Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support for the Lincoln-Snowe amendment to H.R. 1308 to reinstate the child tax credit for low-income working Americans.

The House and the Senate went to conference on the reconciliation bill. For the public at large, when we talk about a reconciliation bill, it is kind of arcane. The House and the Senate confer to get a bill together, with each side presenting the views of its Members. I am not sure I am making it more clear, but I want to make sure this is understood. When those conferees got together, they stripped out this tax credit for low-income working people. I thought that was a most outrageous act.

The Bush tax cut bill was already a handout to wealthy elites. It threw token benefits to some others and virtually nothing to working people. Taking out the tax credit for families earning between $10,500 a year and $26,625 a year added outrage to an insult.

When the President was forced, as a result of the agreements in the Congress, to reduce the tax cut to $350 billion, he and the House Republicans had to search for about $30 billion in ``fat'' to cut out of the bill to meet that target. Why didn't they slow down the reduction in the top rate? It is a pretty easy thing to do. What did they do instead? They went after low-income working families.

These are people who are working at or just above minimum wage. These are Americans who are feeding their families by laboring in cafeterias, cleaning offices, working late at night, working in the factories packing food or making clothing, working in retail chains and small stores across the country--jobs that are traditionally at the low end of the pay scale. These people work hard and are a significant part of our labor force.

I know there are those in the administration who do not have any idea what it is like to work for low wages and try to raise a family on them. I learned what it was like from my parents, who were brought here as child immigrants. They knew what it was like and I knew what it was like because my parents were poor. They worked hard and tried to give their children an example of respect for hard work, and to hold out ideals, even though there was little money.

The Lincoln-Snowe amendment is about restoring the American dream. It is about knowing that this country is a fair and honest place, where someone willing to work can still make a living. It is about knowing that this Government and this Congress respect hard work and loyalty to families. The Bush tax bill telegraphed a terrible shift in the message our Government is sending to the country. Despite the once revered view that hard work pays off and breeds respect, President Bush and the House Republicans failed to support that contention to millions of hard-working Americans.

Why did they do it? Why did they drop a tax benefit that would have helped almost 12 million children who have low-income working parents? Why? The tax credit for hard-working minimum wage families was thrown overboard to make room for even more tax cuts for the highest income earners in our country. The cost of the tax credit to low-income families was $3.5 billion--not an insignificant sum by any means. But we could have found

more than that by nicking the reduction to the top income tax rate by just a little bit.

This is the rate the people at the top of the income scale will pay. We are talking about people who make over $1 million a year. We are talking about the top 1 percent of the country, households with average incomes over $350,000 or so. These are the people who are going to profit most from the President's tax cut. We are going to reduce the rate, the income tax rate that they will have to pay.

If we only reduced that top rate to 35.3 percent instead of a flat 35 percent for the years 2003 through 2005, we would have saved $3.9 billion, and the cost of the tax credit for low-income families is $3.5 billion. That is a lot of money. But not in the context of a $350 billion tax cut package; it is only 1 percent. There would have been more than enough to save the child tax credit.

White House spokesmen repeatedly claimed that President Bush's tax bill would provide a tax cut for every American taxpayer. But that was not true. The final bill left out 8 million working Americans and almost 12 million children. The wealthy certainly got their tax cut. It was approximately $90 billion in tax cuts over 10 years that will go to 200,000 households nationwide with annual incomes of $1 million or more. That is about $450,000 per household.

President Kennedy said, ``To govern is to choose.'' To give massive tax cuts to people who are already well off, and then tell hard- working, low-income families, ``Sorry, there is nothing left for you,'' is awful. That is not a choice I want America to make.

Fortunately, after some gentle pressure from the media and outraged constituents, the Republican majority has seen how egregious that plan was and they now support the Lincoln-Snowe amendment. It is about time we did something to help families who are struggling, and not just the fortunate few who are coasting. We have the opportunity to repair some of the harm caused by the President's unfair tax plan with this amendment. I urge its adoption.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President I rise today to pay tribute to and wish a happy birthday to one of my dearest friends, Louis Reich.

Louis was born on May 24, 1903 in Brooklyn, NY, the middle of three children. His sister Anne is now 102. By the time he was 15, Louis had a job at a big law firm on Wall Street where he made 25 cents for a car fare and food. For lunch he ate at Max's Busy Bee where he could get a frank, beans, waffles, ice cream and coffee for 15 cents. Those were the days.

Everyday he would come up from Max's basement location and encounter men standing in the middle of the street yelling up to people in four surrounding buildings. These men were

called ``brokers'' and they were buying and selling stocks. In fact, Louis was witnessing the birth of the New York Curb Exchange. He was so entranced with the scene that he got a job as a runner paying $8 a week. Wanting a way to make more money, he headed to Jerome B. Sullivan & Co., where he was hired as a clerk.

By the time he was 22, he was the head cashier at Sullivan making $100 a week plus bonus. Soon afterwards he formed the New York Curb Cashiers Exchange and was elected president. In 1923, he was introduced to Kitty Hirshleifer by his closest friend Jerry Goldberg. Four years later, Louis and Kitty were married. When Louis got his bonus from Sullivan that month the company made him a partner and he spent his newfound wealth on a trip to the coast, a new Cadillac and an apartment for $125 a month. Not many apartments available at those rates in New York today.

The crash came in 1929 and Louis was left nearly penniless. Demonstrating his adaptability he purchased a seat on the Curb Exchange with his brother Al and his cousin Ernie. His salary was now $50 a week. From 1933 to 1938 Louis became an arbitrageur. He sensed that the Canadian market was becoming competitive and through connections in Canada he started to urge companies to apply for listing on what used to be the Curb Exchange, but now known as the American Stock Exchange.

He formed a partnership with Moe Weiss which lasted for many years. Around 1955 Lou became a governor of the American Stock Exchange and chairman of the listing committee.

A few years later in 1959 I met Lou when his back-office manager saw an ad about a company who could process payrolls. It was a company I know a little about, Automatic Data Processing. At that point I was the company's salesperson and Reich & Co. signed on. We became dear friends ever since.

I owe Lou a great deal because he really spread the word about ADP. Henry Taub worked to have ADP handle all of the back office operations. Within a year ADP had a system to process securities transactions. Today, in large part thanks to Lou, ADP is one of the largest payroll and securities processing firms in the world.

Louis Reich is now 100 years old. He brings a wonderful history and an important legacy of leadership in one of the most important industries we have. The investment and finance sector helped build this country's pre-eminence in the global economy to the point that it has become. He has many happy, exciting memories. The names he remembers from that bygone era--those who worked for him--and with him are too numerous to mention here. And the one person who stood by him through it all--the one person who will be forever in his heart and who truly would have enjoyed this day--his darling wife--Kitty, the one who he misses most of all. They are all here in spirit and will never be forgotten. We wish him many more years that we can celebrate together.

