Floor Statements

I express my gratitude to my friend from Kentucky for his eloquent description of my less than eloquent remarks. I appreciate that.

Mr. President, I may not use all of my 20 minutes. I have been talking at some length this afternoon, although it is my custom to do so. I might point out, for those who are interested, this is not a filibuster. I am prepared to vote on this amendment right now. I was prepared to vote on it an hour and a half ago, but there are those who want to analyze what I am proposing.

I suppose it is more than analysis that is occurring. They are trying to figure out how to defeat it, and I regret that because I do not think it is complicated. I think it is straightforward. I think it makes sense.

I would not be offering this if this was not a problem sweeping across the country. Concerns are being expressed everywhere by Americans of varying incomes and positions. I know in my own State I have had meetings with people I could not put in the same town or county together a year ago who are coming to us now and saying, would you please do something here. I am talking about my chambers of commerce.

I had a meeting last week at a Teamsters Local that included the chambers of commerce, the Manufacturers Association, the International Association of Machinists and Teamsters. I do not need to remind the Chair what a unique circumstance that is when a crowd like that gets together--by the way, all asking me to do the same thing.

They were not just asking me but asking us what we were going to do, because they have watched the alarming decline of manufacturing jobs in the country, and it seems to be accelerating at a dramatic pace.

Also the problem they foresee, and I agree with them on this outsourcing of jobs, which is very appealing, and I understand it from a corporate standpoint, when one sees their competitors, neighbors, and businesses are outsourcing and cutting their budgets by huge amounts because they can hire someone for $7 a day or $2 an hour, as opposed to paying them $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 a year, then the lure is remarkable.

As we know, in fact, the Indian government is providing tremendous incentives to lure call centers, providing corporations with tax exemptions and building western-style technology parks fitted with telecom infrastructures.

What are we doing? Are we doing anything to try and compete with that or are we just saying that is the way the world is and we better get used to it because that is what is going to happen for the foreseeable future, and maybe something will come along that will all of a sudden fill this vacuum, that will restore these manufacturing jobs or information technology and the like?

I can only hope that would be the case because in the absence of doing anything else, we are going to find a continuing decline in this area.

I worry about this from the standpoint of national security. In my State, I have over 5,000 small manufacturers. I have major corporations as well. I probably have more large Fortune 500 corporations in my State than any other State in the country on a per-capita basis, given the size of my State. My State is the home of major corporations. Many of them are major defense contractors, and those 5,000 small manufacturers in many cases are

suppliers of very sophisticated technologies for my defense contractors and others who produce sophisticated products.

I do not need to tell the Presiding Officer, we have lost 35,000 jobs now in 36 months in this area. When those are lost, they are not reconstituted. Once they are gone offshore, the idea that you are going to rebuild that, my experience is--and I am prepared to listen to others who want to contradict me--I think it is unlikely.

So the question I have to ask, as we stand here and receive this news almost on a daily basis, is there not some danger in losing this manufacturing capability for a time in the 21st century when we may find ourselves confronted with the fact these jobs we gave away are now being held by people in countries that do not agree with us on certain matters, and all of a sudden they do not want to supply us with certain component parts that may be necessary to build jet engines, submarines, Black Hawk helicopters or something else my State or the State of Tennessee or some other part of the country produces?

We are watching this tremendous outflow occurring. The Presiding Officer was the former Secretary of Education, as I pointed out earlier, and again I understand the budget constraints. This is a very difficult time. Putting aside whether one agrees or disagrees on how we got to this situation, we have a terrible fiscal situation on our hands and yet even in the area of job training and assistance we are wiping out the manufacturing extension partnerships; we are cutting the SBA by millions of dollars; we are cutting vocational education by $316 million; we are cutting the Workforce Investment Act by $448 million.

We are not only not trying to compete with what India is doing on its creation of call centers, by offering tax incentives for businesses to stay here, we are even cutting back in the area that might offer some hope to someone in this area who is losing their job because it has been outsourced some place.

On every front, we seem to have nothing to say to this issue right now, except this is the way life is; get over it, America. You just have to live with this. This is the way the world is going to be.

I do not think it has to be that way. I think we can do better. I think that is what the American people ask us when we come here--try to do better.

I have to look in the eyes of my own child, an infant, and I wonder what kind of a century she is going to grow up in. She will look back someday and ask herself, or hopefully me, what did you do back at the turn of this century when you knew this was going on, when you saw thousands of jobs leaving our country, when you saw manufacturing declining, what did you do? This was not some sneak attack. You were all aware of it. Your local papers wrote about it every day. Did you offer any ideas and suggestions on how we might compete in a global marketplace--because we should, we must--while simultaneously not losing the human investments, the human capital, that are critical for any successful society to succeed? What did you do?

I am afraid if we go back and she looks at what we are doing at the outset of this century, then she would be startled to learn we are cutting back in the areas that might provide some educational opportunity for people in vocational areas, that we had nothing really to say to a hemorrhaging of jobs going out of the country, and that we were basically silent except to bemoan the fact that 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in 36 months disappeared in the country. And there is every indication those numbers are going to increase, and the impact on other sectors of our economy will be very profoundly affected.

I mentioned already we are now being told the outsourcing of American jobs will probably exceed 3 million, close to 4 million over the next decade, unabated. That is a loss of $136 billion to $140 billion in salaries and wages in the United States, not to mention the human and societal impact.

So I do not apologize to my colleagues for feeling as strongly as I do about this. I am a free trader. I voted for NAFTA. I thought it was the right thing to do. I voted to give fast track authority. I voted for the Jordanian agreements and others. I have opposed some as well. I have not been exclusively for them, but I believe in free and fair trade. I also believe a self-respecting nation cannot allow its human capital intelligence to be lost without standing up and trying to do something about it.

The subject matter of this amendment very simply says at this juncture, look, let's stop. At least when it comes to the expenditure of Federal taxpayer money, those dollars ought not to be used to pay for outsourcing jobs until we figure out a better way to answer this problem. I do not think that is complicated.

Now, I gather K Street in town is going ballistic at this very hour because obviously major corporations, 400 out of 1,000 top ones in the country, are doing it. Forty of fifty States are doing it right now. So they want to continue doing it because it is a great saver of money if you are focused on quarterly reports.

That is their job on K Street and that is their job in the corporate board rooms, to worry quarter by quarter by quarter. I don't think that is right, but that is what they do. Thank the Lord there are many corporations who do think longer than that.

Our job is not to think in quarters, not to be unmindful that corporations should and must. But our obligation is to have a broader, deeper vision; to think about longer term effects of decisions we make, no matter how attractive and how appealing they may be to someone who has to explain to a group of shareholders why it is that they have or have not exceeded last quarter's profit margins--bottom line.

Certainly outsourcing will help do that on any given day. If you can hire someone for a couple of bucks and lay off that person in Connecticut, Tennessee, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you are going to save money, I promise you. Quarterly reports are going to look great.

But my question is, What does America look like? What does our Nation look like in the coming generation? In fact, if we lose these jobs, which are critical to our own well-being and success, if we lose manufacturing that we cannot replace, if we squander the ability to produce vital components and parts that are essential to contribute to our national defense structure, what does my country look like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the line?

That is the question I am asking. That is why I am offering this amendment, to see if we cannot at least step up and say when it comes to the taxpayer's dime, that we should not be taking your tax dollar and subsidizing this outsourcing of jobs. If a private company, with its own money, wants to do it, that is their business. I regret it, but if they want to do it they have a right to do it. I think we ought to have tax incentives to discourage them one way or the other, but at the end of the day if they want to do it, they ought to be given the right to do it. I can't stop that. That is their dime.

But on the taxpayer's dime, I think we ought to say something else. What my amendment does is say you cannot use that dime. You cannot use that dime to lay off somebody and hire someone 14 time zones away to do a job that a hard-working American ought to be able to hold and do in order to provide for their family.

I don't think that is outrageous. I don't think that is isolationist or protectionist. I think that is standing up for the people of this country who expect nothing less from those of us who represent them in this Chamber. That is why I am offering this amendment. My hope is tomorrow morning we can get to it and vote on it and dispose of it one way or the other. If you want to vote against it, vote against it. But I ask you to join with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, and others who have been a part of this effort, to say this is our way of saying to people out there we hear you.

We are not suggesting this amendment is perfect. I would be the last person to say that. I am sure it is not perfect. But at least it says to voters and to constituents out there who are worrying every day whether they are going to become one of those statistics, that we are going to try to do something about this, so you need to know your Government, your Congress is doing what it can to stop this.

Our obligation is not exclusively to them. We have obligations to others as

well, including those who serve and work in these corporations. I am not against them at all, but they are making their decisions in what they determine is in their best interests and the best interests of their shareholders. I respect that.

But I have a higher obligation. I have an obligation, not only to that shareholder but to the people who work for them as well. I respect those who only have to worry about the narrow constituency, but I wasn't elected by the people of Connecticut to come here and merely worry about that narrow constituency. I have another obligation. I serve in the Senate, not just a State legislature. When I am here and I vote and I cast ballots, they don't just affect the people who live in my State, that I represent; they are part of the 280 or 290 million people across this country.

I look at the 2.8 million who have lost their jobs in manufacturing, the close to 3 million who will lose their jobs to outsourcing in the coming days, maybe as many as 14 million, we are being told, over the next couple of years. I didn't dwell on this particular chart at this moment, but 14 million additional jobs are in danger of being shipped overseas. Those people want to know whether or not we have anything to say to them.

So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I don't know of another issue that is more important to the American public at this hour than this one. We have seen it all across the country in the last number of days. National news programs talk about it every single night and report nightly about corporations that are outsourcing more and more jobs.

The American people want to know what we have to say to them. So I regret we have not been able to vote on this earlier. I didn't intend to take this time. I was prepared to vote 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, but there are those who do not want to vote on this amendment right now. My hope is we will be able to do so first thing in the morning and say with a very loud, clear, and my hope is a unanimous voice that we stand with those who worry about whether America is squandering its wealth and its treasury, not just the treasury of dollars and cents but a far more important treasury, the human capital that is the American workforce.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I strongly support the extension of the assault weapons ban. I want to commend Senators Feinstein and Schumer for championing this important legislation for many years.

