Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I say to my colleagues, Senators Lieberman and Thompson and others who will be here, I have been known to speak for several hours, but I will not. I will just take a few minutes. When Members come to the floor to start debate of the homeland defense bill, I will be pleased to finish. As a matter of fact, I will have an amendment, which will be the ``no Federal contracts for expatriates'' amendment, which is very similar to what I did on the Department of Defense bill. The House of Representatives actually took action on this with a pretty strong vote. What this says is, if you have companies that have moved to Bermuda and renounced their citizenship, they will not be getting any Federal contracts. It is a pretty simple proposition. I look forward to introducing the amendment and hope to do it shortly, this afternoon. I am ready to get going. We have so much to do in such a short period of time that I hope Senators will come to the floor with amendments on both sides. I will be ready to do so. As long as I am on the topic, I wanted to talk about my experience back home. I don't know about you, but we all have our own focus groups. The greatest focus group in Minnesota is the State fair. It is really quite a happening. In about 12 days, almost half the State's population comes to the State fair--2.5 million. That might be a slight exaggeration but not by much. There are a couple of things I really like about the fair. One is, it is sort of the essence of political equality. Nobody has a lobbyist. Everybody counts as one and no more than one. Everybody comes up and talks with you. I also like what we call the greater Minnesota focus. We have a very thriving metropolitan community, but we are also an agricultural State. It is great to see the very strong emphasis on agriculture at the fair. It is a focus group because you can be at your own booth, and lots of people come up, and I guess that is self-selection, where maybe it is a lot of supporters and whatnot. But even there, certainly walking around, you will run into everybody and anybody, and people are going to tell you what is on their mind. I heard a lot--a lot, a lot--about corporate responsibility. I don't know if people used those words, but there is really a lot of concern about this flat economy. And look at the news yesterday and today. That is what we have. People really are worried that they will not have any pension, and they are worried they might not have a job. In Minnesota, Mr. Joseph Nacchio, CEO of QWEST, Minnesotans, starting with the QWEST employees who worked so hard to build that company, they are not one bit pleased that while Mr. Nacchio was cheerleading them to invest a big part of their 401(k) in QWEST stock, he was dumping his own and walked away with around $230 million. There is a lot of that. People are looking for those of us here to be watchdogs for them. They are looking for us to not be too influenced by all the big economic interests with all their money and lobbyists and their connections and clout. People are saying to all of us, we want you to be for us. I guess sometimes they are not so sure the Senate always is for them. In that respect, the Sarbanes bill was a very positive step forward. We had a stalemate here in 1994 on health care when we were talking about universal health care coverage. Really between 1994 and now, it is as if this never was an issue. But the issue of health security, of affordable health care coverage for people, for their loved ones and families, has walked into people's living rooms. I heard more discussion of the cost of it--the premiums, the copays, the deductibles, the inadequate coverage--just unbelievable--and, of course, prescription drug coverage by the elderly and also by others. Health care has emerged. I don't have my own poll on all these issues, but I think it is a top issue for families. In Minnesota, children have just started school, as in other States, and education is right up there. I am not without my bias. Two of our children are teachers. I will just tell you that Minnesota and a lot of States around the country are still counting on us to provide the resources that we committed to providing to them for education. There is a lot of discussion about education. There were questions about Iraq, what is going to happen, concern. I don't think people feel they have much information. They want more information. They want to know about the different options and consequences of those different options. Over and over again, if you want to say politics is very concrete and doesn't have much to do with labels, whether it was suburbs, inner city or greater Minnesota small towns, so much of the discussion was about the economy, so much of the discussion was: Senator, what is going to happen to our schools? We had to cut all these teachers. We don't have enough resources. Senator, my wife or my husband has $800 a month or $500 for prescription drugs. Senator, why do the pharmaceutical companies have so much power? Senator, what is going to happen to my pension? Senator, how did those big companies get away with what they have done to us? That is really what I heard about again and again: I have no coverage; I don't have enough insurance. I could go into a whole separate discussion. I see my colleague, Senator Lieberman. I said when he came to the floor I would finish. I will. I could have a separate discussion about agricultural policy and about small business and about veterans who are coming up, facing long waiting lines for health care in Minnesota. I just want to remind everybody: We have a lot of work to do in a short period of time. We ought to have amendments out here on the floor. We better make sure that we do not lose sight of these basic bread-and-butter economic issues so important to families and so important to people's lives. We have a lot of work to do. I hope we will do it. I say to my colleague from Connecticut, the reason I came over is that I am ready to offer an amendment. I think we need to do the work. I want to wait to see what my colleague has to say. I congratulate him on his superb work. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague, in the strict text, I have drafted it as a relevant amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Connecticut, I will accommodate his schedule. I want to get the amendment up and have a debate. If the Senator from Connecticut wants to lay the amendment aside--whatever best accommodates his schedule. As long as my colleagues will be nice to me in the debate and praise me, I am willing to do anything he wants.