Mr. President, President Bush inherited the strongest economy in history and has run it into the ground. When he took office in January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, was forecasting a cumulative, 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion. Now, the CBO is forecasting a 10-year deficit of $2.1 trillion.

You can't mangle the economy that badly by accident; it has to be by design.

The design is something that President Bush's father once called ``voodoo economics.'' The theory behind ``voodoo economics'' is that massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us will somehow ``stimulate'' the economy.

The theory should be discredited by now. It certainly didn't work in 2001. Since the 2001 tax cuts, unemployment has risen by nearly 50 percent. Two point seven million Americans have lost their private sector jobs under the Bush administration; that is about 3,100 people each and every day since he took office, 129 people each and every hour, or more than 2 people each and every minute.

And yet, as Ronald Reagan would say, ``there you go again.'' Just a short while ago, the Republicans passed another ill-advised tax cut skewed to the rich, this one costing $318 billion over 10 years.

The only people who will get jobs under the reconciliation bill the Republicans just adopted are lawyers and accountants. As Warren Buffett put it the other day in the Washington Post, ``Overall, it's hard to conceive of anything sillier than the schedule the Senate has laid out. . . . The manipulation of enactment and sunset dates of tax changes is Enron-style account- ing . . .''

Mr. Buffett went on to point out that ``giving one class of taxpayer a `break' requires--now or down the line--that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties.''

That brings us to H.J. Res. 51. Apparently without embarrassment, the Republicans are willing to vote for another tax cut at a time when we are looking at record budget deficits, and then--on the very same day-- vote for the biggest debt ceiling increase in history, $984 billion.

The Republicans' strategy has been to back up the consideration of H.J. Res. 51 so that it is the only thing standing between us and the Memorial Day recess. They want to pass it with as little debate and as quickly as possible.

They certainly don't want to amend it. That would send it back to the House, which would be a problem. House Republicans didn't have the courage--and probably didn't have the votes--to pass H.J. Res. 51. So, in a bit of legerdemain that would make President Bush's close friend Ken Lay proud, they ``deemed'' themselves to have passed it as part of the fiscal year 2004 budget resolution.

Let me try to put this debt ceiling increase in perspective. President Bush wants $984 billion. That is more than the total debt outstanding when Ronald Reagan took office. In other words,

it took this country 200 years to get its debt up to the amount that President Bush wants to add in the 11 months since the last debt ceiling increase.

Because of the disciplined economic policies that congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration enacted between 1993 and 2000, the debt ceiling stayed at $5.95 trillion from 1997 to 2001. Debt held by the public actually declined from $3.7 trillion to $3.3 trillion.

President Bush's ``voodoo economics'' necessitated a debt ceiling increase for the first time in 5 years to $6.4 trillion last June and now he is back for another $984 billion.

In essence, President Bush inherited a ``credit card'' with a $5.95 trillion ``limit.'' He wanted to borrow more to pay for his first round of tax cuts, so he went to the ``bank''--which I call the Bank of Our Children's Future--and got a credit increase last June. But it wasn't enough, so he is back again, asking for another, bigger credit increase.

But here's the rub: we all get stuck paying his bill. Right now, that bill is over $22,200 for every man, woman, and child in America. President Bush wants to add another $3,400 to your share of the bill in one fell swoop. For a family of four, that is a total of $102,400.

And don't forget: when you run up charges on your credit card and don't pay the balance in full, you get stuck paying interest, too. For that family of four, the interest cost would add another $33,000 over the next 10 years.

President Bush just can't wait to get that credit increase so he can pay for his newest tax cuts. That is why I think we should stamp credit card ``Over the Limit.''

I think it is important that each and every American understand what is at stake here.

Each year, when Americans get their Social Security account statements, I think those statements ought to include, in plain language, information about the public debt, each person's share of that debt, and the extent to which the Social Security trust fund is being raided.

Then, they can make an informed decision about whether they want tax cuts that do nothing to help the economy but do contribute to budget deficits ``as far as the eye can see'' and put a knife to the throat of Social Security, Medicare, and other vital programs.

I don't have the time today to discuss why the President and his Republican allies in Congress are pushing policies that deliberately cause deficits; suffice it to say, for now, that it is part of their grand strategy to cripple government permanently.

I will have more to say about that on another day.

In the interim, I urge my colleagues to vote against bailing out the Bush administration and its allies here in the House and Senate. They have mishandled our economy in a monumental way. People ought to be informed.

Amendment No. 833

Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the achievements and experiences of Asian Pacific Americans in

our country. Asian Pacific American Heritage month, observed during the month of May, celebrates the diverse cultures represented by the over 13 million Americans of Asian and Pacific Island heritage in our country. The theme for this year's APA month, ``Salute to Liberty: Many Journeys, One Dream'' represents Asian Pacific Americans' diverse paths to achieving their goals. In New Jersey, where Asians are the fastest growing racial group, this month is particularly significant. Asian Pacific Americans in my State play important roles such as educating our students, owning small businesses, working on new technologies, and holding public office.

The difficult journeys of Asian Pacific Americans include the Chinese laborers who built our Nation's railroads, Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps during WWII, refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, and Filipino farm workers. Despite the great obstacles faced on these journeys, Asian Pacific Americans have accomplished a great deal and have made major contributions to our country.

First and foremost, I would like to recognize the service of Asian Pacific Americans in our Armed Forces, especially as we celebrate Memorial Day. The history of Asian Pacific Americans in military service stretches from William Ah Hang, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, to the more than 25,000 Japanese Americans who served during World War II, to the young APA men and women fighting terrorism today. In particular, I would like for us to remember Lance Corporate Alan Dinh Lam, a 19 year old Vietnamese-American from North Carolina and Corporal Kempahoom A. Chanawongse, a 22 year old Thai- American who moved from Thailand to Connecticut at age 9. These two young men recently gave their lives for our country during the war with Iraq.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Asian Pacific Americans in space exploration. Kalpana Chawla was the first Indian-American woman to go into space. Although she lost her life during the recent space shuttle Columbia disaster, Ms. Chawla will be remembered for her work in the field of aerospace engineering. Currently, another Asian Pacific American, Eric Lu, is working on the International Space Station. His work is certain to inspire many young men and women interested in space.

The brave men and woman I mentioned today are only a small example of the difficult endeavors undertaken by Asian Pacific Americans. It is my hope that recognizing the heritage and accomplishments of Asian Pacific Americans will inspire the next generation to embark upon challenging journeys and reach their dreams.

Will the Senator yield for a question? This could be described as ``business unusual.''

Yes. Often we say business as usual; this is business as unusual.

Does the Senator, in the resolution proposed, talk about terms or performance? Is it not worth noting if this contract were done, if not in the dark of night, certainly at dusk--we do not know the terms--that not only means price could be many times over, there are no performance standards, either, which is pretty darn unusual?

