A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on the dedication of the National World War II Memorial on May 29, 2004, in recognition of the duty, sacrifices, and valor of the members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in World War II.

Mr. President, on Saturday, May 29th, we will dedicate a national memorial to the more than 16 million men and women who served from December 1940 to August 1945 in our Army, Army Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines, as well as the 400,000 men and women who gave their lives during World War II.

The memorial is a fitting tribute to all who served and contributed to the war effort at home and abroad. When visitors enter the memorial, they are greeted with an inscription that puts the memorial, its placement on the National Mall and its importance to our nation into perspective: ``Here in the presence of Washington and Lincoln, one the 18th century father and the other the 19th century preserver of our nation, we honor those 20th century Americans who took up the struggle during the Second World War and made the sacrifices to perpetuate the gift of our forefathers entrusted to us: a nation conceived in liberty and justice.''

The memorial, composed of bronze and granite, has a memorial plaza and a rainbow pool as its main features. These features symbolize the totality of the war effort, both at home and overseas. Its two arches depict the two theaters of the war--the Atlantic and the Pacific. The fifty-six pillars represent every state and territory that committed men and women to the effort. A ``freedom wall'' with 4,000 sculpted gold stars commemorates the more than 400,000 Americans who died while serving in the armed forces during the war.

I hope that for generations to come, this memorial, will etch into the collective memory of all Americans who visit the sense of duty, patriotism, valor and sacrifice of the millions of citizens--men and women, from all walks of life, from America's farms and cities, made up of all races, religions and ethnicities--who served and who answered their nation's call in a time of great need.

This memorial is truly a shrine to democracy. World War II was a test of our Nation's democracy, against the forces of fascism and totalitarianism, which threatened to engulf the globe. Americans combated this evil as citizens of the world's bastion of democracy. It is only fitting that around each memorial flagpole--flying the symbol of a free and democratic people--is inscribed, ``Americans came to liberate, not to conquer, to restore freedom and to end tyranny.''

America's spirit was captured by President Franklin Roosevelt when he said of his countrymen, ``They have given their sons to the military services. They have stoked the furnaces and hurried the factory wheels. They have made the planes and welded the tanks, riveted the ships and rolled the shells.'' It was through the collective contribution of millions of Americans that victory was ultimately achieved.

At war's end, General Douglas McArthur said it best when accepting the surrender of the Japanese in Tokyo Bay, ``Today the guns are silent. The great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death--the seas bear only commerce--men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace.''

I hope that when Americans visit this memorial and pay tribute to the millions of veterans who served to preserve our freedom, they will realize there was a time when the mission was clear, the cause was just and righteous and Americans were united in their quest for victory. As a nation, we honor the memory of ordinary Americans who were asked by their country

to perform extraordinary feats, rose to the challenge and will forever be remembered.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, that would resolve it to be the sense of the Senate to express the grateful thanks of the nation to the more than 16 million veterans who served in the Army, Army Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine in World War II and to the millions of Americans on the home front who contributed to the war effort during World War II and to recognize the dedication of the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, the District of Columbia, on May 29, 2004, as an occasion to acknowledge and pay tribute to the duty, sacrifices and valor of all members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in World War II, a group known collectively as the ``Greatest Generation.''

Madam President, on behalf of the Senate leadership--both the majority and minority--I am privileged to ask the Senate to act on resolutions relating to the World War II Memorial. It is coincidental that the Presiding Officer at this time is the distinguished Senator from North Carolina, whose husband has had an instrumental role in the preparation and planning of the memorial, which will be dedicated a week from tomorrow, on May 29.

At this time, I ask that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 362 and H. Con. Res. 409, en bloc.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, and that any statements relating to the resolutions be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I will address briefly these resolutions. I ask unanimous consent that I be made a cosponsor of H. Con. Res. 409.

This particular resolution and preamble, in part, states as follows:

Recognizing with humble gratitude the more than 16,000,000

veterans who served in the United States Armed Forces during

World War II and the Americans who supported the war effort

on the home front and celebrating the completion of the

National World War II Memorial on the National Mall in the

District of Columbia.

Whereas, the National World War II Memorial on the National

Mall in the District of Columbia will be the first national

memorial to both recognize the courage, bravery, and

unselfish dedication of the members of the United States

Armed Forces who served in World War II and those who served

on the home front and acknowledge the commitment and

achievement of the entire American people in that conflict;

Whereas, World War II veteran Roger Durbin of Kerkey, Ohio,

first proposed the construction of the National World War II

Memorial, and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio introduced

the legislation to establish the memorial in the District of

Columbia to honor members of the Armed Forces who served in

World War II and to commemorate the participation of the

United States in that war;

Whereas, in Public Law 103-32, approved May 25, 1993,

Congress authorized the American Battle Monuments Commission,

an independent Federal agency, to design and construct the

memorial.

The resolution goes on in great detail and lays out the legislative history of how this magnificent memorial came into being. Of course, it will be in the Record. The last resolving clause is:

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate

concurring), That Congress recognizes with humble gratitude

the more than 16,000,000 veterans who served in the United

States Armed Forces during World War II and the Americans who

supported the war effort on the home front and celebrates the

completion of the National World War II Memorial on the

National Mall in the District of Columbia. And then action now by the Senate.

I make these remarks on behalf of those Members of the Senate who served in World War II--Senator Inouye, Senator Hollings, Senator Stevens, Senator Lautenberg, Senator Akaka, and myself, all of whom with humble pride have participated in this legislation through these many years and joined with our former distinguished colleague, Senator Dole, who showed absolute extraordinary leadership in this entire sequence of legislative steps, and particularly raising the needed funds. I will address that momentarily.