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to an American hero, Tom Burnett, Jr., who was a beloved husband and father and adored son and a very able business leader. He was a person who would not and did not sit quietly as terrorists carried out their plan last year on September 11. Along with my colleague, Senator Dayton, and with our colleague Jim Ramstad on the House side, we introduced legislation to designate a U.S. Postal Service facility in Bloomington, MN, as the Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. Post Office Building. This legislation today is passing the House, and my expectation is that by the end of the day this will also pass the Senate. I don't know that there would ever be any Senator would disagree with this. Tom Burnett, Jr. grew up in Bloomington, MN, and he was aboard flight 93 on September 11 of last year. America owes Tom Burnett a deep debt of gratitude for his bravery on that day. It is possible that Members of the Congress, including myself, could very well owe him our own lives. We will never know for sure. Tom is believed by investigators to have been among those passengers who kept the hijackers from crashing flight 93 into a national landmark, most likely the White House or the Capitol. That, of course, would have likely resulted in many more deaths than already occurred on that day, and instead, as we all know, flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field. After listening to a tape from the flight's black box, law enforcement officials have described a desperate struggle aboard the plane. As FBI Director Mueller said after being briefed on the contents of the tape: We believe that those passengers were absolute heroes, and their actions during this flight were heroic. Tom Burnett, Jr. was 38 years old when he died. A 1986 graduate of Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Apha Cappa Psi Fraternity, he had shown selfless leadership before. When he was quarterback of Thomas Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Tom's inspired play led his team to a conference championship game in 1990. He was a successful business leader as chief operating officer for a medical device manufacturer in California. We will never forget his ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice of many other heroes as well on September 11. Our thoughts and prayers today are with Tom's family: His wife Deena, and their daughters, Madison, Halley, and Anna-Clair, three little daughters; his parents, Thomas, Sr. and Beverly--I had a chance to talk to Bev just the other day--and his sisters, Martha O'Brien and Mary Margaret Burnett. Bloomington will be very proud to have this post office named for Tom Burnett, Jr. We are all very proud of this son of Minnesota. Again, I thank Congressman Ramstad for his leadership in the House. I know this bill is going to pass the House today, and my expectation is that it will pass the Senate as well. I thank again Senator Lieberman for his help in expediting this and making this happen. I know for a fact this is really very important to Tom's family and to all of Minnesota.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to an American hero. Tom Burnett, Jr. was a beloved husband and father, an adored son, and an able business leader. He was a person who would not, and did not, sit quietly as terrorists carried out their plan last year on September 11. I am introducing a bill today, along with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Dayton. Our bill would designate a U.S. Postal Service facility in Bloomington, MN as the ``Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. Post Office Building.'' It is a companion proposal to a bill introduced by our House colleague, Representative Jim Ramstad, whose district includes Bloomington. Tom Burnett, Jr., who grew up in Bloomington, was aboard United Flight 93 on September 11 of last year. America owes Tom a deep debt of gratitude for his bravery on that day. It is possible that Members of Congress, including myself, could owe him our very lives. We will never know for sure. Tom is believed by investigators to have been among those passengers who kept the hijackers from crashing Flight 93 into a national landmark, most likely the White House or the Capitol. That, of course, would likely have resulted in many more deaths than already occurred that day. Instead, as we all know, Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field. After listening to the tape from the flight's black box, law enforcement officials have described a desperate struggle aboard the plane. As FBI Director Mueller said after being briefed on the contents of the tape, ``We believe those passengers were absolute heroes, and their actions during this flight were heroic.'' Tom Burnett, Jr. was 38 years old when he died. A 1986 graduate of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a member of Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity, he had shown selfless leadership before. As a quarterback at Thomas Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Tom's inspired play led his team to the conference championship game in 1980. He was a successful business leader as chief operating officer for a medical device manufacturer in California. We will never forget the ultimate sacrifice of Tom and many other heroes last September 11. Our thoughts and prayers today are with Tom's family: his wife Deena; their daughters Madison, Halley and Anna-Clair; his parents Thomas, Sr. and Beverly; and his sisters Martha O'Brien and Mary Margaret Burnett. Bloomington will be proud to have this post office named for Tom Burnett, Jr. We all are proud of this son of Minnesota.