Firearms by Foreign Convicts Clarification Act of 2007

Mr. President, today I introduce the Disabled Veterans Insurance Improvement Act of 2007.

The purpose of this legislation is to make certain improvements in the insurance programs available to service-connected disabled veterans. It has two main components.

First, this legislation would increase the maximum amount of Veterans Mortgage Life Insurance, VMLI, that a service-connected disabled veteran may purchase from the current maximum of $90,000 to $200,000. The VMLI program was established in 1971 and is available to those service-connected disabled veterans who have received specially adapted housing grants from VA. In the event of the veteran's death, the veteran's family is protected because the Department of Veterans Affairs will pay the balance of the mortgage owed up to the maximum amount of insurance purchased.

The need for this increase is obvious in today's housing market where, during February, the median sale price of a home in the United States was estimated by the Bureau of Census to be $250,000. My legislation would ensure that this important benefit, which helps secure the financial future of many veterans and their families, keeps pace with changes in the economy.

My bill would also establish a new program of insurance for service- connected disabled veterans that would provide up to a maximum of $50,000 in level premium term life insurance coverage. This new program would be available to service-connected disabled veterans who are less than 65 years of age at the time of application.

Under the new program, eligible service-connected veterans would be able to purchase, in increments of $10,000, up to a maximum amount of $50,000 in insurance. Importantly, unlike existing life insurance programs, the premium rates for this program would be based on the 2001 Commissioners Standard Ordinary Basic Table of Mortality rather than the 1941 mortality table that the Service-Disabled Veterans Insurance, S-DVI, program is based upon.

When an insured veteran reaches age 70, two things would occur under this new program of insurance. First, the amount of insurance would be reduced to 20 percent of the amount of insurance in force prior to the veteran's 70th birthday. Second, the veteran would cease making premium payments. This means that during those years where the family's financial obligations would be commensurately higher because of children, mortgages, and the potential impact of any loss of income, the veteran's family would be able to purchase the maximum amount of term life insurance. At age 70, when resources are likely to be most restricted and the need for substantial insurance to take care of a family's needs after the veteran's death have lessened, the veteran would no longer have an obligation to continue to pay any insurance premiums.

My proposal provides that application for this insurance would need to be submitted by an eligible veteran within 2 years from the date on which VA establishes a service-connected disability to exist but not later than 10 years after a veteran's release from active duty. It would further provide that during the first year of the program, any eligible veteran who is presently insured under the S-DVI program could convert that insurance to a policy under this new program.

Both of the proposals contained in the legislation I am introducing today are compatible with the provisions of S. 643, the proposed Disabled Veterans Insurance Act of 2007, which I introduced on February 15 of this year.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Hawaii, Senator Daniel Inouye, to introduce legislation to convert a temporary judgeship for the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii to a permanent position.

There are currently 3 permanent Federal judgeships and one temporary Federal judgeship in the U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii. The Judicial Improvement Act of 1990, P.L. 101-650 created the temporary position and mandates that the first vacancy occurring in Hawaii after October 2004 cannot be filled. The District of Hawaii will be left with only 3 Federal judge positions upon a judge vacating his or her position. The loss of a judgeship will severely impact Hawaii's judicial system.

In March 2007, the Judicial Conference recommended that Congress convert 5 temporary judgeships, one of which is in the District of Hawaii, to permanent status. Their recommendation is largely based on the significant increase in weighted filings that would occur if a judgeship is lost. The Conference projects that the current weighted filing of 380 per judgeship would climb to 507 per judgeship, which is 18 percent above the Conference standard, should the District of Hawaii lose a judgeship.

In addition, the Conference reported that the median time from filing to disposition for criminal cases in Hawaii has continued to increase from 1999 to 2005, making Hawaii's case processing times the second slowest in the nation. Since 2001, the District Court of Hawaii has completed an average of 50 trials per year, significantly less than the national average. Although Hawaii has 4 judgeships, 2 are senior judges

who only handle a small number of civil cases. The limited assistance provided by these senior judges is likely to decline further in the near future. These judges are not able to retire due to the constraints put forth by the loss of the temporary judgeship seat, should one of the current judges decide to leave. Furthermore, receiving assistance from visiting judges is made difficult by the high cost of travel to Hawaii. For these, and many other reasons, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit supports the Judicial Conference's recommendation to convert this temporary judgeship to a permanent position.

