Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Kohl, Leahy, and others in introducing the COPS Improvement Act of 2009. I am honored to join them in introducing this important bill on an issue that has been so forcefully championed by Senator Biden for so many years.

It is my sincere hope that we are entering the dawn of a new age in our approach to State and local law enforcement funding. For the last 8 years, the Bush administration has steadily and drastically reduced the amount of funding and programming that the Federal Government provides to State and local law enforcement. This has been a huge mistake, with a corresponding spike in the rise of violent crime in our country.

The need for additional funding for state and local law enforcement through the COPS program is clear. Over the last 5 years, our country has experienced an alarming increase in violent crime. In 2007, the Police Executive Research Forum reported that from 2004 to 2006, homicides increased overall by 10 percent, aggravated assaults with guns rose 10 percent, and robberies rose 12 percent.

This survey mirrors the FBI's own statistics, which showed that violent crime rose by 1.8 percent between 2003 to 2007. And this surge in the violent crime rate isn't just limited to big cities. In February 2008, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Mukasey acknowledged that violent crime was increasing across all of our communities.

Let me put these numbers in human terms. The International Association of Chiefs of Police equates the rise of 2.5 percent to 31,479 more victims of violent crimes in 2005. The 3.7 increase for all of 2006 means about 47,000 more Americans were victims of murder, robbery, assault, rape, or other violent crimes.

Unfortunately, despite these disturbing numbers and the Justice Department's own acknowledgement that violent crime is increasing, over the last 8 years the Bush administration continually proposed drastic cuts in the Federal assistance traditionally available to state and local law enforcement.

President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2009 budget slashed funding for State and local law enforcement at unprecedented rates. After repeatedly proposing to eliminate COPS hiring grants, President Bush finally zeroed out the entire COPS program for fiscal year 2009, replacing it with a mere $4 million for a new community policing grant. This is simply not acceptable and our communities are suffering because of it.

During the 1990s and earlier years in this decade, the federal government vigorously funded grant programs for state and local law enforcement, including the COPS Program. We saw real results--violent crime went down year after year. It is no surprise that with the recent cuts, violent crime rates have ticked back up.

This trend has to stop, and it is my hope that Congress and the incoming Obama administration will move to correct the huge damage that has been inflicted on state and local law enforcement in the last eight years. The bill Senator Kohl and I introduce today will go a long way to do that.

We know what works and we can see the results of ignoring and underfunding proven programs. We also know that crime often rises in times of economic trouble. Now is not the time to continue the rollbacks in state and law enforcement funding initiated by the Bush administration.

This bill will serve a dual purpose--creating thousands of jobs in the current economic downturn and providing state and local law enforcement with the resources they need to successfully fight crime.

Specifically, the bill would authorize $1.15 billion per year for the next 6 years to fund the following:

Police Hiring Grants: The bill authorizes $600 million per year to hire up to 50,000 officers to work in community policing efforts, and school resource officers to fight school violence. These funds will create jobs in a worsening economy, and can be used to retain officers, pay overtime costs, and reimburse officers for training costs.

Law Enforcement Technology Grants: The bill authorizes $350 million per year for police departments to obtain new technology and equipment to analyze real-time crime data and incident reports to anticipate crime trends, map crime ``hot-spots'', examine DNA evidence, and purchasing badly needed technology upgrades for police on the street.

Community Prosecutor Grants: The bill authorizes $200 million per year to help local district attorneys hire and train more prosecutors.

Troops-to-Cops Program: The bill authorizes a troops-to-cops program to encourage local police agencies to hire former military personnel who are honorably discharged from military service or who are displaced by base closings to allow them to continue working and engaging in public service.

The COPS Program is a time-tested program that has proven its effectiveness for years. It is one of the cornerstones in the State and local law enforcement efforts that have removed thousands of pounds of drugs and millions of dollars worth of drug proceeds from communities across the country.

Money from the COPS Program provides law enforcement with the officers, prosecutors and technology that they need to keep our communities safe. All we have to do is look at the rising rates of violent crime that correspond to the staggering funding cuts to understand how important these programs are for our country.

We must provide the necessary tools and funds to State and local law enforcement and act decisively to combat the nation's growing gang problem and violent crime. Enacting the COPS Improvement Act of 2009 will be a step in the right direction. I hope my colleagues will join Senator Kohl and I in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. President, today the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled ``Helping State and Local Law Enforcement During an Economic Downturn.'' Today Senator Kyl and I are introducing a bill that will do just that. The SCAAP Reimbursement Protection Act of 2009 will help to alleviate the costs of illegal immigration to State and local governments by broadening the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, SCAAP, to ensure that States and localities are eligible for reimbursement of the costs associated with incarcerating criminal aliens.

We are joined today by Senators Boxer, Hutchinson, Schumer, Cornyn, Durbin, Crapo, Bingaman, Specter, Cantwell, and McCain.

The burden of incarcerating criminal aliens weighs heavily on States, especially during this time of economic uncertainty. California is home to approximately 32 percent of the Nation's illegal immigrants and spent over $950 million in 2008 alone to house these criminal aliens.

Understanding the expenses that States and localities bear, Congress enacted SCAAP in 1994 to help reimburse States and localities for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. Prior to 2003, the Department of Justice interpreted the SCAAP statute to include reimbursement to States and localities that are incurring costs of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens who have been accused or convicted of State and local offenses and have been incarcerated for a minimum of 72 hours. After 2003, DOJ limited reimbursement to the amount States and localities spend incarcerating convicted criminal aliens for at least 4 consecutive days.

Reimbursing States and localities only for the costs when a criminal alien is convicted and incarcerated for 4 consecutive days significantly undermines the goal of SCAAP that States and localities should not bear the burden of a broken Federal immigration system. The actual costs of this failed Federal system begin when these aliens are charged with a crime, transported, and incarcerated for any length of time.

This narrow interpretation is even more devastating because SCAAP is consistently under-funded. The President has zeroed out SCAAP funding in his budget proposals for the past 7 years. Through bipartisan support, Congress was only able to partially fund the program.

As a result, SCAAP only reimburses States for a fraction of the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. In 2008, the California State government will receive approximately $118 million in SCAAP funding. However, it is estimated to cost the State approximately $960 million each year for the incarceration of criminal aliens in California--$842 million above the reimbursement amount. The State of California is therefore only being reimbursed for approximately 12 percent of its actual costs to incarcerate illegal criminal aliens.

This cut has had a domino effect on public safety funding. For every dollar less that SCAAP reimburses States, a dollar less is available for critical public safety services. For example, after the SCAAP funding cuts in 2003, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department implemented an ``early release'' policy for prisoners convicted of misdemeanors.

I believe it is the Federal Government's responsibility to control illegal immigration. The funding cuts imposed by the Bush administration have let our local public safety services down, and have made our communities less safe.

The SCAAP Reimbursement Protection Act of 2009 is good federal policy to fix a failed Federal one--so that States are reimbursed for the full costs of incarcerating aliens who are either charged with or convicted of a felony or two misdemeanors.

This policy has the support of the National Sheriffs' Association, California State Association of Counties, the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, the Virginia Sheriffs' Association, the Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, and the Sheriffs' Association of Texas, who have all endorsed the bill I am reintroducing today.

Our colleagues in the House unanimously passed this companion bill last Congress and I urge my colleagues in this chamber to join me in supporting this much needed amendment to the SCAAP statute.

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

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

Madam President, I would like to offer my very sincere and heartfelt congratulations to the President pro tempore of this body, Senator Robert Byrd. He has served in the body for 50 years. I have had the privilege of working on the Appropriations Committee with him. There has been no one who has been more faithful to the Constitution, to the goals of the Senate or who has served this Senate more honorably. I wish to say congratulations, Mr. Chairman. May you have many more years.

Madam President, I would like to speak--and I am joined on the floor by my comember of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden, who will also speak on this issue--about the bill that Senators Rockefeller, Wyden and Whitehouse and I introduced yesterday. It is the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act.

I began this effort some time ago because I believe very strongly it is time to end the failed experiment at Guantanamo. It is time to repudiate torture and secret disappearances. It is time to end the outsourcing of coercive interrogations to outside contractors.

I believe it is time to return to the norms and values that have driven the United States to greatness since the days of George Washington but have been tarnished in the past 7 years. That is what both Senator Wyden and I hope this bill will do.

I have sent a copy of it to President-elect Obama's transition team. I have had occasion to talk with him about it and indicated that we look to work closely with him.

What this bill would do is require the President to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within 12 months. The need to close this facility is clear. Along with the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo has been decried throughout the world. It has helped our enemies recruit, it has reduced America's credibility worldwide, strained relationships with our allies, and created a misguided dual legal system.

Additionally, the Supreme Court now has ruled four times that the procedures put in place at Guantanamo are illegal. First, in Rasul v. Bush, the Court ruled the administration could not hold detainees outside U.S. law on Guantanamo soil; second, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court ruled the Government could not detain a U.S. citizen without due process and struck down the executive's process of labeling detainees as unlawful enemy combatants; third, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court struck down the administration's process for trying detainees outside the civilian legal system or the Uniform Code of Military Justice; and most recently in Boumediene, in which the Court ruled that detainees must be afforded habeas corpus.

Guantanamo was explicitly created to be a separate and lesser system of justice, to hold people captured on or near the battlefield in Afghanistan indefinitely. In 7 years, it has produced three convictions, including Australian David Hicks--who agreed to a plea bargain to get off the island, and Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, whose sentence is almost already up.

The hard part about closing Guantanamo is not deciding to go do it; it is figuring out what to do with the remaining detainees. Under the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act, the approximately 250 individuals now being held there would be handled in one of five ways.

No. 1, they can be charged with a crime and tried in the United States in the Federal civilian or military justice systems. These systems have handled terrorists and other dangerous individuals before and are capable of dealing with classified evidence and other unusual factors.

Second, individuals could be transferred to an international tribunal, if such a tribunal exists.

Third, detainees could be returned to their native countries or, if that is not possible, they could be transferred to a different country.

To date, more than 500 men have been sent from Guantanamo to the custody of other countries. Recently, Portugal and other nations have suggested they would be open to taking some of the remaining detainees as a way to help close Guantanamo. That is good news.

