A bill to provide meaningful civil remedies for victims of the sexual exploitation of children.

Mr. President, back in May 2005, with the leadership of Senator Specter, Senator Biden, Senator Kennedy, and others, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an important child safety bill, S. 1086. The committee worked tirelessly to craft a prudent, bipartisan bill that would assist States in their ongoing efforts to protect children through tighter monitoring of known sex offenders. It was a good bill, and it passed the full Senate in May of this year by unanimous consent.

Now, extensive bipartisan discussions with the House have produced a revised version of the bill, which the Senate is voting on today. The new bill is better in a few ways than the Senate-passed bill that we produced and also, regrettably, takes some steps backward. While this new bill is not the bill I would have written, I intend to support it and expect that it will pass.

As a former prosecutor, and as a father and grandfather, I know that there is no higher duty than to protect our society's children, to take every step possible to prevent them from coming to harm, and to punish those who attempt to or succeed in harming them. We have never debated whether children should be protected. Of course they should. The only debate is about how they should be protected, and how best to deploy and utilize limited resources to deter and punish those who would prey on them.

Over the last 30 years, I have worked closely with others to write and enact legislation aimed specifically at protecting children and assisting victims. In the last Congress, Senator Hatch and I joined to introduce the PROTECT Act, which provided prosecutors and law enforcement with tools necessary to combat child pornography and human trafficking. The final legislation passed by Congress included a number of provisions that I had either authored or supported, such as the National AMBER Alert Network Act; the Protecting Our Children First Act, which reauthorized funding for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; and legislation to amend the Violence Against Women Act to provide transitional housing assistance grants for child victims of domestic violence.

In addition, I am pleased that the Senate has acted on other legislation for children and crime victims that I have sponsored. These include the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, which among other things included important grant funds for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and established the Violence Against Women Office in the Justice Department. In 2004, the President signed into law the Justice For All Act, a package of criminal justice reforms that, among other things, authorized funds to reduce rape kit backlogs and enumerated crime victims' rights.

I am glad that this new consensus legislation to protect children honors the efforts of John and Reve Walsh, who have worked so hard to ensure that other families would not experience the tragedy that befell their family. It has been my privilege to work for many years with the Walshes and with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in which they have played such an instrumental role, to take many important steps to keep children and families safe. I commend and thank John Walsh once again for his passionate advocacy on behalf of the Nation's children over many, many years.

I am also glad that members of both parties in both bodies ultimately agreed with me and with the distinguished Senate Republican and Democratic leaders that we should prioritize finishing and passing legislation to protect children from sexual predators, without tying this crucial legislation to other more difficult issues. The Senate has passed court security legislation, for which I was a principal cosponsor, as part of S. 2766, and we have been working to settle differences between our legislation and the other body's court security proposals. Court security legislation should pass this year, but it would not have been right to endanger either the court security bills or this crucial child protection legislation by tying them together.

Gang legislation is on a separate track entirely. It is just getting started in the Senate. Passing legislation to protect children from sexual predators has been my first priority. Seeking simultaneously to resolve extensive differences over provisions in the gang bill and other crime legislation could have caused us to miss this chance. It is commendable that, in the end, both bodies chose to focus on passing sex offender legislation and not to jeopardize this by tying this bill to more controversial measures.

The gang bill is just now before the Judiciary Committee, which is the appropriate place to start work on a complex and important piece of criminal justice legislation. It is a new and very different version of this bill. It will be important to hold a hearing on this bill to listen to the Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers who are combating gang violence on a regular basis, and from the organizations that are working to keep kids out of gangs. Gang violence is a disturbing and difficult menace in our communities, and as we craft solutions to help address these issues we should strive to get it right. We have done the right thing by finalizing this important child protection legislation first, before turning to that and other difficult tasks.

When S. 1086 was first introduced in May 2005, serious concerns were raised by members of the Judiciary Committee, State attorneys general, the Department of Justice, and others. Through an impressive, bipartisan effort these concerns were largely addressed. I appreciate that Senators, and now House Members, of both parties took these concerns to heart and revised this bill in ways that will increase the protection of children from the most dangerous sex offenders, while not overwhelming the States with requirements that could hinder their own efforts. I believe that this new bill takes a few unfortunate steps back from the well thought out Senate version, but it still achieves many of the crucial goals we identified. The resulting bill ensures that each State will have an effective sex offender registry and that all States will share registry information--all of which will help keep our children safer.

I am glad that this bill addresses my concerns and that of many others of both parties in the Senate in giving significant discretion to the States in the handling of juvenile offenders. Juvenile justice has always been a province of the States, and State legislatures, prosecutors, and judges have developed significant expertise in distinguishing which juvenile offenders represent a continuing threat to society and which juveniles, with appropriate treatment and monitoring, can turn

themselves around and become contributing members of society.

This bill correctly allows the States, in many cases, to use their expertise--and they know more about these issues than we do here in Washington--to decide which juveniles should be on sex offender registries, to what extent, and for how long. It also appropriately requires the States to include the most egregious juvenile offenders, who do represent a threat to others, on their sex offender registries. I think the bill goes too far in a few cases in limiting States' discretion to determine which juveniles should be placed on registries and to allow those juvenile offenders who have lived cleanly and turned their lives around to get off of registries. But overall, this bill strikes an acceptable balance on this issue, and I am glad that those of us who were concerned about appropriate deference to the expertise of the States spoke out and were heard to some extent.

This bill takes a good if small first step toward what should be one of our most important priorities in keeping our children safe from sex offenders: treatment. While the most dangerous sex offenders may be predisposed to re-offend and should be treated accordingly, many studies have shown that people who commit less serious sex offenses often, with appropriate treatment, do not present a significant risk of recidivism and can become responsible members of society. One of the best ways to protect our children is to help as many low-risk offenders as possible turn their lives around, so that our scant law enforcement resources can be focused on those dangerous offenders who are a demonstrable threat to our children. In addition to the Bureau of Prisons Program included in S. 1086, the current bill includes a new program directed specifically to the treatment of juvenile sex offenders, who have been proven to be especially responsive to treatment. This is a welcome addition to the bill, and one we should build on in the future.

