Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2004

Mr. President, I rise to introduce and send to the desk the 21st Century Citizen Soldier Benefits Act which I introduce on behalf of myself.

I thought I would take a moment this afternoon to outline the framework and the context of this bill because it has to do with our Armed Forces. It has to do with a very important component of our Armed Forces, which is our Guard and Reserve units, part of our total force, a very important part of that total force as I hope to outline.

This is an attempt to put before the Senate and the Congress a comprehensive bill--one that I find and I know people in Louisiana across party lines and in very energetic and enthusiastic ways support because the need is so great--to support our men and women in uniform, particularly our Guard and Reserve components.

If the war on terror is teaching us anything--and we are learning some tough lessons each and every day as we move forward through this war--we all know we cannot defend this Nation adequately without the strength provided by our National Guard and Reserves.

Since 9/11 when this country was attacked, the first time in this large measure since the attack on Pearl Harbor many years ago, over 355,000 guardsmen and reservists have been mobilized.

To give a grasp of that number, our Navy today, arguably the most powerful in the world, has 375,000 sailors. So in 2\1/2\ years, we have called up almost enough guardsmen and reservists to man every ship in the United States Navy. That is a lot of manpower and a lot of womanpower, and they deserve our very best effort. They are not just backfilling for Active Forces. They are serving on the front lines, as we have seen today how brutal those front lines can be. They are being wounded and killed just like our Active Forces. In fact, 97 of the 600 deaths in Iraq have been Guard and Reserve deaths.

Today 176,000 citizen soldiers wear the uniform full time, and that number, as I will show, is growing exponentially. By May 1, 40 percent of the

troops in Iraq will be members of the National Guard and Reserve. These are men and women who have full-time jobs, who are coaches, small business owners, policemen, firemen, State workers, and waiters and waitresses in our restaurants. They hold many jobs, but they are then called up. They take off their daily dress clothes and put on the uniform and go to the front lines to protect us.

In Louisiana, and I know this is true in Texas, thousands of men and women have been called up.

We have 3,051 reservists on active duty right now. Over 6,000 Louisiana reservists have been activated since 9/11. For many, their activation periods have unfortunately lasted, because of the demand on our troops, sometimes in excess of 18 months to 24 months. The 528th Engineering Battalion from Monroe, LA, recently deployed to Afghanistan, 500 Louisianans on their way serving already. Marine Reserve Company B of Bossier City, 150 Marines have just been put on alert for mobilization. Company B has already been mobilized before.

Last month, the Department of Defense put another 18,000 National Guardsmen on alert status, including 3,800 members from Louisiana's 256th Separate Infantry Brigade. I will be visiting their leaders on Monday, in Lafayette, LA, and be visiting with their families to talk about the separation that is going to occur and how we are doing as a nation, as a State, and as a community, to help them through this difficult time as they help, protect, and give us their very best in this war effort.

The National Guard and Reserve, as I said, make up now 45 percent of our forces. We simply cannot fight without them. Yet as I am going to explain, the benefits, their pensions, their compensation, their GI benefits, their retirement benefits, and even their burial benefits do not match with their level of service and do not match with the contribution they are, in fact, making.

I understand why because when the framework for the Guard and Reserves was initially put together, they were thought of as sort of a backup, as a filler.

They do other things as well other than, of course, fighting wars. They help our States mobilize at times of national and natural disasters. So I am clear, as are many of us, about why initially, as the Guard and Reserve was created and the framework developed, those rules and regulations were put into place back in the 1940s, in the 1960s, and in the 1970s.

In 2004, the times are different. The demands are great and they are meeting this challenge. As a Congress we need to meet them more than halfway.

Nearly 35,000 have been mobilized more than once. Imagine returning from Afghanistan, reuniting with your family, getting your business restarted, getting back into the desk you left before you went to serve, only to be told to get ready because you are leaving in another few months, get ready to ship out again.

We have a retention and recruiting crisis looming on the horizon. I would like to show the number of troops, reservists, who have been called up from 1953 through 1989, through the Berlin crisis of 1961, through the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam war, we called up a total of 199,877, about 200,000, through all of this, three times in 40 years. Since 1990, in the last 14 years, we have called up 634,984--the Persian Gulf war, the intervention in Haiti, Bosnian peacekeeping, Operation Southern Watch, the Kosovo conflict, now our ongoing war on terrorism, which has many fronts, primarily in Afghanistan and in Iraq. That is unprecedented in terms of our recent history.

The question to us should be: Are we doing what we should as we are increasing our military budget substantially? I, for one, have supported each and every increase and almost argued in many instances for more money going to our military. What portion of that increase is going to the Guard and Reserve to make sure their pensions are intact, that when they retire their compensation is fair, that their families are cared for at least at a decent and adequate level while they serve us so magnificently and so beautifully? So we can see we are calling more and more on our Guard and Reserve.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an excellent article that appeared in the Washington Post in January of this year by Mr. Vernon Loeb, a very excellent staff writer.

According to this reporter:

The head of the Army Reserve said yesterday that the

205,000-soldier force must guard against a potential crisis

in its ability to retain troops, saying serious problems are

being ``masked'' temporarily because reservists are barred

from leaving the military while their units are mobilized in

Iraq.

He goes on to say:

Lieutenant General Helmly told his subordinates that he was

``really tired of going to see our reserve soldiers [and

finding] they're short such simple things as goggles. It's

about damn time you listen to your lawyers less and your

conscience more. They will probably get me in trouble. But I

told them, I want this stuff fixed.''

Not only are these men and women being called up in unprecedented numbers, not only are they being prevented from leaving, which is masking a potential readiness crisis, but they are also not being provided with some of the basic tools, equipment, and body armor that they need to protect themselves; therefore, contributing to a state of unease.

Not that these guardsmen and reservists are not patriotic, not that they would not walk across hot coals, and in many instances they do every day to protect us, but we should at least be able to take these modest steps to make sure we are strengthening them and honoring their service to us.

The operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo are ongoing, with no end in sight. We do not know if emergent threats around the world will become real and embroil us in yet other military operations, partially because our Active Forces are stretched so thin we need to call up our Guard and Reserve, and yet because of this we could face a retention crisis.

As I said, the deployments are lengthy, the benefits and legal protections are not sufficient in many instances, and the equipment is lacking. So let us hope we can take steps through this legislation and others to fix this situation.

I hope the bill I offer today and sponsor today--and I look forward to many cosponsors joining on this bill--will improve the Guard and Reserve benefits, and legal protections. As I said, we are calling it the 21st Century Citizen Soldier Benefit Act.

We have had two major changes or improvements to the Guard and Reserve framework, one in 1940 and one in 1994. It is time, 10 years later, this year, 2004, with the unprecedented nature of their service, to step up this framework of support for our Guard and Reserve. It is time for Congress, in my opinion, to take a comprehensive look at the benefits and protections afforded to the members of the Guard and Reserve.

We have not done so since 1994. It is time that we do this. My bill does it in several ways.

First, we call for equal benefits for equal service in the area of burial benefits, for activated Guard and Reserve should be the same as Active Duty. Guardsmen and Reservists cannot be buried in national cemeteries unless they are killed in action. Think about that. A man or a woman serves not just for 6 months, but maybe 2 years, comes home, is called back to go again, dodges the bullets, gets past the landmines, perhaps is seriously injured but escapes unscathed and comes home after serving valiantly, and then is denied burial benefits because they were not ``killed in action.'' I think because of what they have done, it is time for us to give them the right opportunities for burial in our national cemeteries if they are serving the time that our Active Duty serve, with all the dignity that they would deserve in such a situation.

The bill does not authorize every member of the Guard and Reserve to these burial rights, but it is inconceivable why someone who fought overseas for our Nation cannot be buried with his or her comrades simply because one soldier was in the Reserve and one soldier was active--fighting side by side, same foxhole, same patrol, same landmine but yet not the same burial ground.

No. 2, we hope in this bill that guardsmen and reservists activated for 2 years should have active duty GI bill benefits--the GI bill, which is probably one of the best pieces of legislation this Congress has ever passed, it is referred to hundreds of time in speeches on and off the floor, and is one of the bills Americans generally know about, quote, and can say what it does. It has enabled millions of American troops to enroll in college when they returned from World War II. The GI bill created a bedrock of middle-class Americans. It was one of the cornerstones that helped us build the middle class, and it ushered in 50 years of unprecedented economic growth. Why? Because when people get good training and good education, their earning potential goes up and the contribution they can make to their community rises in a significant way.

Today, members of the Active-Duty Forces receive more in GI benefits than the Guard and Reserve personnel, and if the Guard and Reserve personnel weren't contributing in equal ways to our active duty, I would not be here arguing for them, but they are contributing in equal ways, putting their lives in danger. Our bill will allow them to participate more equally in the GI benefits.

The third part of this bill would seek to create parity between Reserve components and Active Duty in terms of their retirement age. Right now, Active Duty can leave the military once they serve 20 years. We think that is a great benefit. It is one of the attractions to the military service. Many of our military men and women serve honorably for 20 years and then retire to go off and have yet a second and third career, as lifespans continue to increase. We are proud of that. We believe and know they contribute in many ways even past their service.

But Guard and Reserve today cannot collect retirement until 60 years of age. This bill would reduce it to 55 years and end what is an unjust situation and help them. Hopefully it will address part of this retention issue by making these benefits more generous.

The fourth and I think one of the most important issues this bill seeks to address is ending the pay gap faced by guardsmen and reservists. Mr. President, I don't know if in Texas you have had a lot of people complain to you about this, but I sure have had people in Louisiana come up and say to me, Senator, I can't possibly understand how we would ask someone to put on their uniform, go to Iraq, and take a 40-percent, 30-percent, or 20-percent cut in pay, to put their life on the line while we enjoy all the benefits staying home here in a safe place here on the homefront. It is not that we have not had challenges right here on the homefront, but not to the same degree and intensity as we are finding on the front lines of the battlefield.

Yet the fact is, because there is no tax credit in our law right now and because it is not mandatory for employers--or the Federal Government, I might add, which is something Senator Durbin and I have worked very hard on together--to maintain their salaries at the level before they leave, some of these guardsmen and reservists are actually taking a 30-percent or 40-percent cut in pay to serve us and to keep us safe. That means while they are making the sacrifice on the battlefield, which many of these men and women are willing to make, we are asking their spouses and their children to give up the car, sell the house, give up their college fund, and it is simply not fair in a country that has the resources we have. In this Congress we want to give tax credits to everybody in the world for everything under the sun. I don't know how we can't find the few hundreds of millions of dollars that it would take to give this tax credit to allow people to serve in the Guard and Reserve and just maintain their salary level while they serve so it doesn't put their families in jeopardy.

I am going to go visit our troops in Lafayette on Monday. I know the community comes together. I know the women, many of them, join together for bake sales and help out and pay each other's car payments. Sometimes the community pulls together to pay the mortgage on the house. I think that is wonderful and it is the good old American spirit. But I don't know if it is necessary, not when we are giving out tax credits to companies that are taking jobs overseas, not when we are giving out tax credits to people who make millions and are not putting on the uniform. The least we can do is help our businesses to write off what they would have as a voluntary compensation package to maintain this salary level for the men and women serving overseas to minimize the sacrifice made by their families here at home. It would also require the Federal Government to step up to the plate

and, as one of the largest employers in the Nation, to make sure those salaries are compensated.

