Counter-Terrorist and Narco-Terrorist Rewards Program Act

Mr. Speaker, today I reintroduce The Clean, Learn, Educate, Abolish, Neutralize, and Undermine Production of Methamphetamines Act-- or CLEAN-UP Meth Act.

This bill is a bipartisan, comprehensive effort to help local agencies address the growing threat that meth production and use poses.

I am pleased to be joined in this effort by more than 60 original cosponsors that include all three Co-Chairs of the Speaker's Task Force for a Drug Free America, both the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and the House Majority Whip. The cosponsors include Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, from Hawaii to North Carolina, and in almost every state in between.

In addition, this bill was supported during the 107th Congress by more than two-dozen national, state and local organizations concerned with the impact of Meth on our society. Among the bills supporters are the National Narcotics Officers Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Fertilizer Institute, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, the California Narcotics Officers Association, the California Peace Officers Association, the California Police Chiefs Association and the Peace Officers Research Association of California.

As a Californian, I have a heightened awareness of the danger posed by meth. California is the source of more than 80 percent of the meth made and sold in the U.S.

Between 1995 and 1999, the number of meth labs discovered in California shot from

559 to 2,061--nearly a four-fold increase in just five years. In 2001, 199 of the 273--or 84 percent--of all ``super labs'' found in the U.S. were in California. The next most common state was home to just 17 ``super labs.''

My hometown of Sacramento is particularly hit by Meth. Many of you may remember when an out of control trucker deliberately drove his big rig into the side of California's state capitol building. The driver was on meth.

The Sacramento Sheriffs department alone spends more than $1.3 million each year fighting meth--roughly 75 percent of their entire anti-narcotics budget. In 2000 the Sacramento Sheriffs dealt with 27 clan labs, in 2001 that was up to 44.

The CLEAN-UP Meth Act addresses three areas where our state and local officials really need help.

First, the Environment.

The CLEAN-UP Meth Act authorizes $30 million for cleanup and remediation of our federal, state and local parks, forests and farmlands. All too often, the environment is the first victim of a meth lab.

It also authorizes $30 million to train law enforcement and other first responders in how to safely enter and clean-up a lab, as well as how to meet the OSHA requirements for working in such a hazardous environment.

Finally, it authorizes $1 million for the EPA to conduct a study of meth waste's impact on the environment.

It is important to address environmental concerns as 4 pounds of waste are created for every 1 pound of meth. In 2001, 12,013 super labs, labs and waste or dump sites required clean-up and remediation.

Second, Health and Education.

H.R. 3782 will provide $20 million to local schools and education groups to provide anti-drug--and especially anti-meth programs.

An additional $10 million is provided to local health care groups for the treatment of both meth abusers, and those abused by meth producers and users. One quarter of that money is specifically set aside for programs helping children found in the toxic environment of meth labs or abused by meth users.

Finally, the bill authorizes $1 million for the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study on the impact of not only meth use, but also meth production on community health. We need to help stop the use of this deadly drug that 9.4 million Americans admitted to having used at least once in 1999 and that in 2000, 7.9 percent of high school seniors said they had tried.

Finally, Law Enforcement.

With meth growing so quickly, many local law enforcement agencies, district attorneys and other members of the law enforcement community are not prepared to deal with its spread into their community. It is all well and good to find the offenders, but you need to know how to catch them--and perhaps most importantly--prosecute them to get them out of the system.

This legislation authorizes an additional $20 million under the COPS program for training of state and local prosecutors as well as sheriffs and police officers in the prosecution of meth law violations. And one quarter of these funds are set aside for rural communities that are often hardest hit but lack the resources to attack this emerging threat. One example of this rapid growth: DEA arrests for meth production and distribution between 1993 and 1999 shot up from 1,944 to 8,618--an increase of more than 400 percent.

Speaking of training, the bill provides $10 million to expand the great Clan Lab training program run by the DEA in Quantico, Virginia. They do a great job down there, and we need to support them.

Regarding criminal penalties, the CLEAN-UP Meth Act tightens criminal laws used to prosecute the promoters of ``raves,'' the for-profit parties aimed at young people that are often the places where our children our first exposed to these dangerous drugs--too often with the full knowledge and consent of the promoter.

In conclusion, no matter what you call it--meth, crank, crystal, or whatever--this drug is an emerging threat across the country. And it threatens not just those who use it, not just those who know someone who use it, but all Americans who drink our water, breathe our air, send their kids to school or work our lands. It hits rural and suburban areas, perhaps even harder than it does our cities. You cannot just sit back and say it is someone else's problem. That is why I am grateful that this Administration, so many of my Republican and Democratic colleagues, and members of the law enforcement community is focused on the emerging meth threat. And why I am pleased to have so many of them supporting our efforts to CLEAN-UP Meth as I reintroduce this important legislation today.

Mr. Speaker, today we have received tantalizing reports that Pakistani authorities may be close to arresting Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri.