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to an American hero. Tom Burnett, Jr. was a beloved husband and father, an adored son, and an able business leader. He was a person who would not, and did not, sit quietly as terrorists carried out their plan last year on September 11. I am introducing a bill today, along with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Dayton. Our bill would designate a U.S. Postal Service facility in Bloomington, MN as the ``Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. Post Office Building.'' It is a companion proposal to a bill introduced by our House colleague, Representative Jim Ramstad, whose district includes Bloomington. Tom Burnett, Jr., who grew up in Bloomington, was aboard United Flight 93 on September 11 of last year. America owes Tom a deep debt of gratitude for his bravery on that day. It is possible that Members of Congress, including myself, could owe him our very lives. We will never know for sure. Tom is believed by investigators to have been among those passengers who kept the hijackers from crashing Flight 93 into a national landmark, most likely the White House or the Capitol. That, of course, would likely have resulted in many more deaths than already occurred that day. Instead, as we all know, Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field. After listening to the tape from the flight's black box, law enforcement officials have described a desperate struggle aboard the plane. As FBI Director Mueller said after being briefed on the contents of the tape, ``We believe those passengers were absolute heroes, and their actions during this flight were heroic.'' Tom Burnett, Jr. was 38 years old when he died. A 1986 graduate of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a member of Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity, he had shown selfless leadership before. As a quarterback at Thomas Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Tom's inspired play led his team to the conference championship game in 1980. He was a successful business leader as chief operating officer for a medical device manufacturer in California. We will never forget the ultimate sacrifice of Tom and many other heroes last September 11. Our thoughts and prayers today are with Tom's family: his wife Deena; their daughters Madison, Halley and Anna-Clair; his parents Thomas, Sr. and Beverly; and his sisters Martha O'Brien and Mary Margaret Burnett. Bloomington will be proud to have this post office named for Tom Burnett, Jr. We all are proud of this son of Minnesota.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a second, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to follow the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, before the Senator from South Carolina leaves, I want him to know that normally I ask unanimous consent to follow and normally I might have gone back to the office and done some other things. But there are a few Senators I like to come out on the floor and listen to. The Senator from South Carolina is one of them. He is the opposite of sterile and plastic and scripted and rehearsed. He is colorful, but, frankly, and more importantly, he is prophetic and he is right. In my years in the Senate, which is going on 12, there is not another Senator for whom I have greater respect. I mean that as sincerely as I can say it.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, building on the comments of the Senator from South Carolina, I really feel sorry for working people right now in our country. I just think they are getting pounded. I believe ordinary citizens are just getting pounded. For example, take Qwest workers in Minnesota. When Arthur Levitt was the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission several years ago, he tried to put into effect a rule that would have dealt with this conflict of interest situation. The Senator from South Carolina talked about this a few minutes ago. It would have prohibited the Arthur Andersens of the world from raking it in on these consulting contracts when they do an independent audit. He was stopped by too many Members of the House and Senate. But he did get a rule put into effect that they at least had to disclose their contracts. With Qwest, as it turns out, in the year 2001 and 2002, by first a 6- to-1 ratio and then in 2002 a 8-to-1 ratio, Arthur Andersen was getting all kinds of money from these consulting contracts. I am not even sure what they did for all this money--6-to-1 to the actual money they got for the independent audit. So you know you don't bite the hand that feeds you. They didn't do an independent audit. And all of a sudden we find out Qwest was short quite a bit of money. Above and beyond that--I am just going to give this context--above and beyond that, the management of Qwest tells the workers and the investors--a lot of little people are investors--we have had this company audited. Our auditing company wants to be clear with you that we have had this independent audit that we can vouch for, so on and so forth. But it turns out at the same time the actual audit committee did not say that. They actually do not say that they can, with 100-percent assurance, say this is a completely independent audit. At the same time that this is being said, the CEOs are dumping some of their stock. And at the same time, too much of the workers' pension plan is invested in stock in the company, trying to be loyal workers, and they are locked in, and no one is helping them out. Now you have a lot of people out of work and, in addition, they have seen a lot of their pension plan eroded in value. That is the story of a lot of people in the country who are not part of lobbying coalitions in Washington, not big investors, not heavy hitters, not well connected. I really feel sorry for working people. Frankly, I think this piece of legislation is yet another example of pounding a lot of regular people--regular people, ordinary citizens. I don't mean it in a pejorative sense, I mean it in a positive way. One good thing that came out of conference is that there are some additional health care benefits for some of our older steelworkers-- some of our retirees, some of our older steelworkers. That is good. But as I look at what happened in this conference committee, this bill is infinitely worse. This trade promotion authority bill is infinitely worse than when it left the Senate. There was the Dayton-Craig amendment. I am very proud of the Senator from Minnesota, Mark Dayton, for his work, so that any Senator would have been allowed to raise a point of order to any part of the trade agreement that would weaken U.S. trade remedy laws such as section 201, saying: Look, we are not going to give up our right to protect working people. If you have a trade agreement that basically undercuts our trade remedy laws, we are not just going to forfeit our responsibility to come out here on the floor and challenge that. We have to represent people back in our States. That passed in the Senate but was taken out of the conference report. I wonder why. Then my colleague, Senator Harkin from Iowa, who has such passion about the exploitation of children, working God knows how many hours a day for so little wages--he had language that would have prohibited the use of exploitative child labor