Let me share stories, one or two, from these families. There was an April 22, 2003 article from USA Today that I will ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

It starts:

Drastic pay cuts. Bankruptcy. Foreclosed homes. They aren't

exactly the kind of challenges that members of America's

military reserves signed up for when they volunteered to

serve their country. But for many, the biggest threat to the

home front isn't Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. It's the

bill collector.

And that is a shame. I think the two enemies mentioned before the bill collector are people we need to actually be focusing our attention on, bringing them to justice in one case and finding them in the other. I don't think our troops need to be worried about bill collectors back home, but that is the position we have them in because we have not acted, will not act, refuse to act in the face of giving everybody else tax credits, but we can't seem to find room in the budget for these 634,000 of our bravest.

I want to say for the record, in Louisiana, Janet Wright's husband Russell is in the Marine Reserves. He made $60,000 a year. Russell was activated. He will only make $30,000. Mrs. Wright says she started putting water in her children's cereal and hopes her daughter can be quickly potty trained to save on diapers. Mrs. Wright has to count every penny.

This family is from Hammond, LA. I just don't think this is right. I think we can do something about it, and this bill attempts to do that. A 50-percent tax credit to those employers to continue to pay their salaries to fill this pay gap is part of this bill.

One other point of the bill, and then a short conclusion. We put a cap on interest rates. Many of us have loans out for a variety of different purposes--automobiles, perhaps some business loans that have been made for our businesses, obviously mortgages. We put in an interest rate cap so when you are deployed, you don't have to pay more than a 6-percent rate. When rates were 20 percent and 25 percent, that made a lot of sense and it was a great benefit. But as rates are relatively low today, this bill would make a modest change to either have it at 6 percent or prime plus 1. Again, it is not a huge amount of money, but it could potentially save a family a few hundred dollars a year. It is the least we can do as part of trying to help them make ends meet while their primary breadwinner in most cases is the one deployed.

As Congress works to best give our military the tools they need to succeed in the 21st century, we must reinforce and increase the benefits and protections for our Reserves. We have asked so much of them, and they have met every challenge with excellence. As we saw unfolding on our television screens yesterday and today, we couldn't ask them to do more. The least we can do is to look at the package of benefits,

upgrade it where we can, make sacrifices in other areas of our budget, and fund them first. They are the ones who are protecting us at this time. When we can provide greater legal protections to ease the stress on the homefront, we must, when and where we can. Failure to act will just exacerbate retention challenges. It will undermine our efforts to succeed in our war on terror.

I introduce this bill today. I hope we can have a speedy hearing.

I ask my colleagues to join me in sponsoring this bill so we can have a great bipartisan effort. There are many other things we can so the Guard and Reserve really know we appreciate them, because we just do not take pictures with them but we actually put them in our budget.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Is the Senator from California saying that we should be engaged on the Senate floor today on issues relating to homeland security; that is, the security of the State of California, the State of Nevada, and the other 48 States, and that we should not be wasting our time on class action? Next we are going to go to a gay marriage amendment. Would the Senator acknowledge no matter how strongly people feel about this gay marriage amendment, it has no--zero--I am from Nevada; I do not gamble personally, but I know a little bit about it, having been chairman of the Gaming Commission--it has zero chance of passing. None. It won't pass. And we are going to spend valuable Senate floor time on an amendment that stands absolutely no chance of passing when we have at the desk the homeland security appropriations bill, and I have been told today we are not going to go to that until September.

Now, is the Senator saying we should not be doing class action, we should not be doing gay marriage, we should be doing things that make my family and your family and the rest of America safe from these evil terrorists?

Ships coming into the United States today have on them transponders. The purpose of that is so those people ashore can find out where the ship is and have a better idea of where they are. As we speak, there are about 43,000 very large ships on our oceans--43,000. For them to come to the United States, one of the requirements is they have a transponder on them, like an airplane has, like the situation we had a few weeks ago where the plane was coming into National and the transponder was not working.

I say to my friend from New York, even though those ships have transponders----

I am sorry?

We have only known each other 22 years.

So I say to my friend, there is a transponder on every ship coming into the United States, but we do not have the equipment on shore to have the transponders picked up on shore. Why? Because we have not spent the money to do it.

The distinguished Senator from South Carolina has fought to have money placed in these bills so we can have the transponders on shore so we can do what they do with airplanes, with ships.

Is the Senator aware we don't even do that?

Will the Senator yield?

I say through the Chair to the distinguished Senator from New York, there is no question the citizens from your State, more than any State in the Union, are troubled every day because every day there is a story that something bad is going to happen, and New York, as the Senator indicated, is always mentioned.

I heard the Senator from New York state today that we, the Senate, are wasting our time. Class action is important, but is it as important to my family as having better security for my family? I have family members in the Washington, DC area, in Nevada, and one of my sons moved to Utah. I would rather we were working on this bill, Homeland Security, to make my family members more secure.

To top this off, when we leave class action--and the majority has decided they simply cannot allow a vote on immigration, or certainly they cannot allow a vote on drug reimportation--we are going to move off this legislation and are going to the gay marriage amendment. I know people have strong emotions about that one way or the other. However, I am willing to say the people for New York and the people of Nevada, if we weigh on one side the gay marriage amendment and on the other side the Homeland Security appropriations bill, this scale would tip 95 to 5. Does the Senator agree we have our priorities mixed?

And let me ask one other question. I went to my luncheon today and one of my friends in the press said, do you realize what the Republicans are doing? They are going to say you are obstructing everything.

Does the Senator from New York understand that is their game? They will say we are the ones obstructing these bills, when, in fact, they do not want to address these issues because they do not want to take a vote on overtime, they do not want to vote on extending unemployment benefits, they do not want to have a debate on immigration and drug reimportation.

Would the Senator agree when a government is controlled by one party--President, the House, the Senate and, I am sad to say, the Supreme Court--it is a little hard to blame the other party for obstructing? Does the Senator agree?

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska--and we all care deeply about him; he is our President pro tempore--said he wanted to bring up the bill--that was objected to--the Homeland Security bill, but under specific conditions, limiting debate and amendments. Does the Senator from South Dakota believe every bill that comes up we want to create a new Senate? We never want to do things the way the Senate has acted for 200-plus years. We want to do things the way the House does it. We want to have a rule on every piece of legislation.

This is my second question. Doesn't the Senator believe we could take this bill up and do it in the ordinary course of business, as we used to do things? We could finish this bill in a couple of days?

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for one more question?

We have completed on this floor--and we did it in expedited fashion--the Defense Appropriations bill. The Senator from South Dakota consented to going to conference. We agreed to do it the day after the bill passed. The conferees were appointed. I have here the Senate calendar. The conferees were appointed June 24.

Is the Senator from South Dakota, our minority leader, aware of the fact that since this important bill passed the Senate, the House of Representatives--and now it is July 8--has simply never even appointed conferees? So all this about having to do it by 5 o'clock so we can go to conference is yelling out words that mean nothing. The House hasn't appointed conferees on the Defense Appropriations bill since June 24.

Mr. President, I think we also have to project ourselves into next week. I have read in the press that the majority, when we get off of the bill we have been dealing with all week, class action, is going to go to a constitutional amendment dealing with gay marriage. Now is there anybody who believes that amendment, which is doomed to failure no matter how you feel about it--how do the people in South Dakota feel about going to an amendment dealing with gay marriage instead of doing an appropriations bill dealing with homeland security?

As my friend from Oregon knows, my father committed suicide. My situation was totally different than that experienced by my friend from Oregon. With my dad there was nothing that had happened that suggested a problem.

I went to watch Muhammad Ali work out, spent the morning with Muhammad Ali. I had a wonderful time. I took somebody who was working with me. Two of us were alone with Muhammad Ali for a long time. I returned to my office and walked in the door. Joan was the receptionist. I can still see her. This was many years ago. She said: Your mother is on the phone. I picked up the phone and she said: Your pop shot himself.

My dad had killed himself at home in Searchlight. For a long time, I was embarrassed; I did not know how to handle that. I, of course, acknowledged my dad was dead but like most people who deal with suicide, it takes a while to accept that.

My acceptance came many years later when I was part of the Aging Committee in the Senate. Bill Cohen was the chairman. We had a hearing on senior depression. Mike Wallace, a reporter on ``60 Minutes,'' testified before the committee. He said: A lot of times I wanted to die. I did the most dangerous things I could do, hoping that maybe something would happen that I would not return. He said: But you know, I now take a little bit of medication; I had the opportunity to talk to someone and I no longer feel that way.

So I shared, for the first time ever publicly, what happened to my dad. My dad was 56 or 57 years old, much younger than most members in the Senate. I said at that time to Chairman Cohen that I thought we should have a hearing on senior suicide. I shared, for the first time, the story of my dad's death.

I didn't know Garrett. Gordon didn't know my dad. My dad was a person who, as we look back, had been depressed his whole life. I cannot give a long dialog about my dear dad other than to say he was a very strong, physical person, bigger than I am, bigger than his four sons. He never lifted a weight, but with his shirt off at the age he was, people would think he had lifted weights. He had big arms, a big chest. He was very strong.

He didn't like to be around people, only his family. About a week before he killed himself, we came out to visit him in Searchlight. My dad did not have much in the way of material possessions, but he had one thing for which he was very proud. It was a specimen.

My dad worked hard all of his life, never made any money doing anything, but he worked like a dog. One time he had a lease on a mine and he found some very rich ore at the Blossom. The vein was very small. It was in a talc-like formation, and it assayed at $18,000 a ton. He got a few sacks of this. It was in such small quantities you could not even fill up a truck with it.

He saved a specimen. All he had left was a specimen; that was valuable to him, at least. Approximately a week before he died, he gave it to me. It was unlike my dad. But, of course, as I look back, he had been planning what he was going to do for some time. His health was not good and he had miner's consumption, and I am sure other problems. He smoked like a chimney all of his life. He coughed every night when I was a little boy. I thought all kids' dads coughed like my dad.

But had this legislation, introduced by my friend, been in effect, my dad may not have had all the problems he had as he proceeded through life. Suicide is an American tragedy. We know that at least 31,000 Americans every year kill themselves. We know that because those are the deaths that we can say: This was a suicide. But there are, I believe, thousands of others--automobile accidents, hiking accidents-- that are really suicides.

So we have done a few things since my work with Senator Cohen. We are now studying, for the first time--it is hard to comprehend this--but for first time in the history of this country, we are trying to figure out why people kill themselves. We do not know for sure. One of the phenomenons is that most of the suicides are in the western part of the United States. We do not know why. You would think just the opposite, with the Sun shining and the wide open spaces. But we are studying that. The Surgeon General of the United States has stated it is a national problem.

I want my friend from Oregon to understand how important it is that he is stepping forward on this issue. Landra and I attended Garrett's funeral. We were so impressed because no one--no one--tried to mask what happened to Garrett Smith. Every speaker talked about this fine young man. Some of the speakers had known him his whole life. But there was not a single speaker who tried to make an excuse or cover up the fact that this young man had taken his own life.

You see, we have come a long way. After my dad died, killed himself, I bought a book on suicide. It was not long ago that you could not bury someone who committed suicide in a cemetery. Most religions would not accept and allow the normal religious ceremonies to take place if somebody had killed themselves. We have gone beyond that in most every instance, and that is good.

I want the Senator from Oregon to know how I appreciate his moving forward on this national problem. Nevada leads the Nation in suicide. I believe that anything we can do to focus attention on this problem is going to be of benefit to so many people.

