Floor Statements

Mr. President, I first compliment the distinguished chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senator from Kansas, not only for the remarks he just made, but for the way he led this committee during very difficult times, as has been mentioned before.

I regret he has been criticized for the very acts of comity which are required of a chairman in a position such as this for trying his best to accommodate the members of the minority, trying his best to be as open and as broad as he could possibly be in approaching the issues that have been brought to his attention by members of the minority, even criticized, I have seen, in his own hometown press, his own press in Kansas for being too soft in dealing with the members of the Democratic Party in this matter.

It is his job to bend over backwards, to make the Intelligence Committee work in a nonpartisan fashion. I didn't say ``bipartisan,'' I said ``nonpartisan'' because that is the way this committee was set up 25 years ago: to be a place where politics could not intrude.

I don't know how many people are aware of where the Intelligence Committee works. It works in an area that is secure. That is the phrase. There are special physical arrangements in the construction of this area in which the committee works. It is literally a vault that you walk into, totally closed off from the rest of the world, obviously because we don't want any electronic surveillance or other means of intercepting what is said within the confines of this secure area.

It could also be a metaphor for its location in this very political city because there is a lot of politics in Washington, DC. We all understand that.

This is a special place where politics is not to intrude. It is literally an island in this political sea that is supposed to be out of bounds for politics.

The chairman has done a great job of trying his best to get all of the information he can from the intelligence community, from the administration, from any other source that would be useful to the committee's work, and to bend over backwards, as the memorandum itself notes, for the members of the minority. I take my hat off to him for that and suggest that he should not be criticized for it; he should be praised for it.

He, too, has made the point that there is a point beyond which one just cannot go. When it appears that the

other side has attempted to take advantage of your goodwill, as the chairman has done, he has got to say that is it; no more; this committee is not going to be used for partisan political purposes. That is what he should do, and I applaud him for that effort.

I also appreciate the comments of the distinguished majority leader in bringing this to the full body as he has done, to raise the critical questions and to simply ask for those responsible to step forward and acknowledge their responsibility and identify for whom this memorandum was written; for the responsible people, including the leadership of the Democratic minority, and certainly the leadership of the committee, to disavow the contents of the memo, the plan that has been written, and to make a public apology to the distinguished chairman of the committee.

I think those are very reasonable requests and, frankly, too many hours have passed since the first calls for disavowal. Yet the memorandum remains not disavowed.

I would like to take just a moment to try and explain why some of us feel so strongly about this. I served on this committee for 8 years. There is a rule that a Senator can only serve for 8 years because we never want this to become a politicized committee. We never want it to be a source where power is gathered around people who maintain their position. This is supposed to be a place where a Senator comes in, gets expertise, serves time, and then moves on. I had the honor and privilege of serving for 8 years.

One of the things that always stuck with me was the fact that it was not bipartisan, it was nonpartisan. The staff was selected primarily from the intelligence community, people who were experts in matters of intelligence. When I first came in, I said I had a member of my staff who used to be with the Intelligence Committee. He has the top clearances, and I would like to have him on staff to help me on this committee. Bob Kerrey, the former Senator from Nebraska and distinguished former chairman referred to by Senator Roberts, made the point at the time: No, we cannot do that because we do not want there to be any suggestion that there is influence in the committee from the private staff of individual Senators. This is professional intelligence community staff, and if it ever were thought to be otherwise, we would never get the cooperation of the intelligence community providing us with secrets that are the most significant, important secrets of our Nation.

Our committee staff of the Select Committee on Intelligence has the complete knowledge of the most significant, serious secrets of this country. They have to be above reproach. Think for a moment what would happen if it were perceived that they were political staff just like all the other committees. There is nothing wrong with political staff, but we all understand they have a substantive and a political dimension to the work that they do. We all operate within that understanding. But here, think about what a Senator could do knowing all of these secrets if they decided to use them for partisan political advantage.

I can state unequivocally that I could have gone out and criticized the Clinton administration with things I knew, and people on the committee today could probably go out and criticize the current administration for things that they know. It would be very hard to respond to that because the only response is to use similarly classified information to respond.

We cannot get into that game. No one would share information with the intelligence committee if they felt that it could be used for political purposes. Indeed, what foreign country or other sources would be willing to provide information to our intelligence community with the understanding that it might go right to a partisan political committee of the Congress? It could not be done.

