Wild Sky Wilderness Act of 2007

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senator Schumer in introducing the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation- Online Act of 2007, otherwise known as the SAFE Act. This bill would clarify and strengthen the requirement that has been a Federal law for almost a decade for electronic communications providers to report images of child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and then law enforcement. Simply put, this bill is designed reduce the sexual exploitation of our children, and punish those who cause them physical and emotional harm through sexual exploitation.

This bill would state specifically what information must be reported by electronic communications providers to NCMEC; impose higher penalties on companies that do not report child pornography; and require the Department of Justice to report on the number of investigation and convictions of sex offenders and purveyors of child pornography. In addition, the bill would make the use of the Internet for the exploitation of a child an aggravating factor to the underlying offense that would add 10 years imprisonment to a convicted offender's sentence.

Almost 20 years ago, President Reagan inaugurated the opening of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and called on the Center to ``wake up America and attack the crisis of child victimization.'' Today, thanks to the efforts of NCMEC and many others in the public and private sectors, America is more conscious of the dangers of child exploitation. Unfortunately, our children still face significant threats from those who see their innocence as an opportunity to do harm. The continuing victimization of our children is readily and all too painfully apparent in the resurgence of child pornography in our world via the Internet.

Technology has contributed to the greater distribution and availability,

and, some believe, desire for child pornography. Cyberspace is host to more than one million images of tens of thousands of children subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation, according to a report by the Texas State legislature. The same report estimated that the over 14 million pornography sites on the Internet house an estimated one million pornographic images of children with 200 new images being posted daily.

According to ECPAT International, a group dedicated to eliminating the sexual exploitation of children, the production and distribution of abuse images of children is estimated to be at least a 3 billion dollar business annually in the U.S. alone. Of all the child pornography images on the Internet, 55 percent are generated from the United States, according to the same group, but these images are also produced around the world.

Just today, the Associated Press reported that Austrian authorities uncovered a major international child pornography ring involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, including over 600 in the United States, who paid to view videos of young children being sexually abused. According to authorities, the children shown in the videos were under the age of 14 and could be heard screaming in fear.

This investigation would not have happened without the good work of an employee of a Vienna-based Internet file hosting service who noticed the pornographic material during a routine check and then approached authorities. The employee blocked access to the videos while recording the I.P. addresses of people who continued to try to download the material, and gave the details to authorities. Within a 24-hour period, investigators recorded more than 8,000 hits from 2,361 computer I.P. addresses in 77 countries ranging from Algeria to South Africa.

The Federal Government already has a system in place for electronic communications providers to report these images to NCMEC. The Center is directed by law to relay that information to local, State and Federal law enforcement agencies. This reporting system has been useful, but it is in need of several vital improvements.

Today, Federal law requires electronic communication service providers to report child pornography they discover to NCMEC through the CyberTipline, but the current reporting system does not specify exactly what information should be reported. This failure to set forth specific reporting requirements makes the current statute both difficult to comply with and tough to enforce. This omission may have led to less effective prosecution of child pornographers. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing I chaired last September, NCMEC testified that, ``because there are no guidelines for the contents of these reports, some [companies] do not send customer information that allows NCMEC to identify a law enforcement jurisdiction. So potentially valuable investigative leads are left to sit in the CyberTipline database with no action taken.'' This is unacceptable.

This bill would address the problem by requiring that reporting companies convey a defined set of information to the Center, which is in large part the information that is provided to NCMEC today by the nation's leading Internet service providers. Among other things, the bill would require electronic communications providers to report specific information about any individual involved in producing, distributing, or receiving child pornography. In addition, it would require reporting companies to provide NCMEC with the geographic location of the involved individual such as the individual's physical address and the IP address from which the individual connected to the Internet.

To ensure that law enforcement officials have better odds of prosecuting involved individuals, the bill would also require online service providers to preserve all data that they report to NCMEC for at least 180 days. The bill would help to ensure greater compliance with the child pornography reporting requirements under Federal law by increasing the penalties three-fold for knowing failure to report child pornography to NCMEC. It would also move the reporting requirement from title 42, which relates to the public's health and welfare, to title 18, our Federal criminal code. This is to underscore that a breach of the reporting obligations constitutes a violation of criminal law. In addition, the legislation would eliminate the legal liability of online service providers for actions taken to comply with the child pornography reporting requirements.