We need to close a number of loopholes in the current assault weapons ban that have allowed gun manufacturers to make minor design changes to evade the law. One gun maker in my State has skirted the ban by replacing the prohibited flash suppressor on one of its assault weapons with non-prohibited muzzle breaks or compensators, which ironically reduce ``muzzle climb'' during rapid firing.

The actual functional elements of this assault weapon, however, have remained the same. The gun still fires a high volume of bullets over a large area. Such loopholes need to be closed, and I am pleased to co- sponsor legislation authored by Senator Launtenberg to further strengthen the existing assault weapons ban.

The current assault weapons ban will expire in September. There are many powerful reasons why extending the assault weapons ban must be a top priority for the Congress this year.

First, assault weapon bans do work. According to the Department of Justice, the proportion of assault weapons traced to crimes has dropped by nearly two-thirds since 1995, the first year that the Federal ban went into effect.

Between 1988 and 1991, assault weapons accounted for nearly 8 percent of guns used in crimes. In 1995, it plummeted to 3.6 percent. In 2002, it dropped even further to 1.2 percent. The ban on assault weapons is therefore clearly making a difference in reducing crime and saving lives.

Second, assault weapons have a devastating impact on people's lives and on the safety of their communities. These aren't hunting weapons we are talking about. Nor are they for recreational or sporting use. We have heard it said before that one does not need an AK-47 or an Uzi for duck hunting.

Quite simply, assault weapons are weapons of war. They are designed with one purpose in mind--for slaughtering human beings over a wide area. They belong on a faraway battlefield, not on our Nation's streets. However one feels about the Second Amendment, assault weapons have no place in a civilized society.

If assault weapons end up in the wrong hands, the results can be horrific. The increased firepower of these weapons has a particularly devastating impact on its victims, who often suffer multiple gunshot wounds and severe penetrating trauma. It often takes longer for victims to recover from such injuries, placing significant burdens on scarce medical resources.

Law enforcement officers are particularly vulnerable to assault weapons fire, since they are on the front lines protecting our communities from those gangs, drug traffickers, and even terrorist groups who have made such firearms their weapons of choice. In the years leading up to the enactment of the Federal ban, assault weapons accounted for 8 percent of all guns traced to crime, although they comprised only 1 percent of privately owned guns in America.

Even with the Federal ban in place over the last decade, assault weapons have been implicated in the death of one in five police officers killed in the line of duty between 1998 and 2001. It is no coincidence then that numerous law enforcement organizations, including groups devoted to protecting children's rights and stopping domestic violence, support extending the ban on these deadly weapons.

In fact, it is really a matter of homeland security that these weapons must be taken out of the hands of criminals. A May 2003 editorial in The San Antonio Express News had it right when it said that just as it is a priority for allied officials in Iraq to get AK- 47s out of the hands of Iraqi civilians, Congress shouldn't let such military-type weapons back on the streets of American cities by failing to extend the assault weapons ban. If terrorists can turn a jet aircraft into instruments to kill Americans, does anyone think they would hesitate for even one second to use an assault weapon for the same purposes?

In addition to police officers being vulnerable to assault weapons, so are our children. These firearms were used to kill 5 children and wound 29 others in a Stockton, CA, schoolyard in 1989. The AK-47 used in this incident held a staggering 75 bullets. A TEC-9 assault weapon was also used in the 1999 killing of a teacher, 12 students, and the wounding of more than 20 others at Columbine High School.

Connecticut was the fourth State in the Nation to ban assault weapons, after California, New Jersey and Hawaii. The National Rifle Association challenged the ban in Connecticut State court and it was upheld as constitutional in 1994. Federal courts have upheld the constitutionality of the Federal ban on assault weapons as well. Extending the ban for another 10 years will save lives, prevent serious injuries and make our communities safer from the tragic consequences of gun violence. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

One more point, one of the most surprising things I have learned in this debate is that firearms, which are responsible for 29,000 deaths a year, are specifically exempt from regulation under the Consumer Product Safety Act.

Section 3(a)(1)(E) of the Act exempts firearms and ammunitions from the definition of ``consumer products.'' This provision was inserted into the Act in 1972 at the behest of the gun lobby. As a result, guns are among the only consumer products, along with tobacco, exempt from Federal health and safety regulations.

This fact is shocking. Even more shocking is the fact that firearms cause more deaths a year than the 15,000 consumer products regulated under the Act combined.

Other potentially dangerous products--from cars to lawnmowers to household products to medicines--are regulated to protect the health of the American public. The fact that guns are already specifically exempt from the oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is reason enough why we cannot afford to grant the firearm industry legal immunity.

Strangely enough, toy guns are more heavily regulated than real guns, despite the fact that toy guns do not kill or maim. There are over 140 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations that apply to toys, but only one paragraph devoted to guns, and that paragraph exempts guns from the Consumer Product Safety Act.

Under the Act, toy guns fall under the standard for toys. At least four types of Federal safety standards cover toys: if they have sharp edges and points, small parts, contain hazardous materials, and are flammable. The regulations even say that toy guns should have a bright orange tip at the end of the barrel to distinguish them from real guns.

The lack of Federal health and safety regulations for guns has a number of serious consequences. It means that there is no way to recall defective firearms. Guns that are manufactured poorly and pose a serious threat to gun owners and the public would remain in circulation, with the government essentially unable to do anything about it.

The lack of Federal regulation of firearms also means that there is no way to mandate the use of safety devices. And it means that there is no detailed data collection on deaths and injuries from guns.

Gun violence has a devastating impact on people's lives and their communities. The fact that toy guns are regulated and real guns are not makes little sense, and I urge the Senate to eventually rectify it.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, may I inquire, what sort of time--I want to get a few minutes in morning business, myself.

Mr. President, first, I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Arizona for their courtesies. I appreciate that very much.

Mr. President, I wish to address, if I may, the subject matter of Haiti and the events that have occurred there over the last several days, now going back a week or more, in that country, that beleaguered nation only a few hundred miles off the southern coast of Florida.

On Sunday morning, as we now all know, the democratically elected government, the President of Haiti, was forced out of office. The armed insurrection, led by former members of the disbanded Haitian Army, and its paramilitary wing called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide government to maintain public order, without assistance from the international community--international assistance that was consciously withheld, in my view.

President Aristide left Haiti on Sunday morning aboard an American aircraft. President Aristide reportedly has

gone into exile in the Central African Republic, where I am now being told he is not allowed to communicate with others outside of that country.

Members of the Black Caucus of the other body, and others who had an opportunity to speak with President Aristide yesterday, have publicly restated his claim that he was forcibly removed from Haiti by U.S. officials.

I quickly point out that Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have emphatically denied that charge. Such an allegation, if true, is extremely troubling and would be a gross violation of the laws of the U.S. and international law. Only time will tell. I presume there will be a thorough investigation to determine exactly what occurred from late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, regarding the departure and ouster of the President of Haiti, President Aristide.

Over the coming days, I believe an effort should be made to reconstruct what happened in the final 24 or 48 hours leading up to President Aristide's departure so we can resolve questions of the U.S. participation in the ouster of a democratically elected leader in this hemisphere.

Let's be clear that whether U.S. officials forcibly removed Aristide from Haiti, as he has charged, or he left voluntarily, as Secretary of Powell and others have stated, it is indisputable, based on everything we know, that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the United States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who are threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a voluntary decision to leave.

I will point out as well, if I can--and I know that international agreements are not always thought of as being terribly important in some people's minds. But in 1991, President Bush, the 41st President, along with other nations in this hemisphere, had signed the Santiago Declaration of 1991. That declaration, authored by the Organization of American States, said that any nation, democratically elected in this hemisphere, that seeks the help of others when they are threatened with an overthrow should be able to get that support.

Ten years later, the Inter-American Charter on Democracy was signed into law, a far more comprehensive proposal, again authored by the Organization of American States, the U.S. supporting. The present President Bush and our administration supported that. That charter on democracy stated that when asked for help by a democratically elected government being threatened with overthrow, we should respond.

President Aristide, a democratically elected President made that request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance, in fact we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for him to depart.

I cite those international agreements because we think of our Nation as being a nation of laws, not of men. These agreements either meant something or they didn't. The Santiago Declaration and the Inter- American Charter on Democracy, apparently both documents mean little or nothing when it comes to supporting democratically elected governments in this hemisphere--not ones that you necessarily like or agree with or find everything they do is in your interest, but we do adhere to the notion that democratically elected governments are what we support in this hemisphere.

When they are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity, in the very country they are now moving back into and threatened, of course, successfully the elected government of President Aristide, then I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these international documents signed only 3 years ago and 10 years ago.

There is no doubt, I add, that President Aristide has made significant mistakes during his 3 years in office--these last 3 years. He allowed his supporters to use violence as a means of controlling a growing opposition movement against his government. The Haitian police were ill trained and ill equipped to maintain public order in the face of violent demonstrations by progovernment and antigovernment activists. Poverty, desperation, and opportunism led to wide government corruption.

President Aristide, in my view, must assume responsibility for these things. But did the cumulative effect of these failures amount to a decision that we thought we could no longer support this democratically elected government? If that becomes the standard in this hemisphere, we are going to find ourselves sitting by and watching one democratically elected government after another fall to those that breed chaos and remove governments with which they don't agree. They are being told by the Bush administration now that the Haitian Government was a government of failed leadership. That is a whole new standard when it comes to engaging in the kind of activity we have seen over the last several days.

Having been critical of President Aristide, I point out that he was elected twice overwhelmingly in his country. He was thrown out of office in a coup in the early 1990s. Through the efforts of the U.S. Government and others, he was brought back to power in Haiti. Then he gave up power when the government of President Preval was elected. During those 4 years, President Aristide supported that transitional government. He ran again himself, as the Haitian Constitution allowed, and was elected overwhelmingly again, despite the fact the opposition posed little or no efforts to stand against him.

There was a very bad election that occurred in the spring of 2000, in which eight members of the Haitian Senate were elected by fraud. Those Senators were removed from office. Six months later, President Aristide was elected overwhelmingly again. It is the first time I know of in the 200-year history of Haiti as an independent nation where a President turned over power transitionally peacefully to another democratically elected government. Whatever other complaints there are--and they are not illegitimate about the Aristide government--there was a peaceful transition of democratically elected governments in Haiti. That never, ever happened before. What has happened there repeatedly is one coup after another--33 over the 200-year history of that nation.