among our trading partners. That was taken out of the conference report. I had an amendment that said our trading partners ought to respect human rights--would respect human rights. That was taken out of the conference report. I had another amendment that said: Let's do a real jobs impact analysis. Let's really find out what is going on. Sometimes ignorance is not random and people don't want to know what they don't want to know. Recently the Economic Policy Institute noted: NAFTA has contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions and reduced fringe benefits. We are talking about a net total of 3 million actual and potential jobs lost in the U.S. economy from 1994 to now. But the provision I had in the legislation was also taken out in conference. This administration is gung ho on commercial property rights. They want to make sure they are fully protected in our trade agreements. This administration is gung ho on all the big financial institutions and all the big multinational corporations. That is where they raise their money. A lot of the key positions in the administration come from this background. A lot of their task forces are disproportionately made up of such people--you name it. They are gung ho when it comes to the commercial property rights of multinationals and big financial institutions. But when it comes to labor, when it comes to environmental, when it comes to human rights, they are nowhere to be found. I think that is wrong. I think it is profoundly wrong. And I think it is tragic that so many Democrats are not out here on the floor fighting for these rights. I think the vast majority of people in Minnesota and the vast majority of people in the country would say we do not want to put walls up at our border. I get so angry at the charge: You are an isolationist. My father was born in Odessa, fled persecution in Russia, spoke 10 languages fluently. I grew up in a home that made me, by definition, an internationalist. My mother's family was from Ukraine. She was a cafeteria worker. I grew up in a family that emphasized that we live in a world and we ignore that world at our peril, and also emphasized being there for working people. That is not the question. The question is whether or not we have trade agreements that respect basic human rights, that lead with our values as Americans, and that focus on promoting democracy. If we, as a country, can't promote democracy and human rights, who are we? That really protects little children, and says it is wrong to have a 9-year- old working 19 hours a day for 30 cents hour; that also says there should be environmental standards; there should be fair trade; do not put our workers in the position of when they try to organize or do organization and bargain collectively for better wages for their families, companies say, no, we are leaving, we are going to Mexico. When those workers try to organize, companies say no, we are going to leave and go to South Korea, or Indonesia. Then those companies say to those countries, if you should pass any legislation that would give workers the right to organize, or have environmental standards, or have child labor standards, we will not invest in your country. Where are the values that promote the good standard of living for families in our country and families in the developing countries as well? There was a Washington Post piece entitled ``Worked Till They Drop: Few Protections for China's New Laborers.'' The article is heartbreaking. It tells of the death of Li Chunmei. I quote: Coworkers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. When the quitting bell finally rang shortly after midnight, her young face was covered with sweat. This was the busy season, before Christmas, when orders peaked from Japan and the United States for the factory's stuffed animals. Long hours were mandatory, and at least two months had passed since Li and the other workers had enjoyed even a Sunday off. ``Lying on her bed that night, starting at the bunk above her, the slight 19-year old complained she felt worn out, her roommates recalled. Finally the lights went out. Her roommates had already fallen asleep when Li started coughing up blood. They found her in the bathroom a few hours later, curled up on the floor, moaning softly in the dark, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Someone called an ambulance, but she died before she arrived.'' The article goes on to say that what happened to Li ``is described by family and friends and co-workers as an example of what China's more daring newspapers call guolaosi. (GO- LAO-SI). The phrase means ``overwork death,'' and usually applies to young workers who suddenly collapse and die after working exceedingly long hours, day after day. Can't we with our trade policy lead with our values? Can't we promote human rights? Can't we protect children? Can't we promote protection of the environment? Can't we protect the rights of working people to organize and bargain collectively? I could read from the State Department report in country after country after country--in Colombia, there are so many examples of workers who have been murdered for trying to join a union; same sort of coercive practices that workers in Mexico have experienced for years. Certainly that is the case in China. And the list goes on and on. I believe that most Americans believe trade policy should be about promotion of human rights. Trade policy should be about respect for human rights. Trade policy should be about promoting a decent fundamentally good standard of living for Americans as well as our brothers and our sisters in other countries as well. What this piece of legislation says to me, as a Senator from the State of Minnesota, is that I have to forgo my constitutional rights to represent people in my State. When I see a trade agreement that overturns or overrides consumer protection in Minnesota, environmental protection in Minnesota, and workers' rights in Minnesota, I don't have the right to come out here and challenge that? I don't have the right to come out here with an amendment? I didn't vote to give fast-track authority to President Clinton, and I am certainly not going to vote to give fast-track authority to President Bush. I will say it on the line. I have seen what this administration has done with repetitive stress injury. I have seen the way in which they overturned an important rule to protect people. I have seen what they have done when it comes to practically nothing by way of making safer workplaces for people. I have seen what they have