It turned out to be a fire sale.

Will the Senator yield?

Does it say the maximum amount the Government could spend?

So if $7 billion became $10 billion--is there any limitation?

I thank my friend and colleague from California. I support Senator Boxer's amendment regarding the questionable--and it is questionable; friends here know I spent a lot of my time, most of my life, in business, more than I have in the Senate. No-bid contracts are practically nonexistent when they have significant value to either the company, the government, or otherwise.

The contract given to Halliburton in early March regarding Iraq's oil infrastructure, this no-bid contract, has raised serious concern. There is good cause. There is no accusation here. It is just a question of what is a good, sensible business practice.

I ask every Senator in this body to take a look and ask if they would give out a contract to cut the lawn at their house or cut down trees or paint the house without getting some formal response as to what it might cost. We have a strange happening: no-bid contract. It could be as much as $7 billion, with no ceiling on it. That is the interesting aspect. For whatever reason, the administration has attempted to conceal the scope and the terms of the contract. This attempt to hide information has generated plenty of suspicion.

Initially, it was announced that the contract with Halliburton was for the specific and limited purpose of extinguishing Iraqi oil fires. That could be described as emergency and repairing equipment. The initial value of the contract, the initial value, was $50 million. We are now talking about approximately $7 billion, give or take $2 billion or $3 billion--mostly take; I guarantee there is no give, in the hope that no one would ask any questions.

This was a no-bid contract given to a company that has strong ties to the administration. Then the details began to change. Six weeks after the contract was originally disclosed, the Army admitted that the contract was not only for putting out the fires and making some repairs--repairs, $7 billion?--suddenly the Army Corps revealed that the contract called for Halliburton to operate the oil wells and distribute Iraqi oil. That is a huge difference.

There is the issue of the no-bid process. Perhaps we ought to have a Senate resolution to see how our friends would vote if we said let's go to all no-bid contracts for Government purchases. Sound like a good idea? I doubt it.

Asked why the Halliburton contract was awarded in a no-bid fashion, the Army Corps asserted that there was no time for a competitive process and this contract would be of short duration. You can spend $7 billion in a hurry, I guess.

We now learn the contract could be worth up to $7 billion. For the past 6 weeks, each time the Army Corps has been questioned about the contract, we hear a different story.

I recently have written a letter to Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, the chairman and the ranking member of the Governmental Affairs Committee of which I sit, asking them to hold a hearing to investigate this contract. I believe the hearing will allow us to finally determine the true scope of this contract and why the administration chose not to have a bidding process and why the information was withheld.

Something here is not right. Not only do we need to investigate the process under which this contract was awarded, but we also need to put a competitive contracting process in place for this work in Iraq. We need to ensure for the American people that the Government is not engaged in sweetheart deals for its corporate friends.

The amendment of Senator Boxer encourages that the current no-bid Halliburton contract be replaced shortly through a competitive process, and I congratulate the Senator from California for that thought. That is the way it ought to work.

The reconstruction of Iraq, particularly the rebuilding of the Iraqi oil industry, is an extremely sensitive endeavor. I believe it is vitally important for the Pentagon to divulge information as to how it awards contracts in a public and systematic fashion. The Halliburton contract and the cloak of secrecy around it must not set a precedent for future contracts in the reconstruction process.

In this time of budget difficulties, with our inability to finance programs that have been an important part of the structure of the United States--whether it is education, whether it is prescription drugs or otherwise--for us to go ahead and spend $7 billion without knowing how, why, and when this work is going to be performed is an outrage. I don't think the American public ought to stand still for it.

I hope my colleagues on the other side will agree. Many of them are good business-people who have been out there and understand what has been appropriate process in business.

I urge my colleagues to support the Boxer amendment.

I yield the floor.

Further than we can remember.

Mr. President, will the manager yield a moment?

Just a minute, because I want to second what we just heard from the Senator from California about my friend and colleague from Virginia. We have our policy differences. But when there is something that strikes the right note, I know for the many years we have served together, now about 20, including a 2-year lapse, we were able to agree on things here and there that meant a lot in terms of the process of our functioning.

I commend the Senator from Virginia for coming to a negotiated settlement and consensus view that accomplishes what we all wanted. I thank him for his

willingness to listen and for me to be able to participate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am going to support this national Defense authorization bill, S. 1050, but I would like to speak candidly about my reservations about it.

When I left the Senate in early 2001, weapon development and troop deployment concerns indeed, even the idea of serious national security threats seemed to be fading into the obscurity of our cold war past. Over the past 2\1/2\ years, this has changed. We now live in a world of multiple and continuously emerging threats, emanating not only from states but also from nonstate transnational groups.

What's more, we live in a time when America's superior armed services have been called up for missions that embody the essence of defense transformation. Defense transformation means that our country can overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan 6,000 miles away almost solely from the air. It has allowed special operations forces to train antiterrorist units in places such as Georgia and the Philippines. Finally, defense transformation has meant that military commanders can direct precision-guided weapons at specific office buildings in downtown Baghdad from a command room in Florida.

Today we debate the merits of this national defense bill and the important issues it raises regarding the future of weapons control and military research, technology, and development. Let us first acknowledge and express gratitude to the men and women of our armed services. We are proud of their successful wartime mission to liberate Iraq. We wish them continued success in their peace time mission to secure stability for the Iraqi people.

As we support our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, we must keep in mind that their ultimate mission is to defend not only America's security interests but also the cause of global security. I have spoken about a new set of threats that require a transformation of our defense budget and priorities. I believe, however, that it is incumbent upon Congress to conceive of defense transformation--indeed our near-and short-term defense needs--in a way that will also seek to protect world peace.

I am concerned about elements of S. 1050 that allow the Pentagon greater flexibility in developing, testing, and producing new types of nuclear weapons. The diplomatic and security costs of even beginning research on these new types of nuclear weapons far outweigh any marginal benefits of such weapons.

These new nuclear weapon initiatives will further weaken the already struggling international efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. U.S. influence with the international community will erode if it seeks to upgrade U.S. nuclear weapons while demanding that other countries, such as Iran and North Korea, disarm.

Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently said that instead of developing new nuclear weapons, the U.S. should send a message to potential proliferators that, ``Even though we have nuclear weapons, we are moving to get rid of them. We are going to develop a system of security that does not depend on nuclear weapons because that's the way we want the world to move.''

I agree with Dr. Baradei; I believe the best way to deter nations trying to develop nuclear capabilities is to send the signal that the prospect of nuclear warfare is an idea confined to science fiction movies.

I have supported the amendments offered by Senators Reed, Feinstein, and others intended to modify rather than repeal the 1994 Spratt-Furse prohibition on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons. Secretary Rumsfeld has argued that these mini-nukes could be the ideal weapon for going after deeply buried stashes of chemical and biological weapons--the sort roguish regimes and terrorist groups like al-Qaida might attempt to conceal.