I was interested to go to Great Britain and visit with Parliamentarians who only recently obtained oversight, like the Intelligence Committee oversight of the United States, over intelligence activities of the executive branch of their government. Now, understand they are a parliamentary form of government so the distinction is not nearly as bright as it is in the United States, but they sought advice from us as to how they could best do oversight of this important intelligence function.

They were interested in how we were able to get these deep dark secrets of our country into the legislative branch of government when in the past they had always been the sole province of the intelligence community and the executive branch. One of the explanations was because we were trusted. We were not a partisan committee like the other committees.

Well, this memorandum and the conduct of the staff in this particular case begins the process of destroying that credibility and that trust and thus eliminating any prospect that this committee can operate in a successful way in its oversight function. That is why this is such a big deal.

I mentioned former Senator Kerrey. I would also mention former chairmen of the committee, Senators Specter and Shelby, both of whom spoke to this issue a couple of days ago and recounted how in their experience they had never seen anything like this during their time as chairman and noted that they could not possibly function as a committee if there were a perception that the committee was being used for political purposes.

I might note one other thing just as an aside. I wrote additional views, along with the distinguished chairman of the committee, today to the report that the Intelligence Committee issued at the end of last year about the events leading up to September 11, 2001. One of the reasons that those other views are not as eloquent as I would have liked them to have been is that we had to draft them very quickly, after the report was done, after we knew what its conclusions were. We were able to read through it, and the Senator from Kansas and I noted that we did not totally agree with everything--more precisely, there were other things that we thought should have been said in that report, and we hastily put together our additional views and got them attached to the report. I hope they are helpful for people who read that report and our additional views.

We did not come to a conclusion before that report was done, before the committee's work was done, that no matter what that report said, we were going to attach additional views and be critical of the report. We could not have done that because we did not know what it was going to say.

That is what this memorandum suggests is the plan of these Democrat staffers, that irrespective of what the report says the Senator from Kansas will oversee the issuance of in the next few weeks, they plan to attach additional views castigating the majority. I will quote that in just a second. That is a misuse of the process and that is the kind of thing that we are talking about.

I would just finally note in this regard, the report that the committee is working on now is the second of three major reports. First, the committee put out the report at the end of last year. Then there is the followup report that is being done right now on the intelligence leading up to September 11 and leading up to the conflict in Iraq, and finally the Kean commission, which is also going to be issuing a report on the same subject. So all three investigations overlap in one way or another to ask the question about the adequacy of our intelligence pre-September 11 and pre-Iraqi war. It is not as if this subject has not gotten a lot of attention.

The public might be a little confused about what this memorandum actually says. I just wanted to note finally what this memorandum says. It begins by saying:

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and

believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as

follows.

So this is not a recitation of options. This is a statement that they reviewed the options and this is what they came up with: The plan, ``our plan is as follows.'' It clearly is written for someone who understands fully what the idea was.

Our options for what? It would have to be options for something that the recipient of the memo already understood. It says:

First, pull the majority along as far as we can.

That is the distinguished chairman of the committee.

Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may

lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or

questionable conduct by administration officials.

In other words, a fishing expedition. Let us see how long we can string this out and maybe we will get lucky and come up with something. In fact, they say it right here: `` . . . We don't know what we will find,'' and then there is a parenthesis at the end of this paragraph that I find very interesting. ``Note: we can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.''

No, you cannot, not under the committee rules. It is absolutely forbidden.

What is in that committee is confidential. You cannot verbally mention some of the intriguing leads that ``we are pursuing.''

Second:

Assiduously prepare Democratic ``additional views . . .''

That would be appropriate if the report is already done, but what does it say?

. . . to attach to any interim or final reports the committee

may release.

In other words, it doesn't matter what the committee says. We'll write these views ahead of time and attach them.

. . . we intend to take full advantage of it,

it said.

Our additional views will also, among other things,

castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the

inquiry.

The majority has not done anything yet but, by golly they are going to be castigated for this.

Third:

Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it

becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully

collaborate with the majority.

I like that phrase. I think that reveals a malevolent intent here. Then:

. . . we can pull the trigger on an independent

investigation. . . . The best time to do so will probably be

next year. . . .