The goal of this legislation, is to ensure more thorough reporting of child pornography to NCMEC. I expect that more and better information provided to the Center will lead to a greater number of prosecutions and enhanced protection of our children. However, let me stress that this bill does not require surveillance by electronic communications providers or require that they monitor the content of any communication. The legislation also does not require electronic communications providers to affirmatively seek out child pornography. Rather, it requires online service providers to report child pornography when they become aware of it, either through a report from a subscriber or user, or through a discovery of the material by an employee. As a result, the reporting requirement would protect children while not imposing a financial or administrative burden on online service providers.

To emphasize the heinous nature of these crimes, this bill would make the use of the Internet in the commission of a crime of child exploitation an aggravating factor that would add 10 years to the offender's sentence. The Internet is likely the greatest invention of the 21st century; however, it has also allowed these children to be victimized again and again as these images are widely distributed via the Internet. The fight to protect our children from exploitation has moved from the playground to the Internet, and we must update our laws to reflect this reality.

To address the international nature of child pornography, the bill would permit NCMEC to share reports with foreign law enforcement agencies, subject to approval by the Department of Justice. In addition, the legislation would state the sense of Congress that the executive branch should make child pornography a priority when engaging in negotiations or talks with foreign countries.

The bill would authorize $25 million for our Nation's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, which is identical to the amount requested by the Administration in its FY 2008 budget. NCMEC, the National Sheriffs Association, and others believe that such funding would significantly improve the efforts of local, State and Federal law enforcement officials dedicated to identifying and prosecuting those who use the Internet to prey upon our Nation's children.

Lastly, in order to aid law enforcement, the bill would reiterate the position of the Administration that all suppliers of web site domain names should investigate and correct inaccurate data regarding registered domain names so that law enforcement can more easily locate the hosts of such vile pictures of children. To aid Congress in understanding the need for more resources or legislation to combat the proliferation and distribution of child pornography, the bill would require the Department of Justice to report on the number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions of crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children.

This is the second bill Senator Schumer and I have introduced this session to protect our nation's children. Last month, we introduced the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual-Predators Act of 2007, known as the KIDS Act, which would establish a database of e-mail addresses and other Internet identifying information of convicted sex offenders. The database information would then be available to commercial social networking sites for the purpose of screening their sites' to ensure convicted sex offender are not using the site to prey on children.

Protecting our children is a top priority for all members of Congress. I look forward to working with my colleagues to eradicate the victimization and exploitation of our children, the most innocent members of society, by enacting the KIDS Act and the SAFE Act.

Mr. President, today I will introduce the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007.

Ending racial profiling in America has been a priority for me for many years. I worked with the senior Senator from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, back in 1999 on a bill to collect statistics on traffic stops, which is where the problem of racial profiling was first revealed. Many studies from around the country now confirm that racial profiling is indeed a real problem that wastes police resources and diminishes trust between police departments and the communities they protect.

In 2001, in his first State of the Union address, President Bush told the American people that ``racial profiling is wrong and we will end it in America.'' He asked the Attorney General to implement a policy to end racial profiling. The Department of Justice released a Fact Sheet and Policy Guidance addressing racial profiling in 2003, stating that racial profiling is wrong and ineffective and perpetuates negative racial stereotypes in our country. Though these guidelines are helpful, they do not end racial profiling and they do not have the force of law. Unfortunately, more than 6 years after the President's promise to the country, we have not yet ended racial profiling in this country.

The End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 will do what the President promised; it will help America achieve the goal of bringing an end to racial profiling. This bill bans racial profiling and requires Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers to take steps to end this practice.

Racial profiling is the practice by which some law enforcement agents treat differently African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and others simply because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, or perceived religion. I have the utmost respect for law enforcement agents, and I believe that most of them do not engage in this practice. Nonetheless, reports in States from New Jersey to Florida, and Maryland to Texas all show that African Americans, Hispanics, and members of other minority groups were stopped by some police far more often than their share of the population and the crime rates for those racial categories.

Passing this bill is even more urgent after 9/11, as we have seen racial profiling used against Arab and Muslim Americans or Americans perceived to be Arab or Muslim. The 9/11 attacks were horrific, and I share the determination of many Americans that finding those responsible and preventing future attacks should be this Nation's top priority. This is a challenge that our country can and must meet. But to do that we need improved intelligence and law enforcement. Making assumptions based on racial, ethnic, or religious stereotypes will not protect our nation from crime or from future terrorist attacks.