done which amounts to practically nothing when it comes to mine safety issues. I have seen what they have done in trying to go after prevailing wages. I have seen what they have done in terms of one antilabor initiative after another. I have seen what they have done when it comes to a lack of commitment to people being able to organize and bargain collectively and labor law reform. Frankly, I wouldn't for anything in the world give away my right to represent Minnesota and to represent workers and to represent unions. I am a proud labor Senator. I am a proud Senator who represents working people. You want to know something else. The best thing is there are a lot of people in the business sector who feel the same way. I think exports are so critically important to our economy and very important to Minnesota. We do really well. I think imports are good because imports mean our companies have to compete. We should have that competition. The only thing I want to see is some rules that go with this new global economy. I want to see fair trade. I want to see a global economy that does more than just promote the interests of multinational corporations. I want to see a global economy that promotes the environment. I want to see a global economy that promotes human rights. I want to see a global economy that promotes democracy. I want to see a global economy that protects the interests of working families in Minnesota and all across the country. That is what I speak for. That is what I fight for. That is what I believe in. That is why I believe that this piece of legislation, which will pass overwhelmingly, is so profoundly wrong and so profoundly mistaken. I feel sorry for working families today. They are getting pounded. I think we should do a better job of representing them. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to address the subject of our Nation's security needs in the context of the Defense appropriations bill presently before the Senate. I believe we must provide the best possible training, equipment, and preparation for our military forces, so they can effectively carry out whatever peacekeeping, humanitarian, war-fighting, or other missions they are given. They deserve the targeted pay raises of 4.1-6.5 percent, the incentive pay for difficult-to-fill assignments, and the reduced out-of-pocket housing costs from the current 11.3 percent to 7.5 percent contained in this bill. The bill would also fully fund active and reserve end strengths, including an additional 724 positions for the Army National Guard, which will hopefully ease the current burden on our over-stretched men and women in uniform. For many years running, those in our armed forces have been suffering from a declining quality of life, despite rising military Pentagon budgets. The pressing needs of our dedicated men and women in uniform, and those of their families, must be addressed as they continue to be mobilized in the war against terrorism. This bill goes far in addressing those needs, and I will vote for it today. I am also supporting the bill because it contains two important amendments that I offered. The first would bar any funds in this bill from being used to enter defense contracts with U.S. companies who incorporate overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. Former U.S. companies who have renounced their citizenship currently hold at least $2 billion worth of contracts with the Federal Government. I do not believe that companies who aren't willing to pay their fair share of taxes should be able to hold these contracts. U.S. companies, who play by the rules, who pay their fair share of taxes, should not be forced to compete with bad actors who can undercut their bids because of a tax loophole. In the last couple of years a number of prominent U.S. corporations, using creative paperwork, have transformed themselves into Bermuda corporations purely to avoid paying their share of U.S. taxes. These new Bermuda companies are basically shell corporations: they have no staff, no offices, and no business activity in Bermuda. They exist for the sole purpose of shielding income from the IRS. U.S. tax law contains many provisions designed to expose such creative accounting and to require U.S. companies that are foreign in name only to pay the same taxes as other domestic corporations. But these bad corporate former-citizens exploit a specific loophole in current law so that the company is treated as foreign for tax purposes, and therefore pays no U.S. taxes on its foreign income. The loophole gives tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to major multinational companies with significant non-U.S. business. It also puts other U.S. companies unwilling or unable to use this loophole at a competitive disadvantage. No American company should be penalized staying put while others renounce U.S. ``citizenship'' for a tax break. Well, the problem with all this is that when these companies don't pay their fair share, the rest of American tax payers and businesses are stuck with the bill. I think I can safely say that very few of the small businesses that I visit in Detroit Lakes, MN, or Mankato, in Minneapolis, or Duluth can avail themselves of the Bermuda Triangle. They can't afford the big name tax lawyers and accountants to show them how to do their books Enron-style but they probably wouldn't want to anyway if it meant renouncing their citizenship. So the price they pay for their good citizenship is a higher tax bill. My amendment closes this loophole. We all make sacrifices in a time of war, the only sacrifice this amendment asks of Federal contractors is that they pay their fair share of taxes like everybody else. The bill also contains a second amendment which would significantly improve the Department's response to domestic violence. I was deeply concerned to hear about the four domestic violence homicides that occurred over the past six weeks at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. But these incidents, while unusual in that they are clustered within such a short time, are not unique. The military reports 207 domestic violence homicides since 1995. My amendment, which is based on the recommendations of the Department's Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence, would ensure that funds are available to establish an impartial, multi-disciplinary Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team at the Military Community and Family Policy Office. It would also help the Department ensure that there are victim's advocates at every