If there are detainees who cannot be charged with crimes or transferred to the custody of another country, there is a fourth option. If the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence agree an individual poses no security threat to the United States, the U.S. Government may release him. This may work, for example, for the Chinese Uighurs remaining at Guantanamo. I believe five or six Uighurs have already been released. The District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered that the remaining 17 Uighurs be released into our country. That decision has been stayed upon appeal.

Finally, for detainees who cannot be addressed in any one of the other four

options, the executive branch could hold them under existing authorities provided by the law of armed conflict.

I believe these options provide sufficient flexibility to handle the 250 or so people now being held at Guantanamo. If the incoming Obama administration decides that other alternatives are needed, I hope they will come to the Congress, explain the specifics of the problem, and we will work toward a joint legislative solution.

The three other provisions in the legislation end parts of the CIA's secret detention and interrogation program.

Some of the details of the program are already publicly known, such as the use of waterboarding on three individuals some years ago. Other aspects remain secret, such as the other authorized interrogation techniques and how they are used.

There have been public allegations of multiple deaths of detainees in CIA custody. There was one conviction of a CIA contractor in the death of a detainee in Afghanistan, but other details remain classified.

But it is well known that on August 1, 2002, the Justice Department approved coercive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, for the CIA's use. This, despite the fact that the Justice Department has prosecuted the use of waterboarding, and the State Department has decried it overseas.

The administration used what I believe to be faulty logic and faulty reasoning to say that waterboarding was not torture. In fact, it is.

We will never turn this sad page in our Nation's history until all coercive techniques are banned and are replaced with a single, clear, uniform standard across the U.S. Government. I cannot say that too strongly.

That standard established by this legislation is the interrogation set of protocols outlined in the Army Field Manual.

This is the field manual. It is not a casual document. It has been developed and revised over a period of time. It contains 19 specific interrogation techniques. They work for the military and operate under the same framework as the time-honored approach of the FBI. If the CIA would abide by its terms, it would work for the CIA as well.

These techniques were at the heart of former FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan's successful interrogation of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They were also the tools used by Special Agent George Piro to get Saddam Hussein to provide the evidence that resulted in his death sentence.

We have powerful expert testimony that the Army Field Manual techniques work against terrorist suspects. The manual's use across the Government is supported by scores of retired generals and admirals, by GEN David Petraeus, and by former Secretaries of State and national security advisers of both parties.

Majorities in both Houses of Congress passed this provision last year as part of the fiscal year 2008 intelligence authorization bill. I offered that amendment, as I believe Senator Wyden will remember, in the joint conference between the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees, and it was added to the bill.

It sends a clear message that we do not support coercive interrogations. But, regrettably, the President's veto of the bill stopped it from becoming law.

The President-elect agrees that we need to end coercive interrogations and to comply strictly to the terms of the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. So we look forward to working with him to end this sad story in our Nation's history.

The third part of this legislation is a ban on contractor interrogators at the CIA. Now, this is interesting. Unlike the FBI, where FBI agents do their own interrogations, CIA agents do not carry out all their interrogations. They hire contractors to do so. As General Hayden has testified, the CIA hires and keeps on contract people who are not intelligence professionals and whose sole job is to break detainees and get them to talk.

Now, I firmly and staunchly believe that outsourcing interrogations, whether coercive or more appropriate ones, to private companies is a way to diminish accountability.

I also believe the use of contractors leads to more brutal interrogations than if they were done by Government employees.

Think about it. You can have a set of interrogation practices and, dependent upon who administers them and the length of time they are administered and the combination in which they are administered, they can have very different effects on an individual.

There are surely areas where paid contractors make practical and financial sense. Interrogation, a form of collecting intelligence, is not one of them.

The fourth and the final provision in this legislation requires that the CIA and other intelligence agencies provide notification to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, of their detainees. Following notification, the CIA will be required to provide International Red Cross officials with access to detainees in the same way the military does.

Access by the ICRC is a hallmark of international law and is required by the Geneva Conventions. Access to a third party and the ICRC, in particular, was seen by the United States in 1947 as a guarantee that American men and women would be protected if they were ever captured overseas.

I believe it still remains that guarantee.

We remain a nation at war, and credible, actionable intelligence remains a cornerstone of our war effort. But this is a war that will be won by fighting smarter, not sinking to the depths of our enemies.

Our Nation has paid an enormous price because of these interrogations. They cast shadow and doubt over our ideals and our system of justice. Our enemies have used our practices to recruit more extremists. Our key global partnerships crucial to winning the war on terror have been strained. It will take time to resume our place as the world's beacon of liberty and justice. But I deeply believe, and the cosponsors believe, this bill will put us on that path and start the process.

So I urge its passage. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the history of this legislation and the matters it contains.

Now I will defer to my distinguished friend, my colleague, the Senator from Oregon, the Honorable Ron Wyden.

Madam President, I thank the Senator. We are both westerners. We did sit together for about 8 years on the committee. As such, I have had a chance to discuss a great deal about this topic. It is a matter of very deep conscience and a sense of values of everything this Nation stands for, the thing that sets us apart from many other countries who pick people up and do horrible things to them. We don't do that. We have always had such pride in that. The Senator hit a nail on the head. People may talk, but they can say anything they want. It is not necessarily valuable. It is not necessarily actionable intelligence. Sometimes it might be. But there are other ways of doing this and not sacrificing the values we hold dear. The nearest tool to achieve that is the Army Field Manual.

It has been great for me to work with the Senator from Oregon, and I look forward to working with him in the future. I thank him very much.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to speak to Senator Bingaman's introduction today of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. I strongly support this bill and Senator Bingaman's leadership in sponsoring it, and urge my colleagues to vote for its prompt passage.

This omnibus legislation includes no fewer than 20 bills of interest to California, including 14 bills to increase our water supply and to restore our rivers and groundwater quality, 3 bills to designate additional wilderness areas, and 3 other National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Forest Service bills.

I would like to speak at some length about one of these bills, the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act, which I have introduced with Senator Boxer to bring to a close 18 years of litigation between the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Friant Water Users Authority and the U.S. Department of the Interior. Before I discuss the San Joaquin bill, however, I would like to review the other 19 California bills in the omnibus legislation introduced today. These include the following:

Additions to National Wilderness Preservation System

Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wilderness,

Riverside County Wilderness, and the

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Wilderness;

Bureau of Land Management

Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria land exchange;

Forest Service

Mammoth Community Water District land conveyance;

National Park Services

Tule Lake Segregation Center Resource Study;

Bureau of Reclamation

San Diego Intertie feasibility study,

Madera Water Supply Enhancement Project authorization,

Rancho California Water District project authorization,

Santa Margarita River project authorization,

Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District project authorization,

North Bay Water Reuse Authority project authorization,

Prado Basin Natural Treatment System Project authorization,

Bunker Hill Groundwater Basin project authorization,

GREAT Project authorization,

Yucaipa Valley Water District project authorization,

Goleta Water District Water Distribution System title transfer,

San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund, and the

Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program

I would like to say a few words about the water project authorizations and wilderness bills, in addition to the San Joaquin River Settlement legislation.

In the Western U.S., drought, population growth, increasing climate variability, and ecosystem needs make managing water supplies especially challenging. The 9 California water recycling projects included in the omnibus bill offer a proven means to develop cost effective alternative water supply projects. Together they will help the state reduce its dependence on imported water from both the Lower Colorado River and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.

Among the other bills to benefit California water supply and quality, one codifies the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, MSCP, a 50 year plan to protect endangered species and preserve wildlife habitat along the Colorado River.

The three wilderness bills in this package would together protect a wilderness about 735,000 acres of land in Mono, Riverside, Inyo, and Los Angeles Counties, and within Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. This will protect spectacular lands ranging from the High Sierras to the magnificent California deserts. I want to thank Senator Boxer in particular for her leadership on these bills.

I would like to devote most of my remarks to the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act, a bill Senator Boxer and I have cosponsored that approves, authorizes and helps fund an historic Settlement on the San Joaquin River in California. This Settlement restores California's second longest river, while maintaining a stable water supply for the farmers who have made the San Joaquin Valley the richest agricultural area in the world. One of the major benefits of this settlement is the restoration of a long-lost salmon fishery. The return of one of California's most important salmon runs will create significant benefits for local communities in the San Joaquin Valley, helping to restore a beleaguered fishing industry while improving recreation and quality of life.

This San Joaquin Settlement bill is nearly identical to the bill that we introduced in the waning days of the 109th Congress, and reintroduced at the beginning of the 110th Congress as S. 27. However, the bill we are introducing today does reflect a few significant changes resulting from discussions among the numerous Settling Parties and various ``Third Parties'' in the San Joaquin Valley of California. During the past year the parties to the settlement and these affected third parties, such as the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors, have agreed to certain changes to the legislation to make the measure PAYGO neutral and to enhance implementation of the settlement's ``Water Management Goal'' to reduce or avoid adverse water supply impacts to Friant Division long-term water contractors. The legislation that we are introducing today incorporates these changes, which are supported by the State of California and major water agencies on the San Joaquin River and its tributaries.

The Settlement has two goals: to restore and maintain fish populations in the San Joaquin River, including a selfsustaining salmon fishery, and to avoid or reduce adverse water supply impacts to long- term Friant water contractors. Consistent with the terms of the Settlement, we expect that both of these goals will be pursued with equal diligence by the Federal agencies.

Without this consensus resolution of a long-running western water battle the parties will continue the fight, resulting in a court- imposed judgment. It is widely recognized that an outcome imposed by a court is likely to be worse for everyone on all counts: more costly, riskier for the farmers, and less beneficial for the environment.

The Settlement provides a framework that the affected interests can accept. As a result, this legislation has enjoyed the strong support of the Bush Administration, California Governor Schwarzenegger's Administration, the environmental and fishing communities and numerous California farmers and water districts, including the Friant Water Users Authority and its member districts that have been part of the litigation.

When the Federal Court approved the Settlement in late October, 2006, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne praised the Settlement for launching ``one of the largest environmental restoration projects in California's history.'' The Secretary further observed that ``This Settlement closes a long chapter of conflict and uncertainty in California's San Joaquin Valley . . . and open[s] a new chapter of environmental restoration and water supply certainty for the farmers and their communities.''