I want to direct the attention of my colleagues to title V of the bill, which makes substantial amendments to section 2257 of title 18. By way of background, Congress passed the original version of section 2257 in 1988, as a means to help ensure that minors were not being exploited by the adult, hard-core pornography industry in violation of the child exploitation laws. In 1989, the District Court for the District of Columbia found that this original version violated the first amendment. In 1990, Congress responded to the District Court decision by significantly narrowing the scope of section 2257.

The House bill proposed an expansion of section 2257 beyond what was held unconstitutional before the 1990 amendments, and beyond the pornography industry and those who exploit children. The proposed expansion of section 2257 gave rise to legitimate concerns, expressed by groups as far-ranging as the Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the American Library Association, and the American Conservative Union, that its record-keeping and labeling requirements, and associated criminal liability, might now affect an array of mainstream, legitimate, and first-amendment-protected activities and industries. These industries are leaders in protecting children employed in their industries and are far removed from the problem that the legislation purportedly sought to address. Subjecting them to the burdens of a recordkeeping and labeling statute intended for the pornography industry would create substantial burdens of compliance without any added benefit in the wholly legitimate and vital cause of actually safeguarding the security and welfare of children.

Because the focus of these requirements is adult pornography and the protection of children, not mainstream visual depictions and activities that do not threaten children, the new bill includes provisions intended to limit the reach of these requirements to those who are actually exploiting children. Most notably, section 2257A(h) enables law-abiding, legitimate businesses, which create and commercially distribute materials that are not, and do not appear to be, child pornography, to certify to the Attorney General that, pursuant to existing laws, labor agreements, or industry standards, they regularly and in the normal course of business collect the name, date of birth, and address of performers employed by them. This recognizes that such legitimate, law-abiding industries in fact routinely collect the information necessary to demonstrate their compliance with the child protection laws and that for this reason they were never intended to be the focus of this more extensive recordkeeping and labeling statute. Businesses that so certify and thus exhibit their good faith can avoid some of the more onerous requirements, and associated criminal liability, rightfully placed on others whose compliance is more likely to further the interest of protecting children.

By way of illustration, the motion picture industry currently operates under a panoply of laws, both civil and criminal, as well as regulations and labor agreements governing the employment of children in any production. They check work permits, require parents or guardians to be present at all times during production, and in some cases even obtain court approval for the employment of the children in films and television shows. It is fair to say that the film and television industries are a leader among industries in safeguarding the interests of children in the workplace. Yet in the absence of the certification provision in section 2257A(h), these studios would be subjected to the same extensive recordkeeping and labeling requirements as a hard-core pornographer is under this bill, as would a host of other legitimate entities throughout the distribution chain for mainstream motion pictures and television shows.

The focus of the underlying statute should remain on helping apprehend child predators and not on legitimate businesses that have no role in harming children. Under section 2257A(h), motion picture companies that certify to the Department of Justice that they collect the name, date of birth, and address of all the performers employed by them, for purposes of compliance with existing laws, such as filling out an I-9 form or W-4s for tax purposes, or pursuant to labor agreements or their normal business practices, will not be subject to the more burdensome requirements of this statute. Establishing this regime will have the additional benefit of allowing the Department of Justice to focus their limited resources in areas where they should be focused--pursuing those who harm children. This provision has been in effect for 18 years and yet has not been used. It is my hope that the Department of Justice, having obtained the amendments they sought, will begin to enforce the law and focus on those who harm children, and not on those legitimate businesses that do not.

Other exemptions in the bill exclude from the recordkeeping requirements and annual certification regime providers of Internet access, telecommunications, and online search tools, as well as online hosting, storage, and transmission services, so long as the provider does not select or alter the content. It is ironic that the broadest exemptions are granted to the providers of various types of Internet and telecommunications services, even though the advent of the Internet is cited in the original version of this bill as greatly increasing the ease of transporting, distributing, receiving, and advertising child pornography in interstate commerce. Notwithstanding these exemptions, nothing in this bill can or should be construed to impair the enforcement of any other Federal criminal statute or to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property against these entities.

Regrettably, the core, bipartisan bill to strengthen State sex offender registration programs was joined in both the House and the Senate to unrelated provisions aimed at creating additional mandatory minimum sentences. I agree with the U.S. Judicial Conference and the vast majority of Federal judges and practitioners that harsh, inflexible mandatory sentencing laws are a recipe for injustice. In its letter dated March 7, 2006, regarding the House bill, the Judicial Conference, headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote that mandatory minimum sentences undermine the sentencing guideline regime Congress established under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 by preventing the systemic development of guidelines that reduce unwarranted disparity and provide proportionality and fairness in punishment.

Mandatory sentences also tie prosecutors' hands in these cases where it is most important that they have the discretion to plea bargain, especially considering how difficult it can be to prepare children emotionally and psychologically to testify against their abusers.

When addressing this issue in committee last year, Senators from both sides of the aisle agreed to limit the imposition of new mandatory minimum sentences to the most serious and violent crimes against children, rather than to myriad lesser crimes as was originally proposed. The new bill backslides from this agreement to an unfortunate extent. If we are going to establish mandatory minimum sentences, we should at least proceed in a thoughtful and coherent way, with some understanding of the range of offense conduct that may be covered and the sorts of sentences that are being imposed under current law. Instead, we simply pluck ever-higher numbers out of thin air. Congress greatly increased the penalties for most sex offenses just 3 years ago, in the PROTECT Act. Nothing has changed since then to warrant this new round of arbitrary sentence inflation.

Another controversial measure included in the House-passed bill was a proposal to strip Federal courts of jurisdiction to review constitutional errors in sentencing that a State court has deemed harmless. The Senate Judiciary Committee reviewed this jurisdiction- stripping provision last year, during its consideration of the so- called Streamlined Procedures Act, S. 1088. That bill--and this provision in particular--was strongly opposed by a broad coalition of organizations, including the United States Judicial Conference. Following hearings, the committee specifically rejected this provision by adopting a substitute amendment that stripped it out in its entirety; the substitute then died in committee without further action. To include such an extraneous and deeply flawed provision in the current bill would have been wrong, and it is a credit to this bill that it has been removed.

Another area of concern is a provision that was also included in the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill. The provision prohibits the approval of a visa application for the relative of a U.S. citizen or legal resident based on the citizen or resident's conviction for any of the sex offenses enumerated in the bill. This provision casts a wide net, and in many cases will harshly and unnecessarily penalize people seeking entry to the United States who have a family member in the country, but where the citizen or resident poses no threat to the individual seeking entry.