Whatever shortcomings they may have had, President Aristide provided for the first time in Haiti's history a democratically elected government transitioning power to other people peacefully. I will also point out that he abolished the military and the army, an institution that did nothing but drain the feeble economy of Haiti of necessary resources.

Haiti did not have a need for an army. There were no threats to Haiti. In retrospect, he may regret that. But the army, in my view, was a waste of money in Haiti, served no legitimate purpose, and President Aristide should be commended for abolishing an institution that had been the source of constant corruption and difficulty on that nation.

Blame for the chaos does not rest solely on the shoulders of President Aristide. The so-called democratic opposition bears a share of the responsibility for the death and destruction that has wreaked havoc throughout Haiti over the past several weeks.

The members of CARICOM, with U.S. backing, put on the table a plan calling for the establishment of a unity government to defuse the political crisis. The opposition rejected this proposal on three different occasions, despite the fact that President Aristide said he was willing to have a government of unity, to give up power, to share governmental functions with the opposition. The opposition said no on three different occasions, despite the fact that the nations of the Caribbean region urged the opposition to avoid the kind of transition that we have seen over the last several days.

A hundred or more Haitians already have lost their lives. Property damage may be in the millions. Given the direct role the U.S. played in the removal of the Aristide government, it is now President Bush's responsibility, in my view, and moral obligation to take charge of this situation. That means more than sending a couple hundred marines for 90 days or so into Haiti. Rather, it means a sustained commitment of personnel and resources for the

foreseeable future by the U.S. and other members of the international community that called for the removal of the elected government.

If the Bush administration and others inside and outside of Haiti had been at all concerned over the last 3 weeks about the fate of the Haitian people, perhaps the situation would not have deteriorated into near anarchy, nor would the obligation of the U.S. to clean up this mess now loom so large.

We are now reaping what we have sown. Three years of a hands-off policy left Haiti unstable, with a power vacuum that will be filled in one way or another. Will that vacuum be filled by individuals such as Guy Philippe, a former member of the disbanded Haitian Army, a notorious human rights abuser and drug trafficker, or is the administration prepared to take action against him and his followers, based upon a long record of criminal behavior?

It is rather amazing to this Senator that the administration has said little or nothing about its plans for cracking down on the armed thugs who have terrorized Haiti since February 5.

Only with careful attention by the United States and the international community does Haiti have a fighting chance to break from its tragic history. In the best of circumstances, it is never easy to build and nurture democratic institutions where they are weak and nonexistent. When ignorance, intolerance, and poverty are part of the very fabric of a nation, as is the case in Haiti, it is Herculean.

Given the mentality of the political elites in Haiti--one of winner take all--I, frankly, believe it is going to be extremely difficult to form a unity government that has any likelihood of being able to govern for any period of time without resorting to repressive measures against those who have been excluded from the process.

It brings me no pleasure to say at this juncture that Haiti is failing, if not a failed state. The United Nations Security Council has authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Haiti to stabilize the situation. I would go a step further and urge the Haitian authorities to consider sharing authority with an international administration authorized by the United Nations in order to create the conditions necessary to give any future Government of Haiti a fighting chance at succeeding. The United States must lead in this multinational initiative, as Australia did, I might point out, in the case of East Timor; not as Secretary Defense Rumsfeld suggested yesterday: Wait for someone else to step up to the plate to take the lead. It will require substantial, sustained commitment of resources by the United States and the international community if we are to be successful.

The jury is out as to whether the Bush administration is prepared to remain engaged in Haiti. Only in the eleventh hour did Secretary of State Colin Powell focus his attention on Haiti as he personally organized the pressure which led to President Aristide's resignation on Sunday. Unless Secretary Powell is equally committed to remaining engaged in the rebuilding of that country, then I see little likelihood that anything is going to change for the Haitian people. The coming days and weeks will tell whether the Bush administration is as concerned about strengthening and supporting democracy in our own hemisphere as it claims to be in other more distant places around the globe. The people of this hemisphere are watching and waiting.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in honor of Dr. Felix G. Sheehan, of Middletown, CT. Next week, on March 13, 2004, Dr. Sheehan will be receiving the ``Irish Person of the Year'' award from the Middletown division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish Catholic society in the United States.

Dr. Sheehan retired 2 years ago after 47 years in the medical practice. As a doctor, he was, in so many ways, a treasure from a bygone era. Even as health care became more and more of a business, and even as Americans increasingly dealt with the complicated world of copayments, referrals, and coverage networks, Dr. Sheehan was a doctor who built lifelong relationships with his patients and made house calls at all hours of the day and night.

His tremendous dedication, warmth, and kind spirit are legendary in Middletown, where many of his patients became just as devoted to him as he was to them. One of those patients described him as ``the best doctor in the world.''

Dr. Sheehan was born in Belfast and came to America with his family at the age of 6. He served his new country in the Pacific during World War II. During his service, he had an experience that would change his life--and the lives of many others. While stationed aboard the USS Wasp, he was asked one day to help out a nurse who was having trouble treating a patient. It was then that he first realized that medicine would be his calling.

After attending college at St. John's University in New York, Felix Sheehan spent the next 5 years in his native Belfast earning his medical degree from Queen's University. It was happenstance, he says, that he found Connecticut. But after seeing the slogan on Middlesex Hospital that read, ``Caring and Kindness Always, All Ways,'' he knew that Middletown would be his home. Because although that motto belonged to the hospital, it could have easily been written to describe Felix Sheehan.

To Felix Sheehan, being a doctor meant so much more than examining patients and prescribing medicines. He offered complimentary medical services to local parochial schools. He took on needy patients free of charge. He hosted a wedding for one of his employees who couldn't afford it. He retained legal counsel for the child of one of his patients. And as his own career drew to a close, he served as a mentor and role model to young doctors entering the profession.

From the day he took up his practice until the day he retired, Dr. Sheehan gave so much of himself to so many people. In the words of his daughter Laureen, ``in a very real and special sense, he was more than a physician--he was and is a healer.''

From one Irishman to another, I offer my warmest congratulations to Dr. Sheehan on the honor he will receive next week. I wish him, his wife Marie, and their children many more happy years together.

May I inquire of the managers of the bill, if there are a few minutes before you get to this, I would like to take a few minutes and speak on the underlying bill.

I see my colleague from Massachusetts. Ten minutes.

I will yield for purposes of having the amendment proposed.

Are you going to take 30 minutes? I would like to be able to be heard.

If I may proceed and then finish in a few minutes.

I think I still have the floor.

I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, Senator Hatch and Senator Kennedy, for being very gracious in providing me a few minutes to address the underlying bill. I know we are going to debate the amendment on concealed weapons, but I wish to share with my colleagues my views on this legislation.

I cannot see any amendment that can be offered to this legislation that is going to convince this Senator that the underlying bill deserves support. I am stunned, in many ways, that we are even suggesting this legislation. I can only imagine what the reaction would be if I were to come to the Chamber and offer a similar amendment that would exclude any other industry in the country from the exposure of potential liability for wrongdoing.

In my State, I represent more gun manufacturers than any other Member of this body. I also represent probably more insurance companies and more pharmaceutical companies in the State of Connecticut than almost any other State in the country. As strongly as I support the people who work in these businesses and respect what they do, the idea that we would take an entire industry and remove it from the potential of liability is rather breathtaking to me in this day and age.

I am a great advocate of tort reform, as many of my colleagues know. I authored the securities litigation reform bill and wrote the uniform standards litigation bill. I am now working on class action reform. But the idea that we would take an entire industry and give it immunity from wrongdoing, I think, is rather stunning to this Member.

I wish to share with my colleagues some general thoughts. I know there are amendments going to be offered on assault weapons and a variety of other proposals, but I want to put my colleagues on notice. I do not think we can offer any amendment to this bill that will outweigh the harm done by the underlying proposal and the precedent we are setting in this body. We are taking an industry and saying: No matter what you do, no matter how much harm you may cause, you never have to worry about being held liable and accountable for your actions. In this day and age, that this body would so overwhelmingly endorse an idea such as this is breathtaking.

I wish to take a few minutes to say why it is so outrageous. I want to add, with all the matters we should be addressing with the limited time in this session, with the thousands of people losing their jobs today, we have nothing to say about outsourcing. When we have 44 million Americans without health insurance, we have nothing to say about those issues. We are drowning in budget deficits and trade deficits. We have the worst job deficit since the Great Depression. Poverty is increasing, and this Chamber has nothing to say on those issues except we are now going to take one group of manufacturers and say: Don't worry about anything, you don't have to ever be held accountable for your wrongdoing.

This legislation, in my view, is bad policy for a number of reasons. First, it will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on reducing the rate of gun violence in our Nation. In fact, this bill ignores the devastating toll firearm violence continues to have on the country.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were nearly 29,000 deaths in the United States from firearms in the year 2001 alone--29,000 deaths. That is, of course, 10 times the number of lives that were tragically lost on September 11 at the World Trade Center, here in Washington, and in Pennsylvania. In fact, one year of gun violence in America nearly equals the number of Americans who died in the Korean war and almost half the Americans lost in the entire Vietnam conflict.

The numbers are staggering. These numbers exceed by a huge margin the number of firearm-related deaths on a per-capita basis in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and France.

Among those individuals most affected by gun violence are children. It is not just an incident such as the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 or inner-city neighborhood shootings that should make us realize that children are among the most vulnerable to gun violence. Children are also killed or injured by firearms because their parents did not store their guns properly, and the kids used them for horseplay.

It is no coincidence then that firearms are the second leading death among young Americans ages 19 and under. Approximately 2,700 children under the age of 19 are killed each year as a result of gun violence or improper use of guns.

The rate of firearm deaths of children under the age of 14 is already 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Let me repeat that. The firearm death rates of children under the age of 14 is 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined.

We are about to exclude an entire industry from even being brought to the bar to question whether or not they might be liable. One study noted the firearm injury epidemic among children is nearly 10 times larger than the polio epidemic in the first half of the 20th century.

The human cost of gun-related deaths and injuries is tragic in itself, but the economic loss is also significant. According to a study published in 2000, the average costs of treating gunshot wounds were $22,000 for each unintentional shooting and $18,400 for each gun assault injuries. These costs would undoubtedly be much higher today.

Total societal cost of firearms is estimated to be between $100 billion and $126 billion per year. Who pays these expenses? By and large the American taxpayers do.