Since this situation with my dad in the committee, we now have a national organization. They have a full-time lobbyist now. SCAN is the name of the organization. Their whole existence is based on dealing with the suicide problem that faces this country.

I appreciate very much the Senator from Oregon, I say for the third time, moving forward on this issue. It is a happy day and a sad day because, as life is, I do not focus on that day when my dad--I went out and saw my dad on the bed where he had killed himself. I do not focus on that, but I did today, and it is good for me that I did focus on it.

It is good for us that we focus on this. I used to think suicides happened to other people, but they happen to us. There are so many people who I come in contact with who have had a father, a mother--I had a wonderful TV reporter in Las Vegas--and you know it is all business with these journalists--who said to me once: Could I talk to you sometime alone? I said: Sure. She told me about the fact that her brother committed suicide, her father committed suicide. This story did not end there. She called me later, after we had our private conversation; her own sister then killed herself.

Suicide is an illness of which we have to get ahold. It is something that does not happen to others; it happens to us.

I am so glad I was able to hear the heartfelt remarks of the Senator from Oregon today.

Mr. President, the leadership on the majority side asked if we could move the vote to an earlier time tonight, rather than have the cloture vote in the morning. I am sorry to report that the Senator from Delaware, Senator Carper, has indicated he will not agree with that. All other Members on our side have agreed to the vote tonight. It is now set for the morning.

I apologize to all my colleagues that we cannot do this tonight. There are a lot of things Members have to do tonight, and especially tomorrow. It would save everyone a lot of time.

I want the record to reflect that I think it is unwise that that is the case. I told my friend from Delaware I would indicate he is the problem with our having the vote earlier.

I apologize, because I have had a number of calls from Senators on this side of the aisle. We thought we were going to be able to work that out, but we have been unable to do that.

On our side, as the Senator knows, we have pushed very hard for this bill authored by you and the late Senator Paul Wellstone. It was an odd couple, Wellstone-Domenici, but it was one bound with friendship. The two Senators found a place where they agreed and they went to all ends to make sure that legislation passed.

As the Senator told me when I was talking a few minutes ago, we need to do this for a lot of reasons, but one is to respect the memory of Paul Wellstone.

On our side, we would be willing to take up that bill and spend 1 hour. We will do it at midnight, 6 o'clock in the morning. One hour is all we want. We will only take 30 minutes of that hour. I want everyone to understand, on our side, we want 30 minutes. If that is too much time, we will cut it down.

Does the Senator understand we will do everything? Everyone knows we have worked closely together for so many years on appropriations. What the Senator has done on this mental health parity will go down in the history books. We need to make sure it passes, and the history books have something definitive, not a matter only initiated.

Mr. President, one of our very able Senate staff brought to me something I need to share with everyone here today. This is a report from the New York Times, dated today. Among other things, it says:

Congressional investigators--

This was a House committee, which I am sure does competent work--

said Wednesday that 15,000 children with psychiatric

disorders were improperly incarcerated last year because no

mental health services were available.

This was a report. This came out yesterday. The study:

. . . found that children as young as 7 were incarcerated

because of a lack of access to mental health care. More than

340 detention centers, two-thirds of those that responded to

the survey, said youths with mental disorders were being

locked up because there was no place else for them to go

while awaiting treatment. Seventy-one centers in 33 states

said they were holding mentally ill youngsters with no

charges.

The 15,000 youths awaiting mental health services accounted

for 8 percent of all youngsters in the responding detention

centers.

Dr. Ken Martinez of the New Mexico Department of Children,

Youth and Families said the data showed ``the criminalization

of mental illness'' as ``juvenile detention centers have

become de facto psychiatric hospitals for mentally ill

youth.''

Mental health advocates, prison officials, and juvenile

court judges all testified and recommended three types of

solutions. . . .

The main one is ``more extensive insurance coverage.''

Just a couple more things from this same report.

In Tennessee, a juvenile detention center administrator said:

Those with depression are locked up alone to contemplate

suicide. I guess you get the picture.

That is a direct quote.

Carol Carothers, who directs the Maine chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, says:

Surely we would not dream of placing a child with another

serious illness, like cancer for example, in a juvenile

detention center to await a hospital bed or community based

treatment. It is outrageous that we do this to children with

mental illness.

So I say to my distinguished friend from New Mexico, thank you for coming down today and enlarging this debate. It needs to be enlarged. We so believe that we need to pass Senator Smith's legislation that I proudly cosponsor. But we also have to move to the next step because the next step is just as important, if not more so, because it includes so many more people.

The Senator from New Mexico is known for a lot of things, but his resume will never have anything on it more important. I repeat, we need to get it passed.

We have had a signoff--people heard me a little earlier today say we had an objection to having a vote on the cloture motion that the majority leader has filed. We can now do that. I understand the majority wants that to take place. I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on the matter now scheduled for tomorrow occur tonight at 6:30.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, there are many arguments hot and heavy being made today about the important issues that confront our country, issues about our security, about our troops, about the hot summer that is threatened by terrorists, about our economy and its recovery, and I know there are strong feelings on both sides of the aisle. But I hope today to show the American people that we are bigger than just partisans, that there are times when our Nation's elected officials can come together, put aside political and party differences, and actually debate and pass legislation.

My bill that I am talking about now in the company of Mike DeWine, the Senator from Ohio--and I believe Senator Dodd of Connecticut will soon join us--is a bill, I suppose, on a smaller subject than war and peace and economic recovery, but it is nevertheless a bill about life and death, so it is important. It is not a far-reaching bill. It is not even all that expensive, certainly not in relationship to all that our Congress will consider, but it represents an important milestone in our country's battle against mental illness and specifically youth suicide.

Later tonight, this bill will be introduced by the majority leader. I thank him for his sensitivity and willingness to proceed on this bill. He has been of enormous help to my wife and me in this struggle. I thank also Senator Daschle for truly making this a bipartisan issue. See, what Senator Frist and Senator Daschle understand is that mental illnesses do not register by party; they afflict Republican and Democratic families alike.

I would like to thank Senator Gregg, the chairman of the committee, and his staff for their willingness to proceed with this legislation. It would not have happened without him.

I would like to thank Senator DeWine. He and his wife Fran know something about family suffering, having lost a child of their own, so he has been unusually sensitive to Sharon and me on this issue. He has championed one of the bills, the major part of this bill we will take up today.

I thank you, Senator DeWine.

I want to show further how we as partisans, as Republicans and Democrats, are first Americans. During the hearing we had on this bill, it was Senator Dodd, who is the ranking member of the committee, who suggested that if we accomplish little else in this Congress, we at least ought to do this much. Senator Dodd is one of the nicest and most decent Members of this Chamber.

There are other Senators of whom I want to take note.

Senator Jack Reed has been especially sensitive and has helped to write a big portion of this bill as it relates to campus suicide.

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic whip--his family also having suffered with a suicide--has been a champion of mental health issues and specifically on the issue of how to intervene, interdict, and to stop suicide when it is at all possible.

Finally, I would like to speak of Senator Kennedy. I have looked at him often in this Chamber. I have thought of him as a lion in winter. He certainly has a lion's roar in this Chamber. Yet underlying the lion's roar, Senator Kennedy has a heart that is filled with compassion for people. No one on either side of the aisle should ever question his motive, and his motive is as good as gold even though you can reasonably disagree with his method. He has been of unusual help to me and to Sharon as we suffer the loss of our son. He has known much suffering in his days, and I thank Senator Kennedy.

Finally, I must mention Arlen Specter, the subcommittee chairman of the Appropriations Committee that helps fund the mental health issues. For a long time, he has found ways to fund programs to help with mental illnesses. And he has been helpful in a tight year with a tight budget trying to find the resources that can be utilized for the authorization of funds this bill will provide.

Enough of those things, and now to the substantial.

Most of you can probably discern by now that my emotions are still somewhat tender. I didn't volunteer to be a champion of this issue. But it arose out of the personal experience of being a parent who lost a child to mental illness through suicide.

Last September, Sharon and I lost our son Garrett Lee Smith to a long battle that he suffered from mental illness. He suffered emotional pain that I cannot begin to comprehend, and he ultimately sought relief by taking his life. While Sharon and I think about Garrett every day and mourn his loss, we take solace in the time we had with Garrett and say to all those who suffer the loss of loved ones that the very best antedote for grief is the gratitude you had for your loved one for a time on Earth. Sharon and I have committed ourselves each in our own way to preserving Garrett's memory by trying to help others so that other families and children do not suffer a similar fate.

Sharon and I adopted Garrett a few days after his birth. He was a beautiful child, a handsome baby boy.

Forgive me.

He was thoughtful of everyone around him as he grew older. His life, however, began to dim in his elementary years. He struggled to spell. His reading and writing were stuck in the rudiments. We had him tested and were surprised to learn that he had an unusually high IQ, but he struggled with a severe overlay of learning disabilities, including dyslexia.

However, it would be many years later until we learned how extensive his true illness was because of his diagnosis, which was a bipolar condition. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Different from normal ups and downs that we all experience, the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. People who suffer from bipolar experience swings from manic highs where sleep and eating are not desired, to deep catastrophic depressions where simply getting out of bed can be too much of a challenge.

In the United States, more than 2 million American adults suffer from bipolar disorder. This illness typically develops in late adolescence or early childhood. However, some people have their first symptoms during childhood, while others develop them late in life. It can be a debilitating illness. And, as in Garrett's case, it can lead to worse tragedies.

As his parents, we knew how long and how desperately Garrett had suffered from his condition and his very dark depression. While we knew intuitively that suicide was possible in his case, there are simply no parental preparations adequate for this crisis in one's own child, no owner's manual to help one in burying a child, especially when the cause is suicide.

So I have committed myself to trying to find meaning in Garrett's life by helping to pass, with the help of my colleagues, an important first step to ending the epidemic of youth suicide. It is no small task, but one that I believe should be a top priority of this Congress because every year approximately 30,000 Americans commit suicide in the United States--a number that is almost twice as high as the number of homicides in our country. Almost 700,000 Americans are treated in hospitals every year for self-inflicted wounds and attempted suicides. But keep in mind these figures don't tell the whole story. They do not account for the families, the friends, the coworkers who are affected by each suicide. Suicide and attempts do not simply leave an impression on the individual's life, it leaves a deep impact on everyone who knows the person or a family member of that person.

America's youth are committing suicide at staggering rates. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people age 10 to 24 years--the third leading cause. That is why this bill, at Mike DeWine's suggestion, named the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, is so vitally important. It takes the first significant step toward creating and funding an organized effort at the Federal and State levels to prevent and intervene when youth are at risk for mental and behavioral conditions that can lead to suicide.

The loss of life to suicide at any age is tragic and traumatic. But when it happens to someone who has just begun life, has just begun to fulfill their potential, the impact somehow seems harsher, sadder, more out of season, more tragic.

Garrett had just begun to reach his potential. His big smile and generous spirit allowed him to befriend everyone, popular or not. Wisely or not, his mother and I showered him with creature comforts as yet another way to show him that we loved him and that we valued him. But as a testament to his character, we later found out that much of what we gave him in a material way he readily gave to others less fortunate.

He also wanted to accomplish three things in life. He wanted to be an Eagle Scout, he wanted to graduate from high school, and he wanted to serve his church on a mission. He accomplished those three things, largely because of the efforts of his angel mother. He loved his mission companions, he loved his church, he deeply loved his Savior, and a chance of serving others in his name. Unfortunately, his struggle against his periods of deep depression became too much. We sought out help from school and church counselors, psychologists, and ultimately a psychiatrist. But words of encouragement, prayers earnestly offered, and the latest medical prescriptions could not repair our son's hard- wiring defects.