The bill gives the Secretary of DHS discretion to assess these applications on a case-by-case basis and waive the denial, and I hope this will turn out to be more than just an empty gesture. Given that this bill greatly expands the crimes sufficient to deny an application, I urge the Secretary to give thoughtful consideration to each case in which a waiver is sought. In a case of a citizen who is on the path to rehabilitation or whose crime was relatively minor, denial of a family member's support would serve no rational purpose and would undermine the goals of family unity. I hope the Secretary will actively use this waiver authority to limit the broad reach of this provision to those cases where a citizen or legal resident genuinely poses a threat to a family member seeking entry.

This legislation requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect which would, when fully implemented over time, serve the purpose of enabling child protective service agencies to identify an adult's past child maltreatment history in other States, without having to check every individual State child protective service central registry. Improving the ability of child protective service agencies to collect information on prior cases of child maltreatment by a named adult is a worthy objective. However, to rush into the creation of such a national registry, without deliberate consideration and evaluation first of the wide variation in how State child abuse and neglect data on substantiated cases identifies the perpetrator of the abuse or neglect and the specifics of their maltreatment--what the bill calls the nature of the substantiated case--would be reckless.

For that reason, the legislation also mandates the HHS Secretary to conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing data collection standards for a national child abuse and neglect registry. Clearly, such a study should be completed before the Federal Government begins to implement the creation of such a registry and to collect registry information from the States. We need to know what we are working with before we create a system which might give the public a false sense of security or violate the due process rights of children and families alike. Caution is advised in moving forward on this matter in order to develop an information system which is both fair and reliable.

The legislation also requires the HHS Secretary to establish standards for how, and to whom, this national registry information will be disseminated. In view of the sensitivity of this registry, which is to include information historically maintained only at the state or local child protective service agency level, I urge the Secretary, in consideration of these standards and before collecting any national registry data, to be cognizant of past congressional concerns related to the protection of legal rights of families, as reflected in 42 U.S.C. 5106(b)(2)(A)(xix), and for a fair appellate process for individuals who disagree with a substantiated finding of abuse or neglect, as reflected in 42 U.S.C. 5106(b)(2)(A)(xv)(2). Both of these are provisions of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.

Significantly, the legislation does not provide any new financial or technical assistance to States to improve or standardize their child protective services substantiated case recordkeeping systems, or to support States in the added burden of preparing for, and transferring data to, a new national registry. Not all States maintain the same registry information. Some States do not record registry entries by name of perpetrator but rather by name of child; some States no longer maintain registries at all. Most tribes, which are included in the legislation, maintain no registries at all. Without this important additional technical and financial assistance to the States, the quality of the information collected would likely be uneven and at times unreliable. This is a serious deficiency in the legislative mandate for the creation of a national registry of child abuse and neglect cases, one that I hope will be corrected through a targeted appropriation that focuses on helping State child protective service agencies upgrade their central registries or comparable systems of case-specific data.

I am pleased that the bill includes my proposal to authorize grants to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America and the National Crime Prevention Council. Big Brothers and Big Sisters provides valuable mentoring services to young people across the country, and supporting their mission is a valuable investment that will reap measurable rewards. The National Crime Prevention Council helps communities across the country understand and address the causes of crime. Grants to this organization help communities become active in crime prevention at the grassroots level, and encouraging their continued efforts is something we should all strongly support.

I am also pleased that the sponsors of this bill agreed to incorporate S. 2155, popularly known as Masha's Law. This legislation, named after a Russian orphan who was sexually exploited by her adoptive father, will increase the civil statutory damages available to victims of child exploitation. It will also ensure that victims of child pornography whose images remain in circulation after they have turned 18 can still recover when those images are downloaded.

I am also pleased that the bill includes authorization of $12 million for grants to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, known as RAINN, for operation of its National Sexual Assault Hotline and for the other important work RAINN does to assist victims of sexual assault and to help prevent and prosecute sexual assault. I want to congratulate RAINN for recently logging the one-millionth call to its 24-hour telephone hotline.

RAINN, in helping a million crime victims, has not only made their lives better, but has also contributed greatly to the decrease in sexual violence in this country. I am honored that RAINN's founder and president, Scott Berkowitz, thanked me in connection with this important milestone for having supported the establishment of the National Sexual Assault Hotline.

Finally, I want to thank the Vermont Attorney General's Office and other concerned Vermont officials for prompt and constructive comments on multiple drafts of this legislation. Vermonters have worked hard to produce and improve our State's sex offender registry program in ongoing efforts to make it useful to law enforcement agencies and the general public in providing information regarding individuals who have proved a demonstrable threat to the public. In light of the mobility inherent in American society, cooperation and coordination among the various States improves the effectiveness of each State's registry, and the Federal assistance this bill provides will enhance that cooperation and coordination.

Mr. President, I begin speaking to this legislation by thanking my buddy. And I know that is a colloquial expression in this formal place we work when I say ``my buddy,'' but Senator Hatch and I have worked together for a long time. It is hard for me to believe we have been here as long as we have. I have actually been here a couple years longer than he has. We have our differences in philosophy. We have never had any differences personally. We have never had any differences in terms of our relationship.

The two things I am proudest of that we have both done is we have both--and I say this somewhat self-serving, I acknowledge--we both always hired staff that is respected. I do not think there has ever been a time that Orrin has not had a staff and staff members who my staff completely, totally trusted. I think it is fair to say that is the case on Orrin's side as well.

That makes a gigantic difference because I think the work that Ken Valentine, the fellow sitting to Orrin's right, did--a loner, Secret Service guy from the administration, from the executive branch--and a fellow I am very proud of, whom I will mention in a moment--the work they did with John Walsh and others, to overcome the hurdles that get thrown in the way of good legislation because everybody has their own agenda.

Everybody knows that for Orrin and me--and I would add my friend from North Dakota--that some of us have had this as sort of a--I have been accused of this being a hobbyhorse for me, this, all the work we have done for so long on dealing with child predators and abused women and abused children. But what happens sometimes is that good legislation gets stuck because other Senators, who do not have that as the same priority--although they are for it--attach a lot of extraneous things because there is something they feel is even more critical than the legislation, and they see it, to use the Senate jargon, as a vehicle to get their views heard and their legislation passed.