I share the concern of many in Hawaii's legal community that the lack of a fourth permanent position will delay the timely issuance of justice in matters pending before the U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii. This is a disservice to all. The economic impact of extending trials and prolonging time spent in jail will burden Hawaii's taxpayers. Moreover, the lack of timely judicial review will have negative social impacts by prolonging the disruption in individuals' families and lives. The bill we introduce today would ensure 4 Federal judgeships remain active in Hawaii to address the needs of the District Court of Hawaii and the people of Hawaii.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to join with Senators Durbin and Kennedy in introducing the Firearms by Foreign Convicts Clarification Act. This bill would close a loophole that exists in current law, by stating that people convicted of foreign felonies and domestic violence, just like people convicted of similar American crimes, cannot possess firearms in the United States.

I imagine that most Americans may be surprised, as I was, to learn that foreign felons actually have greater gun rights than American citizens who have been convicted of felonies and domestic violence in our own courts. Our country has been trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals for at least the last 40 years, since the landmark Gun Control Act of 1968. Unfortunately, in 2005 the Supreme Court created a gaping loophole in this longstanding felon-in-possession law.

That happened in the case of Small v. United States, where a majority of the Court essentially held that foreign convictions don't count for the purpose of being a felon in possession of a firearm. This was not because the Justices somehow thought that exempting foreign convictions from our felon-in-possession laws was wise public policy. In fact, as Justice Thomas noted in his dissent, ``the majority's interpretation permits those convicted overseas of murder, rape, assault, kidnapping, terrorism and other dangerous crimes to possess firearms freely in the United States.''

The problem in Small was that a majority of the Court felt that our 1968 law had not been written clearly enough. Although Congress had said that a person convicted of a felony ``in any court'' could not possess a firearm, the majority said that this phrase, ``any court,'' might have been meant to apply only to ``any American court'' rather than what the legislation actually said--``any court.''

The Federal felon-in-possession law had already been applied to foreign felons in several prosecutions since 1968, but the Court found unpersuasive both this history and the statute's express language. Dissenting Justices Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy accused the majority of creating a novel canon of legal construction that will ``wreak havoc'' with established rules of extraterritorial construction. But whatever we may think of the Court's analysis, there is no doubt that the Small decision is now the law of the land. And if we want to close this legal loophole, it is clear that we need to pass some clarifying legislation. The bill I introduce today would do just that.

Under this bill, section 921 of Title 18, the definitions section, would be amended to state clearly that ``[t]he term `any court' includes any Federal, State, or foreign court.'' Similar changes would be made in other sections of the Gun Control Act, where there are references to ``state offenses'' or ``offenses under state law, the bill would expand these terms to include convictions of foreign offenses and offenses under foreign law.

In other words, the bill would make clear that if someone is convicted in a foreign court of an offense that would have disqualified him from possessing a gun if that conviction had been handed

down in the U.S., the same laws relating to gun possession will be applied. The only exception will be if there is reason to think the conviction entered by the foreign jurisdiction is somehow invalid.

In that situation, this bill would create an exemption, allowing a person convicted in a foreign jurisdiction to challenge its validity. Under the bill, a foreign conviction will not constitute a ``conviction'' for purposes of the felon-in-possession laws, if the foreign conviction either (1) resulted from a denial of fundamental fairness that would violate due process if committed in the United States, or (2) if the conduct on which the foreign conviction was based would be legal if committed in the United States.

I expect that these circumstances will be fairly rare, but the bill does take them into account and will provide a complete defense to anyone with an invalid foreign conviction. And in any event, it is clear that we should not keep in place a policy in which the tail wags the dog. The current state of the law is that we essentially treat every foreign conviction as invalid. And that is simply illogical.