I share the Secretary's strong support for this balanced and historic agreement, and it is my honor to join with Senator Boxer and a bipartisan group of California House Members who have previously introduced and supported this legislation to authorize and help fund the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement.

During the past year we have worked with the parties to the settlement, affected third party agencies and the State of California to ensure that the legislation complies with congressional PAYGO rules.

In May of 2008, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved amendments agreed to by the parties that allow most Friant Division contractors to accelerate repayment of their construction cost obligation to the Treasury. This change both increases the amount of up-front funding available for the settlement and decreases the bill's PAYGO ``score'' by $88 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In exchange for agreeing to early re-payment of their construction obligation, Friant water agencies will be able to convert their 25-year water service contracts to permanent repayment contracts.

The amendments also included new provisions to enhance the water management efforts of affected Friant water districts. Specifically, the legislation now includes new authority to provide improvements to Friant Division facilities, including restoring capacity in canals, reverse flow pump-back facilities, and financial assistance for local water banking and groundwater recharge projects, all for the purpose of reducing or avoiding impacts on Friant Division contractors resulting from additional River flows called for by the Settlement and this Legislation.

Near the end of the 110th Congress, parties to the Settlement and affected third parties came to agreement on additional provisions that would greatly facilitate passage of the bill by making it PAYGO- neutral. The legislation we are introducing today includes substantial funding, including direct spending on settlement implementation during the first ten year period of $88 million gained by early repayment of Friant's construction obligation, and substantial additional funding authorized for annual appropriation until 2019, after which it then becomes available for direct spending again. This additional funding is generated by continuing payments from Friant water users and will become directly available to continue implementing the settlement by 2019 if it has not already been appropriated for that purpose before then.

In 2006, California voters showed their support for the settlement by approving Propositions 84 and 1E, that will help pay for the Settlement, with the State of California now committing at least $200 million toward the Settlement costs during the next 10 years. When State-committed funding, direct spending authorized by the bill, and other highly reliable funding including pre-existing payments by water users are added together, there is at least $380-390 million available for implementing the Settlement over the next 10 years, with additional dollars possible from additional federal appropriations.

Nevertheless, it is my intention to work with the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee during the 111th Congress to find a suitable offset that will allow restoration of all of the direct spending envisioned by the settlement without waiting until 2019.

Today's legislation continues to include substantial protections for other

water districts in California who were not party to the original settlement negotiations. These other water contractors will be able to avoid all but the smallest water impacts as a result of the settlement, except on a voluntary basis. These protections are accomplished while ensuring a timely and robust restoration of the River and without creating any new precedents for implementing the Endangered Species Act. Similarly, there is no preemption of State law and nothing in the bill changes any existing obligations of the United States to operate the Central Valley Project in conformity with state law.

The bill we are introducing today contains several new provisions to strengthen these third-party protections in light of the changes made to address PAYGO. These include safeguards to ensure that the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors and other third parties will not face increased costs or regulatory burdens as a result of the PAYGO changes.

Support of this agreement is almost as far reaching as its benefits. This historic agreement would not have been possible without the participation of a remarkably broad group of agencies, stakeholders and legislators, reaching far beyond the settling parties. The Department of the Interior, the State of California, the Friant Water Users Authority, the Natural Resources Defense Council on behalf of 13 other environmental organizations and countless other stakeholders came together and spent countless hours with legislators in Washington to ensure that we found a solution that the large majority of those affected could support.

At the end of the day, I believe that this San Joaquin bill is something that we can all feel proud of, and I urge my colleagues to move quickly to approve this omnibus public lands legislation and provide the administration the authorization it needs to fully carry out the extensive restoration opportunities and other actions called for under the Settlement.

Mr. President, I rise to speak to Senator Bingaman's introduction today of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. I strongly support this bill and Senator Bingaman's leadership in sponsoring it, and urge my colleagues to vote for its prompt passage.

This omnibus legislation includes no fewer than 20 bills of interest to California, including 14 bills to increase our water supply and to restore our rivers and groundwater quality, 3 bills to designate additional wilderness areas, and 3 other National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Forest Service bills.

I would like to speak at some length about one of these bills, the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act, which I have introduced with Senator Boxer to bring to a close 18 years of litigation between the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Friant Water Users Authority and the U.S. Department of the Interior. Before I discuss the San Joaquin bill, however, I would like to review the other 19 California bills in the omnibus legislation introduced today. These include the following:

Additions to National Wilderness Preservation System

Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wilderness,

Riverside County Wilderness, and the

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Wilderness;

Bureau of Land Management

Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria land exchange;

Forest Service

Mammoth Community Water District land conveyance;

National Park Services

Tule Lake Segregation Center Resource Study;

Bureau of Reclamation

San Diego Intertie feasibility study,

Madera Water Supply Enhancement Project authorization,

Rancho California Water District project authorization,

Santa Margarita River project authorization,

Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District project authorization,

North Bay Water Reuse Authority project authorization,

Prado Basin Natural Treatment System Project authorization,

Bunker Hill Groundwater Basin project authorization,

GREAT Project authorization,

Yucaipa Valley Water District project authorization,

Goleta Water District Water Distribution System title transfer,

San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund, and the

Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program

I would like to say a few words about the water project authorizations and wilderness bills, in addition to the San Joaquin River Settlement legislation.

In the Western U.S., drought, population growth, increasing climate variability, and ecosystem needs make managing water supplies especially challenging. The 9 California water recycling projects included in the omnibus bill offer a proven means to develop cost effective alternative water supply projects. Together they will help the state reduce its dependence on imported water from both the Lower Colorado River and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.

Among the other bills to benefit California water supply and quality, one codifies the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, MSCP, a 50 year plan to protect endangered species and preserve wildlife habitat along the Colorado River.

The three wilderness bills in this package would together protect a wilderness about 735,000 acres of land in Mono, Riverside, Inyo, and Los Angeles Counties, and within Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. This will protect spectacular lands ranging from the High Sierras to the magnificent California deserts. I want to thank Senator Boxer in particular for her leadership on these bills.

I would like to devote most of my remarks to the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act, a bill Senator Boxer and I have cosponsored that approves, authorizes and helps fund an historic Settlement on the San Joaquin River in California. This Settlement restores California's second longest river, while maintaining a stable water supply for the farmers who have made the San Joaquin Valley the richest agricultural area in the world. One of the major benefits of this settlement is the restoration of a long-lost salmon fishery. The return of one of California's most important salmon runs will create significant benefits for local communities in the San Joaquin Valley, helping to restore a beleaguered fishing industry while improving recreation and quality of life.

This San Joaquin Settlement bill is nearly identical to the bill that we introduced in the waning days of the 109th Congress, and reintroduced at the beginning of the 110th Congress as S. 27. However, the bill we are introducing today does reflect a few significant changes resulting from discussions among the numerous Settling Parties and various ``Third Parties'' in the San Joaquin Valley of California. During the past year the parties to the settlement and these affected third parties, such as the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors, have agreed to certain changes to the legislation to make the measure PAYGO neutral and to enhance implementation of the settlement's ``Water Management Goal'' to reduce or avoid adverse water supply impacts to Friant Division long-term water contractors. The legislation that we are introducing today incorporates these changes, which are supported by the State of California and major water agencies on the San Joaquin River and its tributaries.

The Settlement has two goals: to restore and maintain fish populations in the San Joaquin River, including a selfsustaining salmon fishery, and to avoid or reduce adverse water supply impacts to long- term Friant water contractors. Consistent with the terms of the Settlement, we expect that both of these goals will be pursued with equal diligence by the Federal agencies.

Without this consensus resolution of a long-running western water battle the parties will continue the fight, resulting in a court- imposed judgment. It is widely recognized that an outcome imposed by a court is likely to be worse for everyone on all counts: more costly, riskier for the farmers, and less beneficial for the environment.

The Settlement provides a framework that the affected interests can accept. As a result, this legislation has enjoyed the strong support of the Bush Administration, California Governor Schwarzenegger's Administration, the environmental and fishing communities and numerous California farmers and water districts, including the Friant Water Users Authority and its member districts that have been part of the litigation.

When the Federal Court approved the Settlement in late October, 2006, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne praised the Settlement for launching ``one of the largest environmental restoration projects in California's history.'' The Secretary further observed that ``This Settlement closes a long chapter of conflict and uncertainty in California's San Joaquin Valley . . . and open[s] a new chapter of environmental restoration and water supply certainty for the farmers and their communities.''

I share the Secretary's strong support for this balanced and historic agreement, and it is my honor to join with Senator Boxer and a bipartisan group of California House Members who have previously introduced and supported this legislation to authorize and help fund the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement.

During the past year we have worked with the parties to the settlement, affected third party agencies and the State of California to ensure that the legislation complies with congressional PAYGO rules.

In May of 2008, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved amendments agreed to by the parties that allow most Friant Division contractors to accelerate repayment of their construction cost obligation to the Treasury. This change both increases the amount of up-front funding available for the settlement and decreases the bill's PAYGO ``score'' by $88 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In exchange for agreeing to early re-payment of their construction obligation, Friant water agencies will be able to convert their 25-year water service contracts to permanent repayment contracts.

The amendments also included new provisions to enhance the water management efforts of affected Friant water districts. Specifically, the legislation now includes new authority to provide improvements to Friant Division facilities, including restoring capacity in canals, reverse flow pump-back facilities, and financial assistance for local water banking and groundwater recharge projects, all for the purpose of reducing or avoiding impacts on Friant Division contractors resulting from additional River flows called for by the Settlement and this Legislation.

Near the end of the 110th Congress, parties to the Settlement and affected third parties came to agreement on additional provisions that would greatly facilitate passage of the bill by making it PAYGO- neutral. The legislation we are introducing today includes substantial funding, including direct spending on settlement implementation during the first ten year period of $88 million gained by early repayment of Friant's construction obligation, and substantial additional funding authorized for annual appropriation until 2019, after which it then becomes available for direct spending again. This additional funding is generated by continuing payments from Friant water users and will become directly available to continue implementing the settlement by 2019 if it has not already been appropriated for that purpose before then.