Well, as to the work that Dave Turk of my staff did and Ken Valentine did in order to sort of clear the way for this, I think everyone who has worked on this, including John Walsh, would acknowledge is extraordinary.

So I want to personally--there are others, I am sure. There are others. I do not mean, by mentioning these two individuals, to in any way denigrate the incredible work done by so many others. But I think sometimes the public wonders why we pay staff members--all of whom can make a lot more money if they did something else--the kind of salaries they get paid, in relative terms. It is because they are so good. They are so dedicated. They are so talented.

In my experience of being here 33 years, I have found that when a staff member, no less than a Senator, has an intellectual as well as an emotional commitment to what they are doing, it is even more effective.

I know for my friend and staff member, Dave Turk, who is a father, and for Ken Valentine, whom I have only gotten to know personally recently, this is more than legislation, this is more than passing this piece of legislation. This is the stuff of which your life's work is viewed as being worthwhile.

I remember Jerry Brown, when he used to be the Governor of California, once said when he was cutting pay--I am not making a judgment of whether he should have or should not have--when cutting the pay of State employees, he made a statement only Jerry Brown could make, 20 years ago: Well, they have the psychic remuneration of living in California. I do not know about that. But I can tell you that the psychic remuneration for Orrin Hatch and Joe Biden and Ken Valentine and Dave Turk, and many others who worked on this, makes this job worthwhile.

The two things of which I am most proud that I have done in 33 years are dealing with this issue in particular and culminating in this legislation, the Adam Walsh Child Protection Safety Act, and the Violence Against Women Act--which, I might add, one of only seven guys who jumped out front in 1994 to get that done was also Orrin Hatch.

So, Senator Hatch, I thank you. We have been in the minority, the majority, the minority; we have switched places back and forth, but it has never changed our relationship, never changed how we have worked with each other, and never changed the good work I think we and many others can say we are proud to have participated in.

Mr. President, I wish to talk a few minutes about the actual act. Congress has done a good deal over the last 25 years--and I might add, starting with, God love him, our old and deceased friend, Senator Thurmond from South Carolina--to protect kids. We created the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. We enacted the crime bill in 1994. We enacted the Amber Alert system in 2003.

But every time we have done something significant, the bad guys have figured out a way to take advantage of it, to find a loophole, to find an opening. And that is what this is about--and I wish he had floor privileges because he could speak to it better than any of us--but this is about, to paraphrase John Walsh, with whom I had dinner the other night--this is about closing the door. This is about uniting 50 States in common purpose and in league with one another to prevent these lowlifes from slipping through the cracks. So we recognize that what we have done in the past did not do all we wanted to do.

I might add one more thing. Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch come from different sides of the political spectrum on a lot of things. But I can assure you, not only is this tough, but the civil liberties of Americans are not in jeopardy with this. This is not--this is not--a case where in order to get bad guys we have had to in any way lessen the constitutional protections made available

to good guys. So I think it is a proud piece of work.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as Senator Hatch has indicated, estimates there are over 550,000 sex offenders nationwide, and more than 20 percent of them are unaccounted for. I would argue that there are a whole lot more than 550,000, who never get caught up in the criminal web for a thousand different reasons that I do not have time to explain. But at a minimum, this means there are as many as 150,000 of these dangerous sex offenders out there, individuals who have already committed crimes and may, unless we do something, continue to jeopardize the most vulnerable among us.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act takes direct aim at this problem. Plain and simple, this legislation, I can say with certainty, will save children's lives.

Sexual predators must be tracked, and our cops and our parents have a right to know when these criminals are in their neighborhoods. That is what we do here.

First--an important point--let's start at the beginning. This legislation requires sex offenders to register prior to their release from prison, to make sure we give them absolutely no opportunity to do what happens now: fall through the cracks between the moment the prison door opens and before they set up a residence.

We also make sure we are keeping tabs on everyone who poses a threat to our kids. Advances in technology are a great thing, but many times there is a dark side. The Internet, for example, puts the knowledge of the world at a child's fingertips, but it can also be and is abused by sexual predators causing kids harm. To steal a phrase from my son, who is a Federal prosecutor, he told me: Dad, it used to be you could lock your door or hold your child's hand at the mall and keep them out of harm's way.

But today, in my son's words, with a click of a mouse, a predator can enter your child's bedroom in a locked home and begin the pernicious road to violating that child. That is why this legislation adds the ``use of the Internet to facilitate or commit a crime against a minor'' as an offense that could trigger registration.

And once someone is on a sex offender registry, we make sure they can't go back into hiding in the shadows. Under this bill, child predators would be required to periodically and in person check in with the authorities.

They also would be required to update their photographs so law enforcement and parents will know where these folks are and what they look like now and not solely what they looked like years ago that is unrecognizable now.

And if a registered offender fails to comply with any of these requirements, he or she faces a felony of up to 10 years in prison. If an unregistered sex offender commits a crime of violence, the offender will face a 5-year mandatory prison sentence in addition to any other sentence imposed.

A noncompliant sex offender will also face U.S. Marshals who have been brought in under this bill to lend their expertise and manpower to help track down these dangerous individuals.

John and I were talking about it at dinner. These guys saddle up, to use his phrase. They are the most underrated, underestimated part of American law enforcement. They do the job incredibly well. They want to get in on this, and they are now part of this. We now have designated their expertise and manpower to track down these individuals.

One of the biggest problems in our current sex offender registry system happens when registered sex offenders travel from one State to another.

Delaware has worked hard to keep track of the 3,123 sex offenders registered to my State. But there are other States that are not so advanced and whose systems are not so sophisticated.

This bill fully integrates and expands the State systems so that communities nationwide will be warned when high-risk offenders come to live among them. And we target resources under this bill at the worst of the worst and provide Federal dollars to make sure States aren't left holding the bag.

We also require the U.S. Department of Justice to create software to share with States in order to allow for information to be shared instantly and seamlessly among them. When a sex offender moves from New Jersey to Delaware, for example, we have to be absolutely sure that Delaware authorities know about it.

This bill also mandates a national sex offender Web site so that parents can find out who is living in their neighborhoods. Parents will now be able to search for information on sex offenders by geographic radius and ZIP Code.

Do we have a silver bullet, a foolproof system here? I have been around too long to know the answer to that question is no. What we do have is a slew of commonsense ways for fixing our current problem.