My colleagues speak against unfunded mandates, and yet this bill, if enacted, burdens the Nation's cities and counties with billions and billions of dollars in medical care, emergency services, police protections, courts, prisons, and school security. It is shameful that while tens of thousands of people are dying each year due to firearms, and while the American taxpayers pay tens of billions of dollars to cope with the effect of gun violence, the United States Senate is doing absolutely nothing to make our streets and homes safer. In fact, we are doing quite the opposite by our actions today.

Second, the legislation will give this industry special legal protections that no other industry in the United States has. Neither cigarette companies nor asbestos companies nor polluters have such sweeping immunity as we are about to give this industry. In fact, gun manufacturers and sellers are already exempt from Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation, despite the fact firearms are among the most dangerous and deadly products in society. We have more regulations on toy guns than we do on the ones that fire real bullets.

Imagine that, a toy gun that you buy from Mattel, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issues literally pages of regulations on what must be included in the production of that toy gun. There is not a single word in the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the production of a gun that may kill 29,000 people each year in this country. The National Rifle Association made sure of this exemption 30 years ago, just as highly addictive tobacco products are not subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.

I have supported tort reform in specific areas where I believe it is appropriate. My colleagues know that. At the same time, I recognize that litigation has been a powerful tool in holding parties accountable for their negligence and providing them with incentive to improve the safety of their products.

It has been employed on behalf of other potentially dangerous products, such as cars, lawnmowers, household products, and medicines, to protect the health of the American people. The fact that guns are already specifically exempt from the oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is reason enough, in my view, why we cannot afford to grant the firearm industry legal immunity.

If this legislation is enacted, and I know it will be given the number of cosponsors and how this bill is sweeping through the Congress, would it remove any incentive under current products liability law for gun manufacturers to make their firearms safer? Studies have shown that the technology is both readily available and very inexpensive to install in order to help avoid future gun-related tragedies.

For example, a load indicator could be included to tell the user that the gun is still loaded. That is never going to happen now, I promise. A magazine disconnect safety could be installed by the manufacturers to prevent guns from firing if the magazine is removed. Even child proofing the gun with safety locks can be done relatively easily. However this bill is enacted into law, gun manufacturers will lose a huge incentive to include such reasonable safety devices in their products.

I know I am going to hear shortly, well, we just adopted a gun safety lock amendment. We did that a few years ago as well. What happened to it? It got dumped. That is what happened. Do not have any illusion about these amendments being adopted. My colleagues have been around long enough to know what is going to happen. When this bill leaves the Senate and goes down the hall to the other Chamber all of these nice provisions that are included will be dropped, just as they have been in the past.

Third, this legislation would close the courthouse door on our Nation's mayors, gun victims, and law enforcement officers who are seeking to hold the gun industry accountable for their negligent conduct. Just last week, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton and over 80 other prominent law enforcement leaders from 26 States sent a letter to the Senate opposing the legislation.

The chiefs warned that passage of the immunity legislation would result in more illegal gun running and deter efforts to develop child- resistant guns. In the words of Chief Bratton:

The passage of this bill would deliver a devastating blow

to justice. The NRA and Congress need to understand that

special interest groups cannot come before public safety. Gun

stores and manufacturers must be held to the same standards

of safety as any other industry. And if they fail to act

responsibly, they must pay the price.

Evidence has been uncovered which reveals that the gun industry has been engaged in irresponsible behavior for many years. Senator Reed and others have already mentioned one such industry actor: Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, WA. This gun store claims that it ``lost'' the gun used by the Washington, DC snipers John Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo as well as more than 200 other guns. Many of these firearms were later traced to other crimes.

In fact, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply had no record of the gun ever being sold and did not report it until after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms recovered the weapon and traced it back to the store.

Even after the rifle was linked to the sniper shootings and the newspapers reported on the disappearance of the guns from Bull's Eye, the rifle's manufacturer, Bushmaster Firearms, declared that it still considered Bull's Eye a ``good customer'' and was happy to keep selling to the shop. The judge in this case has since ruled twice that the suit brought by the families of the DC-area sniper victims against both Bushmaster Firearms and Bull's Eye Shooter Supply should proceed to trial, and a preliminary appeal of these rulings has been rejected.

Nevertheless, this case as well as other important pending and future lawsuits against negligent gun dealers and manufacturers would be banned under the Senate bill, according to the opinion of two of the Nation's most prominent attorneys, David Boies and Lloyd Cutler.

There are many other instances of the gun industry not taking steps to prevent guns from reaching the illegal market. According to Federal data from 2000, 1.2 percent of dealers account for 57 percent of all guns recovered in criminal investigations.

Undercover sting operations in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana have found that such dealers routinely permit gun sales to ``straw purchasers,'' that is, individuals with clean records who buy guns for criminals, juveniles, or other individuals barred by law from purchasing them. Again, if the Senate bill is enacted, police officers shot by a gun bought by a straw purchaser would no longer get his day in court.

Gun shows are also an important source of guns for criminals. I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators McCain and Reed in co-sponsoring legislation to close the gun show loophole in the Brady Act. Studies have shown that unlicensed dealers often sell large quantities of guns at these shows without having to run criminal background checks or keeping records.

Many of my colleagues might recall that a gun show was the source of the firearm purchased Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before they went on their murderous rampage at Columbine High School. But again, the Senate bill will not hold such negligent gun sellers responsible for the injuries and deaths their firearms cause.

Supporters of this legislation contend that there is a gun litigation crisis in America, and that many of the cases being brought against the gun industry are frivolous. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are no massive backlogs of claims against gun dealers and manufacturers burdening the court system, as with the asbestos litigation. Only 33 municipalities and one State, New York, have filed suits against gun makers. Not one of these cases has been dismissed as being frivolous.

In fact, 18 cities and counties have won favorable rulings on the legal merits of their cases. These courts have recognized that such cases are based upon well-established legal principles as negligence, product liability, and public nuisance. Important information on the gun industry's wrongful actions, which has long been cloaked in secrecy for many years, is being revealed during the discovery process. These cases, however, will be precluded, and the information gleaned from them will be lost, if the gun industry is granted the immunity it seeks.

This legislation is the wrong way for the Senate to proceed on gun violence. Rather than giving special immunity to those manufacturers and dealers who wrongfully make and sell guns to criminals, the Senate should be working to protect our police officers and the people they protect.

Rather than placing more guns on the streets, the Senate should be considering more responsible guns legislation, such as making the ban on assault weapons permanent and closing the gun show loophole. I am hopeful that the Senate will have a full and comprehensive debate on these important issues in the coming days.

Rather than encouraging reasonable and safe gun use, the Senate is destroying any incentive for gun manufacturers to improve the safety of their deadly wares.

The Senate wisely defeated a cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the medical malpractice bill. It should now tell the gun industry that they need to be held accountable for their deeds as is the case for every other industry in America so I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation.

I have great respect for my colleagues, but there is no amendment that is going to be adopted in this Chamber that is going to make this ugly legislation any better. I do not care how much lipstick is put on this one, this is an unattractive bill by any measure, and I am going to vote against it no matter what. What we are doing is outrageous. As the Senator who represents more of these manufacturers than any other Member in this body, I can say this is flat out wrong and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for taking an entire industry and not holding it potentially liable for the harm that it causes to people across this country. Thirty thousand people die every year, almost 3,000 kids, and we are about to say to the manufacturer of the products that kill them to take a walk and that you never have to show up again in court. That is incredible to me that we are about to do that.

I yield the floor.

If my colleague will yield.

The Senator raised my name. I did not talk about the Senator from Idaho. The Senator used my name. May I respond?

Mr. President, I will take less than a minute to say something about losing jobs. I have lost 45,000 manufacturing jobs in my State over the last few months. It has nothing to do with this. It has to do with the fact that this administration has decided that manufacturing jobs are producing hamburgers at McDonald's, and believe that outsourcing is a great thing for the country. That is where my jobs are going, not because of litigation.

There have been 33 lawsuits by counties or communities and one by a State brought against the gun manufacturers. None of them have ever gone anywhere. What are we doing? Tell me there is some great problem out here in litigation with my companies losing lawsuits all across the country.

We are a nation of 280 million people. Thirty-three lawsuits by counties, one by a State. The manufacturers never lost one. Why are we changing the law? Why, when 30,000 people die every year, 3,000 kids, why are we changing the law? There is no justification in fact or in law to be doing this.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Cantwell for offering a very important amendment on unemployment insurance. This amendment is absolutely necessary because this administration has put this country on the wrong economic path.

The economy is not improving, jobs are not being created, and workers and their families are suffering. Since this administration took office, America has lost nearly 3 million jobs, including over two and a half million in manufacturing. More than 9 million Americans are out of work. Unless we see an unbelievable turnaround in the next 8\1/2\ months, this administration will be the first since that of Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy where more jobs are lost than created.

And what is the President's plan for economic recovery and job creation? More tax cuts for the wealthy; eviscerating overtime pay for hard-working Americans; shipping service and manufacturing jobs overseas; all while raising our deficits to record levels.

It is not just the President alone who supports these policies--his administration supports these and other irresponsible policies as well. They have been forthcoming about their priorities and the priorities are out of step with working Americans. Therefore, no one should be surprised when instead of receiving a paycheck they receive a pink slip. No one should be surprised when they lose their house because the administration refuses to extend unemployment insurance benefits. No one should be surprised when retirees see their social security benefits slashed. No one should be surprised when companies move overseas or rely on workers overseas.

Also troubling, just yesterday the Fed Chairman encouraged Congress and the Administration to make cuts into future Social Security payments in order to bring down the deficit. So now this administration is telling men and women who have worked hard their whole lives and are relying on Social Security to help them during their retirement years that they are better off cutting Social Security benefits rather than eliminate the tax cuts that go to the wealthy.

The chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors is quoted as saying, ``Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing.'' American workers are losing their jobs and the Administration says it's a ``good thing''. That is an extraordinary statement.

In fact, not once in the past month has the President mentioned extending Federal unemployment benefits. What more must happen for this administration to wake up and begin to take meaningful action?

The President talks about tremendous job growth this year. This prediction would only be met if job growth averaged more than 450,000 new jobs each month, about four times the level of job growth in January according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Americans are hurting and instead of taking steps to ensure job creation, this administration continues to call for more tax cuts--tax cuts that will favor the most wealthy, but do nothing for the families that are struggling today. These tax cuts will cost an additional $1 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. What is even more alarming about this is that this is coming at the worst possible time--right when the baby boomers begin to retire.