They then talk about the advantages or disadvantages of doing it at that time. They note that:

We could [under the second view here] attract more coverage

and have greater credibility in that context than one in

which we simply launch an independent investigation based on

principled but vague notions regarding the ``use'' of

intelligence.

It concludes:

. . . we have an important role to play in revealing the

misleading--if not flagrantly dishonest methods and motives--

of the senior administration officials who made the case for

a unilateral, preemptive war. The approach outlined above

seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the

administration's dubious motives and methods.

This is political. This is staffers who have already prejudged. They cannot believe President Bush. There must be bad, dishonest motives. It is their mantra, and I think they think it is their duty to expose and blame the Bush administration. Yes, it is political, but in their view it is a higher calling. Bush must be exposed, so any method is acceptable, so the end justifies the means even if it risks destroying the intelligence committee.

These staffers should know better because they are senior staffers, presumably. That is the kind of people who get hired on this committee. But it is wrong to put partisan politics above national security and certainly the members of the committee know better. That is why the majority leader is absolutely correct in calling upon them to disavow this memorandum, which puts partisan politics ahead of national security.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee and applaud him for the work he has been doing and commiserate with him today. Having served on that committee for 8 years, I know how difficult it is to keep focused on the important intelligence issues that confront our country, especially in this time of war, and do that in a way that maintains the traditional bipartisan relationship that has heretofore characterized the members of the Intelligence Committee.

Having served there for 8 years, I never saw the kind of blatant, partisan politics emerge that has apparently emerged as revealed in this memorandum that has been discussed this morning. It is a disgusting possibility that Members of the Senate would actually try to politicize intelligence, especially at a time of war, even apparently reaching conclusions before investigations have been performed.

This memo refers to the fact that, for example, if we carry this plan out that has been discussed already, we will identify additional views and castigate--well, I will quote it exactly:

Our additional views will, among other things, castigate

the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

In other words, before something is even done, the plan has already been devised about how they are going to criticize the majority about something it has not even done yet. This is blatant partisan politics.

Now, our Democratic colleagues have denied that this memorandum represents their plan. One of two things is true. It either is or it is not. If it is, it is reprehensible. If it is not, there is a sure way to prove it and that is to repudiate the memorandum and to ensure that this plan of action is never carried out. So we shall see.

Are the denials of the Democrats going to result in this plan being repudiated and not carried out? That will be the test of whether this is really the plan of the Democrats.

I note that parts of the plan appear already to have been set in motion. The first item of the plan:

Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may

lead to new disclosures. . . . We are having some success in

that regard.

I mean, this is being done. This is not a plan that somebody had, an idea that is out in the future someplace. It is part of what is currently a Democratic process in the committee.

Secondly, the suggestion that there should be an independent commission, well, while there is some confusion in the memo about when to ``pull the trigger'' on that, the ranking member on the committee has already called for an independent commission. So there appears to be some elements of a plan that are already in play, but I am willing to accept the denials of my Democratic colleagues that this represents their proposed course of action. As I said, the sure way to prove that is for them to repudiate it and to ensure that, in fact, that plan does not go forward.

I note one other thing. There is much in this memo that deals with how the Republican position will be characterized. We are talking about a Republican Senate position. I urge my Democratic colleagues to consider this. It is

unethical and improper under the rules of the Senate to characterize the motives of fellow Senators. We all know that. We do not do that. That begins the breakdown of the comity that must exist in this body.

I do not question my colleagues' motives and clearly they should not question mine, but there is an opportunity in this memorandum for questioning motives. I want to bring this to the attention of people because clearly this should not be a part of anything we do in this body.

In the summary, the memorandum itself says:

Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the

misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives

of senior administration officials who made the case for

unilateral preemptive war.

I think it may be inappropriate to question the motives of senior administration officials, as well as Senators. In any event, as I say, there is much in here that goes to the questioning of the report that they presume will be prepared by the majority. That would be a breach of ethics, and I urge my colleagues to strongly consider what that would result in and to repudiate this memorandum because of language like that.

We do not need more reviews. We have already had the review that was conducted when I was on the Intelligence Committee that resulted in a lengthy report. The Kean Commission is doing its work right now; and, third, we have the Intelligence Committee doing its work. So I think that enough review has occurred. We certainly should not let partisan politics intrude into the important work of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003.'' This bill consists of the President's DNA initiative, which will expand and improve DNA databases used for criminal investigations and authorize additional funds to clear the backlog of untested DNA evidence in the nation's crime labs.