military installation to provide confidential support and guidance exclusively to victims, by providing $10 million for this purpose. Finally, the amendment would require that the Secretary report to Congress on progress in implementing the recommendations of the Task Force. In the introduction to its first report, the Task Force wrote, ``Domestic Violence is an offense against the institutional values of the Military Services of the United States of America. It is an affront to human dignity, degrades the overall readiness of our armed forces, and will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense.'' I do not think anyone who has followed the recent events in North Carolina would disagree. I also believe the bill addresses some of the serious flaws in the process by which the Defense Department summarily terminated the Crusader Artillery system. I strongly believe in fair, transparent, and informed government-decision making processes, which did not occur in the case of the Crusader. Three Defense secretaries, three Army secretaries, and three Army chiefs of staff, as well as numerous administration officials, testified in support of the Crusader. Yet within a few weeks of this testimony, the Secretary of Defense abruptly terminated the Crusader. The decision was made without consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without consultation with the Army, and without consultation with members of Congress. The Defense Authorization bill then required the Army Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense to conduct a serious study of the best way to provide for the Army's need for indirect fire support. At the same time, it provided the Secretary of Defense, following the study, a full range of options. These include termination to continued funding of Crusader, to funding alternative systems to meet battlefield requirements. That report having been completed, the bill before us expresses concern about the way the termination was proposed, and instructs the Army to move forward with a follow-on contract immediately to leverage the Crusader technology to field a lighter, more mobile cannon in 2008. This is good news for the workers and officials at the United Defense Industries plant in Minnesota, whose advanced skills and expertise will be necessary for the success of this new cannon. I also have concerns about the bill, especially about its missile defense provisions. The Defense Authorization bill reported out by the Armed Services Committee would have cut total funding for missile defense from $7.6 billion to $6.8 billion. Unfortunately, the Senate adopted an amendment to restore the entire $814 million, with the President given the option of spending funds on either missile defense programs or on counter-terrorism. This bill retains this change. I would have preferred that the cut be restored, and if not, that the President at least be required to use the funds solely for counter- terrorism. I've long been a critic of Ballistic Missile Defense, BMD, and I still have strong reservations about the feasibility, cost and rationale for such a system. When I addressed missile defense on the Senate floor on September 25, just 2 weeks after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, I argued that pressing ahead on BMD would make the U.S. less rather than more secure. Instead, I suggested the Senate give homeland defense the high priority it deserves by transferring funds to it from missile defense programs. But the administration obviously didn't agree and approved only $26 million. In conclusion, I believe in maintaining a strong national defense. We face a number of credible threats in the world today, including terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We must make sure we carefully identify the threats we face and tailor our defense spending to meet them. We could do a better job of that than this bill does, and I hope that as we move to conference, the committee will make every effort to transfer funds from relatively low-priority programs to those designed to meet the urgent and immediate anti- terrorism and defense of our forces.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I introduced an extremely important bill, the Pension Guarantee Improvement Act of 2002. I urge my colleagues to join me in pressing for its swift consideration and passage. For over a quarter of a century, the federal government has run an insurance system for private ``defined benefit'' pension plans. The agency that administers this system, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, PBGC, has worked hard to live up to its statutory obligations to protect benefits in the event that the plan sponsor goes bankrupt and is forced to terminate the plan. In my home state of Minnesota, I have worked closely with former LTV workers whose plans have been taken over to facilitate a dialogue with the PBGC. I am very grateful to Joe Grant, Steven Kandarian, Michael Rae and all the other PBGC staff who have provided invaluable assistance to my office and my constituents over the past few moths. I have been greatly impressed with their responsiveness, dedication and hard work. Yet the experiences of the LTV workers in Minnesota--and other manufacturing workers around the country I suspect--have exposed some serious though limited gaps in the guarantees that PBGC is permitted to provide. These guarantees are predicated on a certain set of assumptions regarding retirement that unfortunately do not hold true for all workers. For example, the vast majority of all workers that retire at age 65 having earned a defined benefit pension are guaranteed their full earned pension, regardless of whether or not the sponsoring company is still in business. In most white-collar jobs this arrangement works well; the nature of the employment permits most employees to continue in their jobs through age 65 and the terms of their private pension plans are generally set up for retirement at that age. In labor-intensive industries such as steel and other manufacturing sectors, however,workers have never been expected to endure as many years of active employment as their white-collar counterparts. Again, the expectations of workers as they enter these industries are well- known. Employees are generally promised a secure retirement in exchange for their 25-30 years of service and they work for decades under the assumption that that promise will be kept. What has happened to many of the former LTV employees in Minnesota is their hard-earned benefits have been