As I mentioned earlier, it has taken us months and years to get to the point of enacting this important bill into law. Again, I give credit where credit is due, as has already been mentioned, to John and Reve Walsh. I know we are not supposed to--and I will not--violate Senate rules by pointing out who is where. But the fact is, if I were sitting next to them in the gallery now, I suspect if I put my hand on his arm, I would feel the tension in his arm.

This has to be a very bittersweet moment for John Walsh. For what are we doing here today? We are naming a bill that will save the lives of hopefully thousands of other young people after a beautiful young boy who was victimized and killed.

The thing I find most amazing about John and Reve is, I don't know how anybody who has lost a child can have the courage to do what they have done. I know from my own experience, which I will not speak to, there are certain circumstances I cannot walk into because it reminds me of one of my children I lost.

I could never do what John and Reve did. I could never do what they did. And we could have never done today what we are doing without them. That is not hyperbole; that is the God's truth. We could never have gotten this done without John and Reve Walsh.

It has to be one god-awful bitter moment, for the 27th of this month, if I am not mistaken, will be the 25th anniversary.

A lot of people on this floor, including one of my colleagues I am sitting with, have lost children. It doesn't matter whether it is 2 years past, 10 years, 25 years, or 50 years past. That part never passes. I thank John and Reve for their courage, courage way beyond anything I could possess.

I have known John for many years. We go way back to 1984, working together to create the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children along with Senator Hatch. He has been at it year after year, pushing the Congress to do more.

John, you have been an inspiration. You continue to be. Don't underestimate it. You have been doing it so long, don't underestimate how many thousands of people take solace from what you do and what you have done.

It has not been my style in 33 years to take the floor to speak in such personal terms, but this is ultimately personal. It is the ultimate, ultimate personal thing, your child.

Earlier this week I had a chance to sit down with Ed Smart whose daughter Elizabeth--what a magnificently beautiful, poised, gracious young woman--then 14 years, was abducted at gunpoint from her family in Salt Lake City while her parents and four brothers slept. She was found 9 months later. The strength of that family's character, its resilience is remarkable.

I have taken too much of the Senate's time. Let me again thank my colleague from Utah. I also thank our committee chairman and all the members of our committee. They also deserve a great deal of credit.

Other Senators, including my colleague on the floor, who has been relentless, absolutely relentless, Senator Dorgan; he added a major, important piece to this legislation. I thank him for that. Senator Bill Nelson, Chuck Grassley, all contributed important parts to this bill. They each took tragedies that happened in their States and used them as a call to action.

Senators Frist and Reid--our majority and minority leaders--also deserve all our thanks by ensuring that this important bill was treated with the priority it deserved.

Congressman Foley has worked tirelessly on this bill in the House for

years, and Congressman Pomeroy was by his side. And Chairman Sensenbrenner guided this bill through the House of Representatives.

I don't think there is one of us on this floor who wouldn't trade away this bill for being able to bring back to life all those innocent lives that were lost that allowed us, in a bizarre way, to produce this legislation.

We cannot redeem the dead, but we can, in fact, protect the living. I think this bill, with the many parts I didn't mention, including DNA testing and a whole range of other things, is fair, decent, and honorable. Most important, there is not a single thing we can do that is more worthy of our effort than protecting our children. That is what all of us on this floor--and many who are not--today are playing a part in doing.

Again, I close by thanking John Walsh.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to comment on the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This legislation will create a national sex offender registry that will make it possible for law enforcement and concerned citizens to track sexual predators. The bill also includes tough penalties that will ensure that these individuals will actually register. There currently are over 100,000 sex offenders in this country who are required to register but are ``off the system.'' They are not registered. The penalties in this bill should be adequate to ensure that these individuals register. In addition to allowing up to 10 years in prison for an offender who fails to register, the bill also imposes a mandatory 5 years in prison for an offender who has neglected his obligation to register and commits a crime of violence.

I would like to focus my remarks on legislation that I have introduced that has been incorporated in this final bill. I am particularly pleased to see that the bill maintains the ChildHelp National Registry of Cases of Child Abuse and Neglect. Section 663 of the bill instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to create a national registry of persons who have been found to have abused or neglected a child. The information will be gathered from State databases of child abuse or neglect. It will be made available to State child-protective-services and law-enforcement agencies ``for purposes of carrying out their responsibilities under the law to protect children from abuse and neglect.'' The national database will allow States to track the past history of parents and guardians who are suspected of abusing their children. When child-abusing parents come to the attention of authorities--when teachers begin to ask about bruises, for example--these parents often will move to a different jurisdiction. A national database would allow the State to which these parents move to know the parents' history. It will let a child-protective-services worker know, for example, whether he should prioritize investigation of a particular case because the parent has been found to have committed substantiated cases of abuse in the past in other States. Such a database also would allow a State that is evaluating a prospective foster parent or adoptive parent to learn about past incidents of child abuse that the person has committed in other States.

I am also proud to see that the Internet SAFETY Act, which I introduced with several colleagues earlier this year, has been incorporated as title VII of this bill. This title includes the following important provisions:

Section 701 makes it a criminal offense to operate a child exploitation enterprise, which is defined as four or more persons who act in concern to commit at least three separate violations of Federal child pornography, sex trafficking, or sexual abuse laws against multiple child victims. This offense is punished by imprisonment for 20 years up to life.

Section 702 provides that if an individual who is required to register as a sex offender under Federal or State law commits specified Federal offenses involving child pornography, sex trafficking, or sexual abuse against a minor victim, the offender shall be imprisoned for 10 years in addition to any penalty imposed for the current offense.

Section 703 makes it a criminal offense to embed words or digital images into the source code of a Web site in order to deceive people into viewing obscenity on the Internet. Offenses targeting adults are subject to up to 10 years imprisonment; offenses targeted at child victims are subject to up to 20 years imprisonment.

Section 704 authorizes appropriations for the U.S. Attorney General to hire 200 additional Assistant United States Attorneys across the country to prosecute child pornography, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse offenses targeted at children.

Section 705 authorizes appropriations for the hiring of 30 additional computer forensic examiners within the Justice Department's Regional Computer Forensic Laboratories, and 15 additional computer forensic examiners within the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Crimes Center. The additional computer forensic examiners will be dedicated to investigating crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children and related offenses.