This bill offers several advantages over another version of the President's proposal that recently was introduced in the Senate. Today's bill gives States greater leeway in the use of DNA grants, removes arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on the testing of criminal suspects' DNA samples, authorizes additional funds to clear the backlog of non-DNA forensics evidence, and--most importantly avoids tying this critical program to unrelated and highly controversial anti- death penalty legislation. I include in the record at the end of this statement a news story that describes the nature of the state counsel and other extraneous provisions that others have sought to attach to the President's proposal.

The bill that I introduce today is an unencumbered--and unabridged-- version of the President's DNA initiative: the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act and the Rape Kits and DNA Evidence Backlog Elimination Act, which authorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program and provide $755 million over five years to address the DNA backlog crisis in the nation's crime labs.

Today's bill includes the following improvements over other congressional versions of the President's proposal: First, this bill also expands funding for non-DNA forensics funding. Section 211 of the bill authorizes $100 million in new grant programs to eliminate ``the backlog in the analysis of any area of forensic science evidence, including firearms examination, latent prints, toxicology, controlled substances, forensic pathology, questionable documents, and trace evidence.''

Second, this bill increases the authorization for the Paul Coverdell grant program, in recognition of the fact that this program never has been funded at more than a small fraction of its authorization. Other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative only authorize decreasing Coverdell funding in the coming years. This bill resets the clock on the Coverdell program, authorizing 2004 funding at the level for 2001, and subsequent years accordingly. This will allow sharp increases in Coverdell funding in the coming years.

Third, today's bill allows states to test DNA samples from convicts seeking exoneration against the national DNA database, in order to determine if the convict has committed other rapes or murders. The other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would bar such testing; they effectively would give convicts a free roll of the dice to challenge their current convictions while protecting them against the risk that they will be linked to other crimes. There is no reason why states should be prevented from solving such other crimes. If DNA evidence is good enough to test a prisoner's conviction for the crimes that we do know that he committed, it also is good enough to establish the prisoner's involvement in crimes that we do not yet know that he committed.

Fourth, this bill includes all Federal felony arrestees in the federal DNA database. Other versions of this bill exclude arrestees and place other unnecessary and arbitrary limits on the federal DNA index. The federal government already maintains fingerprints for all federal felony arrestees--there is no reason to treat DNA evidence differently. Nor is there any reason to prevent states and the federal government from solving other crimes committed by suspects arrested for a federal felony offense.

The Department of Justice has expressly informed Congress of the benefits of casting a wide net when including criminal suspects in the federal DNA database. During a July 17 hearing on the President's DNA initiative before the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Sarah Hart, the Director of the National Institute of Justice, testified that:

The efficacy of the DNA identification system depends

entirely on the profiles entered into it. Experience

demonstrates that broad collection and indexing of DNA

samples is critical to the effective use of the DNA

technology to solve rapes, murders, and other serious crimes.

The DNA sample that enables law enforcement to identify the

perpetrator of a rape, for example, often was not collected

in connection with an earlier rape. Rather, in a large

proportion of such cases, the sample was taken as a result of

the perpetrator's prior conviction for a non-violent crime

(such as a burglary, theft, or drug offense).

For example, in Virginia, which has authorized the

collection of DNA samples from all felons since 1991, a

review of cases in which offenders were linked to sex crimes

through DNA matching found that almost 40% of the offenders

had no prior convictions for sexual or violent offenses. Most

serious offenders do not confine themselves to violent

crimes. The experience of States with broad DNA collection

regimes demonstrates that DNA databases that include all

felons dramatically increase law enforcement's ability to

solve serious crimes.

Fifth, today's bill tolls the statute of limitations when a perpetrator has been identified through DNA--including in rape cases. Other congressional versions of the President's initiative inexplicably exclude sexual-assault crimes from the initiative's DNA tolling provision. There is no reason to do so. Indeed, it is in sexual-assault cases that DNA evidence is most likely to identify a perpetrator. At the July 17 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee's Crime Subcommittee, the Department of Justice testified in favor of tolling the statute of limitations to the full extent permitted by the Constitution.

Sixth, this bill allows grants for DNA training and research to be made to prosecutors' organizations, universities, and other private entities. Competing bill versions limit such grants to state and local governments, which is inconsistent with the President's DNA initiative.