But at the same time, the Pentagon is considering adapting existing conventional warheads for such bunker busting jobs. We don't need both types of weapons to do the same job. By dangerously treating nuclear weapons as just another explosive in the arsenal, rather than as a deterrent weapon of last resort, researching low-yield nukes threatens to blur the line between conventional and non conventional weapons. Given our interest in preserving the seriousness with which the world regards the nonproliferation treaty, we should not be doing anything in our own arsenals that would confuse this distinction.

I would also like to call attention to my amendment, S. 722, that will help protect many endangered species. I am pleased that this amendment passed.

I would also like to call attention to an amendment that I have sponsored along with Senator Boxer and Senator Warner regarding a noncompetitive contract granted by the Department of Defense to Halliburton Co. for the reconstruction of Iraq. This amendment will ensure that this no-bid contract gives way to a competitively bid contract expeditiously. I am pleased by the bipartisan cooperation and Senator Warner's leadership in the passage of this amendment.

In recent weeks, I have become concerned with the lack of transparency regarding this particular contract--worth up to $7 billion--awarded in a no-bid process to Halliburton and Co.'s subsidiary. The scope of the contract--both the actual task order and the dollar amount--were not fully disclosed by the administration, and information leaked out about it piecemeal, when the Army was pressed for it. It is extremely important that the Pentagon divulge information about the contracts it awards in a public and systematic fashion.

I believe that this Defense authorization bill has merits and provides comprehensive funding for the Department of Defense's needs. It will effectively meet the needs of our men and women in the armed services. I am, frankly, very concerned about its authorization of low- yield nuclear weapons research, ballistic missile development, and its reduction of the constraints on nuclear weapons testing.

Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce, along with my colleagues Senator DeWine and Senator Feinstein, legislation which will make our roads safer and last longer. Anyone who has ever shared the road with a large tractor trailer truck has wondered whether the truck driver is aware of the smaller vehicles around the truck. Anyone who has seen the third trailer on a triple-trailer truck swinging around like the tail end of a snake knows that these trucks are to be avoided.

The State of New Jersey sees its share of the Nation's truck traffic, but, incidentally, not its share of federal highway dollars. We are concerned about these 53-foot, 80,000-pound vehicles on our highways and the pressure from other states to increase weight and length limitations to allow bigger trucks to come through our State. This

makes truck safety even more important to New Jersey drivers.

Twelve years ago, I got a provision into the highway reauthorization bill we call ``ICE-TEA'' to ban triple-trailer trucks and other so- called ``longer combination vehicles'', LCVs, from New Jersey and most other States. At that time and ever since, the trucking industry has fought to defeat and repeal this ban, under the guise of arguments for ``states' rights'' and ``unfair re-distribution of business to railroads.'' But these are not rational arguments for allowing bigger and heavier trucks as well as triple-trailer trucks on our roads. Additionally, the trucking industry's proclaimed hardships have not materialized. In fact, the trucking companies have survived the current laws quite well, and trucks have refined their role in our national freight transportation system.

Our bill, the ``Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, will extend the current limited ban which only applies to our 44,000- mile Interstate Highway System to the entire 156,000-mile National Highway System, NHS. This extension will make more roads safer and will further reduce the wear and tear of our highways and bridges.

Bigger trucks are not safe. The U.S. Department of Transportation has determined that multi-trailer trucks are likely to be involved in more fatal crashes--11 percent more--than today's single-trailer trucks. By expanding the limits on triples and other longer combination vehicles to the entire NHS--including more than 2,000 miles of highway in New Jersey--the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Protection Act will save lives and prevent further deterioration of our roads and bridges.

Triple-trailers and other LCVs do more damage to our roads and bridges but don't come close to paying associated maintenance and repair costs. The fees, tolls and gasoline taxes paid by the operator of a 100,000-pound truck only covers 40 percent of the cost of the damage that truck does to our roads and bridges. The rest of the taxpayers make up the difference. I believe that motorists should not have to share the road with these dangerous behemoths and pay for the extra damage they cause.

I thank my colleagues Senator DeWine and Senator Feinstein for joining me in sponsoring this important legislation, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Congress to improve the highway safety and increase the remaining life of our country's roads and bridges.

Mr. President, today Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio and I are helping to make a big stride in re-arming our country in the war against drunk driving. Together, we have introduced two pieces of legislation which will help reduce the number of civilian casualties in this war by arming our government safety officials with the weapons they need to keep drunk drivers off of our roads.

First, I am proud to be a cosponsor of Senator DeWine's legislation on improving enforcement of drunk driving laws. There are some good drunk driving laws on the books and they should not be ignored. Since September 11, 2001, much of our country's law enforcement focus has been on ensuring the security of citizens from terrorist attack. This legislation will ensure that efforts to reduce drunk driving are not given short shrift. Almost 18,000 people died last year in alcohol- related motor vehicle traffic crashes, and we must not neglect the safety of our highways. This bill provides needed resources for law enforcement and will deter people from drinking and driving to begin with.

Second, I am proud to introduce, along with Senator DeWine, legislation targeting higher-risk drivers. This includes repeat offenders and drivers with blood alcohol concentration levels of 0.15 percent or higher. Once these offenders are caught, we need to make sure they don't fall through the cracks in the legal system. These criminals should not be behind the wheel--I believe they are a menace to our society, and we should not tolerate their existence.

I have long been interested in making our roads and highways safer. During my previous tenure, I saw to it that the Federal government took responsibility for reducing the number of fatalities due to drunk driving. I authored laws to increase the minimum drinking age for alcoholic beverages from 18 to 21, and to encourage States to establish .08 percent as the blood alcohol concentration standard for drunk driving nationwide. These laws have made our roads and highways safer and my hope is that they have saved many precious lives.

I feel that the Federal Government needs to take a strong leadership role to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. States cannot deal with these problems in a comprehensive manner. We have passed legislation encouraging states to establish tougher standards for highways safety and drunk driving, but: 32 States still don't have a primary enforcement safety belt law; 11 States still have not adopted the .08 percent Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) standard; 24 States still don't have an open container law; and 27 States still don't have a repeat offender law for drunk driving offenses.

I am particularly disappointed that my home State of New Jersey has not yet adopted the .08 percent BAC standard. At risk are millions of dollars in Federal highway funding that our State desperately needs to repair and improve our roads and bridges. Here in Congress, I fight desperately for this funding. But the State puts this funding at risk rather than make a sensible safety choice and adopt a .08 percent BAC standard. This is why I feel that the Federal Government needs to take a leadership role in setting policies that will save lives by reducing drunk driving.

I feel that States need stronger ``encouragement'' to address these important highway safety issues. We have already tried threatening withholding highway construction funds, but if we allow a loophole for States to recover the funds within 4 years; maybe that still is not enough encouragement.