Garrett's bipolar condition was a cancer to him, as lethal as leukemia to anyone else. It filled his spirit with hopelessness and clouded his future in darkness. He saw only despair ahead and felt only pain in the present, pain and despair so potent that he sought suicide as a refuge, a release. The bill I offer today with these great colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike, is intended to help other people who suffer from mental illnesses that are so devastating it places them at risk for taking their own lives. No family should experience the pain we have suffered and no child should face the challenges of mental illness alone.

When signed into law, this bill will authorize $60 million over 3 years to create a system focused on establishing in each State a statewide early intervention and prevention strategy. It ensures that 85 percent of the funding will be provided to the entities focused on identifying and preventing suicide at the State and community levels. Entities apply to the State for funding and can utilize a variety of options to implement the tenets of statewide strategy.

One option that Sharon and I have recently championed in our own hometown is the Columbia University Teen Screen Program. We have chosen to endow this program in our community in our son's memory, in the town of Pendleton, OR, from which I hail.

All sixth graders who have their parents' consent will be screened each year for mental illnesses that can lead to suicide and they will receive referrals for treatment. Our hope in sponsoring this program is to help as many children as possible at as early an age, as young as possible, because if we identify mental illness early, we may be able to prevent thousands upon thousands of youth suicides.

The bill also authorizes the Suicide Prevention Resource Centers that will provide technical assistance to States and local grantees to ensure they are able to implement their statewide early intervention and prevention strategies. It also will collect the data related to the programs, evaluate the effectiveness of the program, and identify and distribute best practices to other States around the country. Sharing technical data and program best practices is necessary to ensure that Federal funding is being utilized in the best manner possible. That information is being circulated among participants.

Finally, the bill will provide funding to help colleges and universities establish mental health programs or enhance existing mental health programs focused on increasing access to and enhancing the range of mental and behavioral health services for students.

Entering college can be one of the most disruptive and demanding times of a young person's life, but for persons with mental illnesses the challenges can be overwhelming. Loss of their parental support system, familiar and easily accessible health care providers can often become too much of a burden to bear. That is why we have, for the first time, focused Federal funding on improving the support structures available at our colleges and universities.

I simply say with emphasis to my colleagues, we have a suicide epidemic on American university campuses because kids leave their homes and need support structures. As in the case of our son, when you are not there and they do not have someone to fall back on, sometimes the most innocent kinds of disappointments for you and me can be life ending to them. These are the kinds of situations which we hope to better predict.

I say in conclusion, the components of this bill will ensure that we begin to address the staggering problem of youth suicide. I am pleased to be a champion of this cause, not because I volunteered for it but because I have suffered over it. This bill, with the support of my colleagues, will be a marvelous beginning to say to the American mothers and fathers, we care about you, we know your struggles, we know your suffering, and we are trying to help.

Where you cannot be there, we are going to do our level best to make sure there are professionals, there are people to help, so we can put an end to this epidemic and let our youth know that mental illness is not something from which they should shrink but something about which they should seek help.

If we do this, my colleagues, I assure you, whatever else we may or may not accomplish in this Congress, we can leave here with pride that we did a very good thing for the young men and women of the United States of America. I urge the passage of this bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Domenici be added as an original cosponsor of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, along with Senator Corzine and my colleague Senator Wyden, from Oregon, and Senator Hatch, who have also requested they be added as original cosponsors.

Mr. President, I say to my friend, the Senator from New Mexico, in the darkest of hours after my son's death, his call was one of the most important that I received because he has struggled with his daughter. He has now spoken here with a passion on mental health issues so that I think all America better understands, if they listened to him.

Pete Domenici of New Mexico was the first person who said to me that my son had an illness that I could not fix. My son had an illness not unlike leukemia or cancer or congestive heart failure; that it was, in fact, a lethal illness and not to beat myself up about it. I beat myself up, anyway--I still do--wondering, would have, could have, should have, but Pete Domenici helped this Senator to go back to work, to find joy again in living, and to share with him the passion that comes from suffering and the understanding that comes from a loved one who is beyond rational reach.

I have come to believe that it is true, what Pete Domenici taught me in my darkest hour; that is, that mental health is just as real a problem as physical health and that we need to learn more about it. We need more professionals trained about it; we need more focus on it. It has ramifications for business that result in lost worktime, no-shows, layoffs, family tragedies.

With a little bit of intervention, a little more compassion, we can get ahead of this and begin to treat it as we might other diseases.

I admit, we have a lot more to learn. My bill, our bill, does not include parity. My bill is a start. My bill is a slice of the problem. The Senator from New Mexico is right. His bill takes on the whole problem in a way that ultimately we need to resolve as a Congress and as a country.

I thank Senator Domenici for listening to me, for putting his clothes back on, for coming back on down here, sharing with me, with all of America who care about this issue, that this problem is bigger than my bill addresses, our bill addresses, but it is legislating within the realm of the possible.

It is a good beginning, an important beginning. Perhaps it is aimed at just the most vulnerable among us, and that is our youth who need a little more help than we have been giving as a country.

I thank the Senator. I turn back his time to him.

Mr. President, I received a note from Senator Hillary Clinton asking that she be added as an original cosponsor to the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. So on her behalf, I ask unanimous consent that she be added as a cosponsor.

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

Madam President, this is a very difficult time for our Nation. A few hours ago, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security appeared at a press conference to discuss in some detail what he could say publicly about the continuing threats our Nation confronts because of the diabolical plots of the terrorists to undermine our way of life, to destroy American life, to disrupt American life. Earlier today there was a closed door hearing for the Senate that went into even greater detail.

A few weeks ago I personally was briefed by representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, others within our Government who follow the terrorist threats on a daily, even hourly basis. I believe it is fair to say there has been, ever since September 11 and I think one can argue even before, a concerted effort by those who subscribe to the nihilistic philosophy or theology that underlies the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists that whatever they could do to strike against our country or American interests or American allies anywhere in the world somehow furthered their perverted cause, their sense of purpose to try to strike against freedom and democracy, against women's rights and roles, against what the United States represents as a beacon of opportunity for so many around the world.

Representing the State of New York, I saw firsthand the horrific damage the terrorists caused because of their attacks on the World Trade Center and of course at the Pentagon, and then the crash in Pennsylvania of a plane thought to be headed toward either this building or the White House.

I have met recently, about 2 hours ago, with a group of interns who came to my office. I love meeting with the young people who work here in Washington during the summer. They come with such energy and enthusiasm. They were asking me a variety of questions. One of them said: Senator, what do you spend most of your time doing?

I told them that certainly, because of September 11, I have spent the bulk of my time worrying about and working on behalf of New York to help us recover from the attacks, to help us rebuild, to help us try to repair, so far as possible, the shattered lives and lost dreams of so many thousands of people. Then, once having become a member of the Armed Services Committee in January, a year and a half ago, I have been immersed in the details and challenges of how we defend our country, how we best protect our interests, how we take care of the young men and women in uniform.

Running through all of that work has been a commitment to do everything I could do as a U.S. Senator to ensure that we were vigilant, we took every step necessary and possible to protect our fellow men, women, and children.

I have taken that responsibility very seriously. I have introduced legislation to try to put both more resources into homeland security and to allocate those more effectively to ensure that our first responders, our police and our firefighters and our emergency workers, had the resources necessary to do the job we expected them to do because, in effect, they are our frontline homeland soldiers.

I have worked to protect our rail lines and our courts, to ensure that our critical infrastructure has been given whatever help can be offered so we are prepared, so we are vigilant, because none of us can predict whether there will be an attack or where one might occur. I am well aware of that. That is not something that we can stand here today and say we know is going to happen, but we can say with confidence there are people right now, meeting throughout the world in cafes in Europe, in tents in North Africa, in caves in Afghanistan, who wish us ill and who will do everything they possibly can to kill as many Americans, to injure as many Americans, and to destroy as much of America as possible.

I don't think we have a higher priority in the Senate than to work together in a bipartisan--frankly, a nonpartisan--way to provide the resources and to do what is necessary to protect the people we represent.

That is why it grieves me to come to the floor of this Senate having watched now for several weeks as we have done nearly everything but focus on the real business of America. We have an appropriations bill standing in line for homeland security that we cannot get to the floor. Instead, we are engaged in these nonsensical, futile, parliamentary, politically partisan games. It is a shame, and it reflects on all of us, but it reflects most on the majority leadership of this body.

It is one thing not to know exactly all we should be doing to protect our homeland. It is something altogether different not to be doing the business we are expected to do to provide as many resources effectively deployed as possible to try to ensure that so far as humanly possible we have done our job.

Look at what we are doing today.

One can argue about whether dealing with class action is a priority given everything else going on in our world, but we can't even deal with that.

The majority leader comes to the floor, and in a parliamentary move makes it impossible to present any other issue, whether that issue is to try to raise the minimum wage for people who haven't had a raise in years or whether it is to try to bring about the reimportation of drugs from Canada so that people can pay an affordable price for the drugs they should be able to use for their prescriptions.

Some issues we hear about all the time. It is indeed frustrating that we are not even dealing with what is allegedly on the Senate floor.

But what really frustrates and disappoints me is that this impasse, this games playing, this pure, unadulterated partisan politics, is preventing us from dealing with the urgent business, the threats, and the dangers that confront our country. The Homeland Security appropriations bill just sits there. We can't get it to the floor. We have passed out of our requisite committees not once but several times steps to make our ports safer, to make our rail lines safer. For heaven's sake, we saw what happened in Madrid. How can we in good conscience act as though we don't have an obligation and a responsibility to protect our rail lines and our ports, our critical infrastructure?

We have just appropriated some additional funds to make sure we have more security in Boston and New York which will be the home of the Democratic and Republican Conventions, part of our great political democratic tradition in our country.

What about the people who do their job every day? What about the police officers in New York who walk the streets every day picking up information and conveying it to the intelligence-gathering operations of our New York Police Department and detectives coordinating with the FBI? What are we doing for them? We are cutting the COPS Program. That is what we are doing. We are not even adding additional money to homeland security. We are cutting the very lifeblood of what keeps the police on the streets in a city such as New York and so many other great cities around our country.

What about our firefighters? With budget cuts and cutbacks, we are not fulfilling the needs they confront for interoperable communications for hazardous materials, both training and equipment for the personnel that are needed with the highly developed skills to deal with chemical, biological, and radiological attacks.

I feel as if I am living in some kind of fantasy world, some parallel area.

We have the Department of Homeland Security Secretary standing before our Nation talking about the danger and threats we face. We have closed-door briefings for Members of the Senate and the House. Yet we don't get about the business of doing all we can to make sure we are prepared. It is bewildering.

When Secretary Ridge announced this morning that we have credible reporting that al-Qaida is moving forward with its plan to carry out a large-scale attack on the United States, then I think we act as though we have nothing better to do, at our peril. Shame on us. Yet here we are. We have a person in our Government responsible for giving us this information based on credible reports, and we are ground to a halt in the Senate.

This is one of those times when I think history is watching and will judge us harshly.

We are 4 days after our Independence Day, 4 months before the November elections, nearly 5 months after the President submitted his budget request to Congress, and the U.S. Congress has yet to send a single appropriations bill to fund the U.S. Government to the President for his signature.

The Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, responsible for coordinating security at both conventions, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and a host of others charged with the solemn responsibility of protecting our country have not yet been funded. As is so painfully clear, we haven't even taken up the Homeland Security appropriations yet.