Section 706 authorizes the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to create 10 additional Internet Crimes Against Children, ICAC, Task Forces.

Finally, section 707 of the Internet SAFETY title expands the civil remedies for sexual offenses by allowing the parents of a minor victim to seek damages, and by allowing a minor victim to seek damages as an adult.

Title II of today's bill also includes a number of penalty increases and other improvements to Federal criminal sex offenses. Many of these provisions appeared in the Internet SAFETY Act, as well as in the Jetseta Gage Act, which was introduced by Senator Grassley in 2005 and of which I was an original cosponsor. Section 211 suspends the statute of limitations for all Federal felony offenses of sexual abuse, sex trafficking, or child pornography. Other provisions of title II increase penalties for coercion and enticement by sex offenders, conduct relating to child prostitution, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, sexual abuse of children resulting in death, and sex trafficking of children. Title II also makes sexual abuse offenses resulting in death eligible for the capital punishment, and expands the predicate offenses justifying mandatory repeat-offender penalties for offenses involving child pornography and depictions of the sexual exploitation of children. Finally, title II adds sex trafficking of children to the set of repeat offenses that are subject to mandatory life imprisonment.

Another provision that I have pursued during this Congress and that is included in this final bill is section 212, which extends several of the guarantees of the 2004 Crime Victims' Rights Act to Federal habeas corpus review of State criminal convictions. Because such cases involve Federal courts but State prosecutors, this extension is limited to those provisions of CVRA that are enforced by a court--Congress cannot compel State prosecutors to enforce a Federal statute. The victims' rights extended by section 212 to Federal habeas proceedings are the right to be present at proceedings, the right to be heard at proceedings involving release, plea, sentencing, or parole, the right to proceedings free from unreasonable delay, and the right to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy.

The bill also makes some technical improvements to the DNA Fingerprint Act, which Senator Cornyn and I introduced last year and which was enacted into law as an amendment to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act at the beginning of this year. Section 155 of today's bill modifies the authority granted to the Federal Government by the DNA Fingerprint Act to collect DNA samples from Federal arrestees. Under current law, the Federal Government may collect a DNA sample from any person arrested for a Federal offense, but the authority to collect DNA from persons convicted of a Federal offense is limited to felonies and certain misdemeanors. Section 155 corrects this anomaly by including convictions in the Federal sample- collection regulatory authority, thus allowing the Federal Government to collect DNA from all persons convicted of a Federal crime. The 2006 Act also allows DNA to be collected from all arrestees, but in the case of persons detained under Federal authority this authority is limited to non-U.S. persons--i.e., foreign visitors who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents. Problems might arise in the case of U.S. persons who are detained and facing Federal criminal charges, but who were not arrested by Federal authorities. Examples include persons who are being prosecuted federally but were arrested by the State officers participating in a joint Federal-State task force, and persons who turn themselves in to Federal authorities without being formally arrested. Arguably, the 2006 act's arrest authority should extend to such individuals--they are constructively arrested. Section 155 eliminates any ambiguity and possibility of litigation over these matters by expressly granting the Federal Government the authority to collect DNA samples from individuals facing Federal charges.

Finally, I would like to take a moment to recognize all of the staff who worked so hard to see this bill through to completion. Please allow me to

thank Ken Valentine and Tom Jipping of Senator Hatch's staff, Dave Turk of Senator Biden's staff, Julie Katzman and Noah Bookbinder of Senator Leahy's staff, Nicole Gustafson of Senator Grassley's staff, as well as Chad Groover, who has since left Senator Grassley's office but who played a critical role in developing many of the penalty enhancements included in title II, Christine Leonard of Senator Kennedy's staff, Lara Flint of Senator Feingold's staff, Nate Jones of Senator Kohl's staff, Sharon Beth Kristal of Senator DeWine's staff, Reed O'Connor of Senator Cornyn's staff, Jane Treat of Senator Coburn's staff, Greg Smith of Senator Feinstein's staff, Marianne Upton of Senator Durbin's staff, Bradley Hayes of Senator Sessions's staff, Bradley Schreiber of Mr. Foley's staff, and last but not least in this group, Brooke Bacak of my Republican Policy Committee staff.

I would especially like to thank Allen Hicks and Brandi White of Senator Frist's staff, who were very helpful in securing the inclusion of the Child-Abuse Registry in this bill, Matt Miner of Senator Specter's staff, who played a critical role in negotiating the final bill, and Mike Volkov, Sean McLaughlin, and Phil Kiko of Mr. Sensenbrenner's staff. The bill that we have today would not exist were it not for the professionalism, expertise, and dedication of the Sensenbrenner staff. Often it is easy in Congress simply to pass any bill dealing with a subject so that we can say that we have addressed the problem. This is not such a bill. This is a strong, tough bill that will make a difference in the safety and security of our Nation's children. It is a bill of which we can all be proud, and Mr. Sensenbrenner's staff deserves recognition for their contribution to that result.

Mr. President, in May, the Senate passed the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act to standardize and strengthen registration and monitoring of sex offenders nationwide. Since its passage, the House and Senate have worked closely to resolve their differences and to improve the overall quality of the legislation. The bill before us today contains difficult compromises, but it has achieved that goal.

This legislation is critically important to safeguard victims of sexual abuse from harm. It will help protect innocent people from violent offenses. It recognizes the victims and all the suffering both they and their families have endured.

With this legislation, we are recognizing the loss of Molly Bish from Warren, MA. At 16, Molly was abducted from her position as a lifeguard, and her family endured terrible uncertainty until her remains were found 3 years later. Molly was a typical teenager who took great joy from life. Her nickname was Tigger, because she was always on the move. She is survived by her parents, John and Magi Bish; her sister, Heather; and her brother, John, Jr., who work every day to keep children safe, honoring her life and her legacy.

With this bill, we also remember with sadness another Massachusetts resident, Alexandra Zapp. Ally was 30 years old when she was attacked and murdered in a public restroom by a repeat sex offender in Bridgewater, MA, in 2002. Ally's friends described her as a strong, smart, and independent woman. She had worked at the USA Sailing Association of Portsmouth, RI, where she was a keelboat training coordinator. Ally is survived by her mother and sister, Andrea and Caroline, and her father and stepmother, Ray and Linda. This legislation is dedicated to her memory, along with the memories of Molly Bish and the many other victims of terrible crimes.