In 2006, California voters showed their support for the settlement by approving Propositions 84 and 1E, that will help pay for the Settlement, with the State of California now committing at least $200 million toward the Settlement costs during the next 10 years. When State-committed funding, direct spending authorized by the bill, and other highly reliable funding including pre-existing payments by water users are added together, there is at least $380-390 million available for implementing the Settlement over the next 10 years, with additional dollars possible from additional federal appropriations.

Nevertheless, it is my intention to work with the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee during the 111th Congress to find a suitable offset that will allow restoration of all of the direct spending envisioned by the settlement without waiting until 2019.

Today's legislation continues to include substantial protections for other

water districts in California who were not party to the original settlement negotiations. These other water contractors will be able to avoid all but the smallest water impacts as a result of the settlement, except on a voluntary basis. These protections are accomplished while ensuring a timely and robust restoration of the River and without creating any new precedents for implementing the Endangered Species Act. Similarly, there is no preemption of State law and nothing in the bill changes any existing obligations of the United States to operate the Central Valley Project in conformity with state law.

The bill we are introducing today contains several new provisions to strengthen these third-party protections in light of the changes made to address PAYGO. These include safeguards to ensure that the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors and other third parties will not face increased costs or regulatory burdens as a result of the PAYGO changes.

Support of this agreement is almost as far reaching as its benefits. This historic agreement would not have been possible without the participation of a remarkably broad group of agencies, stakeholders and legislators, reaching far beyond the settling parties. The Department of the Interior, the State of California, the Friant Water Users Authority, the Natural Resources Defense Council on behalf of 13 other environmental organizations and countless other stakeholders came together and spent countless hours with legislators in Washington to ensure that we found a solution that the large majority of those affected could support.

At the end of the day, I believe that this San Joaquin bill is something that we can all feel proud of, and I urge my colleagues to move quickly to approve this omnibus public lands legislation and provide the administration the authorization it needs to fully carry out the extensive restoration opportunities and other actions called for under the Settlement.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a private relief bill on behalf of Ruben Mkoian, his wife, Asmik Karapetian and their son, Arthur Mkoyan. The Mkoian family are Armenian nationals who have been living and working in Fresno, California, for over a decade.

The story of the Mkoian family is compelling and I believe they merit Congress's special consideration for such an extraordinary form of relief as a private bill.

Let me first start with how the Mkoian family arrived in the United States. While in Armenia, Mr. Mkoian worked as a police sergeant in a division dealing with vehicle licensing. As a result of his position, he was offered a bribe to register 20 stolen vehicles.

He refused the bribe and reported the incident to the police chief. He later learned that his co-worker had registered the vehicles at the request of the chief.

After he reported the offense, Mr. Mkoian's supervisor informed him that the department was to undergo an inspection. Mr. Mkoian was instructed to take a vacation during this time period. Mr. Mkoian believed that the inspection was a result of the complaint that he had filed with the higher authorities.

During the inspection, however, Mr. Mkoian worked at a store that he owned rather than taking a vacation. During that time, individuals kept entering his store and attempted to damage it and break merchandise. When he threatened to call the police, he received threatening phone calls telling him to ``shut up'' or else he would ``regret it.'' Mr. Mkoian believed that these threats were related to the illegal vehicle registrations occurring in his department because he had nothing else to be silent about.

Later that same month, three men grabbed his wife and attempted to kidnap his child, Arthur, on the street. Mrs. Mkoian was told that her husband should ``shut up.'' No one suffered any injuries from the incident. In October 1991, a bottle of gasoline was thrown into the Mkoian's residence and their house was burned down. The final incident occurred on April 1, 1992, when four or five men assaulted Mr. Mkoian in his store. He was beaten and hospitalized for 22 days.

Following that experience, Mr. Mkoian left Armenia for Russia, and then came to the United States on a visitor's visa in search of a better life. Two years later he brought his wife Asmik and his then 3- year-old son Arthur to the United States, also on visitor's visas. The family applied for political asylum, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied their request in January 2008. Thus, the family has no further legal recourse by which to remain in the country other than this bill.

Since arriving in the United States, the family has thrived. Arthur is now 18 years old and the family has expanded to include Arsen, who is a U.S. citizen.

Both Arthur and Arsen are very special children. In high school, Arthur maintained a 4.0 grade point average and was a valedictorian for the class of 2008. I first introduced this bill on his graduation day. Today, Arthur is a freshman at the University of California, Davis.

Arsen is following in his older brother's footsteps. At age 12, he stands out among his peers and is on the honor roll at Tenaya Middle School in Fresno.

In addition to raising two outstanding children, Mr. and Mrs. Mkoian have maintained steady jobs and have devoted time and energy into the community and their church. Mr. Mkoian is working at HB Medical Transportation, as a driver in Fresno.

His wife, Asmik, has two jobs as a medical receptionist with Dr. Kumar in Fresno and as a sales clerk at Gottschalks Department Store. In addition, she has taken classes at Fresno Community College and has completed their Medical Assistant Program.

The family are active members of the St. Paul Armenian Church, and Mr. Mkoian is a member of the PTA of the St. Paul Armenian Saturday School.

There has been an outpouring of support for this family from their church, the schools their children attend, and the community at large.

To date, we have received over 200 letters of support for the family in addition to numerous telephone calls. I also note that I have letters from both Congressman George Radanovich and Jim Costa, requesting that I offer this bill for the Mkoian family.

I truly believe that this case warrants our compassion and our extraordinary consideration.

I ask my colleagues to support this private bill. Mr. President, I ask by unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a private relief bill on behalf of Jorge Rojas Gutierrez, his wife, Oliva Gonzalez Gonzalez, and their son, Jorge Rojas Gonzalez. The Rojas family members are Mexican nationals living in the San Jose area of California.

The story of the Rojas family is compelling, and I believe they merit Congress' special consideration for such an extraordinary form of relief as a private bill.

Mr. Rojas and his wife Ms. Gonzalez originally came to the United States in 1990 when their son Jorge Rojas, Jr. was just 2 years old. In 1995, they left the country to attend a funeral, and then re-entered on visitors' visas.

The family has since expanded to include a son, Alexis Rojas, now age 16, and a daughter Tania Rojas, now age 14.

Since arriving in the United States, this family has dedicated themselves to community involvement, a strong work ethic and volunteerism. They have been paying taxes since their arrival in 1990. The family has been described by their friends and colleagues as a ``model American family.'' I would like to tell you some more about each member of the Rojas family.

Mr. Rojas is a hard-working individual who has been employed by Valley Crest Landscape Maintenance in San Jose, California, for the past 14 years. Currently, Mr. Rojas works on commercial landscaping projects. He is well-respected by his supervisor and his peers.

In addition to supporting his family, Jorge has volunteered his time and talents to provide modern green landscaping and a recreational jungle gym to Sherman Oaks Community Charter School, where his two youngest children attend school.

Ms. Gonzalez, in addition to raising her three children, has been very active in the local community. She has worked to help other immigrants assimilate to American life by working as a translator and a tutor for immigrant children at Sherman Oaks Community Charter School and the Y.M.C.A. Kids after-school program.

She has also coached soccer teams, and has recently directed a Thanksgiving food drive. Ms. Gonzalez also devotes many hours of her time to the organization People Acting in Community Together, PACT, where she works to prevent crime, gangs and drug dealing in San Jose neighborhoods and schools.

Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons for permitting the family to remain in the United States is the impact their deportation would have on their three children. Two of the children, Alexis and Tania, are U.S. citizens. Jorge Rojas, Jr. has lived in the United States since he was a toddler. For these children, this country is the only country they really know.

Jorge Rojas, Jr., who entered the United States as an infant with his parents, is now 20 and is currently working at Jamba Juice. He graduated from Del Mar High School in 2007 and is currently taking classes at San Jose City College.

Alexis and Tania are students at Sherman Oaks Community Charter School. They are described by their teachers as ``fantastic, wonderful, and gifted'' students. In fact, the principal at Sherman Oaks has described all three of the children as ``honest, hard-working academic honor students'' and have commended all of them for their on-campus leadership.

It seems so clear to me that this family has embraced the American dream, and their continued presence in our country would do so much to enhance the values we hold dear. I have received 30 letters from the community in support of this family. Enactment of the legislation I have reintroduced today will enable the Rojas family to continue to make significant contributions to their community as well as the United States.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to support this private bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Credit Card Minimum Payment Notification Act.

This bill would help American consumers by requiring banks to notify credit card holders of the true cost if

they choose to make the minimum payment each month.

Americans today own more credit cards than ever before. The average American has approximately four credit cards. In 2007, 1 in 7 Americans held more than 10 cards.

Unsurprisingly, this increase in credit card ownership has resulted in a dramatic increase in credit card debt.

Over the past 2 decades, Americans' combined credit card debt has nearly tripled--from $238 billion in 1989 to a staggering $971 billion in 2008.

Today, the average American household has approximately $10,678 in credit card debt, up 29 percent from 2000.

Among credit card users, 55 percent carry a balance on their credit card, a 2 percent increase from last year.

Approximately 1 in 6 families with credit cards pays only the minimum due every month.

Young Americans are using credit cards to finance everything from daily expenses to college tuition. Forty-one percent of college students have a credit card, and, of those, only 65 percent pay their bills in full every month.

Over the past year, as economic conditions have worsened, it has become even harder for families to pay off their debt. Whether it is a mortgage, or tuition, or medical expenses, people are finding it harder than ever to meet all of their expenses.

In July of this year, 28 percent of people surveyed reported that their ability to pay off their credit card balances has become more strained.

This increasing debt is contributing to more and more Americans filing for bankruptcy.

Ever since the Bankruptcy Reform Act was enacted in 2005, non- business bankruptcies have been increasing at a rapid pace. The numbers this year already show a staggering hike. Between September 2007 and September 2008, Americans filed over one million non-business bankruptcies, up 30 percent from the previous year.

Many of these personal bankruptcies are people who are turning to credit cards to finance their expenses. Today's filers have even more credit card debt than usual--sometimes because they have been struggling to pay a mortgage and have started using credit cards for daily expenses.