We do not know if this is true, but we do know that hundreds of American men and women in uniform are currently risking their lives as part of Operation Mountain Storm to arrest high-level terrorists in the critical border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This border region was the safe haven for the world's most wanted man. Osama bin Laden lived there for many years since his first visit to the region during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

This January, I conducted a mission to this region to review the operations of the State Department's terrorist rewards program. This program was highly successful in helping the arrest of key international criminals important to the United States. The program led to the arrest, capture, or death of two-thirds of U.N. war criminals in Bosnia. It led to the arrest, prosecution, and execution of Mir Aimal Kasi who killed many Americans outside the CIA gate in Virginia. By the way, Mr. Kasi was arrested in the very region of Pakistan receiving so much attention today. The program also led to the arrest and death of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the two Hussein brothers, sons of Saddam Hussein.

As a congressional staffer, I drafted the bill that lifted the rewards program from 5 to $25 million and allowed its use against U.N. war criminals. Based on my January mission to Afghanistan and Pakistan, we found the need for more reforms. We asked to raise the award for Osama bin Laden's arrest to $50 million and to make the payment of cash rewards more flexible so that in rural communities we could provide trucks or farm implements that could be a much more motivating factor with rural families.

In the frontier autonomous tribal region that we are focusing so heavily on today, we face a population largely illiterate, very poor and speaking the Wasari tribal language. In making these reforms, we need the State Department to do media surveys and use more radio and TV, which is much more appropriate to communicating with large, illiterate communities.

These ideas would all combine with one other idea: Osama bin Laden has slowly been changing his source of financing. He used to depend on Wahabi donations, his personal fortune and donations from Europe, but those sources of funding have largely dried up under a series of United Nations legal orders.

Today, Osama bin Laden stands as one of the world's number one sellers of heroin. Haji Bashir Noorzai of Canada provides him with 2,000 kilograms of heroin every 8 weeks, giving bin Laden from that source alone $28 million a year. In mid-December, the United States Navy arrested three dhows in the Arabian Gulf that contained methamphetamine, hashish, and heroin worth $10 million, an attempt by bin Laden to move from the Pakistani market where he gets $2,000 per kilogram of heroin to the United Arab Emirates where he would get $10,000 per kilogram.

Osama bin Laden has more money access to his fortune than ever before, and these ideas need to be incorporated into our new bill, H.R. 3782, the Counter-Terrorist and Narco-Terrorist Rewards Program Act. That act just passed the House of Representatives an hour ago by a vote of 414 to 0, a monument to bipartisan cooperation on a critical national security issue of the United States. The passage of this bill

was needed, and it is needed more than ever because of the news coming from Operation Mountain Storm.

We need to thank the uniformed men and women of Combined Task Force 180 and the men and women of U.S. embassies in Islamabad and Kabul and other government agencies that are today risking their lives this very hour for the arrest of some of the world's most dangerous terrorists.

I also want to recognize our allies in this battle, the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. President Musharraf of Pakistan is riding a tiger tonight, but he has made the bold step to move against al Qaeda, regardless of the political risk. He and his Special Forces team are key, key parts of this allied victory against terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, we may or may not have good news tonight, but we can already thank the hundreds of Americans in uniform and out of uniform who are so far from home today, but are doing our government's most dangerous and important work.

Mr. Speaker, the Counter-Terrorist and Narco-Terrorist Rewards Program Act, H.R. 3782 seeks to expand the reward tools needed to encourage informants with data to come forward and help prevent or resolve acts of international terrorism against U.S. citizens and property throughout the world. Rewards also can be paid for information leading to the arrest or conviction of terrorists who attempt, commit, conspire, or aid and abet terrorist acts. Informants with the knowledge of a location or the identification of terrorist leaders can also be rewarded.

Secretary of State Powell has authorized a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to the capture of bin Laden and other key al Qaeda leaders, under the provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001. That act specifically authorizes the Secretary of State to offer and pay rewards of greater than $5 million if it is determined that a greater amount is necessary to combat terrorism or to defend the United States against terrorist acts. As we approach the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, it is clear that a greater amount is necessary to entice informants and that the reward program must be publicized widely.

An especially important component of the bill would publicize the existence of the rewards program. The measure would provide additional authority to buy radio, television and newspaper advertisements to publicize the rewards program. It also would change the name of the program from the Rewards for Justice Program to the Terrorism and Narco-Terrorism Rewards Program.

The rewards incentives work. Twenty-nine people whom provided credible information that put terrorists behind bars or prevented acts of international terrorism worldwide have been rewarded with a total of more than $49 million over the last seven years by the United States. Reward incentives played a significant role in the arrest and conviction of terrorist Ramzi Yousef, for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

This bill would also empower the Secretary of State to make rewards in any combination of money and non-monetary instruments, including automobiles. This provision is important because people who have specific knowledge about perpetrators or their acts of terrorism may more highly value material objects, like a new tractor for their farm. The bill would also expand the eligibility criteria of informants seeking to receive a reward.