It is dumbfounding to me that just 3 years ago we were looking at the biggest surplus in our Nation's history--an annual surplus of $236 billion. We were actually having interesting discussions about the effects of paying down the debt too fast. If only we were debating that today. Instead, we are facing an unsustainable fiscal path with the largest deficit in history--a deficit of $521 billion this year, a deficit that if not tackled soon, will have dangerous consequences.

It has been projected that by 2009, if we continue on this irresponsible path, each person's share of the debt will total $35,283. This will lead to a reduction in consumer demand, an increase in interest rates, and it will make it enormously difficult for families across this country to achieve financial security.

Today, the Labor Department reported that 350,000 people filed new claims for State unemployment benefits last week. Just yesterday, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that from late December, when the Federal unemployment benefits program expired, through the end of February, 760,000 jobless workers will have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without receiving any additional Federal aid. More than 4,700 jobless workers in Connecticut will exhaust their benefits without qualifying for additional Federal aid.

So that is why I wholeheartedly support extending Federal unemployment benefits right now. At the very least, we need to reach out to American workers and offer them a lifeline. This ought not be a partisan issue. I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.

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

Mr. President, I just received word on what we are now debating. I make a parliamentary inquiry.

Am I correct that this is a Frist amendment to this bill?

The Frist amendment is amending the Voting Rights Act; is that correct? It would make the preclearance and minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act permanent; is that correct?

I thank the Chair very much for that.

First let me express my gratitude to the majority leader for having a strong interest in this. As someone who for the last several years, since the election of 2000, has spent a great deal of time on the conduct of Federal elections, I worked closely with Mitch McConnell and Kit Bond of Missouri and Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, who chairs the House committee and has jurisdiction over Federal elections over in the other Chamber, along with a number of other people. There were a lot of people involved in this, but we were able to put together the HAVA Act, the Help America Vote Act. It is in the view of many the first civil rights legislation of the 21st century. Some have called it the most significant legislation affecting the right to vote since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Certainly, one of the issues we looked at and discussed rather briefly was the issue of the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act when it comes to language minorities. But when we were dealing with that bill, we did not vote to make permanent those provisions. And for good reason.

This is a very important part of the Voting Rights Act, these language minority and preclearance provisions. It is hardly the place, I suggest, with all due respect to those who are interested in this, as a floor amendment to any bill here. We are on a bill addressing the issue of guns, and rather suddenly we are asked to permanently change one of the most profoundly important laws in our nation.

Just to cite one example to my colleagues, if we adopt this today-- there is a group very much in the news at this very hour. And that is the people of Haiti. Now, there is a substantial population in the State of Florida of people who are formerly from Haiti, Haitian Americans. If this language is adopted, some have raised concerns that it could have the effect of making it more difficult for Americans of Haitian background, who do not speak English as a first language, to obtain the voting information and technologies to which they might otherwise be entitled and which they might require in order to cast a ballot. The same concern has been raised about Americans of other backgrounds, as well, for whom English is not a first language.

I don't think there is a single Member in this Chamber who wants to vote today on a provision that could make it more difficult, if not impossible, for thousands if not tens of thousands of citizens, in effect, to vote. But we are told by those who deal in this issue every day that this amendment could have that effect. If we adopt this amendment in an hour's debate here, rather than after the kind of thoughtful analysis that should go into this, it could actually result in discrimination against Americans who clearly are language minorities. I am confident that none of us wants to see that happen.

This is hardly the time, place, and manner to make such a profound change in law. Frankly, I don't have a prepared speech. I was just listening to this debate in my office, and having worked on this issue, I know how much time you take to get this right. To come over and have an amendment adopted that could permanently exclude a substantial part of our citizenry from the language minority provisions, I don't think we want to be on record on that today.

These provisions of the Voting Rights Act, by the way, doesn't expire until the year 2007. We have 3 years. I think it is always wise to get something done when you can get it done. But the normal way you proceed is to sit down, work these things out, listen to people, and examine whether or not certain groups qualify or should qualify. But I don't think anyone would exclude from the Voting Rights Act potentially countless people who have come to this country for reasons with which we are all unfortunately too familiar, and who clearly qualify as language minorities.

I, for one, cannot vote for this. I wouldn't want to be on record supporting this. I would like to work with the majority leader and others who would like to figure out how to get this done. I will do it this year.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has stated as much themselves in a letter they sent to the majority leader. It was dated today, to give you some idea of how fast this is moving. They say in their concluding paragraph:

While we plan to strongly support the reauthorization of

these important provisions, we urge you to vote no on the

Frist amendment. The reasons are that this is a complicated

process that takes some time to make sure you are including

those who deserve to be included and excluding those who may

no longer or should not be included under the language

minority provisions.

They believe it is premature. Their critical analysis of the issues surrounding the preclearance and minority language provisions has not been fully examined and analyzed. I hope no one would suggest otherwise. A floor amendment is hardly the place.

If you hold a vote and exclude multiple language minority groups because you've made this law permanent after a one-hour debate, I would think you would ask your leadership to pause a minute and analyze whether this is correct. If it is correct, should we amend this language? Should we include them? If not, why not? Shouldn't there be a more thoughtful way to proceed on a matter of this import?

There is no other right, in my view, that is as important as the right to vote. It is a right upon which all other rights depend. It is the central ingredient for our democracy--the right of people to vote.

We have understood over the years that there are those who come to our shores and become wonderful Americans who have language barriers. If those people are excluded from the process of engaging in electing Federal officials and electing the leadership of this country, then we are not fulfilling our obligation historically to see to it that this basic, fundamental right is being protected.

I am very much interested in seeing us make permanent, if we can, these language minority and preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. I would like to do it in a way that is far more deliberative than a 1-hour debate on the floor of the Senate dealing with a gun manufacturer bill. This is not the way we ought to be doing business on something as fundamental as the right to vote.

I prefer not to vote no on this. I would prefer this amendment be withdrawn and then resubmit it under proper circumstances so we can have the opportunity to do the analysis necessary to arrive at right conclusions.

I am the only one speaking about this at this particular moment.

I don't know what the time frame is. Is there a limited time of debate? I make an inquiry of the Chair.

Are we going to vote on this matter in a few minutes?

Do I understand that at the conclusion of roughly 15 or 16 minutes we will then vote on amending major provisions of the Voting Rights Act?

Mr. President, I urge colleagues to think twice about this. It is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that we are talking about. We are talking about amending this act permanently and possibly excluding major ethnic groups in this country permanently. Please. This issue requires more thought than it can be given here. This is not the way to go about changing one of the most important laws ever enacted in our great country. We should not in effect tell our colleagues that they have 15 minutes to decide on whether or not potentially millions of Haitians, Africans, Asians, Hispanics,

and Europeans would be permanently excluded from key protections of the Voting Rights Act when we have 3 more years to make that decision.

To do this on an amendment to a gun manufacturer bill is stunning to me. Why would we take something as critical and important as the Voting Rights Act and throw it on the table without further consideration and thought?

I urge my colleagues in the time they have to please talk to the majority leader and see if we can't pull this back by unanimous consent and let those of us who spend time on these issues sit and work on this. This is no way to be dealing with millions of people in our country who deserve the right to vote and to be protected properly under language minority and preclearance provisions.

I make that plea to my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, briefly, I also thank the majority leader and others for agreeing to vitiate the vote on the Voting Rights Act. I underscore the comments made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts to work with the majority leader and others interested in getting this done. It can be done rather simply. We do need to build a record on the issue. That is exactly the way to go.

I commend the majority leader for moving on this. We do not want to wait until the year 2007. I thank him.

Will my colleague yield?

I commend my colleague for his statement this morning. I want to underscore the last point he is making.

Here we are with the highest unemployment figure since the Great Depression and we are debating the gun issue. I come from a State that probably has more manufacturers of guns than any other in the country. I think Connecticut is still the largest manufacturer. The idea we are going to take an entire industry and exclude it from liability should there be a just cause to bring them to a bar of justice is rather remarkable to me in light of everything else going on in the country. So I commend my colleague from Rhode Island. We come from the same region of the country. We have lost 45,000 jobs in my State in the manufacturing sector in the last 30 months. I ask whether, in his view, there aren't higher priorities we ought to be addressing other than excusing an entire industry from liability against negligence?

I thank my colleague. If he will yield further?

I thank my colleague. I will join him in opposing cloture on this bill and I hope the leadership would move on with another issue that I guarantee has a far higher priority with the American public than to satisfy one industry's fear that they might have to appear before the bar of justice to explain their behavior. The idea we would exclude this industry--we tried to do that on another issue on the MTBE issue that came up on the energy bill. As my colleague may know, I offered the securities reform bill, the National Standards legislation, Y2K, terrorism insurance. I am also a strong advocate of class action reform. I am not an opponent at all of trying to reform the tort system. But the idea that we would eliminate an entire industry from liability due to the potentiality of their products for causing great harm is amazing to me. Given the challenges our country faces, it is amazing we would spend time on this legislation.

Mr. President, will my colleague yield for an additional question? I was curious whether my colleague would share with us what problem this legislation seeks to solve. Normally, when you bring a bill to the floor you try to solve the problem. I wonder if my colleague has any idea of the volumes of lawsuits that have been brought against gun manufacturers that the author of this legislation is trying to solve.

If the Senator will yield for one more additional question, I want to make the point that my colleague is absolutely correct.

Further, is he aware that over the last 10 years there have been 33 cases brought by municipalities--one in the State of New York--and none of them have resulted in conclusions that have been harmful to the gun manufacturing industry? With a population of 280 million people, there have been 33 or 34 cases in almost 10 years, not one of which has resulted in an adverse decision for the manufacturers. Is my colleague aware of that?

The police chiefs from across the country are urging the Senate not to protect gun dealers who arm killers.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Will the Senator yield?

The Senator made reference to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. President, I have been listening to the arguments posed by our colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, and our colleague from Alabama, Senator Sessions. I find myself sort of agreeing with both of these individuals. Clearly, this is an area that cries out for some solution. We have been back at this issue over and over again. Like my colleague from Alabama, and I suspect my colleague from Illinois as well, I was home in Connecticut over the past week and I have received letters from radiologists, and I have talked to OB/GYNs and others. My State ranks third in the country in the rate of premiums for OB/GYNs, which I will address in a minute. This is an area that clearly needs to be addressed. So I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Alabama, that is, to see if we cannot find solutions to this.