Finally, the bill that I introduce today does not include the so- called ``Innocence Protection Act'' (IPA), a controversial anti-death penalty bill. The other congressional versions of the President's initiative have incorporated the IPA as a third title to the President's bill. At the July 17 hearing on the President's initiative, the Department of Justice made very clear that it ``do[es] not believe that legislation embodying the important proposals in the President's DNA initiative should be joined to these controversial [IPA] measures, which intrinsically are unrelated to DNA.''

In an October 27 letter to several members of Congress, the National District Attorneys Association also voiced strong objections to the capital-counsel provisions included in the IPA titles of the other bills. The NDAA's letter stated:

Section 321 [of these bills] attempts to re-establish the

old 'death penalty resource centers.' As you no doubt recall,

Congress abolished funding for such centers because they

devolved into organizations dedicated solely to the abolition

of the death penalty and were staffed and controlled by those

dedicated to the disruption of the criminal justice system by

whatever means available, ethical or otherwise. Section 321

would cause a return to such tactics by removing the ability

for the state judiciary to appoint counsel in death penalty

cases and giving that authority to a self-appointed group of

anti-death penalty attorneys.

. . . NDAA strongly urges deletion of Section 321 from this

bill . . . .

Elimination of Section 321 . . . keeps the appointment and

control of capital defense counsel in the hands of state

court judges who are responsible for insuring that defendants

receive quality representation. With Section 321 there is no

oversight of those individuals selected to develop state

standards for capital defense counsel.

The IPA titles included in the other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would authorize $500 million in Federal funding for State public defenders in State capital cases. There is no reason for Congress to finance the States' public-defender systems. The States adequately fund these programs themselves--indeed, many have enacted reforms and substantially increased funding for public defenders in recent years. When the IPA originally was introduced in 2000, it was targeted at the State of Texas. In 2001, the Texas legislature enacted reforms that completely overhauled the State's public-defender system. Yet the IPA provisions of the other Senate bill would declare Texas's reforms ``ineffective,'' and would force the State to again replace its indigent-defense system. Such a mandate makes no sense.

Moreover, there is no reason why States cannot or should not fund their own indigent-defender systems. Basic principles of federalism dictate that each level of government should finance its own operations. Once States become accustomed to and budget for Federal funds, they never are able to reject the money (or its conditions) in the future. And Federal funding inevitably comes with increasing Federal strings. In the long run, the States risk losing control over their own public-defender programs. There is no reason to start down this path.

The IPA proposals in the other congressional versions of the President's initiative begin by placing a number of conditions on the states' receipt of federal funds. Among these conditions is that states transfer control over capital defense to an ``entity'' composed of persons with ``demonstrated knowledge and expertise in capital representation.'' (This means private defense lawyers; public prosecutors likely would be barred by their jobs from serving or would be conflicted out.) This new ``entity'' would be charged with: (1) setting standards for capital-defense counsel; (2) deciding which lawyers meet those standards; and (3) appointing lawyers from the roster of qualifying attorneys to represent defendants in particular cases.

Essentially, the bill's new ``entity'' would completely control staffing of the defense in capital cases. From past experience with the ``capital resource centers,'' which were defunded by Congress in 1996, we know that hard-core death penalty opponents tend to gravitate toward these jobs, and will engage in litigation abuse when not supervised. Congress should not require the states to repeat its own past mistakes. It should not place anti-death penalty partisans in charge of public representation of capital defendants.

The other congressional versions of the President's proposal also include these additional highly problematic provisions:

They allow free DNA testing under very low standards. The competing bills provide that DNA tests shall be available to any prisoners if a negative test match would ``raise a reasonable probability that the applicant did not commit the offense.'' This standard is too low. Not all DNA evidence clearly came from the perpetrator of the crime or had anything to do with the crime--for example, a blood spot near the crime scene may or may not have come from the perpetrator. The ``reasonable probability'' standard means a prisoner could secure a test even if, despite a negative match, the other evidence would still show that the prisoner more likely than not committed the crime.

The bill requires only a chance that the prisoner did not commit the crime. Almost every prisoner with material to test will be able to meet this standard. Reopening old cases forces victims and their families to relive the ordeal of the crime. They should not be put through this unless a negative test result could at least show more likely than not that the prisoner did not commit the crime.