We could be right now debating on the floor of the Senate how much money our first responders need and whether we are going to take seriously the obvious threat to rail lines. And what about those ports with those thousands of containers that come in?

Last week, I was privileged to be in Seattle, WA, with my good friend and colleague, Senator Murray, who is the No. 1 champion of port security in this body. In fact, she was named Port Person of the Year because of her advocacy for our ports.

We went out across the water from downtown Seattle with the skyline spread before us to an island that processes a lot of the container traffic. We talked to the Coast Guard, Immigration, and other personnel who run that operation. It is an overwhelming task. You think about this, one of our ports--we have so many of them. The biggest are Los Angeles and Long Beach, Seattle-Takoma, and of course, New York-New Jersey. We have made some progress. I am proud of that progress. But we haven't done what we know needs to be done.

We have had report after report after report by distinguished Americans, by experts in security and intelligence, by people who understand the perverse mentality of our enemies, and they have said over and over again that we are not ready, we are not prepared, we have not done our part.

Let us get back to business. Let us get serious around here. Elections take care of themselves. That comes and goes. Our job is to do the people's work right now, today, in July, to deal with important pressing matters, and there isn't any that is more critical than homeland security.

We still have time, although it is a little hard to believe, but we only have about 2 more weeks, which usually translates around here into 6 days of work, and a day like today when nothing happens. It is discouraging.

There are 100 very smart, energetic, able people in this body who know how to work and how to get things done. They might as well be on a beach somewhere for all their efforts amount to

with respect to the important issues facing us and the one I am most concerned about; namely, the security in our country.

Every intelligence report, every briefing, always mentions New York. It mentions other places, too, but it always mentions New York. The people I represent, who have already gone through so much--the firefighters and police officers I represent, who have already set the world class standard for courage and class--I don't want to have to look them in the face and say, We could not get around to giving you the funds you needed to be sure you got those additional pieces of equipment that were required. We could not figure out how we were going to have the Senate deal with the business as to whether you live or die.

I am proud and honored to serve in the Senate. I am especially proud and honored to represent New York. But it is hard to understand how we could be turning our collective backs on the most pressing need confronting our country.

In 2 weeks we are going to be recessing--Democrats will go to Boston; the Republicans, later in August, will go to New York--and I guess everyone hopes and crosses their fingers and prays to God Almighty that nothing bad happens.

I was raised in a faith tradition that believed God helps those who help themselves; that we were given a soul, a heart, and head, and we were expected to use all three. I can only hope we will get a signal from our majority leader that we are going to go back to business, we are going to get this process moving again, we are going to bring the appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security to this Senate and we are going to act--not that we can prevent every bad thing from happening but that we will have done our duty. There is still time. I hope, for all our sakes, we act.

Certainly.

Certainly, I agree with my good friend and my distinguished leader who makes some excellent points.

Even more than that, as the Senator from Nevada knows so well, in the face of a disaster or another attack, all of this becomes unimportant, trivial, even frivolous.

I have enough respect for all of my colleagues that I hope we are not putting ourselves in a position where in the event what has been predicted, and given voice to today by Secretary Ridge, comes to pass, and people rightly can turn and ask, Where were our elected representatives?

This goes way beyond politics. This is not about Democrats and Republicans. This is about us as Americans. What are our priorities? What do we think is important? What are we willing to fight for, stand up for?

As my good friend points out, the majority has made a different set of choices. They have decided they want to create an atmosphere of gridlock and obstructionism which means we go so far as not even to take up the Homeland Security appropriations.

It is profoundly sad. It would be sad any time, but it is extraordinarily disheartening that on a day when the Senate was briefed behind closed doors about the threats, when the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security went before the world to talk about the threats, that we cannot get a debate on the appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security.

I have no doubt my good friend is right, there must be some political machinations going on in some back room, there must be some pollster whispering in someone's ear and saying, If you do this, that, and the other, you can come. Maybe people will be fooled into believing--even though you are in charge, and as my friend points out, you are in charge of the White House, the House, and the Senate--that somehow the fact that nothing has happened has to be the other side's fault.

I am sure people are saying that, but how pathetic is that. What does that say about our values and priorities as a nation? If that is what they care about, trying to score cheap political, partisan points at the expense of bringing up the Department of Homeland Security appropriations in the face of the warnings we received today, then it is going to be clear for all to see the responsibility rests on their shoulders.

It is not too late. There are a lot of Members who have worked day and night to deal with the real business of America. I am sure my good friend, our deputy leader on this side of the aisle who is literally here every waking hour, would be here even more in order to deal with the people's business. And what is the people's business? No. 1, keeping the people safe.

Again, I hope we get about what is important, that our majority leadership decide they want to put aside these petty, partisan, political games dealing with scoring cheap points at somebody's advantage, and work for the good of all of our people.

Certainly.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2537 and H.R. 4567

I so yield.

I thank my good friend from Illinois and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know that most in the Chamber, and those who are in their offices, went home to their home States over the Fourth of July break. It is always a treat for me to do that because, frankly, I think I come from one of the most beautiful places in the world. For me to go to California and get ``rooted'' in why I want this job, to protect that beautiful place, and to protect the people who live there and to work for them, it is always a joy.

Constituents asked me: What are you going to be doing when you come back? They had asked me about a number of issues they cared about. They are worried about this economy. They say it is uneven. They point out that college tuition is going up more than 20 percent. They are squeezed. They point out that gasoline prices in our State are raging. It is costing them more. They point out that their health care premiums are going up. They are worried about even keeping health insurance. Some of them do not have any.

Those on Medicare are very worried about what they view as a false promise of the administration's Medicare proposal which was supposed to be so great for them in terms of prescription drugs. It turns out the thing is so bureaucratic and such a nightmare they cannot figure it out.

Not only that, they express shock when I tell them in that bill we do

something outrageous, saying to Medicare, you cannot negotiate for lower prices for the people on Medicare. Constituents say: Wait a minute. Why does that make sense? If you are sitting across the table from someone and you represent 40 million senior citizens, you have a good card in your hand that you can play. You can say, if you want to have your high blood pressure medicine on our formulary, if you want to have your heart medicine on our formulary, if you want to have an arthritis drug on our formulary, you have to give us a better deal.

No, this administration and the majority in this body decided to tell Medicare they could not negotiate for lower drug prices for our seniors.

When I go home, people are flooding me with these questions. They are very worried about Iraq. What is the plan? What is the plan to get more help there? Why are we spending so much there? Why aren't we focusing on our problems at home? This is what I heard all over my State.

They ask: Senator, what is on the agenda when you get back? Which one of these issues are you going to take up? What about rail security? We are worried about that because we have a lot of Amtrak ridership in California. What about nuclear plant security? When are you doing more about that? I have to tell them the truth; that is, I am not in charge. My party is not in charge of the Senate. The Republican leadership has chosen, instead of putting any of those issues you have mentioned on the agenda, they are taking up class action reform because there is too much forum shopping--at which point they look at me and ask, What?--and we have to protect business from these consumer complaints.

They kind of look at me quizzically and say: There are other things that mean a lot more to my family. Then they ask: What are you going to take up after you take up class action reform? We are going to talk about gay marriage. And they say: Well, wait a minute. Every day in my life I have all these pressing issues; I thought the States handled that issue. Well, I say, you are right; the States have always handled that issue.

I find it amazing, given the Republicans are in charge of this Senate and they always believe in States rights and local control, they are now going to bring up the issue of gay marriage, and not only take it up--it was taken up once before; Bob Barr in the House wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bob Barr said that would take care of everything and still says it takes care of everything--but, no, they are going it take the most precious document known to human kind, the Constitution of the United States, and they are going to now talk about marriage in the Constitution. In fact, marriage has been sacred in the various religions, along with the rules surrounding marriage, and the States have handled marriage for years.

My constituents are completely confused. They have many worries. They have many concerns. They are worried about the fact they are not respected abroad. They are worried about this recovery that they see as very wobbly. They see better corporate profits--although those seem not to be going as well--and they do not see the increases in their standard of living.

If we look at the numbers, the increase in the take-home pay, when you include inflation and the high cost of living, has only gone up about 1 percent, while all the other issues have gone up over 20 percent, the issues people deal with every day.

Now I come back to Washington and I am called to a meeting in a secret room in the Capitol. The press knows all about this. We are called to a secret room in the Capitol. We have to discuss the threats to our country. This is very serious stuff. Of course, I cannot go into everything that was said, but I can state what has been reported in the press, which is not classified. And that is, we need to be on the alert at home. We have known since September 11 that al-Qaida has cells in our country and that they never give up. If they fail, they go back again. We know all this. We need to stay ahead of the threat.

That is why I am so proud to be on the Commerce Committee. I am so proud to have as part of the portfolio of the Commerce Committee, rail security, aviation security, and port security. These are key issues. Since Madrid, for example, and the horrible bombing of the train there, we need to be on our toes. That means we need to pass rail security legislation.

This is the great news I have for my constituents and for all Americans. At a time when we are in the middle of an election, where there is a lot of disagreement, where we have even seen language that is prohibited to be used in the Senate being used by the Vice President of the United States--in other words, a time where emotions are running high politically--guess what happened on rail security. Every single member of the committee voted for that bill--every single member. From liberal to conservative, to moderate, everybody voted for that bill. That means we could easily take up that bill. That means we could easily pass that bill.

But what do we have before the Senate? Class action. The people who want us to pass this bill say there is a lot of abuse and that we need to make sure we take these cases away from the States and put them more into the Federal courts. Again, I find it unbelievable that we have a Republican majority that keeps saying, States rights, States take care of it, States do it, but when they are not happy with the way it goes-- oops, forget that. As Roseanne Rosanna-Dana used to say, ``Never mind.'' Take it to the Federal court. Everyone knows what will happen there.

A lot of these cases are very important. We remember Dalkon Shield was one of those class action cases where women were dying. Not until there was a class action lawsuit was that fixed. That does not mean there aren't abuses. It does not mean that we cannot have reforms.

It does say to me that there is no crying need to take this up when we are called to room 407 for a secret briefing about the threats that face this country before the election. It is extraordinary to me. And I believe the American people who are watching what we do here are thinking: What is the Senate doing about my life, about my family, about what I need for my kids?

I went to a press conference on the minimum wage. Do you know the minimum wage has not been raised in 8 years? Every colleague here has had a pay raise. For 8 years the minimum wage has not been raised. People are living below the poverty line. Mr. President, 61 percent of those people happen to be women, many single moms. All we want is a chance to do that. We should do that by unanimous consent today. Why do we need to debate it? Eight years long and no increase in the minimum wage, zero.

These are people who work hard. These are not mostly teenagers; these are grownups who are working hard to support their families on the minimum wage. The cost of living has gone up 14 percent in those 8 years. The minimum wage has stayed stagnant. These people are falling, falling, falling, falling--and we talk about family values here? And we are rushing to do a marriage amendment when the States are taking care of that?

My State has decided what it wants to do. They have a law. It is not perfect. It says there are domestic partnerships and they have rights and responsibilities. We could make it better. But do you know what. My State has taken care of this, thank you very much.

It is all about politics, folks, let's face it. For 5 minutes, why don't we put aside politics and pass the minimum wage and help the millions of people who need it to be done? What are we talking about? We are talking about an increase, over a couple years, of $3,800 a year for these people, who will still be below the poverty line. I bet if you had a vote in this Senate, the way it is made up, to give more tax breaks to the people making a million bucks a year, it would fly through here, it would fly through this place, even though those in the million-dollar range are already getting back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Imagine.