A report released in May by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, covering 2005 data, found that while an African American person is now almost equally likely to be stopped as a white person, he or she is more than two and a half times more likely to be searched, more than twice as likely to be arrested, and more than three and a half times more likely to experience the use of force. Yet, according to studies from multiple police jurisdictions, these encounters with law enforcement are less likely to reveal criminal activity on the part of African Americans than whites. The flagrancy of this flawed and irrational practice has led Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree to observe, ``If I'm dressed in a knit cap and hooded jacket, I'm probable cause.''

The disparities outlined above, which also apply to other ethnic groups, have led the International Association of Chiefs of Police to call for an end to racial profiling. In addition, police departments around the country have independently developed programs and policies to prevent racial profiling and comply with the Department of Justice's policy guidance. In my own State of Wisconsin, law enforcement officials have taken steps to train police officers, improve academy training, establish model policies prohibiting racial profiling, and improve relations with our State's diverse communities. I applaud the efforts of Wisconsin law enforcement. This is excellent progress and shows widespread recognition that racial profiling harms our society. But like the DOJ policy guidance, local programs don't have the force of law behind them. The Federal government must step up, as President Bush promised. It must play a vital role in protecting civil rights and acting as a model for State and local law enforcement.

Now, perhaps more than ever before, our Nation cannot afford to waste precious law enforcement resources or alienate Americans by tolerating discriminatory practices. The mass detention of hundreds of Middle Eastern and Arab men on minor violations after 9/11, for example, resulted in not a single terrorism charge. These detentions did, however, shatter the lives of many people with no connection to terrorism whatsoever through lengthy disappearances, detentions, and deportations.

Similarly, when the Federal Government required the registration of individuals from Arab or Muslim countries in 2002, between 500 and 1,000 registrants who voluntarily complied were detained in the Los Angeles/Orange County area alone. Such heavy-handed tactics do not help us in fighting terrorism--they shut off dialogue and make good people unwilling to risk interaction with their Government. Treating sympathetic communities as suspicious ones is counterproductive, and it is wrong.

It is past time for Congress and the President to enact comprehensive Federal legislation that will end racial profiling once and for all. In clear language, the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 bans racial profiling. It defines racial profiling in terms that are consistent with the Department of Justice's Policy Guidance. But this bill does more than prohibit and define racial profiling--it gives law enforcement agencies and officers the tools necessary to end the harmful practice. For that reason, the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 is a pro-law enforcement bill.

This bill would allow the Justice Department or individuals to enforce the prohibition by filing a suit for injunctive relief. The bill would also require Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to adopt policies prohibiting racial profiling, implement effective complaint procedures or create independent auditor programs, implement disciplinary procedures for officers who engage in the practice, and collect data on routine and spontaneous investigatory activities. In addition, it requires the Attorney General to report to Congress so Congress and the American people can monitor whether the steps outlined in the bill to prevent and end racial profiling have been effective.

This bill also authorizes the Attorney General to provide incentive grants to help law enforcement comply with the ban on racial profiling, including funds to conduct training of police officers or purchase in- car video cameras.

Like the bill I introduced in 2005, this year's bill contains a significant improvement over previous versions. In some early proposals, DOJ grants for State and local law enforcement agencies were tied to the agency having some kind of procedure for handling complaints of racial profiling. At the suggestion of experts in the field, the bill now requires law enforcement agencies to adopt either an administrative complaint procedure or an independent auditor program to be eligible for DOJ grants. The Attorney General must promulgate regulations that set out the types of procedures and audit programs that will be sufficient. We believe that the independent auditor option will be preferable for many local law enforcement agencies, and such programs have proven to be an effective way to discourage racial profiling. Also, the Attorney General is required to conduct a 2-year demonstration project to help law enforcement agencies with data collection.

Let me emphasize that local, State, and Federal law enforcement agents play a vital role in protecting the public from crime and protecting the Nation from terrorism. The vast majority of law enforcement agents nationwide discharge their duties professionally and without bias and we are all indebted to them for their courage and dedication. This bill should not be misinterpreted as a criticism of those who

put their lives on the line for the rest of us each and every day. Rather, it is a statement that the use of race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin in deciding which persons should be subject to traffic stops, stops and frisks, questioning, searches, and seizures is wrong and ineffective, except where there is specific information linking persons of a particular race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin to a crime.