As the Senator may recall, I have not been shy when it comes to tort reform issues, having authored the securities litigation reform bill, uniform standards legislation; and I have dealt with the issue of terrorism insurance, and Y2K legislation with Bob Bennett. I am someone who wishes we were debating class action reform now. There, we

have an agreement. It is not going to satisfy everybody, but I have agreed with Bill Frist and others. Senators Schumer and Landrieu and I have worked across party lines to come up with a compromise solution on class action reform. That is a bill I believe we could actually adopt.

Here we are going to spend 2 days debating a cloture motion we both recognize is probably going to fail this evening. But we have a class action reform bill we can get done. I regret I am not arguing on behalf of that proposal, rather than standing here and reluctantly disagreeing with this particular bill; although I am agreeing with my colleague from Alabama that we cannot allow year after year to go by without addressing this issue. I regret we didn't make the effort here we did on class action. On class action, once the cloture motion was defeated on the motion to proceed, people reached out and said let's see where we can find common ground on this. I think we have done that. Only time will tell if the compromise will work. That is how you have to function in this body, when you have 100 Members representing different constituencies and ideas and proposals, where there is a commonality and purpose to try to arrive at an answer to a staggering problem. One of the problems--not all, but one of the problems--is associated with health care. I will go into that in a minute. It seems to me we should pause and reach out and see if we cannot find that common answer. It may not satisfy everybody, but certainly it will come up with some intelligent responses to this problem.

So I say to my constituency in Connecticut, and elsewhere, I am listening to you and I hear you. I know we have to answer this. The question is, is this particular proposal the answer to the problem we face, with the rising increase in malpractice premiums. What actually could be done that may address the issue?

As my colleagues know, this legislation is similar to the one the Senate rejected last year. It would place, as we all know, a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages that can be awarded to a plaintiff in a medical malpractice case. The bill we are considering today has been narrowed, but in narrowing it, its defects have not been remedied. Like S. 11, the previous bill, this bill would apply to claims brought by health care professionals, health care organizations, such as HMOs, insurance companies, as well as product liability claims brought against medical device and drug manufacturers, by and on behalf of pregnant women and children. However, it would only apply to claims relating to obstetrics and gynecological services. We are dealing with a reduced universe of people in this area, much narrower from the proposal of last year.

Once again, this legislation would cap noneconomic damages at $250,000. It would put the same cap on punitive damages while imposing a stiffer evidentiary standard. It would also reduce economic damages a victim could collect by subtracting benefits paid by health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and Social Security benefits. In short, it would make it much harder for the victims of medical malpractice in this narrow area to receive fair and just compensation, in my view.

This legislation would not affect all victims of malpractice. We pointed out the bill we are dealing with seeks to limit the legal rights of a specific segment of our society, women and newborns.

It is important to remember that this bill is going to affect those who have actually been injured by malpractice. We are not debating whether there has been a judgment. There has been a decision that malpractice has occurred. A jury has already, in these cases, decided the victims are eligible to collect noneconomic damages. Furthermore, it will hurt the most seriously injured, those who might receive a noneconomic damage award of more than $250,000 were it not for the arbitrary cap.

We are essentially telling women and infants that the injuries and suffering they experience are not worth as much as injuries and suffering of others.

The assumption is if we just do this in this one area, we are then going to be able to bring down the costs of these premiums. In fact, I suggest that if the empirical evidence made that case, I would be very tempted to support this bill. I say that to my colleagues who are the authors of this legislation. But, in fact, the data and information, unfortunately, does not substantiate the claim that by establishing a cap, you will achieve the desired results of lesser premiums on malpractice insurance.

The argument used by supporters of this bill is OB/GYNs are particularly hit by rising medical premiums. I want to make it clear that I am not insensitive to that claim. As I said earlier, I have heard from many in my own State. In Connecticut, we face the third highest premiums in the country for OB/GYNs. My doctors pay an average of $102,000 every year in medical liability premiums. I have heard from them on numerous occasions about the difficulties they face in the current environment. The vast majority are good doctors who are working to provide the best possible care they can for their patients. They are doctors on whom families in Connecticut and newborns can rely. It is the same across the country. I know, having had a newborn in my own household, a child born to my wife Jackie and me a little over 2 years ago, the tremendous care and attention we received from our OB/GYN in Virginia, where Grace was born.

The question is not whether these people are paying higher premiums. The question is, Is the solution being proposed by this legislation actually going to address this problem? Again, if I thought it would do that, I would be very tempted to support this legislation, as someone who has offered legislation dealing with frivolous lawsuits and other claims. I am not adverse to tort reform. In fact, I am disappointed. We are discussing tort reform in this instance, and we are also going to be talking about the tort liability of gun manufacturers. It is going to be interesting to hear people on that issue.

We had language included in the Energy bill to deal with MTBE. Senator Schumer of New York eloquently made the case, asking why we should be eliminating the liability of a product that was causing such damage. I am frustrated to know that we are protecting people from liability because of the political pressures that occur.

I am prepared to support intelligent tort reform, but this problem, as serious as it is, is not addressed by this solution. Will this legislation do anything to reduce premiums? Let me tell you why I don't think it does.

If we are limiting the ability of women and young children to hold accountable doctors, nurses, insurance companies, and others for harm resulting from a mistake, we certainly must make sure we are doing so for a very good reason.

The answer to the question posed above is a resounding no, in my view. The suggestive link between jury awards and rising premiums has not been established at all. In fact, to the contrary. Nor is there a link between insurance premiums and access to health care. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite.

The two pillars upon which this bill is based are deeply flawed, in my view. First, some would suggest jury awards have exploded in both numbers and dollar amounts. That is something we will hear over and over, that victims are winning more and more so-called jackpot malpractice cases. But the facts are quite different.

The amount defendants and insurers are paying for medical malpractice claims, including jury awards and settlements, has increased in a manner that is consistent with and even lags behind medical inflation. Over the 10-year period from 1992 to 2001, the mean payout in medical malpractice cases rose by 6.2 percent per year, while medical inflation was rising at 6.7 percent annually over the same period of time. In other words, malpractice awards are rising exactly in the manner we would expect. They are tracking health care costs.

Of course, a rise in premiums might also be explained by an increase in the number of malpractice claims. That is also an argument we are hearing. Again, this is not the case. Between 1995 and 2000, the number of claims filed actually decreased by 4 percent, and the number of medical malpractice payouts decreased by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002. So we are not seeing these numbers go up financially, nor are the actual numbers of malpractice cases increasing. Both are the

two pillars upon which this bill is based. It is the reason people are saying we need to have the cap on these noneconomic awards.

The case made by supporters of this legislation is further damaged, in my view, when we compare States that currently have caps on noneconomic damages with States that have no such caps. As I mentioned previously, my home State of Connecticut has the third highest average premium for OB/GYNs. Connecticut has no cap. However, seven of the 10 States with the highest premiums do have caps. Last year, premiums actually increased by 17.1 percent for OB/GYNs in States with caps compared to a 16.6 percent increase in States without caps.

In the year 2003, the average premium for an OB/GYN in States with caps was $63,000. The average premium in States without caps was $59,000. So if anything, the evidence suggests caps on patient damages actually correspond to higher insurance premiums for doctors.

I said that rather quickly. Let me run by it again and make the case. The argument, again, is if you don't have caps, then these premiums go up. But if you look at places that have caps, seven of the 10 States with the highest premiums for OB/GYNs do have caps--seven of the 10. Last year, premiums actually increased by 17.1 percent in States with caps--an increase of 17.1 percent--compared to 16.6 percent in States without caps.

Again, if anything, the evidence suggests caps on patient damages actually correspond to higher insurance premiums for doctors.

The ineffectiveness of caps is illustrated by the experience in the State of California. Ironically, supporters of caps point to California as the model for limiting noneconomic damages. The State does, in fact, have a $250,000 cap and premiums have remained stable relative to the rest of the country. However, California adopted the cap in 1975, and over the next 13 years in California, with a cap of $250,000, premiums increased by 450 percent. This is comparable to a nationwide trend during that same period.

Then in 1988, California did something else. It passed comprehensive insurance reform. Only at that point did insurance premiums stabilize, decreasing 2 percent between 1988 and 2001. So for 13 years, when they had caps on the awards, they actually had premiums go up 450 percent, tracking the national average. In 1988, they put a cap on insurance premiums. Then they began to see the decline.

California is very worthwhile to look at, but we have to look at it in its totality. Don't disregard what happened in 1988. If we only look at 1975 to 1988, for that 13 years, there is nothing to brag about at all. The numbers went up as much as they did all across the country. It is only from 1988 up to now that we begin to see the real changes as a result of the insurance reforms in that State.

So California is a good example, but look to all of California. I could continue to quote numbers to underscore my point, but I do not want to bore my colleagues with recitations of data. I think it is important because without knowing what the facts are and understanding the argument, we cannot understand how best to deal with a very legitimate problem of trying to get these premium costs down. Does this solution meet that problem? One has to look at the data and the facts, and the facts are not holding this point up very well, in my view.

The point is very simple: The number of medical malpractice claims is not rising. The amount awarded to victims is consistent with inflation. The story in States with caps is similar to that without caps. Based on this evidence, we are being asked to limit the rights of pregnant mothers and infants. I do not think we ought to do that. The facts fail utterly to dictate such a conclusion.

If neither the number nor the amount of malpractice awards can explain rising premiums, then what is the explanation? Something is going on that is causing these premiums to continue to skyrocket as they are in my State and others across the country. According to several analyses that have been done, the increase in premiums does in fact correlate with the stock market and interest rates.

One recent study showed that premiums very closely tracked the insurers' economic cycle. During good economic times, insurers slash premiums in order to attract as much business as possible. Insurance companies receive their money from two sources. They get it from premium payments as well as investments. So when there is a good, healthy market going on, then they will reduce premiums because the cycles in the market are allowing them to sustain their economic growth. When there is a downturn in the economy and the stock market is not doing as well, the insurance industry is faced with only one other solution and that is to raise the premiums in order to keep the cashflow coming in.