Now it is time to take the next step in getting drunk drivers off our roads. I look forward to working with Senator DeWine and the rest of my colleagues in the Senate to reduce the 18,000 alcohol-related traffic fatalities that occur each year. I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator DeWine in supporting both of these important pieces of legislation.

Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce, along with my colleagues Senator DeWine and Senator Feinstein, legislation which will make our roads safer and last longer. Anyone who has ever shared the road with a large tractor trailer truck has wondered whether the truck driver is aware of the smaller vehicles around the truck. Anyone who has seen the third trailer on a triple-trailer truck swinging around like the tail end of a snake knows that these trucks are to be avoided.

The State of New Jersey sees its share of the Nation's truck traffic, but, incidentally, not its share of federal highway dollars. We are concerned about these 53-foot, 80,000-pound vehicles on our highways and the pressure from other states to increase weight and length limitations to allow bigger trucks to come through our State. This

makes truck safety even more important to New Jersey drivers.

Twelve years ago, I got a provision into the highway reauthorization bill we call ``ICE-TEA'' to ban triple-trailer trucks and other so- called ``longer combination vehicles'', LCVs, from New Jersey and most other States. At that time and ever since, the trucking industry has fought to defeat and repeal this ban, under the guise of arguments for ``states' rights'' and ``unfair re-distribution of business to railroads.'' But these are not rational arguments for allowing bigger and heavier trucks as well as triple-trailer trucks on our roads. Additionally, the trucking industry's proclaimed hardships have not materialized. In fact, the trucking companies have survived the current laws quite well, and trucks have refined their role in our national freight transportation system.

Our bill, the ``Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, will extend the current limited ban which only applies to our 44,000- mile Interstate Highway System to the entire 156,000-mile National Highway System, NHS. This extension will make more roads safer and will further reduce the wear and tear of our highways and bridges.

Bigger trucks are not safe. The U.S. Department of Transportation has determined that multi-trailer trucks are likely to be involved in more fatal crashes--11 percent more--than today's single-trailer trucks. By expanding the limits on triples and other longer combination vehicles to the entire NHS--including more than 2,000 miles of highway in New Jersey--the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Protection Act will save lives and prevent further deterioration of our roads and bridges.

Triple-trailers and other LCVs do more damage to our roads and bridges but don't come close to paying associated maintenance and repair costs. The fees, tolls and gasoline taxes paid by the operator of a 100,000-pound truck only covers 40 percent of the cost of the damage that truck does to our roads and bridges. The rest of the taxpayers make up the difference. I believe that motorists should not have to share the road with these dangerous behemoths and pay for the extra damage they cause.

I thank my colleagues Senator DeWine and Senator Feinstein for joining me in sponsoring this important legislation, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Congress to improve the highway safety and increase the remaining life of our country's roads and bridges.

Mr. President, today Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio and I are helping to make a big stride in re-arming our country in the war against drunk driving. Together, we have introduced two pieces of legislation which will help reduce the number of civilian casualties in this war by arming our government safety officials with the weapons they need to keep drunk drivers off of our roads.

First, I am proud to be a cosponsor of Senator DeWine's legislation on improving enforcement of drunk driving laws. There are some good drunk driving laws on the books and they should not be ignored. Since September 11, 2001, much of our country's law enforcement focus has been on ensuring the security of citizens from terrorist attack. This legislation will ensure that efforts to reduce drunk driving are not given short shrift. Almost 18,000 people died last year in alcohol- related motor vehicle traffic crashes, and we must not neglect the safety of our highways. This bill provides needed resources for law enforcement and will deter people from drinking and driving to begin with.

Second, I am proud to introduce, along with Senator DeWine, legislation targeting higher-risk drivers. This includes repeat offenders and drivers with blood alcohol concentration levels of 0.15 percent or higher. Once these offenders are caught, we need to make sure they don't fall through the cracks in the legal system. These criminals should not be behind the wheel--I believe they are a menace to our society, and we should not tolerate their existence.

I have long been interested in making our roads and highways safer. During my previous tenure, I saw to it that the Federal government took responsibility for reducing the number of fatalities due to drunk driving. I authored laws to increase the minimum drinking age for alcoholic beverages from 18 to 21, and to encourage States to establish .08 percent as the blood alcohol concentration standard for drunk driving nationwide. These laws have made our roads and highways safer and my hope is that they have saved many precious lives.

I feel that the Federal Government needs to take a strong leadership role to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. States cannot deal with these problems in a comprehensive manner. We have passed legislation encouraging states to establish tougher standards for highways safety and drunk driving, but: 32 States still don't have a primary enforcement safety belt law; 11 States still have not adopted the .08 percent Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) standard; 24 States still don't have an open container law; and 27 States still don't have a repeat offender law for drunk driving offenses.

I am particularly disappointed that my home State of New Jersey has not yet adopted the .08 percent BAC standard. At risk are millions of dollars in Federal highway funding that our State desperately needs to repair and improve our roads and bridges. Here in Congress, I fight desperately for this funding. But the State puts this funding at risk rather than make a sensible safety choice and adopt a .08 percent BAC standard. This is why I feel that the Federal Government needs to take a leadership role in setting policies that will save lives by reducing drunk driving.

I feel that States need stronger ``encouragement'' to address these important highway safety issues. We have already tried threatening withholding highway construction funds, but if we allow a loophole for States to recover the funds within 4 years; maybe that still is not enough encouragement.

Now it is time to take the next step in getting drunk drivers off our roads. I look forward to working with Senator DeWine and the rest of my colleagues in the Senate to reduce the 18,000 alcohol-related traffic fatalities that occur each year. I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator DeWine in supporting both of these important pieces of legislation.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 722 which is at the desk.

I want to be sure we have an understanding as to the time distribution. I ask the manager of the bill if an agreement has been entered.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I yield.

I thank the managers.

The amendment is cosponsored by Senator Jeffords. I ask unanimous consent also that Senators Akaka and Lieberman be added as cosponsors.

Madam President, this bill would exempt the Department of Defense from respecting critical habitat for endangered species on its lands. This provision of the bill is flawed for three reasons.

One, it would severely weaken our country's efforts to protect endangered species. There is a lot of effort that has gone into developing legislation in protecting endangered species. Seeing them disappear is a painful recognition. We are now beginning to see species disappear from our oceans, the Atlantic Ocean. The newspapers have been featuring stories about the disappearance of species like cod, halibut, and blue marlin. We have to be careful because each of these affects the rest of the ecology. That could be disastrous.

Second, this action is simply not necessary to maintain our military readiness. An example is the dispute over Vieques Island in Puerto Rico, the territory off the mainland of Puerto Rico.

Third, it ignores the Defense Department's long record of successfully balancing readiness and conservation. We want to do both.