unexpectedly--and in a few cases, dramatically--reduced as a result of their company being forced into bankruptcy. This is because their plan was taken over by the PBGC which is not allowed to provide as comprehensive a guarantee to these workers as they can offer to their white-collar counterparts. The shorter working lives of steelworkers and others who labor in our rapidly-shrinking manufacturing sector effectively means that they will often not receive the full measure of their earned benefit if their company happens to go bankrupt before they reach age 65. The reductions in benefits that many of these workers suffer occur regardless of how hard they worked, how productive an employee they were--anything that they have any control over. These losses are inflicted on these workers because they labored in the manufacturing sector and because they happened to be employed by a company that was forced into bankruptcy. There is no other reason. Given that we insure defined benefit plans, I see no reason why we should have one standard of coverage for white-collar workers and another, lesser guarantee for manufacturing workers. If a worker has fully earned the pension that they were originally promised I see no reason why we should pull the rug out from under them just because their company happens to go under. Mr. President, we must strengthen the guarantees that the PBGC is required to provide in order to protect this small subset of all workers from unfair and unreasonable cuts in their earned benefits-- cuts that all too often come at a tremendously difficult time in their lives when health or geographic location may prevent them from finding alternative employment. In my state of Minnesota, I saw first-hand how LTV workers in their 50s, who had qualified for a full retirement benefit under the terms of their original plan, had to struggle to survive the loss of their health insurance, and some substantial reduction in their earned benefits as a result of PBGC takeover of their plan. This legislation is designed to provide some relief to those workers who often suffer unexpected benefit reductions as a result of a PBGC takeover. Let me be quite clear that the affected workers represent only a very small fraction of all those covered by PBGC. The CBO has issued a preliminary score for this proposal that puts its cost at $110 million over the next ten years. Colleagues, this very modest proposal would allow PBGC to provide guarantees to these workers that more closely reflect what they earned under the terms of the plan that they had signed onto. It would help bring the level of guarantees provided to manufacturing-sector workers closer to that provided to their white- collar counterparts. This bill involves three changes to the rules that determine how much of an earned benefit is guaranteed by the PBGC. First, it would increase the maximum benefit guarantee level for single employer plans by adjusting an indexed formula that would boost the monthly maximum payable for retired workers of all ages by some 13 percent. This would translate into an increase of approximately $150- 200/month for retirees over the age of 50 whose benefits are often reduced by the current maximum payable limitation. Second, this bill directs the PBGC to cover supplemental benefits such as social security ``bridge'' payments as basic pension benefits. Again, this benefit is often earned by workers in steel and other labor-intensive industries and is specially provided to tide them over until they become eligible for Social Security. Finally, this proposal would index the $20/year option on the 5-yr phase-in rule for recent benefit increases--which would put it at $95 using the same 4.773 social security index multiplier as is used to calculate the maximum payable. The current $20/year figure was part of the original 1975 ERISA statute and was intended to represent normal benefit increase. It has become essentially meaningless because it has never been increased. This would allow workers who received a ``normal'' benefit increase within the last 5 years to receive the entire raise instead of a percentage of it. Mr. President, defined benefits plans and the manufacturing sector have both suffered serious declines in recent years. At the very least we owe it to these hard-working men and women to improve their access to meaningful pensions guarantees should their company be forced out of business. This bill would make a huge difference to people who need it the most--and do so without in any way threatening the solvency of the PBGC. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this modest yet meaningful relief for these workers.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I introduced an extremely important bill, the Pension Guarantee Improvement Act of 2002. I urge my colleagues to join me in pressing for its swift consideration and passage. For over a quarter of a century, the federal government has run an insurance system for private ``defined benefit'' pension plans. The agency that administers this system, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, PBGC, has worked hard to live up to its statutory obligations to protect benefits in the event that the plan sponsor goes bankrupt and is forced to terminate the plan. In my home state of Minnesota, I have worked closely with former LTV workers whose plans have been taken over to facilitate a dialogue with the PBGC. I am very grateful to Joe Grant, Steven Kandarian, Michael Rae and all the other PBGC staff who have provided invaluable assistance to my office and my constituents over the past few moths. I have been greatly impressed with their responsiveness, dedication and hard work. Yet the experiences of the LTV workers in Minnesota--and other manufacturing workers around the country I suspect--have exposed some serious though limited gaps in the guarantees that PBGC is permitted to provide. These guarantees are predicated on a certain set of assumptions regarding retirement that unfortunately do not hold true for all workers. For example, the vast majority of all workers that retire at age 65 having earned a defined benefit pension are guaranteed their full earned pension, regardless of whether or not the sponsoring company is still in business. In most white-collar jobs this arrangement works well; the nature of the employment permits most employees to continue in their jobs through age 65 and the terms of their private pension plans are generally set up for retirement at that age. In labor-intensive industries such as steel and