The bill would increase the maximum amount that can be paid by the Department of State for information and assistance. The maximum amount of a reward increases from $5 million to a maximum of $25 million and the Secretary of State may further authorize a reward of up to $50 million for the capture of or information leading to the capture of Usama bin Laden.

The bill clarifies that any information that disrupts terrorist financing networks, including information related to illicit narcotics production or international trafficking, is eligible for reward. The money laundering information does not need to be tied to a specific act of terrorism. This is particularly important, because we face threats in our own hemisphere from narco-terrorists. The common denominator for each of the many threats, however, is their funding stream. Being able to seize terrorist money has an immediate impact on their ability to conduct their horrific operations. Compensating an informant for financial information is just as vital as learning of the whereabouts of a particular actor.

The provisions in this bill dramatically improve the power of the tools available to the Department of State and law enforcement agencies to attract and compensate knowledgeable informants. We can't hope to place undercover operatives into the places where terrorist and narco- terrorist leaders plan their deeds. The advanced warning of an attack and the corresponding pre-event interdiction is priceless. Therefore, a reward is easily justified.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3782) to amend the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 to increase the maximum amount of an award available under the Department of State rewards program, to expand the eligibility criteria to receive an award, to authorize nonmonetary awards, to publicize the existence of the rewards program, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes changes and modifications to the long- established U.S. State Department rewards programs to deal with the growing links between illicit drugs and the financing and support of terrorism.

The State Department Rewards Program has clearly prevented acts of terrorism in the past, has helped to bring to justice long-sought terrorists, such as the individual who fled to Pakistan after assassinating our CIA employees in Virginia, and has served as a valuable intelligence tool in the global war on terrorism. The Rewards Program could do even more, if we enact this bill, with its reforms.

It is time for renewed, expanded reward authority in the State Department, one which tackles and contends with the growing links, as recently reported in the press, of the illicit drug trade and the financing and supporting of terrorism. Our terrorist enemies may very well be changing their methods and means, and we mean to be even more flexible and creative than they are.

H.R. 3782 would clarify that any information provided which could be used to disrupt terrorist financing networks, including information related to illicit narcotics production or international trafficking, is eligible for reward moneys. It provides clarification of the authority for the Secretary of State to give rewards other than money for information related to terrorism and narcoterrorism, such as vehicles, appliances, commodities and other goods and services. It clarifies the authority of the Secretary of State to conduct media surveys and create or purchase advertisements for the Rewards Program. It requires the administration to submit a plan to the Congress that maximizes the publicity surrounding the reward for Osama bin Laden's capture. It raises the statutory maximum amount of terrorist and narcoterrorist rewards from $5 million to $25 million, and it provides the Secretary of State the authority to raise the reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden to double the amount of the current authorized reward.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that this bill will improve our ability to fight terrorism and I urge Members to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for this legislation. This bill comes to the House as U.S. Armed Forces today go into battle as part of Operation Mountain Storm.

Operation Mountain Storm is an allied military operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan designed to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. This bill provides immediate aid and assistance to those critical operations now ongoing in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan and the frontier autonomous tribal area of Pakistan.

This bill comes in part from a mission I conducted to Pakistan's frontier in January. Joined by Michele Lang, Jon Scharfen, John Mackey, David Fite and Lieutenant Kevin Fernandez,

we found a great need to reenergize the State Department's Rewards Program in Pakistan. The Rewards Program has a long and successful history. As a staffer, I drafted reforms which lifted the rewards from $5 million to $25 million, and made the arrest of U.N. war criminals eligible for the reward. We arrested or killed two-thirds of war criminals in the Balkans using this legislation. We also arrested Aimal Khan Kasi in Pakistan using the authorities of this bill. Kansi killed several Americans outside of the CIA gate. He was arrested, tried, and executed for those trials.

Today this bill makes a crucial link between drug dealing and terrorism. We found that one Afghan is providing 2,000 kilograms a month of heroin to Osama bin Laden. At the Pakistani price, that provides bin Laden with an annual income of $38 million to fund his terror operations. This bill makes the link between funding terror and funding drug profits, and we want to make sure that we cut off Osama bin Laden's new supply of cash, which is coming not from donations, but from the sale of heroin.

The bottom line, Osama bin Laden in the frontier autonomous region of Pakistan has become one of the world's number one sellers of heroin. This bill makes that link very clearly, and lifts the reward for the arrest of Osama bin Laden to $50 million.

It also makes one other key reform. In many of these areas, most of the people are illiterate and could not even read a reward poster or one of the matchbook covers used to arrest Aimal Kasi. This bill allows the State Department to be more flexible in publicizing the reward effort, and it allows the State Department to use noncash rewards which in a rural community can be much more effective. Beyond a $25 million or $50 million reward, the provision of a truck or feed or farm animals can make all the difference for a rural community which seeks to provide information on the arrest of Osama bin Laden.

This bill makes it much more flexible and much more capable. I urge its adoption and thank the committee for moving it so quickly to the floor as Operation Mountain Storm is ongoing.