So every once in a while I come down to this Senate floor and I say: Why am I here? What are we doing? Are we meeting the needs of the people? And this is a perfect time to do it because there is a bill on the Senate floor that not one person in my State, except

high-paid lobbyists in very fancy suits, want to take up. This is true. The things we should take up, the things we talk about in that room, that secret room in the Capitol--making our rail systems safe, making our ports safe, making our buses safe--oh, no, we do not have time for that because after we do this for the big businesses in this country, oh, we are going to go on to gay marriage before the Democratic Convention so some people can cast a vote that might hurt them in their election. Shame on us. We should be better than that as Senators. We should be better. So I am going to give us a chance to be better.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2273

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to calendar No. 536, S. 2273, the Rail Transportation Security Act, that the bill be read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I understand.

I will yield for a question.

Mr. President, I thank my friend. It is obvious he sees it the way I see it.

We were called up to a secret meeting today to hear about all the threats on our Nation. That is not an idle trip up to that room. If it is to mean anything, we better get busy. I meet with my local police and fire. Do you know what? When there is a terrorist attack, the White House does not get the call; the Senate does not get the call; the House does not get the call. They dial 911, and our local people--be they in Nevada, be they in New Mexico, be they in California--get the call. They are hurting.

The bill I wanted to get us to vote on today--and I have a couple of others I am going to ask since we got objection to this one. The Rail Transportation Security Act--this is one that passed out of the Commerce Committee, I say to the assistant Democratic leader, unanimously. It is very important. I will tell my friend what it does. The bill authorizes grants to all of our railroads and to hazardous material shippers for freight and passenger rail security. It is a critical bill.

We saw what happened in Madrid. You do not have to haul me up to any secret room. The minute we saw that happen in Madrid, the Commerce Committee, which the Presiding Officer of the Senate is on and participated in this, we for the second time voted in a unanimous fashion--100 percent of the committee--for this rail security bill. Unfortunately, there has been objection to it because the Republicans, who control the Senate, are not interested in moving this bill.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2279

So I am going to give them a chance to move another bill, and that is the port security bill. Port security is another bill that passed out of our committee without one dissenting vote. We know the problem at our ports. We have containers coming into them. They are not checking them. We do not know who is going to be putting something in one of those containers. We are doing better, but we are not giving it the attention it deserves.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to calendar No. 530, S. 2279, the Maritime Security Act of 2004.

I will be happy to yield.

I am from California. I was born in New York, but I am from California.

You said: I say to my friend from New York. I was born there, but I am from California and have been since I was 25 years old.

I know. When we have known each other 23 years, you will get it right, I know.

I am quite aware we have not done what Senator Hollings has long asked us to do. We have not done the work of homeland security. There is a lot of talk. There are a lot of meetings. There is a lot of yack-yack about it. But when it comes down to where we are putting the dollars and where we are putting the emphasis, we are on some bill here I can honest to God tell you, not one person except a highly paid lobbyist has ever talked to me about, class action. I can honestly tell you, on the gay marriage, people have a lot of views in my State, but they believe our State is handling that issue in a good way. So there is no reason to go to this.

In Madrid, 200 people died, 1,400 people were injured in that rail accident. And we go up to 407 up here and we hear all the talk about what we need to do. I am suggesting as a result of my unanimous consent requests today, both being objected to, when you have this majority party, it is very clear: there is a lot of talk, but there is no action.

That is a reason why people are disenchanted. It is the reason why people want change around here. They want us to be strong at home. They want us to be respected in the world. And it is time for many changes to occur. I am looking forward to those changes, to the day when we can vote these bills out of the Commerce Committee without one single objection, and no one on the floor here would then object to taking them up.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Utah for being willing to assume the chair for a few minutes so I could make a brief statement about the bill pending before us. I want to say, as I listened when I was in the chair, I appreciated his eloquence on behalf of the bill.

The Senate will realize pretty soon that I have a bit of a cold. If I pause to take a sip of water now and then, it is not for the dramatic effect but so I can finish the statement.

I had originally not intended to say anything about the legislation, although I support it. Anybody who has gotten around their States and heard about the destructive impact of abusive lawsuits on jobs and economic growth has to support doing something. I was not planning to speak on it, but the other night I was presiding when this debate began, and I was fortunate to hear Senator Carper from Delaware give one of his initial remarks. I don't think he realized I was listening as I was presiding because I was doing a little paperwork, but I did listen.

I heard him give examples of abuses of class actions that have occurred around the country, items such as a class action lawsuit in Illinois against a bottled water giant named Poland Spring which claimed that the company's water wasn't pure and wasn't from a spring. Under the settlement the consumers received coupons for discounts on the water. The company didn't agree they had done anything wrong, didn't agree to change the water, and all the plaintiffs got were coupons to buy more of the water they were complaining about. But their attorneys got $1.35 million.

In a Texas class action settlement with Blockbuster over late fees on movie rentals, class members received coupons for more movie rentals. The attorneys received $9.25 million. I don't know how my family missed out on those coupons--I guess because we didn't live in Texas.

I could go on, but Senator Carper made the point that there was obviously a need to remedy these abuses and a need to do that without undermining the efficacy of the class action lawsuit in principle. In other words, we need to be able to have class action lawsuits because sometimes a whole lot of people will be done a small wrong. Each of them will experience some wrong that is so small it is not worthwhile for any one individual to sue, so if they can get together in a class we can remedy that wrong and the attorneys can get reasonable attorney's fees.

But when there is, in fact, no remedy for the plaintiffs, when there may have been no wrong, and when there are these outside attorneys' fees, it is obviously something unjust because it is unjust to make people pay when they have not done anything wrong and it is not very good for the rest of us.

We all know how it works. Those awards are paid and then it is passed along in the form of higher prices or fewer jobs. Senator Carper's point was it should not be all or nothing at all. We should not have to have a system where either we have no class action remedies or we allow these abuses to continue year after year. There is no reason in principle why we should not be able to fix the abuses while keeping the remedy.

He is right. There is no reason in principle we should not be able to do that. There are people of good will on both sides of the aisle who want to do that. There is obviously a solid majority of the Senate who wants to do that. Yet year after year, we do not do that. Why?

It was his speech and my thinking about it that led me to decide to come down here and make a statement because I think I know the reason why. It is because of the filibuster, or more precisely it is because of the way the Senate allows the filibuster to be conducted.

This principle of filibusters is actually a pretty good thing. I think if a determined minority in any legislative body believes something is really bad, it makes sense to give them some remedy to stop that legislation from passing. In fact, I submit to you that the filibuster has been consistently abused in the Senate. Why has that happened? Because the discipline on the filibuster is public accountability. The public doesn't like obstructionism for its own sake. If they see that happening, they will not like it; and if the American people do not like something happening here and focus on it, it tends to stop. I have been around here long enough to see that.

But because of the way the filibuster is conducted in this body, it is almost invisible. Therefore, the people do not know it is happening, and therefore there is no accountability. That is why we have the abuses of it. Why is it invisible? In the Senate, in the first place, as you know, the passage of a bill requires many different steps: the introduction of the bill, assignment to a committee, first and second readings, and all of that.

In most legislative bodies, those steps are pro forma. In the Senate, many of those steps are debatable. And anything that can be debated can be filibustered.

The classic idea of a filibuster, as in ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' with final passage of some bill, people speaking all night to prevent it from being voted on doesn't have to happen in the Senate. You can filibuster a bill on any number of points. You can filibuster it after it has passed to keep it from going to conference. The public doesn't know what is happening.

The second and bigger reason is that in the Senate, as all of us here know--and I think the public may be beginning to realize--you don't have to talk to filibuster.

I have served now in my third legislative body. It is a tremendous honor to serve here. The pinnacle of the legislative career is to serve in the Senate. In most legislative bodies, when people are finished talking about the proposition that is pending, you vote on the proposition.

Many times I have sat in the Chair where the distinguished Senator from Utah is now sitting. When the last speaker has finished some eloquent set of remarks, I have asked, Who seeks recognition? And nobody seeks recognition. It doesn't mean we vote. It means we go to a quorum call, as we did a little while ago. You don't have to speak

to filibuster. You don't have to debate. You just have to decline to agree that debate will end. Unless everybody here either agrees to a unanimous consent agreement, or vote by a 60-vote majority to end debate on a cloture motion, which itself is a rather clumsy way to end debate, the debate goes on and on.

To allow a filibuster in that way, and make it so invisible, tends to empower the extremes in a legislative body in any given proposition.

In most legislative bodies the power in any given proposition, once it reaches the floor of that body, belongs in the middle. It makes sense, doesn't it? Because to pass it you have to have the middle with you, typically. But here the filibuster empowers those folks who like confrontation most. I am not running them down. Every legislative body has to have people whose instinct is to say: I am not going to give in. I am going to stand up for this. I believe in this, or I think it is wrong, or I think it is right, and I am not going to give in much. It is important to have those folks in a legislative body. But you can't have them running the whole show all the time. It empowers those people. It tends to educate people to the temper of partisanship.

It is so tempting when you are in the minority to stop everything through the invisible filibuster and then blame the majority for not being able to pass something. That happens in this whole Congress. I don't blame my friends on the other side of the aisle.

It is so tempting it would require almost a heroic effort, particularly given how divided the country is on a partisan and philosophical standpoint, for them not to have done that.

The way the Senate does it makes interest groups more militant. This bill is a classic example of that. Everybody who looks at this issue knows that we have problems with litigation, at least in certain areas. We have problems in State class action abuses. We have problems with the whole asbestosis system which is driving dozens of big companies into bankruptcy and reducing the number of deep pockets that are available to pay for people who really are sick and have asbestosis. We clearly need reform in these areas.

What would happen if the process was healthier is that our friends in the personal injury bar would know that something was going to happen and would sit down and negotiate, and we would come up with a moderate bill, I think, probably pretty similar to what we have before us today. We would pass it more or less by consensus. But what do you do when you have this filibuster? You can just say no. You can say it doesn't matter how bad it gets, we are going to pressure and lean on those in the Senate who are generally with us philosophically, and we will stop everything from happening. We are empowering the tactically more extreme in this body. We are educating people to the temper of partisanship. We are driving interest groups, which are pretty militant anyway, to be even more extreme. Then we are gumming up the few bills that do pass because now, if you are sitting here and you have some constructive measure you are trying to pass, and you know the only legislation that is going to get through this body this year is the defense authorization, let us say, or the tax relief bill for manufacturers that we have to pass--because if we don't pass it we are going to get increasing trade sanctions all over the world--if these are the two or three bills you know you are going to pass, what do you do? You take your constructive measure which you have wanted to pass for months but can't because nothing else is going through the Senate, and you say: Well, that train is leaving the station and maybe none of the others are, so I am going to put my bill on that.

You use the opportunity to offer nongermane amendments, which personally I like and support. So you offer all kinds of amendments that are completely unrelated to the bill before you just because you know it is the only opportunity you are going to have to pass anything.

Then the public wonders how we get immigration bills on class action reform bills, or how I did this: I put a bill that I believe in very strongly to help fight sickle cell disease on a tax relief bill for manufacturing, and I would do it again. But that is because of the way we are running this place.