Protecting critical habitat has long been an essential tool that Federal, State, and local jurisdictions have used to protect endangered species. When endangered species have no place to live, they perish. The bill before the Senate would allow the Defense Department to ignore the Endangered Species Act in favor of using something called the Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan, called INRMP, for threatened and endangered species. INRMPs are not subject to the same strong standards as those under the Endangered Species Act.

Under this bill, no area could be designated a critical habitat on DOD property. No matter how threatened the species, no matter what is found on the land, it will not be strongly protected.

It is conceivable that the Defense Department could make this decision under that program, even if it is not needed, for them to conduct their exercises or their duties. The species have to be protected.

My amendment is a reasonable approach. It adds two protections to reinforce the effectiveness of the INRMP plans. First, the Secretary of the Interior must determine that the plan would conserve a threatened or endangered species, that it has to make sure we try our best to have that species endure. Second, there must be sufficient funding to implement these plans.

By applying this two-part standard, DOD could continue to maintain its historical success, balancing conservation and military readiness. This type of approach does work.

Only two species have gone extinct after being put on the endangered species list, while over 600 species not on the list have gone extinct during that time.

DOD has 25 million acres of land that are home to 300 federally listed, threatened, and endangered species. The Department of Defense has played a crucial role in preventing these species from sliding into extinction. It is not suggested anywhere that they want these things to happen, but we have a disagreement on what it will take to keep the species alive.

Camp Pendleton in California is a good example of how the balance has worked on the ground. Of 18 species listed as threatened and endangered on the 125,000 acres, critical habitat has been recommended for only 5 of those threatened species. Yet using the flexibility built into the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to restrict less than 1 percent of all potential training areas from use for training exercises.

In his testimony before the Armed Services Committee last March, GEN Nyland, Assistant Commandant for the Marine Corps, agreed that codifying an effectiveness test for the INRMPs would provide DOD with greater certainty in its decisionmaking. That is the purpose of this amendment.

The American people have also spoken on this issue. We should listen. According to a recent Zogby poll, 85 percent of registered voters believe the

Defense Department should follow the same environmental laws as everyone else. The two-part test in my amendment will help assure that DOD continues to do its part in conserving endangered species.

As I said before, I think they really want that to happen. The question is what the approach is going to be. The issue is about balancing national security with our environmental security and the Pentagon has shown in the past that we can do it. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

From our half hour of time, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Vermont.

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Hawaii.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I see the distinguished majority leader, Senator Frist, and wonder if I could ask him to address a concern I and other Senators have about a provision entitled ``Eligibility for Assistance'' which is located on page 61, line 18 of the bill.

This provision says that an organization that is otherwise eligible to receive assistance authorized by this Act to prevent, treat, or monitor HIV/AIDS, shall not be required, as a condition of receiving that assistance, to endorse or utilize a multisectoral approach to combating HIV/AIDS, or to endorse, utilize, or participate in a prevention method or treatment program to which the organization has a religious or moral objection.

Again, I support this provision, because there are faith-based groups that are playing a crucial role in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment which do not, for example want to distribute condoms. I understand that. There are other ways that they can be effective, through counseling, treatment, care and other services. They should not have to distribute condoms if they have a religious or moral objection.

But there is a problem, which this provision fails to explicitly address. Some of these same groups that object to distributing condoms, have actively sought to discourage people from using condoms. They have told people who have come to them for advice and counseling that condoms are bad, that they should not use them, and, erroneously, that condoms usually fail.

This is wrong. It is wrong from a medical point of view and it is wrong from an ethical point of view, because the consequence of providing this type of inaccurate or misleading information can quite possibly be death. Yet this provision does not address this very real, and very serious, problem. I would ask the majority leader how we can be sure that when these organizations, receive Federal funds, any information they provide about approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention is complete and medically accurate, including both the public health benefits and failure rates of the approach involved.

I thank the majority leader. I agree that these assurances are needed and that they should be routinely spelled out in any contract or grant agreement between the U.S. Government and such organization in order to clarify the intent of this provision.

Global Epidemic of Tuberculosis

Mr. President, fifteen years ago today, the most deadly drunk driving accident in our Nation's history occurred. It happened at about 10:55 p.m. EST, when a school bus full of teens and chaperones traveled down Interstate 71 to Radcliff, KY, on the way home from a church outing at a Cincinnati, OH amusement park. At this time, a repeat drunk driving offender with a blood alcohol concentration, BAC, of .24 headed the wrong way down Interstate 71 and slammed his pick-up truck into the bus. In just a few horrific moments, 27 people-- mostly children--were killed; another 34 were injured.

Today, I was honored to stand with three brave people whose lives were changed forever by this reckless tragedy: Karolyn Nunnallee, Janey Fair, and Harold Dennis. Karolyn lost her 10-year old daughter, Patty, and Janey lost her 14-year old daughter, Shannon. Harold was riding on the bus on that fateful day. Their perseverance should be a lesson for us all, as we continue to fight the social epidemic of drunk driving.

Today we must remember the victims and survivors of that terrible tragedy and sadly commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Kentucky bus crash. It is in their memory that I, along with my colleague Senator Mike DeWine, submit this resolution.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I rise to talk about the legislation we are scheduled to deal with this week, the debt limit extension bill and the tax cut.

The debate over the debt ceiling may seem esoteric to the folks back home, but it is actually a fairly simple issue. The President has decided to borrow more money on our Nation's credit card and now he is asking his credit be enlarged. The President's credit card is very clearly over the limit. He is asking the bankers in this room to approve his credit expansion.

So we are going to talk about it because we want to be sure he can afford to take on this much debt based on the fiscal management he is directing. By the end of this month, the President's card will be revoked because his balance will far exceed the credit card limit. What is that limit? The limit the President cannot comply with is $6.4 trillion. That is the amount of indebtedness we are currently permitted to have.

Now he is asking us, the bankers in this case, the 100 Senators, to extend his limit by another $984 billion. But the President does not have to pay that back. That debt is going to be deferred to future generations, about $3,400 for every man, woman, and child in America.

Right after he gets the extension of the debt limit, the President wants to charge at least another $350 billion on the credit card for a tax cut that goes primarily to the wealthy among us. The best part for the President is that he doesn't have to worry about paying the balance. He will hand the credit card off to someone else in a few years and say: You deal with this. All of us will be stuck with the bill--all of our children, all of our grandchildren. I personally was blessed with the birth of a ninth grandchild last Monday. I did not want to greet him with the news he might be inheriting a debt of $3,400 as he starts life. That will be his part of the deficit we are facing. At the rate President Bush is going, maybe our great grandchildren will participate as well.

The flawed economic budget policies have been nothing short of a disaster. It is a disaster of the administration's own making. Now the President wants to make the situation worse with another bloated, irresponsible tax cut.

I thought it was common knowledge when trapped in a hole you stop digging. Our President wants us to keep on digging and digging until we are in a budgetary canyon.