One family, the Forsyths, found themselves in financial trouble after moving to a new State for a better job opportunity. Unable to sell their old house, they rented. But when the renter stopped making payments, the family became overwhelmed with two mortgage payments. Credit cards helped at first--providing payment for food, utilities, and clothes--but the family quickly accumulated $20,000 in debt and was left with no alternative other than bankruptcy.

The benefits offered by credit cards are attractive, but these cards also pose enormous financial risk. Dianne McLeod discovered this in a painful way after back-to-back medical emergencies depleted her finances. Although credit cards initially enabled her to maintain her lifestyle, before long these cards and two mortgages meant that she later found that she was spending more than 40 percent of her monthly income on interest payments, in addition to thousands of dollars annually in fees.

Today, credit cardholders receive no information on the impact of carrying a balance with compounding interest. As a result, too often individuals make only the minimum payment. After a few years, they find that the interest on the debt is almost twice the amount of their original purchases--and they do not know what to do about it.

I first introduced the Credit Card Minimum Payment Notification Act during the debate on the 2005 bankruptcy bill. As I said then, I believe the bill failed to balance responsibility and fairness. Consumers should not be so harshly penalized when they do not have the basic tools and information they need to make informed choices.

The Credit Card Minimum Payment Notification Act would help prevent this problem by requiring credit card companies to add two items to each consumer's monthly credit card statement:

A general notice that would read ``Making only the minimum payment will increase the interest you pay and the time it takes to repay your balance.''

An individualized notice to credit card holders that specifies clearly on their bill how much time it will take to repay their debt and the total amount they will pay if they only make the minimum payments.

For consumers with variable rate cards, the bill would also require companies to provide a toll-free number where cardholders can access credit-counseling services.

The disclosure requirements in the bill would only apply if the consumer has a minimum payment that is less than 10 percent of the debt on the credit card. Otherwise, none of these disclosures would be required on their statement.

Last year, a Gallup--Experian poll found that about 11 percent of credit cardholders consistently make only the minimum payment on their cards each month.

Consider what this could mean for the average household.

For example, the U.S. average credit card debt is $10,678. The average fixed credit card interest rate is approximately 12 percent. If the 2 percent minimum payment is all that is paid on its debt each month, it would take more than 31 years to pay off the bill and the total cost would be $21,052.66--and that's just the minimum assuming that the family didn't ever charge another dime on that bill.

In other words, the family would need to pay $10,374.66 in interest just to repay $10,678 in original debt.

For individuals or families with more than average debt, the pitfalls are even greater. $20,000 of credit card debt at the average 12 percent interest rate will take over 36 years and more than $28,261 to pay off if only the minimum payments are made.

Twelve percent is relatively low, average interest rate. Interest rates around 20 percent are not uncommon on credit cards, and penalty interest rates can reach as high as 32 percent.

A family that has the average debt with a 20 percent interest rate and makes the minimum payments will need a lifetime--over 85 years--and $62,158 to pay off the initial $10,678 bill. That's $51,480 just in interest--an amount that approaches 5 times the original debt.

Credit cards are an important part of everyday life, and they help the economy operate more smoothly by giving consumers and merchants a reliable, convenient way to exchange funds. But the bottom line is that for many consumers, the two percent minimum payment is a financial trap.

The Credit Card Minimum Payment Notification Act is designed to ensure that people are not caught in this trap through lack of information.

Last month, the Federal Reserve Board approved new rules that will improve disclosures, but the rules do not go far enough. Under the rules, starting July 1, 2010, credit card companies will have to warn consumers about the effect of making minimum payments on the length of time it will take to pay off their balances. But the warnings may be only examples and will not show the effect on the amount that consumers pay over time.

Before approving the final rules, the Federal Reserve Board interviewed consumers who typically carried credit card balances. Those consumers found disclosures most helpful when they provided specific information and included warnings about the amount that would have to be paid over time.

The Credit Card Minimum Payment Notification Act would provide the straightforward disclosure that consumers find most helpful and most effective.

This disclosure will ensure that consumers know exactly what it means for them to carry a balance and make minimum payments, so they can make informed decisions on credit card use and repayment.

In addition, the burden on banks will be minimal. Calculations like these are purely formulaic. Credit card companies already complete similar calculations to determine credit risk and when they tell consumers what their required minimum payment is each month.

The harsh effects of the 2005 bankruptcy bill are becoming apparent. During the debate over that bill, I had hoped that Congress would succeed in balancing the need to incentivize consumers to act responsibly with the promise of a fresh start for those who fell impossibly behind. I do not believe that that balance was reached.

I continue to believe that consumers need a meaningful disclosure informing them of the effects of making minimum payments.

Today, as Americans face increasing struggles with debt and expenses, the bill is needed more than ever. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Hatch, Bayh, Kerry, Murray, Kyl, and Specter in introducing comprehensive anti-gang legislation--the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2009.

This bill has changed significantly since Senator Hatch and I began introducing gang legislation over 10 years ago. The current version of the bill reflects changes that have been made to comprehensively address the gang problem, including provisions emphasizing prevention and intervention programs, as well as enforcement funding.

This bill recognizes that the root causes of gang violence need to be addressed--identifying successful community programs and then investing significant resources in schools and religious and community organizations to prevent young people from joining gangs in the first place.

The bill constitutes a balanced approach to fighting the gang problem, with authorization for hundreds of millions of dollars to be used for proven gang prevention and intervention programs, as well as strong enforcement provisions.

The rise of criminal street gangs and the effect these gangs are having on our Nation are two of the fundamental issues facing us today. This country is in the midst of an epidemic of gang violence that cuts across every age and every race and plagues our cities, suburbs and rural areas. This violence often involves teens and children as both victims and perpetrators.

Almost every day, gang violence is in the news across the country, with gang-related killings of children and innocent bystanders almost too numerous to count. A person only needs to pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news to see how gang violence is affecting our communities.

A snapshot of gang violence that occurred over a 4-day period in Los Angeles in March 2008 illustrates how insidious gangs have become.

On March 2, 2008, Jamiel Shaw, a 17-year-old high school football star, was shot to death just three doors from his home in Mid-City Los Angeles as he rushed home to make curfew. Two gang members pulled up in a car, asked if Jamiel was a gang member, and then shot him when he didn't answer. Jamiel was not in a gang and was a model student and athlete who was being recruited by Stanford and Rutgers to play collegiate football. His mother, a sergeant in the U.S. Army who was serving her second tour of duty in Iraq, had to return home to Los Angeles to bury her son.

On March 4, 2008, 6-year-old Lavarea Elvy was shot in the head in the Harbor Gateway area of South Los Angeles as she sat in the family car. A gang member and a gang associate of a Hispanic street gang have been charged in this attempted murder.

On March 6, 2008, 13-year-old Anthony Escobar was killed while picking lemons in a neighbor's yard in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. Anthony was not a gang member, and police believe he was targeted by gang members who came to his neighborhood for no other reason than to kill someone.

Stories like these are not limited to California. They are becoming commonplace across the country. Consider the following incidents of gang violence from across the country:

In February 2008, Julia Steele, an 80-year-old woman from St. Louis, Missouri, was killed when she was caught in the crossfire of gunfire between rival gang members. Julia's 80-year-old friend was also injured when their car slammed into other vehicles after the shooting.

Beginning in May 2008, police in Billings, Montana had to increase neighborhood patrols due to repeated drive-by shootings conducted by gang members.

In July 2008, a 7-year-old boy was wounded while playing kickball near his suburban Roxbury, Massachusetts home. He was shot by an adult gang member from Boston, who police believe had traveled to the suburbs for no other reason than to shoot someone.

In October 2008, Christopher Walker, a 16-year-old high school junior and member of the varsity basketball team, was shot and killed by a gang member near Henry Ford High School, his high school in Detroit, Michigan. According to media reports, Chris' death has sparked much anger in the community over growing gang violence in the area.

Across the country, in rural areas, suburbs, and cities, gang violence is literally holding neighborhoods hostage and Congress needs to do something about it. Our national gang problem is immense and growing, and it is not going away.

On January 18, 2007, FBI Director Mueller acknowledged that gang crime has become ``part of a clear national trend.'' FBI statistics show that there are over 30,000 criminal street gangs operating in the United States, with more than one million gang members.

According to the FBI, gangs have an impact on at least 2,500 communities across the Nation. These criminal street gangs engage in drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, gun trafficking, and murder. They recruit children and teens, destroy neighborhoods, cripple families, and kill innocent people.

In California, the State Attorney General has estimated that there are 171,000 juveniles and adults committed to criminal street gangs and their way of life. That's greater than the population of 28 California counties.

From 1992 to 2003, there were more than 7,500 gang-related homicides reported in California. In 2007, 469 of the 2,258 homicides in California were gang-related.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Bill Bratton put it bluntly: ``There is nothing more insidious than these gangs. They are worse than the Mafia. Show me a year in New York where the Mafia indiscriminately killed 300 people. You can't.''

It's not just a California problem or an issue limited to big cities. In Chicago, the FBI estimates that there are over 60,000 gang members. A 2008 DOJ Report notes the rapid spread of gangs and violence to suburban areas. FBI Director Mueller recently recognized the national scope of the gang problem when he said: ``Gangs are no longer limited to Los Angeles. Like a cancer, gangs are spreading to communities across America.''

Our cities and States need our help--a long-term commitment to combat gang violence and a Federal helping hand to get our youth out of gangs and keep them from joining gangs in the first place.

Senator Hatch and I have now been introducing comprehensive Federal gang legislation for over a decade. Our gang bills have been modified and refined over the years, most recently in the bill that passed in the Senate in the 110th Congress by unanimous consent.

The bill that we introduce today is a balanced and measured approach to dealing with the gang problem. It has no death penalty provisions, no mandatory minimums, and we have eliminated juvenile justice changes that previously proved to be an impediment to the larger bill's passage.

The bill that we offer today provides a Federal helping hand to fight the gang problem. It provides a comprehensive solution to gang violence, combining enforcement, prevention, and intervention efforts in a collaborative approach that has proven effective in models like Operation Ceasefire.