So it is not complicated. As someone who comes from a State with a lot of insurance companies, I know that is how this is done. There is not some great magical secret out there. This is exactly how it occurs. So, obviously, during good economic times, insurers will cut the premiums in order to attract as much business as possible, which makes sense. This is because every new policy brings in additional float, money to invest in a booming market so they bring in the dollars. However, when the market turns and investment returns are weak, as has happened in the last few years, insurers raise their rates or, in some cases, leave the market altogether. When this happens, the result is often a crisis in the availability and affordability of insurance, and that is exactly what we are seeing today.

I will take a moment to address one other claim made by the supporters of this bill, and that is that rising premiums have reduced access to care for women and infants. Again, this is a very significant claim and needs to be addressed. Once again, I do not think the facts support that argument.

Between 1999 and the year 2002, the number of OB/GYNs across the country actually increased by 1,700 people. Only 6 States out of 50 saw a decrease in the number of OB/GYNs. That is not good news for those six States, but the argument that across the country this is occurring is not borne out by the facts. Actually, there were 1,700 new OB/GYNs in 44 States, so the number is stable or increasing, and in 6 States the number is going down. We ought to be conscious of that because that could be a trend that needs to be addressed.

Again, I underscore what I said at the outset. This is a serious problem but a serious problem demands a serious solution. Unfortunately, this bill is not that answer.

As an interesting note, by the way, where we are losing OB/GYNs, half of those six States have caps on the amount that can be collected in noneconomic terms. So we are talking about a bill that places caps on noneconomic awards, and in six States the number of OB/GYNs is declining, and yet three out of the six States have actual caps. One has to ask oneself: If this is failing in half of the States in terms of attracting or keeping OB/GYNs, is this bill or this idea the right solution to this problem? I think the conclusion is no, it is not, unfortunately, if those are the facts.

A GAO report from August of last year identified access to care as a problem--and I am quoting--``in scattered, often rural areas where providers identified other long-standing factors that also affect the availability of services.''

The question was asked: Why is this happening? The General Accounting Office comes back and said there are a lot of other factors that are causing a decline in the number of OB/GYNs. In addition, the GAO found--and I am quoting them again--``that many of the reported provider actions were not substantiated or did not affect access to health care on a widespread basis.''

Unfortunately, this bill is a misguided attempt to solve a health care problem with a tort reform solution. I am disappointed that we are not using this time today to discuss the real issues. One issue I wish we were discussing is class action reform because I think we have come up with an answer that a majority of us could support. Regrettably, we are not spending two days debating that issue. We are debating a bill that is not going to go anywhere because the solution that is being called for does not do the job.

So instead of taking the few valuable days we have in this Chamber to deal with some issues before we adjourn for elections and conventions, we are not debating class action reform, we are

debating a bill that is going nowhere. That does not make any sense to me at all in terms of this agenda. So this is a waste of our time.

Let me get into other areas of health care because there are health care problems that need addressing. I am disappointed, though, that we are not going to debate class action reform but instead these tort reform issues. We do have problems with access to care in our country. We do have a patient safety problem in our country. We do have a health care quality issue in this Nation of ours. We do have a problem with rising health care costs in the Nation. This bill does not answer any of those problems.

Why are we not discussing real solutions to the issue of access to health care, to patient safety, to health care quality in this country, and to the problem of rising health care costs? The American people have a right to expect from this body better answers than the ones we are giving them on this bill dealing with the issue of rising premium costs.

Supporters of this bill are right about one thing: Far too many in this country have little or no access to health care. The latest Census Bureau figures released in September are alarming, to say the least. Forty-four million of our fellow countrymen, more than one out of every seven people in our great Nation, were without health care in the year 2002. This figure represents a 10 percent increase in the number of uninsured since the year 2000.

Numerous studies have shown that being uninsured has a drastic impact on the amount and quality of care individuals receive. Put very simply, the uninsured receive less care, lower quality care, and are at a greater risk of dying. The Institute of Medicine has estimated that every year 18,000 of our fellow citizens die prematurely in this country as a result of the effects of being uninsured.

Our country has a growing health care underclass. The Bush administration's response to this crisis has been woefully inadequate. Tax credits and health savings accounts will do little or nothing to help the vast majority of the 44 million people who are uninsured, such as low-income working families. By the way, the majority of the uninsured work every day on one, two, three, and four jobs. These are not people sitting around doing nothing. They are working. And we have nothing to say to them.

We are debating an issue of tort reform when we ought to be dealing with how to provide some health care coverage for these people and explain why 18,000 lives a year are being lost prematurely because of the lack of health insurance. We should be talking about creative ideas to offer meaningful assistance to the uninsured. There are a variety of ideas out there that are worth discussing.

We also have a health care quality and patient safety problem in the country. Again, according to the Institute of Medicine, as many as 98,000 Americans are killed every year as a result of medical errors. A study conducted by the Rand Corporation and published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year came to a similar conclusion. Individuals received the recommended treatment for their condition in only 55 percent of the cases, according to that study. In other words, nearly half the time patients did not receive the appropriate care. Why are we not debating that and discussing that issue today?

There are a variety of proposals to address this real threat to the American public. I am currently working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle on issues that would have some real impact on the quality of care in our country. One meaningful step we can take almost immediately is to encourage the use of information technology in the health care setting.

The Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, is deeply interested in this subject matter, as are several other colleagues. Improving quality is the best tool we have to address rising health care costs. Supporters of this legislation we are debating today would have you believe medical liability costs are the main driver of rising health care costs. But that is simply not the case. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that malpractice costs represent, at most, only 2 percent of the overall health care costs in our country.

We ought to address this issue, but let's talk about it in the context in which it is really a problem. Furthermore, while health care costs more than doubled between the years 1987 and 2001, the total amount spent on medical liability premiums rose by only 52 percent over that same period. The real drivers of health care costs are prescription drugs and hospital spending. We should be using the time to pursue proposals to address these issues, including expanding the use of inexpensive generic prescription drugs, better chronic disease management and preventive medicine, and improving health care quality and efficiency.

Let me finish by saying, as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Children and Families, improving the health of women and children has been a priority of mine and many others who serve on that committee, including the Presiding Officer. If my colleagues are genuinely interested in healthier mothers and healthier babies, I can suggest any number of pieces of legislation that are pending here that would represent real steps towards achieving that goal. I am the coauthor of two bills, the Newborn Screening Save Lives Act and the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who Deliver Infants Early Act, the PREEMIE legislation, that I believe would go a long way towards improving the health and well-being of newborns. During the 107th Congress, Senator Harkin introduced the Safe Motherhood Act a comprehensive bill to ensure safe pregnancy for all women. Senator Bingaman introduced legislation to expand health care coverage for pregnant women under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

There are a variety of such bills out there, offered on a bipartisan basis. The Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and I have worked very hard on a number of these bills. I am not going to suggest they solve all the problems, but they are designed to deal with some of the very issues pregnant women and infants face every day. The idea that you are going to put a cap on noneconomic recoveries here and that is somehow going to address these other issues is ludicrous on its face. We ought to be spending the valuable time of this institution in debating and discussing and getting some of this legislation passed that could make a difference to these people.

I am not shy when it comes to tort reform. I have spent a good deal of time in my Senate career authoring bills dealing with tort reform. This is not one of them. This is not tort reform. This is not addressing the issue that people face every day and doctors face with rising premiums. There is a way of addressing that problem. When we get around to doing it and working on it, then we can take some pride in passing something that does something meaningful in this area. This bill doesn't do it.

I hope cloture will be denied. I yield the floor.

With the attention of my friend from Nevada, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak as in morning business for 6 or 7 minutes. I think there are a couple of other speakers on the majority side who want to be here. When they come over, I will wrap up my remarks to give them time to be heard on the matter.

I am happy to do that and I thank my friend from Nevada.

Madam President, I come this afternoon to express my deep concern over the growing anarchy and lawlessness in Haiti. This ominous situation, only miles off our own shores, threatens to overwhelm the elected government of Haiti in a number of days, and unless our country, the United States, along with other members of the international community, acts to stop it, it will get worse and pose far many more serious problems for us.

In my view, 3 years of neglected, mixed signals and inertia by the present administration--and the international community, for that matter--have brought a country already steeped in misery and poverty to the brink of uncontrollable violence and chaos. With respect to our own administration, which has sought to remake the political landscape of the Middle East, it is profoundly disturbing and unsettling that it seems incapable or unwilling to act to fortify a struggling democracy in our hemisphere.

I will not defend every action of the Aristide government in Haiti. There have been major problems there. I accept that and understand that. But no one denies this government was duly elected by the people of Haiti and it is being threatened today by a group of thugs and rebels, many of them who come from the previous death squads and ousted armed forces members which ruled that country with a brutal hand, who make up the majority of the people holding the second and fourth largest cities in Haiti today.

I am not standing here as some political defense of a specific administration, but I do stand here as someone who believes that if we are going to defend democracy, we have to be willing to stand up when fragile democracies, such as this desperately poor country, are being threatened by a group of people who do not have the interests of democracy at heart and have no right to be threatening this democratically elected government.

While I cannot discuss the administration's classified briefing of this morning, I can say that I was stunned by the lack of any coherent administration strategy for addressing the violence that may unseat the elected government. It is no secret that Haiti's long history of authoritarian governments as well as political and social upheaval have made it ripe to destabilize. The Haitian people continue to be the principal victims of this instability. The statistics are devastating.

Eighty percent of Haitians live in abject poverty; that is, 8 out of 10 people. By 1998, the World Bank reported that the per capita income in Haiti was $250 a year, less than one-tenth of the average in all of Latin America. In addition, only half of Haitian children attend school. Only 45 percent of the Haitian population can read or write and only marginally so. That is less than the people of Iraq.

The scarcity of resources have contributed to a public health crisis in that nation. Fifteen percent of children don't live past the age of 5. The average life expectancy is under 50 years of age. Haitians suffer from the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the Western Hemisphere, roughly 6 percent of the population.

I note the presence of the Presiding Officer who, in a former life and occupation, knew these numbers and statistics as well as anybody. I appreciate her listening to this because she understands better than many what goes on in these impoverished nations.