The provisions in this bill will help restore the trust and confidence of the communities that our law enforcement have pledged to serve and protect. That confidence is crucial to our success in stopping crime and in stopping terrorism. The End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 is good for law enforcement and good for America.

I urge the President to make good on his pledge to end racial profiling, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today with my colleague Senator Gordon Smith to introduce the Global Pediatric HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Act. Millions across the world recently observed the 20th World AIDS Day on December 1, a day of mourning, solidarity, and hope: mourning for the more than 25 million killed already in the AIDS pandemic; solidarity with the 33.2 million living with HIV today; and hope that this plague will be conquered in our time--with an achievable goal of realizing the birth of an HIV-free generation.

In the U.S., we have reached a point where a child living with HIV/ AIDS no longer faces certain death. Thanks to anti-retroviral, ARV, therapy, many children born infected with HIV/AIDS now have the opportunity to grow up healthy. However, long-term survival is a dream that eludes most of the 2.5 million HIV-infected children around the world.

Of the more than 2.5 million new HIV infections in 2007, more than 420,000 were in children. But while children account for almost 16 percent of all new HIV infections, they make up only 9 percent of those on treatment under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR. Without proper care and treatment, half of these newly-infected children will die before their second birthday and 75 percent will die before their fifth.

Every day, approximately 1,100 children across the globe are infected with HIV, the vast majority through mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, labor or delivery or soon after through breastfeeding. Approximately 90 percent of these infections occur in Africa. With no medical intervention, HIV-positive mothers have a 25 to 30 percent chance of passing the virus to their babies during pregnancy and childbirth. Yet, a single dose of an ARV drug given once to the mother at the onset of labor and once to the baby during the first three days of life reduces transmission of HIV by approximately 50 percent. Providing the full range of interventions, as is the standard of care in the U.S., can further reduce the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to as little as 2 percent. However, according to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, less than 10 percent of pregnant women with HIV in resource-poor countries have access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission, PMTCT, services.

Significant barriers to PMTCT and the equal care and treatment of HIV-infected children continue to exist. Among the barriers to PMTCT services is their poor integration into the healthcare system, the lack of infrastructure and poor quality health facilities, low utilization of pre-natal services, and a high percentage of unattended at-home births. Because children are not just small adults, providing care and treatment presents special challenges such as limited access to reliable HIV testing for the youngest children, a shortage of providers trained in delivering pediatric care, weak linkages between services to prevent mother-to-child transmission and care and treatment programs, and the need for additional, low-cost formulations of HIV/AIDS medications.

The unfortunate reality of current HIV/AIDS treatment programs is that they will become unsustainable in the long-term unless the number of new HIV infections is reduced globally. The importance of PMTCT for the prevention of the spread of HIV cannot be overstated. According to UNAIDS, prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission requires a comprehensive package of services that includes preventing primary HIV infection in

women, preventing unintended pregnancies in women with HIV infection, preventing transmission from HIV-infected pregnant women to their infants, and providing care, treatment and support for HIV-infected women and their families. A 2003 study found that by adding family planning through PMTCT services in 14 high prevalence countries, more than 150,000 unintended pregnancies were averted, child infections averted nearly doubled, and child deaths averted nearly quadrupled. Studies also show that current levels of contraceptive use in sub- Saharan Africa are already preventing an estimated 22 percent of HIV- positive births.

For many pregnant mothers, PMTCT services may be the only entry point for health care services for themselves and their families. That is why it is essential that PMTCT services be integrated with prevention, care and treatment services. With adequate integration of those services and strategies to ensure successful follow-up and continuity of care, we can significantly improve the outcomes for HIV-affected women and families.

The legislation I am introducing today, the Global Pediatric HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Act, will help prevent thousands of new pediatric HIV infections in the years to come and improve the treatment of children living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world. The legislation will bring our international HIV/AIDS efforts in line with the infection rate of children, by establishing a target that, within 5 years, 15 percent of those receiving care and treatment under PEPFAR should be children.

The legislation establishes another 5-year target to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In those countries most affected, 80 percent of pregnant women should receive HIV counseling and testing, with all those testing positive receiving anti-retroviral medication for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Under the legislation, the U.S. comprehensive, 5-year global strategy to combat global HIV/AIDS must also integrate prevention, care and treatment with prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs, as soon as feasible and consistent with the national government policies of the foreign countries of PEPFAR countries in order to improve outcomes for HIV-affected women and families and to promote follow-up and continuity of care.