Several changes have been made to this legislation as a result of our work with the House. It is important to make sure that information on offenders who pose a potential threat is available to the public at large, and this bill provides for Internet listing and community notification about such individuals.

At the same time, in order for the registry to be effective, it should be targeted toward those who present the highest risk to our communities. The current version takes a more sweeping approach toward juvenile offenders by expanding their registration requirements. The Senate bill allowed each State to determine whether a juvenile should be included on the registry. This compromise allows some offenders over 14 to be included on registries, but only if they have been convicted of very serious offenses. For juveniles, the public notification provision in this bill is harsh given their low rate of recidivism, which is less than 8 percent according to the most recent studies. For this reason, it is especially important that the bill includes funding for treatment of juvenile offenders. These provisions recognize that juvenile offenders, who have much lower rates of recidivism and have been shown to be much more amenable to treatment than their adult counterparts, shouldn't be lumped together with adult offenders.

The bill also provides increased funding for programs to prevent these offenses before they occur. It also authorizes funding for sex offender treatment and management within the Federal prison system. These provisions will be helpful in reducing the future risks to society by convicted sex offenders. If Congress is serious about addressing this problem, it must commit itself to fully funding the legislation.

All States currently have registration requirements for sex offenders, but this bill will create a system of national tracking and accountability that preserves the ability of individual States to provide additional procedures to assure the accuracy and usefulness of the registries.

Massachusetts has a system that works. We are already doing most of what this bill requires, but our system goes beyond these basic requirements by providing individualized risk assessments of each sex offender who goes on the registry. These individual assessments, combined with hearings allowing offenders to challenge their classification, help ensure that States like Massachusetts can provide the highest quality of information on potential threats to the community while respecting the tremendous impact that community notification can have on offenders' lives. I am pleased that this legislation respects the right of individual States to innovate in this area and does not penalize States who go the extra mile to improve their registries.

For this reason, section 125 of the compromise is very important. Each State will face challenges in the implementation of these new Federal requirements, and States should not be penalized if exact compliance with the act's requirements would place the State in violation of its constitution or an interpretation of the State's constitution by its highest court.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has concluded that offenders are entitled to procedural due process before being classified at a particular risk level and before personal information about them is disseminated to the public. Massachusetts has been vigilant in implementing a comprehensive and effective sex offender registry, and it should not lose much needed Federal funding where there is a demonstrated inability to comply with certain provisions of this new Federal law.

No State should be penalized and lose critical Federal funding for law enforcement programs as long as reasonable efforts are under way to implement procedures consistent with the purposes of the act. It is essential that the Federal Government continue to collaborate and to provide support for State and local governments, including the prevention, intervention, and enforcement of antigang and antidrug activities as a result of this bill.

At the same time, the new mandatory minimum sentences in the act aren't justified by any empirical data or sound policy. Mandatory minimums prevent prosecutors and judges from doing what they do best-- making individual determinations on sentencing, based on the circumstances of individual cases. With more than 2 million Americans in prison or jail--including 12 percent of all African-American men between the ages of 20 and 34--no one can seriously argue that there is an epidemic of leniency in Federal sentencing. This latest batch of mandatory minimums undermines more than two decades of legislative work devoted to striking a sensible balance between consistent sentencing and the need to provide judges with the discretion to make sure each sentence fits the crime.

Although it is important to have strong penalties for crimes against children, I have major reservations about the broad expansion of the death penalty in this compromised legislation. It is clear that continued imposition of the death penalty will inevitably lead to the wrongful execution of more and more people. Justice Marshall, in particular, wrote powerfully on this issue. He believed that if our citizens knew the truth about the death penalty, ``its disproportionate imposition on racial minorities and the poor, its utter failure to deter crime, and the continuing likelihood of executing the innocent,'' it would be rejected as morally reprehensible.

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for juveniles--persons 17 years old or younger. The Court's ruling was significant. It was long past time to erase that stain from our human rights record. The basic injustice of the death penalty is obvious. Experience shows that imposition of the death penalty inevitably leads to wrongful executions. Many of us are concerned about the racial disparities in the imposition of capital punishment and the wide disparities in the State in its application. The unequal, unfair, arbitray, and discriminatory use of the death penalty is completely contrary to our Nation's commitment to fairness and equal justice for all, and we need to do all we can to correct this fundamental flaw.

Finally, the national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse in this bill should not be implemented until Congress has a full understanding of its scope and effectiveness. The proposed registry raises serious implementation challenges and could create an additional and unnecessary burden for States. Not all States maintain the same registry information, and most States maintain different rules on disclosure. Tribal entities, which are included in this proposed registry, currently maintain no registries at all.

I am concerned that this registry raises serious privacy concerns by including information on cases without the opportunity for due process. For this reason, it is important that the study on establishing data collection standards be completed before such a

registry is established. Current standards for inclusion in child abuse registries vary greatly, with some requiring credible evidence and others requiring no standard other than the judgment of the case worker.

During the most recent reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, we improved current child abuse systems to ensure that law enforcement has the information it needs to pursue and prosecute cases.

A new provision was added to require States to ``disclose confidential information to any Federal, State, or local government entity, or any agent of such entity, which has a need for such information in order to carry out its responsibilities under law to protect children from abuse and neglect.'' Rather than developing additional registries and reporting requirements, States need Federal assistance to effectively carry out their roles and responsibilities under CAPTA. I am concerned that this new registry will have limited value in improving or standardizing State recordkeeping for child abuse and neglect cases.

Despite these provisions, I commend the work that has been done on this bill. Without further delay, it is important that we get this bill to the President so that it can be signed on July 27th, the 25th anniversary of the abduction of Adam Walsh, and to honor all of the work his parents have done in his memory to protect children in communities across the country.

Mr. President, I will pick up where the Senator from Delaware left off and the Senator from Utah, also thanking John Walsh and his wife Reve for their tremendous contribution to our society but in particular for this piece of legislation. We all have to deal in life with tragedies, struggles. It is the measure of a person to see how that individual responds.