What is the effect? It affects everything that gets filibustered. We have seen filibusterss so far in this Senate and in this Congress on the Energy bill, medical malpractice reform, the welfare bill, a number of judges, the asbestosis bill, the class action bill, and a number of other bills which are slow-walked through--the highway bill, the JOBS bill, the faith-based bill. And that doesn't even count all the bills that aren't even brought up because the leadership knows they are going to be filibustered.

Nobody is ever held accountable. The public wonders why the Senate doesn't work.

I am going to say something. I get around this town and I get around Missouri. I am afraid that we are being held in increasingly low regard. I am afraid the Senate is being reduced to its constitutional minimum of authority and effectiveness in this town. We are like a big roadblock. Ideas don't come out of here and go places. It is like the commercial about the roach motel. They check in but they don't check out. That is what happens here. The legislative ideas check in and they never check out.

I know some people say that is a good thing. We don't want anything to pass.

I just sat down this morning preparing these remarks and I made a list of the things which I think we are going to have to address. This is a top 10 list: Keep America strong; a long-term solvency issue involving Social Security and Medicare--I am on the Aging Committee. I will go into that more in a moment. The Senator from Idaho, Mr. Craig, has spoken eloquently on those issues.

The rising cost of health care is a problem, shortage of oil and natural gas, need for alternative energy sources to protect our energy independence and security, the failing electricity transmission grid in all parts of the country, the need to renew the distressed and urban neighborhoods, a burgeoning immigration system, a crumbling transportation infrastructure system, shortages of water in parts of the country, contamination of water resources, management of federally owned natural resources, and a policy we are going to take regarding defense both in the war on terror and also the potential rising power of competitors, such as England and China.

This is the top 10 list. I am not even counting the more divisive issues or the cultural issues on which it would be nice if we could work them out and be able to act. Some of these problems may go away on their own. I am a believer in that.

America is a great country. Maybe if we do not do anything, some of them are going to go away. But they are not all going to go away. Some of them are going to get worse. We cannot solve any of them without some element of participation by the Federal Government. Maybe it is just reform of regulations to allow people in the country to solve the problem.

We are going to have to have Federal participation. That will require, at some point, a Senate that works better than the Senate is working now. We have reached the point where the paralysis in this body is threatening the welfare of the people. Some may say--and I heard it said with response to the motion for cloture--respect for the traditions of the Senate means we cannot do anything about this. Everyone who has been here a while, and I have not been here a while, tells me that never before has the filibuster been taken to this degree.

If we were to apply a corrective, we would be restoring rather than overturning the traditions of this great body. And it is a great body. It is a privilege to be here. I don't know that I have ever worked with as motivated and passionate and intelligent a group of people. I call on Members on both sides of the aisle to consider carefully whether it is not time to change our practices in a way that permits us to work together, that encourages those who seek compromise solutions to the problems facing the country. Not to do so would be a historic abdication of the responsibilities of this Senate.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I will speak in a moment about this class action bill and why I oppose it. I want to start by noting my strong disagreement with the procedural tactics used by the majority to block amendments to the bill. I have some familiarity with the strategy of filling the amendment tree. This was done time after time, year after year, when campaign finance reform legislation was brought to the Senate floor. This is the procedure that is used to block the Senate from working its will on a bill.

The Senate has a long tradition of an open process for amendments. Any Senator has the right under our rules to offer any amendment to any bill. That is how the Senate works. It is amazing to me that the majority leader would engage in this tactic when he has not only majority support for the bill, but a supermajority in support.

Democratic supporters of the bill thankfully are not prepared to block their colleagues from offering amendments. So I guess it appears that this bill is going to be sacrificed in order to prevent amendments from being offered. I commend my Democratic colleagues who support this bill for not being intimidated by the arguments made on the Senate floor that they somehow are breaking their agreement by standing up for the rights of their colleagues to offer amendments. From the very start, it was clear that these Senators had agreed to support the motion to proceed in order to get the bill to the floor of the Senate and to vote for cloture, if that motion was again filibustered. They never agreed to vote against all amendments or to block all amendments.

Turning to the bill itself, I oppose the Class Action Fairness Act, S. 2062, and I will vote against the bill.

The main reason for my opposition is that notwithstanding its title, I do not think this bill is fair. I do not think it is fair to citizens who are injured by corporate wrongdoers and are entitled to prompt and fair resolution of their claims in a court of law. I do not think it is fair to our State courts, which are treated by this bill as if they cannot be trusted to issue fair judgments in cases brought before them. I do not think it is fair to State legislatures, which are entitled to have the laws that they pass to protect their citizens interpreted and applied by their own courts. This bill is not only misnamed, it is bad policy. It should be defeated.

Make no mistake, by loosening the requirements for Federal diversity jurisdiction over class actions, S. 2062 will result in nearly all class actions being removed to Federal court. This is a radical change in our Federal system of justice. We have 50 States in this country with their own laws and courts. State courts are an integral part of our system of justice. They have worked well for our entire history. It is hard to imagine why this Senate, which includes many professed defenders of federalism and the prerogatives of State courts and State lawmakers, would support such a wholesale stripping of jurisdiction from the States over class actions. By removing these actions to State court, Congress would shift adjudication away from State lawmakers and State judges towards Federal judges, who are often unfamiliar with the nuances of State law. In my opinion, the need for such a radical step has not been demonstrated.

Class actions are an extremely important tool in our justice system. They allow plaintiffs with very small claims to band together to seek redress. Lawsuits are expensive. Without the opportunity to pursue a class action, an individual plaintiff often simply cannot afford his or her day in court. But through a class action, justice can be done and compensation for real injuries can be obtained.

Yes, there are abuses in some class actions suits. Some of the most disturbing have to do with class action settlements that offer only discount coupons to the members of the class and a big payoff to the plaintiffs' lawyers. I am pleased that the issue of discount coupons is addressed in the bill, because the bill we considered in October 2003 did nothing about that problem. The bill now requires that contingency fees in coupon settlements will be based on coupons redeemed, not coupons issued. Attorney's fees will also be determined by reasonable time spent on a case and will be subject to court approval. The bill also allows a court to require that a portion of unclaimed coupons be given to one or more charitable organization agreed to by the parties. These are all good changes, but they do not change my view that the bill, as a whole, unfairly interferes with the States' administration of justice.

There are three possible outcomes of this bill being enacted. Either the State courts will be deluged with individual claims, since class actions can no longer be maintained there, or there will be a huge increase in the workload of the Federal courts, resulting in delays and lengthy litigation over procedural issues rather than the substance of the claims, or many injured people will never get redress for their injuries.

I don't believe any of these three choices is acceptable.

I appreciate that the supporters of S. 2062 modified the new diversity jurisdiction rules for class actions in an effort to allow plaintiffs in class actions more opportunities to remain in State court. Under the new bill, a district court must decline jurisdiction if two-thirds of the plaintiffs and the primary defendants are from the state where the action was filed, there is at least one defendant who is a citizen of that State from whom significant relief is sought and whose alleged conduct forms a significant basis for the claims asserted by the proposed class. In addition, the principal injuries resulting from the alleged conduct of each defendant must have occurred in the State in which the action was originally filed. Finally, the new bill provides that district court can only decline jurisdiction if during the 3-year period preceding the filing of the action, no other similar class action has been filed against any of the defendants even if the case is filed on behalf of other plaintiffs.

These criteria are an improvement on the underlying bill. But the jurisdictional requirements for class actions to remain in State courts are still too burdensome. Under the new language, for example, a class action brought by Wisconsin citizens against a Delaware-based company for selling a bad insurance policy would probably be removed to Federal court even if Wisconsin-based agents were involved in selling the policies. And the filing of a class action in one State court may lead to the successful removal of a similar case filed in another State on behalf of plaintiffs in that State. The bottom line is that this bill will continue to send the majority of class actions to Federal court. The proponents of this bill have chosen a remedy that goes far beyond the alleged problem.

Furthermore, under S. 2062, many cases that are not class actions at all are included in the definition of ``mass action,'' a new term coined by this bill. S. 2062 simply requires that the plaintiff must be seeking damages of more than $75,000 for the case to be considered a mass action and removable to Federal court. This provision unfairly limits State court authority to manage its docket and to consolidate claims in order to more efficiently dispense justice.

A particularly troubling result of this bill will be an increase in the workload of the Federal courts. These courts are already overloaded. The Congress has led the way in bringing more and more litigation to the Federal courts, particularly criminal cases. Criminal cases, of course, take precedence in the Federal courts because of the Speedy Trial Act. So the net result of removing virtually all class actions to Federal court will be to delay those cases.

There is an old saying with which I'm sure we are all familiar: ``justice delayed is justice denied.'' I hope my colleagues will think about that aphorism before voting for this bill. Think about the real world of Federal court litigation and the very real possibilities that long procedural delays in overloaded Federal courts will mean that legitimate claims may never be heard.

One little-noticed aspect of this bill illustrates the possibilities for delay that this bill provides, even to defendants who are not entitled to have a

case removed to Federal court under the bill's relaxed diversity jurisdiction standards. Under current law, if a Federal court decides that a removed case should be remanded to State court, that decision is not appealable. The only exception is for civil rights cases removed under the special authority of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1443. The original version of this bill allowed defendants to immediately appeal a decision by a Federal district court that a case does not qualify for removal.

Fortunately, the revised bill now requires such appeals to be decided promptly. It does not, however, do anything about the fact that the lower court may take months or even years to make a decision on the motion to remand. That means that a plaintiff class that is entitled, even under this bill, to have a case heard by a State court may still have to endure years of delay while its remand motion is pending in the Federal district court. Where is the ``fairness'' in that? I plan to offer an amendment, if I even get the chance to address that problem and I hope the bill's sponsors and supporters will give it serious consideration.

It is important to remember that this debate is not about resolving questions of Federal law in the Federal courts. Federal question jurisdiction already exists for that. Any case involving a Federal statute can be removed to Federal court under current law. This bill takes cases that are brought in State court solely under State laws passed by State legislatures and throws them into Federal court. This bill is about making it more time-consuming and more costly for citizens of a State to get the redress that their elected representatives have decided they are entitled to if the laws of their state are violated.

Diversity jurisdiction in cases between citizens of different States has been with us for our entire history as a Nation. Article III, section 2 of the Constitution provides: ``The judicial Power shall extend . . . to Controversies between Citizens of different States.'' This is the constitutional basis for giving the Federal courts diversity jurisdiction over cases that involved only questions of State law.

The very first Judiciary Act, passed in 1789, gave the Federal courts jurisdiction over civil suits between citizens of different States where over $500 was at issue. In 1806, in the case of Strawbridge v. Curtiss, the Supreme Court held that this act required complete diversity between the parties--in all other instances, the Court said, a case based on State law should be heard by the State courts. So this bill changes a nearly 200-year-old practice in this country of preserving the Federal courts for cases involving Federal law or where no defendant is from the State of any plaintiff in a case involving only State law.

Why is such a drastic step necessary? Why do we need to prevent State courts from interpreting and applying their own State laws in cases of any size or significance? One argument we hear is that the trial lawyers are extracting huge and unjustified settlements in State courts, which has become a drag on the economy. We also hear that plaintiffs' lawyers are taking the lion's share of judgments or settlements to the detriment of consumers. But a recent empirical study contradicts these arguments. Theodore Eisenberg of Cornell Law School and Geoffrey Miller of NYU Law School recently published the first empirical study of class action settlements. Their conclusions, which are based on data from 1993-2002, may surprise some of the supporters of this bill.