The bill recognizes that the Federal Government can do more to fight gangs and that more tools must be made available to Federal law enforcement agents and prosecutors to stop the epidemic of gang violence. To this end, the bill establishes new, common sense Federal gang crimes and tougher Federal penalties.

Existing Federal street gang laws are frankly weak, and are almost never used. Currently, a person committing a gang crime might have extra time tacked on to the end of their Federal sentence. That is because Federal law currently focuses on gang violence only as a sentencing enhancement, rather than as a crime unto itself.

The bill that I offer today would make it a separate Federal crime for any criminal street gang member to commit, conspire or attempt to commit violent crimes--including murder, kidnapping, arson, extortion-- in furtherance of the gang.

The penalties for gang members committing such crimes would increase considerably.

For gang-related murder, kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse or maiming, the penalties would range up to life imprisonment.

For any other serious violent felony, the penalty would range up to 30 years.

For other crimes of violence--defined as the actual or intended use of physical force against the person of another--the penalty could bring up to 20 years in prison.

The bill also creates a new crime for recruiting juveniles and adults into a criminal street gang, with a penalty of up to 10 years, or if the recruiting involved a juvenile or recruiting from prison, up to 20 years.

It also creates new Federal crimes for committing violent crimes in connection with drug trafficking, and increases existing penalties for violent crimes in aid of racketeering.

Finally, the bill also makes a host of other violent crime reforms, including closing a loophole that allows carjackers to avoid convictions, increasing the penalties for those who use guns in violent crimes or transfer guns knowing they will be used in crimes, and limiting bail for violent felons who possess firearms.

But the bill also recognizes that we cannot simply arrest our way out of the gang problem. It also focuses on prevention and intervention strategies to prevent our youth from joining street gangs and to give existing gang members a way out of that lifestyle.

Specifically, the bill would authorize over $1 billion in new funds over the next 5 years to address the gang problem, including: $411.5 million to fund gang prevention and intervention programs, like Operation Ceasefire, a proven gang prevention and intervention program successfully used in communities across the country; $187.5 million to establish High Intensity Interstate Gang Activity Areas--Federal, State, and local law enforcement task forces to combat gangs and implement prevention programs; $100 million to fund the DOJ's Project Safe Neighborhood Program, the Federal Government's primary anti-gang initiative; $50 million for the Project Safe Streets Program, the FBI's primary gang investigation tool; $100 million for more prosecutors, technology, and equipment for gang investigations; $270 million for State witness protection programs in gang cases.

This balanced approach--of prevention and intervention plus common sense enforcement--will send a clear message to gang members: a new day has arrived and the Federal Government will no longer sit on the sidelines while gang violence engulfs the country.

This bill will provide gang members with new opportunities, with schools and social services agencies empowered to make alternatives to gangs a realistic option. But if gang members continue to engage in violence, they will face new and serious Federal consequences.

For more than 10 years now, Senator Hatch and I have been trying to pass Federal anti-gang legislation. There have been times when we have gotten close, including last session when the Senate passed this same bill. Unfortunately, while Congress as a whole has failed to act, violent street gangs have only expanded nationwide and become more empowered and entrenched in other States and communities.

I believe this bill can again pass in the Senate and be enacted into law. The time has arrived for us to finally address this problem, and I believe this bill is well-suited to help solve it.

I urge my colleagues to favorably consider this legislation in the 111th Congress.

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

Mr. President, I rise on behalf of myself and Senator Snowe to introduce legislation that will increase transparency, strengthen oversight, and require firms receiving financial lifelines from the Federal Government to practice responsible corporate governance.

Our bill--the Troubled Asset Relief Program Transparency Reporting Act--will achieve four essential objectives, prohibit firms receiving loans from the Federal Reserve or participating in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, from using this money for lobbying expenditures or political contributions; require that firms receiving government assistance provide detailed, publicly available quarterly reports to Treasury outlining how taxpayer dollars have been used; establish corporate governance standards to ensure that firms receiving Federal assistance do not waste money on unnecessary expenditures; and create penalties of at least $100,000 per violation for firms that fail to meet the corporate governance standards established in the bill.

The need for such legislation has become very apparent in the 3 months since Congress approved the economic rescue plan.

The economic rescue legislation passed in October includes several oversight boards and accountability provisions to ensure that public funds are effectively distributed. But, it does not include any reporting requirements for firms that receive Federal dollars.

This is a significant omission, especially given the amount of Federal money that some firms are receiving.

The Treasury Department has committed to purchasing $250 billion of preferred stock in financial institutions. More than 200 financial institutions have received roughly $188 billion. Of these funds, $125 billion was allocated to nine large national banks.

In addition to injecting capital into banks, American Insurance Group, AIG, has received an additional $40 billion and CitiGroup has received $20 billion of TARP funds.

Last month, GM received more than $10 billion in financing through the recently implemented Automotive Industry Financing Program.

This effectively means that the entirety of the first $350 billion of rescue funds has been spent.

When you add up all of the taxpayer dollars put on the line--from $30 billion

provided to Bear Stearns in March, $200 billion available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $150 billion to AIG, $700 billion for TARP, plus the direct lending programs at the Federal Reserve--we are talking about well over 1 trillion Federal dollars.

I certainly don't think it is unreasonable for the public to know how their money is being spent, and I am not the only Member of Congress or elected official who feels this way.

In response to questions posed by the Congressional Oversight Panel for Economic Stabilization, the Treasury Department noted that it was committed to rigorous oversight of executive compensation packages. This may be the case, but executive compensation is only the beginning.

While I am pleased that CEOs at some financial institutions that accepted Federal assistance did not accept their annual bonuses last year, we still do not have an official accounting of how Federal funds were used.

Certainly Americans deserve assurances that struggling firms will not use public funds to pay exorbitant salaries or bonuses.

The same can be said for these funds going towards dividend payments, or mergers and acquisitions.

The Government Accountability Office, GAO, has reported that the Treasury Department had no strong accountability or oversight function to ensure that banks were using rescue assistance with the best interests of the public in mind.

It noted that Treasury had little ability to ensure that participating firms complied with laws already limiting executive compensation and conflicts of interest.

An investigation last month by the Associated Press found that many banks that have accepted Federal assistance are not able to say with certainty exactly how they have used the money. Some of these banks would not even discuss the issue.

We cannot be sure that the rescue funds are being used to stabilize the economy if banks are not keeping proper accounting of their use, and those that do will not disclose it.

Shining light on how firms use public dollars not only makes good sense, but it will also act as a deterrent to irresponsible behavior.

On October 16, 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that AIG, which received billions of dollars in Federal rescue funds, was continuing to lobby State regulators to delay implementation of strengthened licensing standards for mortgage brokers and lenders.

AIG was lobbying against sensible standards created by the SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act. This bill, introduced by Senator Martinez and myself, established basic minimum regulations for the mortgage industry to ensure consumers were adequately protected.

Before this bill, in some States virtually anyone--even those with criminal records--could go out and get a mortgage broker's license.

Left unchecked, and with no regulations to stop them, unscrupulous mortgage brokers and lenders flooded the markets with subprime loans that they knew would never be paid back.

Of course, this has served as one of the catalysts for our current economic predicament.

And now AIG, propped up by billions in Government money after having succumbed to bad investments, was lobbying against the strong enforcement of State laws that might have helped prevent this catastrophe in the first place.

Senator Martinez and I wrote a letter to AIG and, to the company's credit, CEO Edward Liddy immediately suspended the company's lobbying operations.

I find it completely unacceptable that taxpayer dollars intended to stabilize the economy could find their way into the bank accounts of lobbying firms. The legislation which I am reintroducing today will make sure that does not happen.

I do not mean to pick on AIG, but they have also been the poster child for wasteful spending by rescued firms.

In September 2008, just days after receiving an $85 billion Federal lifeline, the management of AIG treated itself to a $444,000 spa weekend at the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, California. This included $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for fine dining and $23,000 in spa charges.

AIG executives spent the last 2 days of September 2008 on a golf outing at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas at a cost of up to $500,000. They were planning to follow this with a few days at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, but cancelled after it hit the news and drew fire from congressional leaders.

As news of these wasteful expenditures was making headlines, AIG received another $37.8 billion in emergency loans from the Federal Government.

Shortly thereafter, the Associated Press reported that--even as AIG was asking Congress for these loans--AIG executives were spending $86,000 on a pheasant hunting expedition in England. During the trip, they stayed at a 17th century manor.

One AIG executive named Sebastian Preil was quoted as saying that: ``The recession will go on until about 2011, but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine.''

Once these lapses in judgment came to light, AIG chief executive Edward Liddy informed Congress that he was putting an end to all nonessential expenditures. Yet weeks later, an undercover news crew caught AIG executives at the Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix, hosting a seminar for financial planners complete with cocktails and limousines.

One would think that a brush with collapse and total failure might have a sobering effect on some of these firms.

But this penchant for wasteful junkets in the face of complete failure was not unique to AIG.

Following enactment of TARP, news reports have uncovered multiple instances in which rescued firms have been caught making unnecessary and outrageous expenditures, leading many taxpayers to question why these firms are receiving Federal assistance in the first place.

In November, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced that the $700 billion approved by Congress to stabilize financial markets would not be used to purchase illiquid assets but rather to make direct capital injections into financial institutions.

Given this new mission, the need for additional transparency and disclosure is striking.

We have learned that we cannot necessarily count on these firms and their executives to act sensibly and do what is right.

The public needs to know that their tax dollars are being put to good use.

A simple ``trust me'' from the bank executives is not enough.

Americans are struggling, and the pain in my State of California, where unemployment is 8.4 percent, and foreclosure filings exceeded 750,000 last year, is especially acute.

This bill puts in place commonsense solutions to fix some of the deficiencies in the economic stabilization bill.

This legislation is significant and sorely needed.

We must act soon to help restore confidence in this effort and shed light on how public funds are used. We promised the American people transparency and oversight, and this legislation will make good on that promise.

I hope my colleagues will join me to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently and responsibly.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Data Breach Notification Act.

This is a commonsense bill that is aimed at protecting personal information and preventing identity theft. The bill would require businesses and government agencies to notify individuals when their sensitive personal information has been exposed in a data breach.