Lastly, the legislation authorizes the creation of a Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Expert Panel to provide an objective review of PMTCT activities funded under PEPFAR and to provide recommendations to the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator for scale- up of mother-to-child transmission prevention services under PEPFAR in order to reach the newly-established target for PTMCT. The Panel consists of no more than 15 members, to be appointed by the coordinator, and will terminate once it submits its report containing recommendations, findings and conclusions to the coordinator, Congress, and is made public.

To be clear, this legislation does not establish any earmarks within PEPFAR. It does not dictate how much money should be spent on specific activities. I, for one, oppose the current policy under PEPFAR which dictates that one-third of all prevention funds be reserved for abstinence-until-marriage programs, to the detriment of other more effective programs that are producing better results. Certainly abstinence programs have a role to play in PEPFAR, but they should not draw funding away from other, more effective programs. Therefore, it is my hope that Congress does away with that earmark when it reauthorizes PEPFAR, and instead allows for flexibility within PEPFAR.

Instead, the legislation sets 5-year targets that are focused on those receiving services without specifying how much money any given country should spend on specific services to reach the target. I believe this approach is consistent with the April 2007 Institute of Medicine report on PEPFAR which called on Congress to replace arbitrary budget directives with specific targets accounting for the unique epidemics in specific countries, as well as existing available resources. Removal of budget restrictions and the implementation of program targets, such as those authorized under this legislation, would allow local providers to invest in the services and activities most needed to achieve national goals for prevention, care, and treatment.

The struggle against this disease continues on all fronts. Just recently, a report showed that right here in Washington, D.C., the city is in the grip of a ``modern epidemic,'' with one in 20 residents HIV- infected, a rate ten times the national average. In my own State of Connecticut, the need for care and treatment services is at an all time high, while the funding to meet this increased need has declined.

As we take stock of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and our progress against it, we must bear in mind the special vulnerability of the world's children. With this legislation we can increase the number of children receiving care and treatment under PEPFAR and expand access to PMTCT services in order to prevent thousands of new pediatric HIV infections.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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

Mr. President, I am here today to introduce, along with Senator Kohl, the Defined Contribution Fee Disclosure Act. This legislation is designed to address what may seem at first glance like a small issue, but in fact has a dramatic impact on the retirement security of millions of Americans who have 401(k) plans. Not many people realize this, but the Employee Retirement Income Security act, ERISA, does not require plan sponsors to provide participants with information on the level of fees that participants are charged by the various plans they have to choose between.

The number of people participating in defined contribution plans grows every year, and unfortunately, these plans are a bigger part of their nest egg as employers freeze their defined benefit plans. One of the key challenges as we move away from guaranteed benefits is making sure people have all the relevant information to help them decide which plan will best serve their needs. Recently, AARP conducted a survey in which it asked individuals with 401(k) plans if they even knew what they paid each year in fees. Only 17 percent of people asked said that they know what their fee levels were.

This is far from an academic matter. In fact, this could be disastrous for folks when they reach retirement. One person--who wishes to remain anonymous--recently shared with me a story that highlights what's at stake. She noticed one day that her 401(k) wasn't actually earning anything at all. After some examination, she found that the agent who set up the plan for the company received a fee of 2 percent annually for the first five years, reduced to .25 percent after that, paid by the employees and not the company. The investment firm charged a fee of 1.25 percent which they said was standard for companies with under $1 million in their 401ks. So, last year, she was paying 3.25 percent in fees and earning less than 4 percent from her money market fund. She didn't have a clue about the fees until she inquired after she realized she wasn't making any money on the fund.

So looking back at this AARP survey, of those 17 percent who said they knew what their fees were, 33 percent thought they weren't being charged any fees at all. Some companies will even tell people they are not being charged fees. While it is true that in some cases, employers pay fees, that is hardly the norm. And investment managers don't do their jobs for charity. These fees that people don't know about can have a big effect on what they end up with at retirement.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently estimated that a 45 year old with $20,000 in his 401(k) would have $70,555 at age 65 for his retirement, assuming he was getting a 6.5 percent return and only paying 0.5 percent in fees. But that figure decreases dramatically if the fees are increased by just a single percentage point, to 1.5 percent. At that figure the same individual, investing the same amount of money, would have only $58,400 for his retirement, or more than $12,000 less.