First, the study found that attorneys' fees in class action settlements are significantly below the standard 33 percent contingency fee charged in personal injury cases. The average class action attorney's fee is actually 21.9 percent. In addition, the attorneys' fees awarded in class action settlements in Federal court are actually higher than in State court settlements. Attorney fees as a percent of class recovery were found to be between 1 and 6 percentage points higher in Federal court class actions than in State court class actions.

A final finding of the study is that there has been no appreciable increase in either the amount of settlements or the amount of attorneys' fees awarded in class actions over the past ten years. The study indicates that there is no crisis here. No explosion of huge judgments. No huge fleecing of consumers by their lawyers. This bill is a solution in search of a problem. It is a great piece of legislation for wrongdoers who would like to put off their day of reckoning by moving cases to courts that are less convenient, slower, and more expensive for those who have been wronged. It is a bad bill for consumers, for State legislatures, and for State courts.

This bill seems not to be about class action abuses, but about getting cases into Federal court where it takes longer and is more expensive for plaintiffs to get a judgment. The cumulative effect of this bill is to severely limit State court authority and ultimately limit victims' access to prompt justice. Despite improvements made since the last time the Senate considered this bill, the bill will still place significant barriers for consumers who want to have their cases heard in State court. Remand orders are still appealable, and the mass tort definition does not protect State courts' authority to consolidate cases and manage their dockets more efficiently. All the elements outlined in the bill before us will result in the erosion of State court authority and the delay of justice for our citizens. Therefore, I cannot support this unfair ``Class Action Fairness Act'' bill, and I will vote no.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I first want to say to Senator Smith, I want you to know that since we weren't going to do anything today, I had gone home. I don't live very far, so it is not a terrible sacrifice. But I was in less than good clothes, starting a restful evening a little early when I heard what was going on and I decided to quickly--maybe I look that way--dress up and come over here, after I heard you speak.

Let me say to you, I am very proud of you. I am not totally familiar with the bill, but I hope you will make me a cosponsor. I ask consent that Senator Hutchison be made a cosponsor.

I want to talk to the Senate today about a very sad situation. I want to address these remarks at a couple of Republicans, whose names I don't know, but I will soon, who have holds on the most important bill that has to do with mental illness in America. I am very hopeful we can carve out a niche as you desire, to try to give some help to those who are suffering so much that they commit suicide, and all of the various participants in that activity from mothers and fathers to doctors to counselors--everyone. I am hopeful we will get that done.

Second, I didn't hear anyone mention, but I will mention to you, Senator, the doctors, the general practitioners who see thousands and thousands of our young teenage men and women who are most vulnerable. Maybe we need an annual crash course for them because they are not seeing the basic signals of mental illness in their patients. I tell you, I am not a doctor and I am not a genius, but I can tell you, because I have already learned, what I would look for in a patient who came to me for anything so I could rule out whether they had depression; so I could rule out whether they were manic depressive, or one of the other serious mental illnesses. But I am afraid we are going to have to start with some system of insisting that our doctors find out about it as the first and biggest clearance mechanism in the United States.

Having said that, I want to discuss a little bit about the worst thing happening in the United States about mental illness. First, Senator Smith, you are speaking of the effect of mental illness. Because someone is a depressive, they have an illness, and the illness may or may not lead to suicide. But there are five major illnesses that are mental, and any of them might cause suicide. But the most important thing is all of them cause tremendous sorrow and tremendous grief and tremendous misunderstanding on the part of parents and friends of those who have the disease.

I might say, Senators, we have at least moved away from the stigma and everybody is at least willing to talk about these as illnesses. Everyone is talking about how do we help rather than how do we hide.

Everyone is talking about getting these people who have symptoms to a good doctor so they can get both discussions going and medicines that are so helpful. Everybody is talking about that. But, my friends, the real problem is all children with these diseases are not the fortunate children of that Senator. They are the unfortunate children of poor people, of people who make a little bit of money, with a loving mother and father and a schizophrenic child who perhaps are living on $25,000 a year. The problem is they don't have enough money to have caregivers help them. Guess what. The insurance companies don't help them either because we have a definition of sick and illness in the insurance policies that is 50 years old. They did not know anything about mental illness. So they ruled it out.

I don't know if you know this, but almost every group insurance policy in America writes coverage for cancer, coverage for tuberculosis, and coverage for every major disease. But when it comes to mental illness, it is either stricken or it has an asterisk down at the bottom. It gets significantly less coverage, or none.

There are parents who have given up on their children because they cannot pay the bills anymore. They go look for their children in the slums; they go look for their children in jails, because there are more children with mental illness in the jails of America than in the hospitals to take care of the mentally ill people. Why are they there? Because nobody takes care of them. Why doesn't anybody take care of them? Because most people went broke trying to take care of them.

Sitting up there at that desk is a bill called parity--equal--parity of insurance coverage for the mentally ill. It has been cleared on that side. It came out of committee. And somehow or other a couple of Republican Senators have a hold on it. I will try to find out who they are and I will go beg them to let us pass the parity bill. But I tell you: If it doesn't work, we are going to take it up. I know the leader wants to get bills through expeditiously. But I am going to tell him tonight, patience has run thin and we have to get it done. It has been worked through the committee chaired by Judd Gregg. He has one amendment. That is great. He has at least told us he wants one hour. But others are not even letting us know who they are, and they are holding up this bill.

Let me tell you what happened to America. America has the greatest medicine, the greatest services, and the greatest caretaking machine for the hearts of our people. If you have something wrong with your heart, they know how to take care of it. They will put you in a hospital. There is coverage by insurance if you have group insurance.

In the meantime, the tests, the knowledge, the information about heart conditions gets a lot of resources. Clinics are built and hospitals are built because there are resources because heart is covered by insurance.

We take care of our hearts and we fail to take care of our heads, our brains. We take care of our heart and spend money on it, and we will not spend anything on mental illnesses. It is no longer a joke. It is no longer a stigma. Everybody around knows. Our President, as recently as 6 months ago, said, Don't bother me. I already know it is a disease. Let us find some way to help. That is what I say. If your bill does it, let's pass it. I am on it. I would like to pass it.

But we are ready to pass the most significant bill to help anyone who has any of the major illnesses and be sure that the group insurance policy covers them. Thus, their parents can take them to doctors, parents can see to it their children get medical care rather than the asterisk on the policy that says you get less or nothing if the disease or illness is mental illness.

I came down here not because I wanted to set aside or argue or contend that I have the most important bill. There were 80 Senators on this bill at one time--79, bipartisan, the bill for parity.

I submit to my friend Gordon Smith, who came to the floor and told us from his heart what this is all about, that you would agree and probably would agree wholeheartedly that all of the medicines and doctors you called upon to help your son did something good. You probably are not bashful or regretful of what you paid. But how much worse would you be in your heart if you couldn't afford it and you had an insurance policy from your business group and you took them to a doctor and they said schizophrenia isn't covered because it wasn't covered when we knew nothing about it, so we are going to leave it uncovered, even when we know something about it. It is still exempt.

This bill at the desk for parity is not a big cost. People say it is going to break business, and insurance companies are going to have to raise rates. We think we know what that is going to be. We are prepared to answer it.

But let me tell you, I am as capitalist as anyone here. I am as concerned about business and business men and women as anyone here. But this society has a real problem when it exempts insurance companies from having to pay the cost of mental illness while they pay the cost of all other illnesses. That isn't right.

I saw my friend Senator Reid on the floor speaking about his family and his father. I saw the great Senator, Senator Smith. I saw Senator Nickles also. I don't have to tell you about my daughter. You all know about my daughter. I have eight children and I have one who has been sick since she was 13. So I know all about this. I am glad we can afford to pay for what she needs. But I would feel bad if I had an insurance policy and it covered everybody else in my family for diabetes and a heart condition and didn't cover her.

I think we have to pass the bill. I am really tired. When it comes to pushing, I am probably as easy a pushover as anyone around, so I just let it go by. It will come up someday. But I am saying it is going to get passed in this Senate before we get out of here.

I am going to tell our leader he has been patient with me. We weren't going to do anything until it got out of committee. We told you that. We worked

hard and long to get it out of committee. It took a long time.

Now it is sitting at that desk. We are taking up all kinds of things while we are not able to send a signal to the 7\1/2\ million or 8 million parents who need this bill, who need some indication that we care, that we are not going to have an insurance policy that covers our heart and not an insurance policy that covers our brain.

That is what the issue is about. Can you imagine a country as great as ours saying, Well, when we first started writing health insurance policies we didn't know that schizophrenia was a disease. We did not know manic depression was a disease. We did not know severe depression was a disease.

We go through the years and we find out these illnesses are diseases, but since they weren't originally known to be a disease, we are going to let group insurance policies continue to exempt them.

Now we know. There is no one, I say to my friend Senator Dodd, who has been a greater help on discussing the issue of whether these dread mental illnesses I have just enumerated are illnesses or diseases. Yet we let insurance companies continue to write policies as if we did not know it was a disease.

From my standpoint, I will do anything in any area that will help us help those with mental illness. If you have a bill that will help prevent suicide, I am for it. But I can state that if we do not have a bill that forces group insurance policies to cover mental illness as other illnesses, the effect of the suicide bill is going to be minimized to the extent that parents cannot afford what they need.

I would be pleased to yield.

I yield to the Senator from Oregon.

Let me make an observation and I will yield.

When one is involved in an issue such as this for 15 years, as I have, you go to a lot of meetings. You go to a lot of meetings with mothers and fathers, with groups of those who are mentally ill. We hear the saddest stories one could ever imagine.

I remember a gentleman and his wife came up to me and said: We have two children.

I asked: Where are they?

She looked up at him as if, Should we tell him? He was a CPA, very proud. She said: Tell him. He said: Senator, we don't know where our two children are. Well, we think they are in the slums of some city or in the jails of some city.

I said: What are you talking about?

He said: Well, they are both sick with schizophrenia and we don't have any more money to pay for them. We are broke.

I said: Do you have insurance?

He said: Oh, we have a lot of insurance, but the insurance doesn't cover our kids' illnesses. So we spent everything we had and then they got arrested because they did not act right. They don't act right. They do everything strange. They steal; if they see these little carts, they steal hotdogs. Maybe somebody arrested them for that and put them in jail.

When people start telling these stories, it is not an accident, they did not tell of a one-time event. You know there has to be a lot more, right? You run into one in your own constituency--if you start running into one, two, or three problems that had to do with your mail, you would come home and ask: What is wrong with the mail? You don't say: What is wrong with the letter that came from Harry Reid that you didn't answer, but you know something is wrong when you have two or three people telling you, for a couple of days, about this thing that I just described.

It is a big problem. I can tell you there is no reason it has to be.

Last, there are no shelters. There is nobody in the business of providing facilities because there is no money to pay for anything, right? If money flows from the back of a mentally ill person--there is a little knapsack on him that says ``insurance''--if it flows from him, it will flow to businessmen who might build these kinds of facilities. But nobody is going to do that because there are no resources.

So with that, instead of yielding to my wonderful friend, Senator Dodd, I am just going to yield the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask if I might speak for a minute.

Mr. President, I want to say that the parity bill, which is now at the desk, had to go through a standing committee. Senator Kennedy is the ranking member of that committee, I say to Senator Dodd. I thank him because he was pushing very hard for a long time that we get that bill taken care of. It took a long time, but it is out now, and it is in a form that very few can object to.

So I say thank you to Senator Dodd and Senator Reid for giving me the reassurance that we are going to get it done. I cannot believe we are so inept that we cannot. I will, because of tonight, reinstate my dedication, and we will get it done before the session is over for sure.