As many of you know, I have been urging the Senate to adopt this legislation since 2003, when California first imposed a State notification requirement.

That legislation has helped consumers in my State. Federal data breach law would provide uniformity and protect consumers throughout the country.

With every year that passes, the evidence in support of this legislation has only continued to mount.

The cost of identity theft is enormous--estimated at more than $50 billion per year. Some of the costs fall on businesses and banks, which suffer losses from fraudulent transactions. Some of the costs are also borne by consumers, whose finances and credit ratings are disrupted.

Since the beginning of 2005, over 240 million data records containing individuals' sensitive personal data have been exposed in data breaches.

It seems that not a week goes by without news of another security breach that exposes names, addresses, birth dates, social security numbers, or other personal data.

These breaches have spawned a vast online market in stolen identities. Today, each person whose identity is sold on the internet faces a high risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. Each of them faces the expensive and time-consuming nightmare of trying to restore their finances and credit ratings.

According to a report by the Identity Theft Resource Center, the news media reported more than 620 breaches involving personal information during 2008. That works out to about one data security breach every 14 hours--and those are just the ones that are big enough to be covered in the media.

Recent reports of security breaches involving sensitive personal data point out the extent of the problem.

In December 2008, during a website development project at the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, the Social Security numbers of more than a quarter of a million people were accidentally posted online.

In August of last year, an employee working weekends at Countrywide copied customer records from an office computer and then sold the personal information of an estimated 2,000,000 mortgage applicants.

In May of 2007, a breach at the Transportation Security Administration made the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, payroll information, and bank account information of more than 100,000 former employees vulnerable to theft or sale.

In January of that same year, hackers accessed information held by TJX stores, including more than 45 million credit card numbers and more than 455,000 merchandise records containing customers' drivers license numbers.

In May of 2006, there was a breach at the Department of Veterans Affairs that involved the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of every veteran discharged from the military since 1975--more than 28 million veterans--every veteran discharged from the military since 1975.

Another disturbing example took place last year at the State Department when the passport files of Senator Clinton, Senator McCain, and Senator Obama--the three leading presidential contenders at the time--were accessed by contractors working for the Department. Though the Department knew about the breaches right away, several months passed before our colleagues were told about the problem.

Unfortunately, this delay is not surprising--because there is currently nothing to require a Federal agency to tell us when a security breach affects our personal data.

That needs to change. That's what my bill does.

Specifically, this legislation requires the Federal Government and private businesses to notify individuals when there has been a security breach involving their sensitive personal data; ensures that the notice is provided without unreasonable delay; creates very limited exceptions to notification for national security and law enforcement purposes, and when law enforcement certifies that there is there is no significant risk of harm to the individual; establishes penalties against those who do not provide the required notice. The provisions of the bill would be enforced by the Federal and State attorneys general; and pre-empts State laws so that there is a single, nationwide notification requirement.

Data security breaches have real consequences. For one thing, they are bad for business because they lead to a loss of confidence-- especially in online commerce. A 2005 survey for Consumer Reports showed that 25 percent of Internet users stopped shopping online because of fears about identity theft. Of people who still shopped online, 29 percent said that they had cut back on how often they buy products on the Internet.

Data breaches also pose serious harms for consumers. A November 2007 report from the Federal Trade Commission revealed that identity theft victims spent as much as $5,000 of their own money--and as many as 1,200 hours of their time--recovering from the harm to their finances caused by identity theft.

While not all data breaches lead to identity theft, the cost of stolen identities is so enormous that we should be doing everything we can to solve this problem.

The situation requires action. While Congress has been slow to act, the States have not. In the almost 6 years since the California law took effect, 43 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have passed similar laws.

A report issued by the Federal Trade Commission in December 2008 noted that these State data breach notification laws have had several indirect benefits; many businesses across the country have strengthened their safeguard practices in order to avoid data breaches.

By forcing companies to consider the potential cost and liability that may ensue if information is compromised in a data breach, these laws have the indirect benefit of motivating companies to reassess their need to collect personally identifiable information in the first place.

The same benefits would flow from Federal legislation. Additionally, the Data Breach Notification Act would improve the law by creating a single, uniform national standard.

A September 2008 report issued by the President's Identity Theft Task Force again emphasized the need for a unified Federal standard to replace the patchwork of varied state laws currently in place. The December 2008 FTC report made the same point.

A Federal bill will simplify the process of compliance and notification for

businesses, while ensuring that all consumers get the information they need as soon as possible when breaches happen.

We have already waited too long. The Judiciary Committee endorsed this bill unanimously during the last Congress. The epidemic of data breaches in our nation continues unabated. This is a common-sense bill that we should take action on now.

I urge the Senate to pass the Data Breach Notification Act to give Americans the information they need to protect themselves from identity theft.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will help address the threats to public health and safety caused by abandoned hardrock mines.

There are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines strewn across the western states--47,000 alone are found on California's public lands.

The scope of this problem is huge.

In the past two years, eight accidents at abandoned mine sites were reported in California. Throughout the United States, at least 37 deaths occurred between 1999 and 2007 and the potential for more is ominous.

Basic remediation efforts, such as warning signs and fencing, can provide protection.

However, some abandoned mines pose a more serious threat. Environmental impact studies have shown that important watersheds are being polluted by high levels of harmful minerals, such as mercury, lead, arsenic and asbestos. In California alone, seventeen watersheds have been affected.

Yet not enough is being done to clean up these dangerous Gold Rush- era mines.

The bill that I am introducing today is not intended to be a comprehensive hardrock mining bill, but it is an important piece of the reform needed.

The Abandoned Mine Reclamation Act of 2009 will reform the 1872 Mining Law by establishing fees to support abandoned mine clean up; establishing a royalty payment system; and creating an Abandoned Mine Clean up Fund.

Unlike the coal industry, the metal mining industry does not pay to clean up its legacy of abandoned mines, making lack of funding the primary obstacle to abandoned hardrock mine clean up.

This legislation would help fund the clean up of abandoned mines by placing an Abandoned Mine Reclamation fee on all hardrock minerals, using the underground coal industry fee program as a model. Specifically, it would create a 0.3 percent reclamation fee on the gross value of all hardrock mineral mining, including mining on Federal, State, tribal, local and private lands.

The condition of abandoned coal mines has greatly improved since the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 established a fee to finance restoration of land abandoned or inadequately restored by coal mining companies.

This fund has been able to raise billions of dollars for coal mine reclamation--and I believe that a similar program could be part of the solution to hardrock abandoned mine clean up.

This legislation establishes a royalty fee on Hardrock Mining Claims.

Companies that mine for gold and silver on Federal lands are not currently required to pay any royalties to the Federal Government--even though we are experiencing near record high gold prices.

These companies should be required to pay their fair share.

The Abandoned Mine Reclamation Act establishes an 8 percent royalty on new mining operations located on Federal lands, and a 4 percent royalty for existing operations.

The legislation I am introducing today also creates an Abandoned Mine Fund.

In these times of budget deficits, it's clear that we will not be able to simply appropriate the funds necessary to clean up the hundreds of thousands of abandoned hard rock mines.

So, this legislation will create an abandoned mine clean up fund to ensure that we have a lasting source of funding for this critical clean up effort.

Specifically, the fund will direct the royalties, as well as other payments collected from mining operations, and dedicate them to the clean up of abandoned hardrock mines.

I recognize the important role that mining has played in California's history. The discovery of gold at Sutter Mill near Placerville, California in 1848 was a defining moment for my State and the U.S.

It is fair to say that without mining and the Gold Rush, California and the entire country would be a far different place than it is today.

The history of mining in California, however, is tarnished by the legacy of tens of thousands of abandoned mines. In particular, abandoned mine sites on Federal lands.

A recent report from the Department of the Interior's Inspector General underscores the scope and the urgency of

the abandoned mine problem on public lands--in particular, those managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service.

The report concluded that public health and safety have been compromised by mismanagement, funding shortfalls and systematic neglect.

The report found the potential for more deaths and injuries is ominous. A number of abandoned mine sites on public lands present an immediate danger due to open shafts, collapsing mine walls, and rotting structures. Some have deadly gases that accumulate in underground passages. And others leach hazardous chemicals like arsenic, lead and mercury into groundwater.

The Bureau of Land Management's abandoned mines program has been neglected and understaffed. In some cases, staff were told by their supervisors to ignore these problems; and those who did come forward to identify contaminated sites were criticized or outright threatened.

The scope of the problem is less severe at the National Parks Service. But perennial funding shortfalls impede the clean up of known abandoned mines.

At the heart of the problem is a century-old law signed by President Ulysses S. Grant to promote the settlement of publicly-owned lands in the western states.

The 1872 Mining Law created national standards for hardrock mining operations on Federal public lands; however, it has not been substantially updated for 137 years. Under this outdated framework, the hardrock mining industry does not pay royalties for minerals taken from Federal land and is not obligated to share in the cost of clean up for abandoned mines. Since the enactment of this law, hundreds of thousands of mines have been abandoned.

Congress needs to move swiftly to address this issue before more damage and accidents occur.

Though this legislation is a significant step forward for the funding of abandoned mines, I know that there is much more mining reform to be done.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to modernize our Nation's mining laws and accelerate the clean up of dangerous abandoned mines.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to protect one of Americans' most valuable but vulnerable assets: Social Security numbers.

The bill I am introducing today aims to protect individual privacy and prevent identity theft by eliminating the unnecessary use and display of Social Security numbers.

I have been working since the 106th Congress to safeguard Social Security numbers. I believe that the widespread display and use of these numbers poses a significant, and entirely preventable threat to personal privacy.

In 1935, Congress authorized the Social Security Administration to issue Social Security numbers as part of the Social Security program. Since that time, Social Security numbers have become the best-known and easiest way to identify individuals in the United States.

Use of these numbers has expanded well beyond their original purpose. Social Security numbers are now used for everything from credit checks to rental agreements to employment verifications, among other purposes. They can be found in privately held databases and on public records-- including marriage licenses, professional certifications, and countless other public documents--many of which are available on the Internet.