AARP took the GAO assumptions and created some additional examples. Consider this case: if a 35 year old invested $20,000 in a 401(k) plan over 30 years, paying 0.5 percent in fees, that individual would have $132,287 for retirement. But increase the fees to 1.5 percent, and the amount available for retirement is only $99,679--that is a 25 percent reduction in the account balance. Even if the fee only increased from 0.5 percent to 1 percent, the value of the retirement account would be reduced by $17,417, or a little over 13 percent over the 30-year period.

If you awoke one day to find that your bank account, or your retirement account, had declined in value by 25 percent, you would understandably be alarmed, and you would act quickly to fix the problem. But with high 401(k) fees, the reduction in benefits isn't immediately obvious. It happens slowly, over time, and often flies under people's radar screens because they are not told the level of fees they are paying, or they don't understand that some 401(k) plans charge far lower fees for providing the same amount of services. It is that problem--that information gap--that the Defined Contribution Fee Disclosure Act is designed to fix.

My bill would provide participants with easily understandable information about the fees that they are paying. This information will be provided to them before they pick which plans they want to invest in, and again, regularly, on their quarterly statements.

In addition, this bill does something even more important: it would require companies to disclose more information to plan sponsors. Right now, if you provide your workers with a 401(k) plan, you are required to act prudently and in their sole interest in your fiduciary duties. However, there are hidden fees that are sometimes not disclosed even to plan sponsors, and sometimes those sponsors also are not told about business arrangements between service providers to steer participants into investment options in which they have a stake, a classic conflict of interest.

To fix this, the bill would require 401(k) plan providers to disclose all fees and relationships between service providers to the people selecting the plan a company will ultimately offer. The bottom line is that we want to create a situation where companies are picking several good options for their employees that all have decent reliable returns and fair fees.

One thing my bill does not do is set a limit on fees that can be charged. As I have noted, high fees can make a real difference in account balances at retirement, but so can high returns, in a more positive direction, obviously. Sometimes, it is well worth paying higher fees if a small increase in fees will have a big effect on returns. In addition, some people want to purchase insurance products so that every month, they are buying a more secure piece of retirement. That is just fine, and my bill doesn't touch that. People who fully understand the real cost of a guaranteed return at retirement are the kind of people who appreciate, and will push for, more defined benefit plans. But they can't do that if they don't know what it costs.

The bottom line is that people need to be investing more, and more confidently, in the 401(k) plans they are being offered. This is especially critical in a world where defined benefit plans are increasingly being slashed and frozen. For a growing number of workers, their only source of retirement income is their 401(k).

Congress needs to focus more squarely on how we get workers to participate in the plans they have available, and what we can do to make sure the savings they grow in them are adequate. When people know they are being given all the facts in an easy-to-understand manner, they are more likely to contribute. And when the fiduciaries who are supposed to be looking out for them make sure all of their

options are good, they end up saving more money at the end of the day.

This bill is a win for companies who want to provide their workers with a secure retirement, it is a win for 401(k) providers who have been providing reasonable fees all along, and it is a win for every American who has one of these plans. My colleagues and I introducing this measure have worked with interested parties on every side of this issue to make sure we're taking into account everyone's views. We also intend to work closely with the Department of Labor on their proposed regulations on this issue. While we believe that Congress has an obligation to address this issue, if we can all work together to develop regulations that address this issue in a way that will truly help participants and beneficiaries get a good deal, I am certainly not opposed to getting this done administratively. I strongly encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this measure.

Mr. President, last year, Congress quietly made it easier for this

President or any President to declare martial law. That's right: In legislation added at the Administration's request to last year's massive Defense Authorization Bill, it has now become easier to bypass longtime posse comitatus restrictions that prevent the Federal Government's use of the military, including a federalized National Guard, to perform domestic law enforcement duties. That change runs counter to our founding principles, to the optimal use of our superb National Guard here at home, and to whatever sensible reforms are needed to improve our Nation's emergency response capabilities.