other manufacturing sectors, however,workers have never been expected to endure as many years of active employment as their white-collar counterparts. Again, the expectations of workers as they enter these industries are well- known. Employees are generally promised a secure retirement in exchange for their 25-30 years of service and they work for decades under the assumption that that promise will be kept. What has happened to many of the former LTV employees in Minnesota is their hard-earned benefits have been unexpectedly--and in a few cases, dramatically--reduced as a result of their company being forced into bankruptcy. This is because their plan was taken over by the PBGC which is not allowed to provide as comprehensive a guarantee to these workers as they can offer to their white-collar counterparts. The shorter working lives of steelworkers and others who labor in our rapidly-shrinking manufacturing sector effectively means that they will often not receive the full measure of their earned benefit if their company happens to go bankrupt before they reach age 65. The reductions in benefits that many of these workers suffer occur regardless of how hard they worked, how productive an employee they were--anything that they have any control over. These losses are inflicted on these workers because they labored in the manufacturing sector and because they happened to be employed by a company that was forced into bankruptcy. There is no other reason. Given that we insure defined benefit plans, I see no reason why we should have one standard of coverage for white-collar workers and another, lesser guarantee for manufacturing workers. If a worker has fully earned the pension that they were originally promised I see no reason why we should pull the rug out from under them just because their company happens to go under. Mr. President, we must strengthen the guarantees that the PBGC is required to provide in order to protect this small subset of all workers from unfair and unreasonable cuts in their earned benefits-- cuts that all too often come at a tremendously difficult time in their lives when health or geographic location may prevent them from finding alternative employment. In my state of Minnesota, I saw first-hand how LTV workers in their 50s, who had qualified for a full retirement benefit under the terms of their original plan, had to struggle to survive the loss of their health insurance, and some substantial reduction in their earned benefits as a result of PBGC takeover of their plan. This legislation is designed to provide some relief to those workers who often suffer unexpected benefit reductions as a result of a PBGC takeover. Let me be quite clear that the affected workers represent only a very small fraction of all those covered by PBGC. The CBO has issued a preliminary score for this proposal that puts its cost at $110 million over the next ten years. Colleagues, this very modest proposal would allow PBGC to provide guarantees to these workers that more closely reflect what they earned under the terms of the plan that they had signed onto. It would help bring the level of guarantees provided to manufacturing-sector workers closer to that provided to their white- collar counterparts. This bill involves three changes to the rules that determine how much of an earned benefit is guaranteed by the PBGC. First, it would increase the maximum benefit guarantee level for single employer plans by adjusting an indexed formula that would boost the monthly maximum payable for retired workers of all ages by some 13 percent. This would translate into an increase of approximately $150- 200/month for retirees over the age of 50 whose benefits are often reduced by the current maximum payable limitation. Second, this bill directs the PBGC to cover supplemental benefits such as social security ``bridge'' payments as basic pension benefits. Again, this benefit is often earned by workers in steel and other labor-intensive industries and is specially provided to tide them over until they become eligible for Social Security. Finally, this proposal would index the $20/year option on the 5-yr phase-in rule for recent benefit increases--which would put it at $95 using the same 4.773 social security index multiplier as is used to calculate the maximum payable. The current $20/year figure was part of the original 1975 ERISA statute and was intended to represent normal benefit increase. It has become essentially meaningless because it has never been increased. This would allow workers who received a ``normal'' benefit increase within the last 5 years to receive the entire raise instead of a percentage of it. Mr. President, defined benefits plans and the manufacturing sector have both suffered serious declines in recent years. At the very least we owe it to these hard-working men and women to improve their access to meaningful pensions guarantees should their company be forced out of business. This bill would make a huge difference to people who need it the most--and do so without in any way threatening the solvency of the PBGC. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this modest yet meaningful relief for these workers.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know we are going to have opening statements by Senator Inouye and others. I ask unanimous consent, when we get to amendments, I be allowed to do the first amendment on the DOD appropriations bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 4364

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

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am aware of this. Could I just add, I am aware of this, but more importantly, the American citizens are aware of this, and people don't like it one bit. People feel as if, first of all, it is just outrageous in terms of tax evasion. And, second of all, it is a loophole that should not be about. People say, look, boy, this is the opposite of the right and patriotic thing to do.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would say to the whip that I have here a list of corporate runaways, and I am aware of this one of many egregious examples.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am aware of that.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague, unfortunately, I have the same list with many egregious examples.

Mr. WELLSTONE. That is correct if, but only if, after all we have been through as a country, they basically renounce their citizenship and set up some sham/dummy corporation in Bermuda to avoid taxes--only if they do that.