This chart tells a tale of three administrations and fiscal discipline, between the growing deficits of the two President Bushes, then the Clinton administration. We see the bars go from red deficit to a white surplus in the Clinton administration. And now we are headed back for deep deficits.

We see what has been happening with our fiscal conditioning in the last years. Under the first President Bush we had a fairly rapidly growing mass deficit. And then we had a new President come in with a different view of how we ought to manage our financial affairs. In 8 years, we see an amazing change. From 1992-1993 when President Clinton took over, we see it going rapidly into a surplus.

As a coauthor of the 1997 balanced budget agreement, I was proud to work with President Clinton to attain that surplus. At the signing of the agreement as the official Senate representative, I escorted President Clinton, along with Vice President Gore and Speaker Gingrich, across the White House lawn to permit the entire country to see this historic agreement put into effect--a balanced budget agreement. We made tough choices and they paid off and we put the country's fiscal health back on track.

But shortly after President George W. Bush took over, we saw the downward slide to fiscal irresponsibility. President Bush inherited Bill Clinton's surplus and it was squandered in short order. While there are many factors in such a slide, President Bush's irresponsible 2001 tax cut undid any hope of staying in surplus. Now the President-- and this is just an honest policy disagreement--now the President's answer is to borrow more and more. That is why we are talking about expanding the debt with yet another tax cut.

We already passed an irresponsible, bloated tax cut in the last Congress and it has not helped the economy. Circumstances have gotten worse and worse.

Just look at the job situation in America: How people earn their living, pay their bills, take care of their families. Those folks get a heck of a tax cut. Half of the taxpayers of middle income get about $100 a year--basically nothing. If they should lose their jobs, heaven forbid, they will be darned lucky to find new work, and this administration is unwilling to expand their unemployment benefits.

I recently saw President Bush talking about this tax cut plan in front of a board that had written on it: Jobs, growth, jobs, growth-- all over it. The White House staff made sure those words would be in every television image, every photograph of the President at that event. But simply printing the words ``jobs'' and ``growth'' on a board will not turn the President's irresponsible tax cut plan into a job creation plan.

No one seriously believes this program will do anything to create jobs anytime soon. Beyond the slogans, the reality is this administration has, unwittingly or otherwise, been a job eliminator. They have done nothing to

stimulate the economy or create jobs. They say, ``Trust us, and if we get more tax cuts, some will surely dribble down to the job market.''

Look at this chart:

If You Want to Keep Your Job, Stay Out of the Bushes.

Unemployment rate grows rapidly under the Presidents Bush. The higher the bars go, the worse the situation is for thousands of working people. After the high unemployment rates of the first President Bush, we saw President Clinton bring the unemployment rate steadily down, all the way to 4 percent. Virtually no economist thought we could get to 4 percent, but we did. Now we look at how President Bush, George W. Bush, has handled employment. We see unemployment rising again. Just this month we hit 6 percent.

The first Bush tax cut was supposed to create jobs, but we haven't seen any. Since January of 2001, the number of unemployed has increased over 45 percent, with 8.8 million Americans out of work. Since the beginning of the Bush administration, 2.7 million private sector jobs have been lost--over 500,000 jobs have been lost in the last 3 months, with 48,000 lost in the month of April just past.

On top of that, the administration has indicated it would like to eliminate 850,000 Federal employee jobs. In historical context, President George W. Bush has had a rather grim picture, the worst job growth record since the Great Depression. What is growing is unemployment.

Just look at this chart: From the highest job growth to the worst job growth in 58 years. That is terrible.

The chart has a certain attractiveness about it. But if you look beyond the colors, you see a very grim picture. All of these people who are presently out of work are struggling--this shows it very graphically--with an almost impossible situation.

The chart shows President Truman on the left. We see job growth in all the administrations except one. That administration is the current Bush administration. This administration is in the red. It is not creating jobs. We are losing 74,000 jobs on average each month.

Compare this administration with either of the two terms of the Clinton administration. We averaged over 200,000 new jobs throughout the Clinton administration. We are losing jobs in this country. But President Bush's preference is to give more huge tax breaks that go primarily to the wealthiest among us. He is addressing the problem with symbols and signs that suggest a rosier future, but it does not happen, and that adds outrage to neglect. In almost every category, these economic policies are failing.

Real GDP growth is another example. Look at this chart. It shows the average annual percent change in real GDP in Clinton's two terms and so far in President Bush's tenure. It is a stark contrast, as you see--the Clinton first and second terms here and the present George W. Bush term. President Clinton had us above 4 percent real GDP growth, and President Bush's average is barely above 1 percent.

President Clinton practiced fiscal discipline and it paid off. Under President Clinton, we attained a budget surplus. Under President Bush, we are back in deficits as far as the eye can see. Just as a reminder, when President Clinton left office we were looking at the prospect of a $5 trillion surplus over a 10-year period. Now it is expected we will have a $2.2 trillion deficit. Look at the change--$7.2 trillion in a period of 10 years. Under President Clinton, tremendous job growth; under President Bush, losing jobs at a record pace.

President Bush's economic policies are not working the way we would like them. I am sure they are not working the way he would like them to either. Our economy and the Federal budget are in real trouble and it is my hope there will be a reexamination of the tax cut plan in front of us. The first Bush tax cut didn't stimulate anything except the wallets of some of the most wealthy among us. Are we going to make the same mistake twice? It seems as if we are on the verge of doing just that.

We should not have to increase our Nation's debt limit. We should not have to pass the irresponsible tax bill we are considering. But the reason we are going to have to increase that debt limit $984 billion is to accommodate another tax cut, a tax cut that will not stimulate the economy, will not reward those who are working hard to make a living, taking care of their families, providing for education and a roof over their heads, health care, all that is essential in this day and age to provide good, responsible leadership for a family. It will not help.

It is alleged that the tax cut will produce something like $2,000 for the middle class, but it is untrue. It is more like $100 or $200. When you get rid of or reduce the tax obligation for the wealthiest among us, there is not enough left to do more than $100, on average, for half of the taxpayers in the country.

So I hope we will take a second look at what we are doing and curb the expansion of debt that this country is going to have to suffer for many years, maybe decades, to come and not proceed with a tax cut that extends, again, the best benefits to the wealthiest among us, people who need it the least.

I have had many conversations with people, and we have heard from distinguished entrepreneurs such as Warren Buffett, who said he would rather not have a tax cut because he knows that if he pays more taxes, he is left with a higher result in his pocket. I think we have to look at it realistically.

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today will go down as a remarkable day in the history of world diplomacy. I enthusiastically support the passage of Treaty Document No. 108-04, the Resolution of Ratification to the Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on the Accession of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

We are seizing a remarkable opportunity to extend the democratic zone of security, stability, tranquility, and mutual assistance eastward. I welcome the seven aspirant countries, and commend their efforts since the fall of their communist regimes 12 years ago to embrace democratic governance and liberal economic policies.