Today Senator Bond and I are introducing legislation to repeal these unwarranted and perilous changes, which were made to a little-known law called the Insurrection Act. Our amendment replaces every word, comma, and period from the original act and returns it to its original form. Repealing this ill-considered change in the Insurrection Act would allow Congress to have a more orderly, thoughtful, open and consultative discussion on whether such sensitive and massive powers should be changed, if at all. It is difficult to see how any Senator could disagree with the advisability of having a more transparent and thoughtful approach to this sensitive issue.

The Insurrection Act is a Reconstruction-era law that provides the major exemption from posse comitatus--the legal doctrine that bars the use of the military for law enforcement directed at the American people here at home. The Insurrection Act is designed to ensure that Federal laws are enforced and to ensure that American citizens' basic constitutional rights are respected and protected. When the Insurrection Act is invoked, the President can--without the consent of the respective governors--federalize the National Guard and use it, along with the entire military, to carry out law enforcement duties. Treading as this does across basic constitutional issues relating to separation of power and to state and local sovereignty, this is a sweeping grant of authority to the President. Because the use of the military for domestic law enforcement is so sensitive an issue, the Act has been invoked only sparingly since it was enacted.

The primary reason that the law has been invoked so rarely is that there has been an inherent tension in the way it was crafted. Before it was changed last year, the law was purposefully ambiguous about when the President could invoke the Act in cases beyond a clear insurrection or when a state clearly violated Federal law in its actions. Because there was this useful ambiguity--a constructive friction in the law--a President until now would have to use the power with great caution, and with the impetus for appropriate consultation.

Yet by the time committee work was completed in the House and the Senate on the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Authorization Bill, the law had been changed and that useful ambiguity had vanished. In addition to the cases of insurrection, the Act can now be invoked to restore public order after a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, or--and this is extremely broad--``other condition.'' Restoring public order has suddenly become an entirely new purpose for the Insurrection Act. And, as if to underscore this fundamental change, the conference committee changed the name of the Act from ``Insurrection'' to ``Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order.''

This significant change was made without consulting the Nation's Governors, mayors, sheriffs, or the National Guard Adjutants General. It was made without consulting the other relevant policy committees in the Senate and the House. It was merely slipped in, at the Administration's request, as rider to a bill that was hundreds of pages long. And when the Nation's Governors learned of the change and expressed their strong opposition, they were ignored, and this facilitation of presidential ability to federalize the National Guard-- even over the objections of the Nation's Governors--remained in the bill that was signed into law by President Bush.

Now this President and future Presidents can more easily take control of the National Guard and use our entire military apparatus for law enforcement at home. In a situation like another Katrina or even a more contained incident like a terrorist incident, the President will be able to bring in Federal troops and take away control from the Governors, the Emergency Managers, the Sheriffs, and the State Adjutants General who know their communities best and are responsible for responding.

What we should be doing instead is buttressing the response abilities of these local and State officials. We should ensure every State has a state-of-the-art emergency operations center, that our first responders have the best equipment and training, and that the National Guard has adequate equipment and available people at home to provide support. Any Federal assets--military or otherwise--that might come into a State should be in a supporting and not commanding role. The local officials who know their communities are in the best positions to control the situation, not the President or the military.

Some have argued that the changes made were only a clarification of existing law or that the Insurrection Act already gave the power to the President to use the military for law enforcement in an emergency. I strongly disagree with that explanation, and so do the Governors, Adjutants General, and a host of other officials. They see it, as Senator Bond and I see it, as a tangible and troubling expansion of the President's powers and a parallel reduction in State sovereignty. But if some believe the original Act already gave the President this expansive power, they should not object to bringing the law back to its original form.

Repeal of the recent changes to the Insurrection Act will help ensure that our National Guard and larger emergency response capabilities remain strong. Repeal is crucial to ensuring that our Governors and local officials remain in control and that they are consulted when anyone considers overriding their authority. Repeal is simply essential to ensuring the military is not used in a way that offends and endangers some of our more cherished values and liberties.

We enter this effort with the strong support of Governors and of the National Guard community, including the National Governors Association, the National Guard Association, the Adjutants General Association, and the Enlisted Association of the National Guard. I ask unanimous consent that support letters from the National Governors Association, the Adjutants General Association, and the Enlisted Association of the National Guard be printed at this point in the Record.

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

Last year's Insurrection Act rider reflects the general lack of close oversight that has taken a toll on our system of government. I hope the days of rubberstamping are over, and I hope the Senate will quickly remedy this situation by considering and passing the bill that we introduce today.