legislation that Senator Feinstein and I have introduced, the Combat Meth Act, which was a comprehensive antimethamphetamine program designed to put the Federal Government squarely and aggressively on the side of local law enforcement which is fighting this terrible drug. And it is a terrible drug. It is the worst single drug threat that I have confronted in my 20 years in public life. Methamphetamine is seriously addictive, maybe more so than any other drug of which I am aware. It is almost instantly addictive for a lot of people. It changes the physical nature of the brain. Even if you get off methamphetamine, which is difficult, and I will speak more on that in a moment, that will not necessarily fix the damage because it can change the structure of the brain. It tends to make the people using it more aggressive rather than less aggressive. Some drugs tend to make people more passive, and as bad as they are, at least it doesn't cause them to go out and attack other people, but methamphetamine does. In addition, there is no known treatment for methamphetamine. There is no methadone for methamphetamine. So we sponsored, and the Senate adopted, a measure which had been cosponsored by more than 40 other Senators to help the Federal Government get aggressively into the business of fighting methamphetamine. It was a series of grant programs along with legislation that would put pseudoephedrine, the precursor drug for methamphetamine, behind pharmacy counters. I think that was very important, and I said at the time I was grateful to the bill managers for working with us on that issue. One of the worst things about methamphetamine is that the drug is not just used in our neighborhoods and sold in our neighborhoods, it is made in our neighborhoods. It is made in local labs that can operate out of a cabin, out of a house, in a kitchen, in a van while it is being driven around, on the side of a road, or in the woods in a country area. The process by which methamphetamine is made is literally toxic. The chemicals in it are chemicals that should not go anywhere near the human body, but they do. These labs have cropped up all over States such as Missouri. It is like a cancer that spread throughout our States in the Midwest and now in other States as well. It is a terrible problem in the South and in the West and the Southwest. I do not think there is a State in the country which is not experiencing growing problems with it. The National Association of Counties surveyed its members. The No. 1 problem reported more often than any others was methamphetamine. Not the No. 1 law enforcement problem, the No. 1 problem because the drug causes terrible social service problems and health care problems, and it is also overwhelming local budgets, in particular law enforcement budgets. Think of the situation when you have a sheriff's department in a county with maybe 6 or 10 deputies, or a bigger county with 20 or 25 deputies: With all the jobs that local law enforcement has to do-- security for the county fair, domestic violence issues, all the typical work they have to perform--and then you superimpose on that 10 or 15 or 20 methamphetamine labs in the county, it is very difficult to track down those labs. It is difficult to break them down. These deputies have to get trained in environmental chemistry to break these labs down. It is an enormous burden on local budgets. One of the ways we can help our sheriffs, our local law enforcement officers in dealing with these meth labs is multijurisdictional task forces where they are able to get grants from the Federal Government, band together in regional task forces, and use that manpower efficiently to help go after labs. That is what the Dayton amendment is designed to support, and that is the big reason I am so strongly supportive of it. The amendment would move funding for these programs back to where they were in fiscal year 2003. It is a substantial increase, but I can assure you, Mr. President, based on my experience with this issue, it certainly is no more than is needed. If we don't get ahead of this methamphetamine problem, if we don't start winning it--I would not say we are winning it now. We have heroic efforts by local law enforcement, but they are telling us we are not gaining yet--if we don't start winning, we will have increasing costs in terms of effect on kids, neighborhoods, jobs, costs that would dwarf what this amendment would add to the bill. This amendment is offset. This drug is destroying lives all over States such as Missouri, all over the country. We can do something about it--not by the Federal Government taking this over but by the Government assisting local law enforcement in efforts that they are telling us are going to work. That is why this amendment is so important. I appreciate the managers working with Senator Dayton and the other cosponsors, and I hope the Senate will adopt it. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT

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