I urge the adoption of the Resolution of Ratification because I believe that NATO expansion will bring positive security benefits to the United States. Sovereign states no longer pose the greatest threats to U.S. national security; transnational actors--terrorists groups and their networks of supporters do. I believe that the war on terrorism will only be won through effective cooperation between the U.S. and our allies around the world. Since 9/11, our NATO allies have helped tremendously in our attempt to thwart terrorist attacks here and abroad. The NATO accession of Bulgaria, Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia will solidify the cooperation that already exists bilaterally between the U.S. and these seven countries.

I do have one concern that I would like to mention: the rights of the large historic Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania. I urge both countries' governments to continue to work with their Hungarian communities to resolve property restitution disputes and other contentious issues. And I urge the governments of all seven countries to pay continued attention to human rights so that all of their citizens may enjoy the benefits that accession to NATO will bring.

I extend a special welcome to the distinguished Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors who have come to the Senate Chamber today from each of the seven countries. I welcome them to a crucial alliance, one that was formed in the wake of World War II to protect freedom and democracy, human rights, and rule of law through the combined strength of western military, intelligence, economic, and political assets.

Mr. President, today's vote gives me great optimism about the future of our NATO alliance and about the contributions that these seven newest members will make for our collective peace, stability, freedom, and prosperity.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a critical piece of legislation, the Homeland Security Gun Safety Act.

In the aftermath of the tragic events of 9-11, the Federal Government has reassessed the Nation's vulnerabilities to acts and threats of terrorism.

And in response, the United States Congress gave the Department of Justice expanded powers to detain suspected terrorists, conduct surveillance and obtain confidential information on American citizens. In addition, we have created the new Department of Homeland Security-- the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since the 1940s.

In short, the events of 9-11 required us to reevaluate our safety concerns and the security of the Nation.

Echoing this need, President Bush said before the United Nations on November 10, 2001, that ``we have the responsibility to deny weapons to terrorists and to actively prevent private citizens from providing them.''

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. And I believe the American people want the U.S. Senate to follow through with concrete legislative action.

However, we have failed to address a significant remaining threat: the accessibility to firearms and explosives within our own borders.

How can we truly protect this Nation, if we do not enact legislation which prevents terrorists and potential terrorists from acquiring guns in the United States?

Terrorists have identified the lax gun laws of the United States as a means to advance their evil goal to terrorize and harm the American people.

In December 2001, during the war on terror, we attacked a terrorist training facility south of Kabul. Found among the rubble at that facility was a manual called: ``How I Can Train Myself for Jihad.''

This manual, contains an entire section on ``Firearms Training'' and singles out the United States for its easy availability of firearms. It stipulates that terrorists living in the U.S. should ``obtain an assault weapon legally, preferably AK-47 or variations.'' It also advises would-be terrorsts on how they should conduct themselves in order to avoid arousing suspicion as they amass and transport firearms.

There are other examples where terrorists have sought to take advantage of this nation's lax gun laws.

On the eve of the September 11 terrorist attack, on September 10, 2001, a Federal jury convicted Ali Boumelhem, a known member of the terrorist group Hezbollah on seven counts of weapons charges and conspiracy to ship weapons and ammunition to Lebanon.

And we have seen how firearms can be used to terrorize an entire community.

We are all familiar with the case of John Muhammad and John Malvo, who terrorized the Washington, DC area for more than three weeks as they embarked on a shooting spree with a sniper rifle, shooting 13 innocent people before being caught.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge agrees that there is a dangerous link between guns and terror. During his confirmation hearing before Governmental Affairs Committee on January 17, 2003, in response to a question I asked him about guns and terror, Secretary Ridge said:

[W]hen anyone uses a firearm, whether it's the kind of

terrorism that we are trying to combat with al Qaeda and

these non-state terrorists, or as a former district attorney

involved in the conviction of an individual who used firearms

against innocent citizens--regardless of how we define

terrorism, that individual and that family felt that they

were victims of a terrorist act. Brandishing a firearm in

front of anybody under any set of circumstances is a

terrorist act and needs to be dealt with.

Well, the Homeland Security Gun Safety Act deals with it. The Act deals with this threat that leaves America especially vulnerable to future terrorist attacks.

The Homeland Security Gun Safety Act would enact specific measures that would help prevent terrorists from acquiring firearms within our own borders.

Under current law, there are cases when law enforcement is blocked from conducting an adequate investigation when a terrorist or criminal tries to buy a gun.

Current law says if law enforcement takes over three days to conduct a background check on someone who wants a weapon--just hand over the gun.

That is ludicrous--especially when we are in an elevated state of terrorist threat.

When we are at Code Yellow, the Department of Homeland Security has determined that we are at a significant risk of terrorist attack.

The bill I am introducing today would suspend these loopholes in our gun safety laws when we are at Code Yellow or above in the interest of homeland security.

The three-day limit on law enforcement is nothing more than a loophole in our laws put there by the gun lobby.

And it's a dangerous loophole--a recent study showed that, from December 1998 to June 2001, nearly 10,000 people who should not have been permitted to buy guns, did receive guns because the three-day period passed before law enforcement could finish a background check.

Our bill will also require that the Federal Government retain records of weapons transactions while we are in an elevated state of alert. There is no reason we should handicap law enforcement during such a dangerous time.

This bill will also close a number of loopholes that have allowed rogue gun dealers to skirt the law. These are the same few gun dealers that are now the subject of lawsuits across the country.

These dangerous loopholes that the gun lobby built into our gun laws now pose a major threat to homeland security.

This bill will help shut down those loopholes. The bill would require gun dealers to: immediately report ``missing'' guns or face suspension of their license; and put appropriate security measures in place to prevent theft of their weapons; and check with the FBI's Stolen Gun Registry to make sure that secondhand weapons they purchase are not stolen.

This bill will also step up enforcement of gun dealers: law enforcement would not be restricted in its ability to inspect dealers. Currently, law enforcement is only allowed one unannounced inspection per year.

The bill will also increase the penalties for violations of gun dealer laws to a felony. Right now, the maximum penalty is only a misdemeanor. It has no teeth.

I know the NRA will cry wolf to gun owners about this bill. But this bill will not affect the vast majority of honest, law abiding Americans who want to purchase guns. This bill focuses on preventing weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists and criminals.

Over 75 percent of background checks are performed in mere minutes. However, there are those purchasers who raise red flags that require further investigation.

Those are red flags we can no longer afford to ignore.

When we are at Code Yellow, everyday Americans are prevented from taking a tour of the White House--but a terrorist can buy weapons.

It makes no sense.

This bill offers Congress a clear choice: protect our homeland or protect the gun lobby.

I ask unanimous consent that a summary of my bill, the Homeland Security Gun Safety Act, be printed in the Record.