Once accessed, the numbers act like keys--allowing thieves to open credit card and bank accounts and even begin applying for government benefits.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, as many as 10 million Americans have their identities stolen by

such thieves each year--at a combined cost of billions of dollars.

What's worse, victims often do not realize that a theft has occurred until much later, when they learn that their credit has been destroyed by unpaid debt on fraudulently opened accounts.

One thief stole a retired Army captain's military identification card and used his Social Security number, listed on the card, to go on a 6- month, $260,000 shopping spree. By the time the Army captain realized what had happened, the thief had opened more than 60 fraudulent accounts.

A single mother of two went to file her taxes and learned that a fraudulent return had already been filed in her name by someone else--a thief who wanted her refund check.

A former pro-football player received a phone call notifying him that a $1 million home mortgage loan had been approved in his name even though he had never applied for such a loan.

Identity theft is serious. Once an individual's identity is stolen, people are often subjected to countless hours and costs attempting to regain their good name and credit. In 2004, victims spent an average of 300 hours recovering from the crime. The crime disrupts lives and can destroy finances.

It also hurts business. A 2006 online survey by the Business Software Alliance and Harris Interactive found that nearly 30 percent of adults decided to shop online less or not at all during the holiday season because of fears about identity theft.

When people's identities are stolen, they often do not know how the thieves obtained their personal information. Social security numbers and other key identifying data are displayed and used in such a widespread manner that individuals could not successfully restrict access themselves.

Comprehensive limitations on the display of Social Security numbers are critically needed.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office conducted studies of this problem in 2002 and 2007. Both times--in studies entitled ``Social Security numbers Are Widely Used by Government and Could Be Better Protected'' and ``Social Security numbers: Use Is Widespread and Could Be Improved''--the GAO concluded that current protections are insufficient and that serious vulnerabilities remain.

The Protecting the Privacy of Social Security Numbers Act would require government agencies and businesses to do more to protect Americans' Social Security numbers. The bill would stop the sale or display of a person's Social Security number without his or her express consent; prevent Federal, State and local governments from displaying Social Security numbers on public records posted on the Internet; prohibit the printing of Social Security numbers on government checks; prohibit the employing of inmates for tasks that give them access to the Social Security numbers of other individuals; limit the circumstances in which businesses could ask a customer for his or her Social Security number; commission a study by the Attorney General regarding the current uses of Social Security numbers and the impact on privacy and data security; and institute criminal and civil penalties for misuse of Social Security numbers.

This legislation is simple. It is also critical to stopping the growing epidemic of identity theft that has been plaguing America and its citizens.

As the President's Identity Theft Task Force reported last year, ``[i]dentity theft depends on access to . . . data. Reducing the opportunities for thieves to get the data is critical to fighting the crime.''

Every agency to study this problem has agreed that the problem will continue to grow over time and that action is needed.

I urge my colleagues to support the Protecting the Privacy of Social Security Numbers Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Today, I am introducing the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act of 2009--legislation intended to reverse the harmful, dangerous, un-American, and illegal detention and interrogation practices of the past seven years.

As I will describe in detail below, the four provisions in this bill would: Close the Guantanamo Bay detention centers, outlaw CIA's coercive interrogation program, prevent the use of contractor interrogations, and end secret detention at CIA black sites.

These practices have brought shame to our nation, have harmed our ability to fight the war on terror, and, I believe, violate U.S. law and international treaty obligations.

As was made crystal clear on last November 4, we need change and we need a new direction. When it comes to the war on terrorism, we need to disavow ``the Dark Side'' so embraced by the Bush administration. Instead, we need to follow our approach honed through the Cold War: standing by the strength of our values and ideals, building strong partnerships with allies, and mixing soft power with the force of our military might.

This legislation would put us back on the right track and I believe it to be fully consistent with the policies and intentions of President-elect Obama.

It is time to end the failed experiment at Guantanamo Bay. It is time to repudiate torture and secret disappearances. It is time to end the outsourcing of coercive interrogations to outside mercenaries. It is time to return to the norms and values that have driven the United States to greatness since the days of George Washington, but have been tarnished in the past 7 years.

First, this legislation requires the President to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within 12 months.

The need to close Guantanamo is clear. Along with the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo has been decried as American hypocrisy and cruelty throughout the world. They have given aid in recruiting to our enemies, and have been named by Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora as the leading causes of death to U.S. troops in Iraq.

Numerous reports, most recently one completed and approved unanimously by the Senate Armed Services Committee, have documented the abusive methods used at Guantanamo.

Beyond the physical, psychological, and emotional abuse witnessed at Guantanamo, it has been the source of great legal embarrassment. The Supreme Court has struck down the Bush administration's legal reasoning four separate times: in the Rasul, Hamdi, Hamdan, and Boumediene decisions.

It was explicitly created to be a separate and lesser system of justice, to hold people captured on or near the battlefield in Afghanistan indefinitely. It has produced exactly three convictions, including Australian David Hicks who agreed to a plea bargain to get off the island, and Osama bin Ladin's driver, Salim Hamdan, who has already served almost all of his sentence through time already spent at Guantanamo.

The hard part about closing Guantanamo is not deciding to do it--it is figuring out what to do with the remaining detainees.

Under the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act, the approximately 250 individuals now being held there would be handled in one of five ways:

They could be charged with a crime and tried in the United States in the Federal civilian or military justice systems. These systems have handled terrorists and other dangerous individuals before, and are capable of dealing with classified evidence and other unusual factors.

Individuals could be transferred to an international tribunal to hold hearings, if such a tribunal is created; detainees could be returned to their native countries, or if that is not possible, they could be transferred to a third country.

To date, more than 500 men have been sent from Guantanamo to the custody other countries. Recently, Portugal and other nations have suggested they would be open to taking some of the remaining detainees as a way to help close Guantanamo.

If there are detainees who can't be charged with crimes or transferred to the custody of another country, there is a fourth option. If the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence agree that an individual poses no security threat to the United States, the U.S. Government may release him.

This may work, for example, for the Chinese Uighurs remaining at Guantanamo. In fact, a Federal court has already ordered that this group be released into the country, though that ruling has been stayed upon appeal.

Finally, for detainees who cannot be addressed in any of the first four options, the Executive Branch could hold them under the existing authorities provided by the law of armed conflict.

I believe that these options provide sufficient flexibility to handle the 250 or so people now being held at Guantanamo. If the incoming Obama Administration decides that other alternatives are needed, it should come to Congress, explain the specifics of the problem, and we will work toward a joint legislative solution.

The other three provisions in this legislation end parts of the CIA's secret detention and interrogation program.

Some of the details of the program are already publicly known, like the use of waterboarding on three individuals. Other aspects remain secret, such as the other authorized interrogation techniques and how they were used.

There have been public allegations of multiple deaths of detainees in CIA custody. There was one conviction of a CIA contractor in the death of a detainee in Afghanistan, but other details remain classified.

But it is well known that on August 1, 2002, the Justice Department approved coercive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, for the CIA's use. This despite the fact that the Justice Department has prosecuted the use of waterboarding and the State Department has decried it overseas.

The Administration used warped logic and faulty reasoning to say waterboarding technique was not torture. It is.

Other interrogation techniques used by the CIA have not been acknowledged but are still authorized for use. This has to end.

But we will never turn this sad page in our nation's history until all coercive techniques are banned, and are replaced with a single, clear, uniform standard across the United States Government.

That standard established by this legislation is the interrogation protocols set out in the Army Field Manual. The 19 specified techniques work for the military and operate under the same framework as the time- honored approach of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If the CIA would abide by its terms, it would work for the CIA as well.

These techniques were at the heart of former FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan's successful interrogation of those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They were also the tools used by Special Agent George Piro to get Saddam Hussein to provide the evidence that resulted in his death sentence.

We have powerful expert testimony that the Army Field Manual techniques work against terrorist suspects. The Manual's use across the government is supported by scores of retired generals and admirals, by General David Petraeus, and by former secretaries of state and national security advisors in both parties.

Majorities in both houses of Congress passed this provision last year as part of the Fiscal Year 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill, sending a clear message that we do not support coercive interrogations.

Regrettably, the President's veto stopped it from becoming law.

The new President agrees that we need to end coercive interrogations and to comply strictly to the terms of the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. I look forward to working with him to end this sad story in the Nation's history.

The third part of this legislation is a ban on contractor interrogators at the CIA. As General Hayden has testified, the CIA hires and keeps on contract people who are not intelligence professionals and whose sole job is to ``break'' detainees and get them to talk.

I firmly believe that outsourcing interrogations, whether coercive or more appropriate ones, to private companies is a way to diminish accountability and to avoid getting the Agency's hands dirty. I also believe that the use of contractors leads to more brutal interrogations than if they were done by government employees.

There are surely areas where paying contractors makes practical and financial sense. Interrogations--a form of collecting intelligence--is not one of them. This has become a major diplomatic issue, a key obstacle in prosecuting people like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, and a national black eye. It is not the sort of thing to be done at arm's length.

The fourth and final provision in this legislation requires that the CIA and other intelligence agencies provide notification to the International Committee of the Red Cross--the ICRC--of their detainees. Following notification, the CIA will be required to provide ICRC officials with access to their detainees in the same way that the military does.

Access by the ICRC is a hallmark of international law and is required by the Geneva Conventions. Access to a third party, and the ICRC in particular, was seen by the U.S. in 1947 as a guarantee that American men and women would be protected if they were ever captured overseas.

But ICRC access has been denied at CIA black sites, just like it had been in some military-run facilities in the war on terror. This has, in part, opened the door to the abuses in detainee treatment. Independent access prevents abuses like we witnessed at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It is time that the same protection is in place for the CIA as has been demanded of the Department of Defense.

We remain a nation at war, and credible, actionable intelligence remains a cornerstone of our war effort. But this is a war that will be won by fighting smarter, not by sinking to the depths of our enemies.

Our Nation has paid an enormous price because of these interrogations.

They cast shadow and doubt over our ideals and our system of justice.

Our enemies have used our practices to recruit more extremists.

Our key global partnerships, crucial to winning the war on terror, have been strained.

It will take time to resume our place as the world's beacon of liberty and justice. This bill will put us on that path and start the process. I urge its passage.

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