Resolution 362 expresses the sense of the Senate on the dedication of the National World War II Memorial, May 29, 2004, in recognition of the duty, sacrifices, and valor of members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in World War II. The resolution goes on to lay out, again, other aspects of the legislative history and the role of the Congress and others in this magnificent memorial.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on ``Oversight of the Extended Custodial Inventory Program.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 10:15 a.m. on spam.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on May 20, 2004; to consider favorably reporting the nominations of John O. Colvin, to be Judge, U.S. Tax Court, renomination for a second term; Stuart A. Levey, to be Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement and Juan C. Zarate, to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing entitled ``Prescription Drug Reimportation'' during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 10:00 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 2382, the Native American Connectivity Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Building, room 226.

I. Nominations

Henry W. Saad to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit; Jonathan W. Dudas to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United states Patent and Trademark Office

II. Legislation

S. 1735, Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act of 2003 [Hatch, Feinstein, Grassley, Graham, Chambliss, Cornyn, Schumer, Biden];

S. 1933, Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement (ENFORCE) Act of 2003 [Hatch, Feinstein, Cornyn];

S. 1635, A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to ensure the integrity of the L-1 visa for intracompany transferees [Chambliss];

S. 1129, Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2003 [Feinstein, DeWine, Feingold, Kennedy, Leahy, Specter, Edwards, Durbin, Kohl, Schumer];

S. 2013, Satellite Home Viewer Extension Act of 2004 [Hatch, Leahy, DeWine, Kohl];

S. Res. 362, a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on the dedication of the National World War II Memorial on May 29, 2004, in recognition of the duty, sacrifices, and valor of the members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in World War II. [Graham (FL), Biden, Chambliss, Durbin, Feingold, Grassley, Hatch, Cornyn, DeWine, Edwards, Graham, (SC)]

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Thursday, May 20, 2004 on ``FBI Oversight: Terrorism and Other Topics'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 226 immediately following the full committee markup scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 226.

Witness List

Panel I: Robert S. Mueller III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Mr. President, today, along with Senators McCain, Feingold, Cornyn, Leahy, and Bingaman, I am submitting a resolution designed to make it easier for the American people to get information about Congress from the Internet.

Almost 10 years ago, the Library of Congress started the THOMAS website, which was one of the first electronic references for the public to get up-to-date information about legislation. The

Library did a tremendous job getting THOMAS ready, and I commend their hard work in maintaining it over the past 10 years. However, THOMAS recently has begun to show its age. Although there have been some improvements over time, the Library has been unable to devote the resources necessary to keep THOMAS up to the level the public expects for today's websites. One reason is that the Library has never been formally told by either Chamber of Congress that it has a responsibility to maintain a website for public access to legislative information.

In contrast, the Congressional Research Service was given a mandate to maintain a legislative information website for Members of Congress and their staffs in the 1997 Legislative Branch Appropriations conference report. The Legislative Information System that Congress uses is vastly superior to THOMAS, both in terms of functionality and ease of use. For example, LIS users are able to search across multiple Congresses to find information about bills; THOMAS users must search each Congress individually. In LIS, links to committee reports, if available, are provided along with the basic information about a bill. In THOMAS, a user must make a separate search to find the report. In LIS, the names of bill sponsors can be clicked on to find other bills sponsored by that Member; that feature is not available in THOMAS. And anyone who has used both LIS and THOMAS has seen that the LIS site is much more attractive and usable, and has benefited from continual improvements that have not been matched on THOMAS. When it comes to obtaining the public legislative information of Congress, there should not be such a significant difference between what we use and what the public uses.

Obviously, the American people have the right to see all the public documents of Congress. And, if we are to be true to our nation's democratic values, this information should be as easy to find as possible. It is not sufficient that those who are truly interested can make the extra effort necessary to find what they need; we should be encouraging people to become interested. Americans should be able to easily go to the Internet and get legislative information directly from Congress, instead of having to rely on what they see and hear from others. We can facilitate this by creating a visually appealing, helpful, useful, and accessible public portal to the United States Congress.

Although THOMAS was a good start, it badly needs to be improved. This resolution will tell the Library of Congress that the Senate is paying attention, and that we will insist on that improvement.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and help ensure we have a public legislative information website we can be proud of.

Mr. President, government transparency is fundamental to democracy. This well-known truism is a staple of every sermon about democracy. We sometimes take it for granted, but we shouldn't-- especially today. For one thing, the world is watching if and how we practice what we preach. For another, during this most partisan of political times, it is essential that citizens be able to judge us not only on what we say, but on what we do.

Therefore, I am particularly pleased to join today with Senators Corzine, Cornyn, Feingold, Bingaman and Lieberman to submit a resolution that will provide citizens with expanded and more easily accessible information about legislation and the legislative process.

In particular, we are calling on the Library of Congress to improve its public website, called ``THOMAS,'' in order to provide as much legislative information as is reasonably practical. In addition, because Internet technology continues to advance so rapidly, we are asking the Library to maintain THOMAS in a manner that reflects current standards of accessibility and usability.

In December of 2003, together with Senator Corzine and others, I wrote to Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and asked him to redesign THOMAS to provide, as much as possible, information to the general public that is already available to congressional staff through the congressional Legislative Information System. Dr. Billington and his staff agreed to work with us to improve THOMAS, and the resolution we introduce today is a result of this constructive process. I would like to thank Dr. Billington and his staff for their cooperation and their appreciation of the importance of this effort.

The Library of Congress has a well-known and well-deserved reputation as a source of reliable, unbiased, and comprehensive information. Our resolution will harness the power of the Information Age to allow citizens to see more public records of the Senate in their official form, in context, and without editorial comment.

The taxpayers of this country, who pay millions of dollars a year to fund the Library of Congress, as well as to fund Congress itself, deserve speedy access to this public information. They have a right to see that their money is being spent well. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, ``Information is the currency of democracy.''