An example of why we need to fix this law occurred in 2001, when U.S. agents with bulletproof vests raided the New York hotel room of suspect Rohan Ingram. Ingram was found with 13 firearms and had an extensive criminal background, including at least 18 convictions for crimes such as assault and use of firearms during crimes. Law enforcement had flagged him as ``armed and dangerous.'' But because all of his convictions had occurred in foreign courts, his felon-in-possession charge was eventually thrown out of court. That is simply not a tolerable state of affairs in a post- 9/11 world.

Particularly in these times, America cannot continue to give foreign- convicted murderers, rapists and even terrorists an unlimited right to buy firearms in the United States, including even assault weapons that they might try to send to colleagues abroad, or use to develop a cache of weapons to use to kill our citizens within the United States. American citizens convicted of identical crimes at home are denied the ability to buy and possess such firearms, and the time has come to fix this loophole so that foreign convicts are placed in the same category.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we heard from a panel of top climate change experts from around the world earlier this year that global warming is a certainty and that most of the temperature increase is very likely due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Reducing America's dependence on oil should be one of our top priorities, but any policy that affects our production and consumption of fuel must also address the pressing problem of global warming. Because the oil used in the U.S. transportation sector accounts for about one-third of our nation's emissions of greenhouse gases, we must adopt a policy that curtails these emissions in an effective manner.

Today, along with Senator Harkin, I am introducing the National Low- Carbon Fuel Standard Act of 2007, which calls for a reduction in the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of the transportation fuels sold in the U.S. of 5 percent in 2015 and 10 percent in 2020. These reductions can play an important role in stemming the dangerous transformation of our climate.

According to one estimate, the National Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, NLCFS, would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by about 180 million metric tons in 2020. This is the equivalent of taking over 30 million cars off the road. If enacted in conjunction with the bill I introduced earlier this year to raise fuel efficiency standards, the NLCFS would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 530 million metric tons in 2020, the equivalent of taking over 50 million cars off the road.

The effect on our oil imports would also be dramatic. By making greater use of home-grown, renewable fuels, the NLCFS could reduce the annual consumption of gasoline derived from foreign oil imports by about 30 billion gallons in 2020.

The NLCFS will greatly expand the market for domestic renewable fuels such as corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel. By one estimate, the NLCFS will create a market for over 40 billion gallons of biofuels by 2020. To provide near-term demand certainty for renewable fuel producers, the bill expands the Renewable Fuel Standard established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to require 15 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2012.

The bill also contains a minimum requirement for fuels with lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions that are 50 and 75 percent lower than gasoline. This requirement signals to investors that there will be a market for advanced fuels with ultra-low carbon emissions, but still allows significant leeway for fuel blenders to choose the optimal mix of fuels to meet their overall greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Because the NLCFS will encourage a rapid expansion of our domestic renewable fuels production capacity, the bill contains provisions that protect sensitive areas like national wildlife refuges, national parks, old-growth forests, national grasslands, and national forests. The bill calls for an assessment of the impacts of the expansion compared to the business-as-usual scenario of continued reliance on petroleum-based transportation fuels, and the development of standards by 2012 to protect air, land, and water quality. This approach strikes a balance between the need to rapidly expand our domestic renewable fuel production capacity and the need to ensure sustainability and environmental protection. I urge my colleagues to support the National Low-Carbon Fuel Standard Act.

Mr. President, I rise today to support this bill addressing the need for a fourth permanent judgeship for the District of Hawaii.

Hawaii currently has four active District Court judges. However, if any of its four active judges either accepts senior status and retires, or becomes otherwise unable to serve, the District of Hawaii will not be able to replace that vacancy with another active judge. This will pose a problem for not only the active judges, as their workload will increase, but also for the public because an unfilled vacancy may have a disastrous effect on our court's caseloads. This bill ensures the continued efficiency of Hawaii's District court system.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share with you the importance of this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.