Equally important are the intangible effects of this instability in this little country. Chief among them is the growing chaos in civil society. Indeed, the very fabric of Haitian society is at risk as pro and antigovernment factions armed with every imaginable weapon are increasingly clashing in the streets. Just in the last 2 weeks, more than 50 people have been killed in politically charged street protests. This violence took a new and disturbing turn when a group of armed gangs seized the towns of Cap Haitien and Gonaives, Haiti's second and fourth largest cities. They burned police stations and homes of supporters of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The year 2004 was to be a year of rejoicing and celebration for the people of Haiti as they were expected to proudly celebrate 200 years of independence. Instead they are forced to flee from their communities to escape seemingly indiscriminate violence. There is no mystery, in my view, who is behind these armed attacks. They have audaciously identified themselves to local and international journalists. They are former members of the Haitian armed forces and former members of the so-called FRAPH, the paramilitary organizations that terrorized Haitians in the early 1990s. They were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Haitians and the flight of tens of thousands more who were prepared to risk their lives at sea coming to this country rather than bear the repression and violence that was a daily occurrence in that country. They are back in Haiti, and they are within an eyelash of taking control of Haiti again. We are going to see the effects of it here in a matter of days.

These armed thugs have publicly announced that they intend to march on Port-au-Prince within hours. In fact, within 15 minutes of my address today, a decision will be made by the so-called political opposition in Haiti on whether to accept the recommended political solution that would bring about a new Prime Minister, sort of a copresidency with the present elected government. That is the offer to be made. It has been rejected in the last several days by these gangs and the opposition.

At 5 o'clock they are going to announce whether they are willing to try it again. I hope they will try. I hope they will accept what has been offered to them by CARICOM, our Government, and others. If they don't, I am fearful that we will see a continued rise in this violence, the cost of human life, of innocent life unnecessarily.

The administration up to now has offered only words. I commend Colin Powell. He has said that we respect this elected government and we don't believe it ought to be overthrown, that we will not support any removal of this democratically elected government. But those are words. They are important words coming from an important individual, but it doesn't diffuse the growing crisis. A rejection of the political solution does not portend well for the people of this country. A violent coup that unseats the duly elected government is not an auspicious foundation for further stability in that country as the painful aftermath of the 1991 coups should remind us.

It is too late for diplomacy alone to turn the tide. The political opposition's rebuff of last weekend's diplomatic mission makes that painfully clear. The international community must act with strength and resolve to thwart these criminal elements and prevent the impending humanitarian refugee crisis that is about to explode before our very eyes. It is time for the administration to take the lead in this matter.

I am not suggesting that we send some massive force. We are talking about 200, 300, 400 gang members, thugs. It is not a large operation. It wouldn't take much of an international force to send a message that we are not going to allow this government, this crowd to overthrow the elected government.

Our position as of right now is that we won't do anything. We are not going to step up until there is some political context in which to operate.

There will be a political context when we let these thugs know that we are not going to tolerate the overthrow of this government by asking others to join us. I hope the administration would be prepared to act, particularly in light of what I anticipate to be the rejection of the offer of a political solution.

While I commend CARICOM, the Caribbean community's organization, for ongoing efforts to find a temporary solution to the political crisis, these efforts have so far been fruitless because the political opposition hopes they will be able to watch an overthrow of this elected government and then count on the U.S. Government to come in and sanction them, as if somehow they have arrived in power legitimately.

Let me say to them today: If you think for a single second you are going to get any support out of this Congress by overthrowing an elected government, you are fooling yourselves. It is not going to happen.

This government of ours needs to speak loudly and clearly to these people that this is not what the United States stands for. This is not an endorsement of every action by the Aristide government any more than we endorse every action of other governments around this hemisphere or elsewhere. But to sit back and sort of wink, in a sense, that it is OK for these gangs and thugs and literally drug dealers, some of the worst elements that that country has ever seen, come back into power and be able to overthrow this government is a huge mistake.

It is occurring on this administration's watch. To allow it to happen will be tragic. Let there be no doubt the United States will suffer, along with the Haitian people, if we permit this to go on. Haiti is located only miles from our doorstep. Lawlessness in Haiti only ripens conditions for narcotrafficking and illegal migration.

Haiti is already a major transition site for drugs coming into this country. We know that already. If we think we are going to get a better deal from these gangs that are about to overthrow this country, we are making a mistake. Engagement with the Haitian people is clearly in the best interests of both our peoples.

Not only is the lack of real leadership on the part of our own country disgraceful and disappointing, it is dangerous. Without that leadership, there will be worse violence and greater chaos.

Once security has been restored, the administration has at its disposal the tools to move both sides toward a political compromise, should it choose to utilize them. With respect to the Government of Haiti, that includes providing direct assistance to the Haitian police, assistance in the form of training and equipment in return for compliance with the CARICOM initiative.

With respect to political parties and civil society, the United States should revoke U.S. visas to any of these organization members who are unwilling to participate wholeheartedly with the diplomatic efforts to find compromise or who support or condone violence. If it takes legislation banning these people from getting visas, I will do it. These people travel to the United States all the time and then turn around and provide support to these thugs and then anticipate coming here when it gets a little dangerous. They have no right to come to America, if they participate in this action going on in Haiti as we speak.

The Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries must take action to stop these territories from being used as a transit point for illegal arms shipments to Haiti or as staging areas for armed Haitian opposition groups. Equally important, the United States and the international community must stop ignoring the negative impact that our economic policy of withholding assistance to the Haitian people is having on Haiti's stability.

Corruption aside, the Haitian government's lack of resources would preclude anybody from effectively ruling that country. It is disingenuous of the Bush administration and the international community to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to these desperately poor people, some of the poorest people in the world. They needed just a small amount of help, and we were unwilling to give them any over the last 3 or 4 years. It is no wonder that chaos is running wild in that country today.

I hope the administration will take far more concrete steps to respond to this crisis than they have presently. My hope is that within a matter of minutes the political opposition and

others will agree to the political solution offered to them. If not, the United States and the international community need to step up and offer to send in armed forces, if necessary, to protect the overthrow of this legitimately elected government.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Lauren Doyle, a legislative fellow in my office.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in tribute to U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin Gilman, of Meriden, Connecticut, who died in Afghanistan on January 29, 2004, at the age of 28.

Sergeant Gilman was killed along with seven other American soldiers in a weapons cache explosion near the town of Ghazni. He was part of the 41st Engineer Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, NY.

Benjamin Gilman was always doing his best to help others, long before he enlisted in our Armed Forces. As a teenager, he won an award for his volunteer work at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center. When visiting his mother at her job at the Curtis Home for the elderly, he would spend time with the senior citizens who lived there, sharing conversations over games of checkers. While working at a fast food restaurant at the local mall, Benjamin made friends with a group of elderly women he would come to call his ``adopted grandmothers.''

While he was committed to service of all kinds, it was always Benjamin Gilman's dream to serve his country in the military. Even as a 7-year-old playing with action figures, young Benjamin told anyone who would listen that he would be a soldier someday.

Benjamin was a special person for many people, and there were many people who were special to him. One of those people was Jean Moran. When Benjamin was 11 years old, he met Jean through a local Big Brother/Big Sister program. It was the first time that the program's organizers had assigned a big sister to a boy. But Jean became a fixture in Benjamin's life for years to come, taking on the role of the older sibling that he never had.

Of all the bonds and friendships Benjamin had, though, none was more lasting or special than his relationship with his mother, Edie Gilman. A single

mom, Edie poured her heart, soul, time, and energy into her only child. In the last letter he sent home from Iraq, Benjamin thanked his mother for everything she did for him, calling her his ``best friend in the entire world.''

My heart truly goes out to Edie Gilman, who has suffered the kind of loss that is difficult for most of us to comprehend. We often speak of the weighty burden borne by our men and women in uniform--and rightfully so. But we would do well to also remember the burden placed on the shoulders of the families of these brave Americans.

While our troops are defending our freedoms overseas, all across America there are husbands and wives who must bear the responsibility of raising children alone. There are sons and daughters who must do without a helping hand with their schoolwork, or an enthusiastic supporter at their soccer games. There are brothers and sisters who are missing a role model, a mentor, a friend.

There are fathers and mothers, who endure anxious days and sleepless nights knowing that their children are in harm's way. And then there are people like Edie Gilman, who one day learn the heartbreaking news that someone they love will never be coming home.

And so today I salute the courage, the commitment, and the conviction of Benjamin Gilman, a young man who lost his life fulfilling the noblest of callings, defending our Nation and the values we hold dear. And I offer my deepest and most heartfelt sympathies to Edie Gilman, who has made a sacrifice for her country that is too great for words.

Mr. President, it has been almost a year since three Americans--Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes--were taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC. The presence of American hostages in Colombia is deeply troubling, and one can only imagine the struggles and trials that these three brave individuals have had to endure since their plane crashed in the Colombian jungle last year on February 13. I rise today to again call attention to their plight and urge the Bush administration and Colombian Government to do everything possible to gain their release.

There is no higher priority than finding a way to bring these three Americans home safely, and I know that all of our prayers remain with them and their families during these difficult times. For the families of Marc, Keith, and Tom, this past year has been a heart wrenching experience. I have a special interest in the fate of Marc Gonsalves, whose mother, Jo Rosano, is a Connecticut resident. Marc's father, George Gonsavales, is also a resident of our State.

At every opportunity, I have worked to bring about the release of these three Americans. Indeed, over the last

8 months whenever I have met with Colombian President Uribe or other Colombian officials, I have urged them to make every effort to gain their release. President Uribe indicated to me that the Colombian military continues every day to search for them and that these efforts will not cease until they are found.

In addition, during a hearing last fall of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I urged the now-serving United States Ambassador to Colombia, William Wood, to make their rescue his highest priority. He pledged to do so and has kept me informed of developments in this matter. I have also continually urged the Bush administration to provide all means of assistance, including technological assistance, to bring about the safe rescue of Marc, Keith, and Tom. It is my understanding that the administration continues to work with Colombian authorities to locate them.

Certainly, their rescue will not be easy. However, I have to believe that more can be done. This must be the highest of priorities. The airing last year of the videotape showing them in captivity only further highlights the importance of this effort.

The families of Marc, Keith, and Tom will find no rest until their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers return home safely. I will be meeting with Jo Rosano tomorrow, when she, along with other family members of the hostages, come to Washington, DC on the anniversary of this tragic incident to urge United States policymakers not to forget their family members in captivity.

And I will tell her what I have said here today: that we must make every effort and we must leave no stone unturned in our search. As Americans, Marc, Keith, and Tom are also our sons--they are members of our extended American family. For my part, I pledge to continue to do everything possible to ensure their speedy release and safe return. I urge the Bush administration and Colombian Government to do the same. We must not rest until they are all home safely.