Given the nature of the tragedy they experience, it could have easily destroyed them. They took this horrific incident and turned it into a tremendous good. As Senator Biden says, who knows personally, I can't think of anything worse than losing a child. Losing a child in such an incredibly tragic situation has to be more than you can possibly bear. To take that emotion and channel it into a positive course for the benefit of other children is an incredible legacy for Adam. I know John and Reve do it for that reason, to build this incredible legacy. This legacy is added to today by naming this bill the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

Not only is this a great thing they are doing for society, they are a great model for so many who experience tragedies every single day. People can look at them and see how something that I am sure brought them to their knees can be turned around to do so much good for so many. So they are not only helping the children, helping those who are victims of crime, but they are helping those who are victims of life's tragedies that befall us all and giving them an inspiration to move forward and turn tragedy into triumph. This is another triumph. It may not even be the biggest triumph they have experienced, but it is certainly a triumph and a positive thing to add to that legacy.

I rise to talk about two pieces of this bill I have been working on and of which I am the author. One is called Project Safe Childhood. The second is called the Schools SAFE Act. I introduced Project Safe Childhood a couple months ago after learning of a program at the Justice Department called Project Safe Childhood.

The Justice Department, in reviewing and seeing the incredible proliferation of child exploitation crimes, basically being proliferated through the Internet, took on a new program within the Department. This new program was in response to what we see of sexual predators on the Internet and with other types of sexual trafficking, again, as a result of the Internet and other places. They developed a program which is a very good program. It has five main purposes:

First, it seeks to integrate Federal, State, and local efforts and investigate and prosecute child exploitation cases.

Second, the project allows major case coordination between the Department of Justice and other appropriate Federal agencies.

Third, it increases Federal involvement in child exploitation cases by providing additional investigative tools and additional penalties that are available under Federal law that State and local governments may not have.

Four, the project provides increased training for Federal, State, and local law enforcement regarding the investigation and prosecution of computer-facilitated crimes against children.

Finally, it promotes community and educational programs to raise national awareness about the threat of online sexual predators and to provide information to families on how to report violations.

As the father of six children, I can tell you that what Senator Biden said about what parents used to feel they could do to protect children--locking doors and being with them--has gotten a lot more complex, with that fiber optic tube that runs into your house that allows the entire world to come crashing into your home and allows sick people to be able to prey on members of your family. We need to do more to educate parents. This is like pointing a loaded gun at your child, in many cases, and asking them to get on and play. This is a dangerous tool.

Yes, there are wonderful things on the Internet. There is a tremendous world of knowledge and adventure on the Internet. But as we know, too often the major traffic on the Internet is not those wonderful and informative sites. They are sites that prey on our failings and weaknesses, prey on the unsuspecting, on the innocent, in many cases. We as parents have to be better armed to deal with these people who want to reach into our homes and corrupt members of our families, corrupt everything that we are trying to teach them not to do and, worse yet, potentially could opt them into behavior that could risk, ultimately, their lives.

So this program is very important that the Justice Department is engaged in. I contacted the Department and worked with them to develop an authorization bill so we could provide a stable stream of funding for Project Safe Childhood and expand the program in a way that the Department on its own could not do.

For example, increasing penalties for registered sex offenders, child sex trafficking and sexual abuse, and other child exploitation crimes, which this does. It creates a children's safety online awareness campaign and authorizes grants for child safety programs. So in addition to what the Justice Department program does, we add those provisions to help with better coordination between State, local, and Federal prosecutors and investigators.

I had a meeting in the western district of Pennsylvania with our U.S. attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan, and State and local officials. They were talking about it--just the practical difficulties of assigning police and investigators and detectives and prosecutors on a local level and the support they need and the overlapping jurisdictional issues. So this will help them be able to create seamless teams of people to go after these child abusers, as well as to project into the community information that is important to prevent these crimes from happening.

So I am grateful that Senators Specter, Hatch, and Leahy have worked to include that provision in the bill. I think it will take us a step forward in protecting our children from these predators and from exploitation.

The second piece of legislation is called the Schools SAFE Act. We spend a lot of time on the Senate floor talking about how we can improve the quality of education. But it almost goes without saying that when you drop your child off at school, at a bare minimum, you expect that the people who interact with them at school will not harm them. You would think that would be almost a given. But, unfortunately, in our country today we actually have a very poor system of checking as to whether people who are hired in schools are, in fact, safe for the children with whom they interact.

Obviously, the vast majority of teachers and people who work in schools are good and decent people and are there because they want to help children, not because they want to harm children. But like anything else, if you are someone who is a sexual predator, and you are looking to harm children, what better place to go than a place where there are children every single day you could possibly exploit.

So it is important that we have sufficient checks in place to make sure that these predators are not in educational settings where they can harm and corrupt our children.

The current state of play is basically a mishmash of different State laws and different participation in a system created to help schools access information about criminal background checks. Some States require, for example, only a State background check, while other States require an FBI background check. With these disparities, individuals continue to find opportunities to evade safeguards that have been put into place.

In Pennsylvania, an FBI background check is only required for individuals applying to schools for work and have lived in the Commonwealth for less than 2 years. So if you lived in the Commonwealth for several years and you committed a crime someplace else, Pennsylvania would not have the ability to check that out.

Beginning in 2007, Pennsylvania will require applicants who have lived in the Commonwealth for more than 2 years to also undergo FBI background checks.

So we are addressing that issue in Pennsylvania.

I think it just goes to show you that there is no good system out there. What we need to do is allow States to access a database that was established by Congress in 1998 in the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact. This compact allows States to share background information on individuals seeking employment in a school district. This is an important thing to have all the States participating in. I will not go through all of the problems, but there are all sorts of memoranda and agreements and data-sharing information. As a result of that, only roughly half of the States--26 States--participate in the compact. Even States that have joined the compact don't always get access to the information they need. This is a problem.

You could have a man from Pennsylvania who committed sex crimes in Pennsylvania and moved to Nevada. Nevada is a compact State. Nevada could do the compact based check of whether this person has committed crimes against children and find nothing, because Pennsylvania does not participate in the compact. So they could be hired in Nevada schools without any knowledge of the individual's problems in Pennsylvania.

This is obviously a great threat to our children. So what this bill does is give schools across our Nation an essential resource when making hiring decisions. They will be able to access this database and conduct fingerprint-based background checks on individuals who are seeking work with or around children in schools. So this is another important step in protecting our children, in addition to all of the other provisions in this bill--protecting our children in this case in our schools.

I thank, again, the chairman and ranking member for their tremendous assistance to me in getting this legislation in the final package. Again, I congratulate all who have been involved in this very important legislation.