During the July 17 hearing before the House Crime Subcommittee, NIJ Director Sarah Hart expressly warned congress of the consequences of applying unduly low DNA testing standards. Director Hart testified:

[W]hile post-conviction DNA testing is necessary to correct

erroneous convictions imposed prior to the ready availability

of DNA technology, experience also points to the need to

ensure that postconviction DNA testing is appropriately

designed so as to benefit actually innocent persons, rather

than actually guilty criminals who wish to game the system or

retaliate against the victims of their crimes. Frequently,

the results of postconviction DNA testing sought by prisoners

confirm guilt, rather than establishing innocence. In such

cases, justice system resources are squandered and the system

has been misused to inflict further harm on the crime victim.

The recent experience of a local jurisdiction is instructive:

``Twice last month, DNA tests at the police crime lab in

St. Louis confirmed the guilt of convicted rapists. Two other

tests, last year and in 2001, also showed the right men were

behind bars for brutal rapes committed a decade or more

earlier.

`` [The St. Louis circuit attorney's] staff spent scores of

hours and thousands of dollars on those tests. She personally

counseled shaking, sobbing victims who were distraught to

learn that their traumas were being aired again.

`` One victim, she said, became suicidal and then vanished;

her family has not heard from her for months. Another, a deaf

elderly woman, grew so despondent that her son has not been

able to tell her the results of the DNA tests. Every time he

raises the issue, she squeezes her eyes shut so that she will

not be able to read his lips.

`` `She finally seemed to have some peace about the rape,

and now she's gone back to being angry,' the woman's son

said.

`` DNA tests confirmed that she was raped by Kenneth

Charron in 1985, when she was 59. To get that confirmation,

however, investigators had to collect a swab of saliva from

her so that they could analyze her DNA. They also had to

inquire about her sexual past, so they could be sure the

semen found in her home was not that of a consensual partner.

`` The questioning sent the woman into such depression that

she's now on medication. `None of this needed to happen,' her

son said. ''

Post-conviction DNA testing is not without its costs. It should be allowed only in carefully measured circumstances.

Another problematic provision in the other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would employ an unduly low standard to authorize new trials for very old cases. This provision of these bills is designed to allow new trials for prisoners who may have been convicted 20 or more years ago. But it is very often impossible to retry a case this old--key witnesses die or disappear or their memories simply fade, and other evidence deteriorates or is lost. For many such cases, ordering a new trial effectively means that the prisoner walks free.

Congress should make sure that there is compelling evidence of innocence before ordering new trials in old cases. Unfortunately, these other bills would allow a new trial if test results simply ``establish by a preponderance of the evidence that a new trial would result in an acquittal.'' The key language here is ``result in acquittal.'' It means a test result would not even have to indicate actual innocence; it need only conflict with other evidence of guilt so as to undermine the jury's ability to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. Prisoners could win new trials--and go free--even if, despite the negative DNA match, other evidence still shows the prisoner very likely committed the crime. Current law, Federal Rule 33, uses the liberal ``result in acquittal'' standard to allow new trials based on new evidence, but only within three years of trial. It usually is not difficult to retry a case within three years. But for older cases, Congress should insist on a showing of actual innocence before ordering an often-impossible new trial.

There are other problems with the IPA titles in the various congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative. These titles would vastly expand DNA testing by authorizing tests even for prisoners who pleaded guilty. According to the Department of Justice, 90 percent of Federal prisoners pleaded guilty. Extending free tests to these prisoners literally expands the pool of potential test seekers by an order of magnitude. A guilty plea also means that there is no trial record, which makes it much more difficult to assess the potential relevance of DNA-test evidence.

These other bills also impose broad and potentially costly new evidence-retention requirements on the States--requirements that appear to require States to preserve all potential DNA evidence in all cases, indefinitely. And these bills also would give the newly created capital-counsel ``entities'' an unwarranted degree of control over defense attorneys' budgets. States traditionally have charged courts and other responsible agencies with monitoring budgets for capital representation. Prosecutors do not have unlimited budgets. There is no reason to allow the capital-counsel entity to draw a blank check on State treasuries.

There are other problems with the IPA titles of the competing bills. Suffice it to say that these titles are unrelated to the President's DNA initiative and both the Department of Justice and the NDAA oppose adding them to the President's bill. We should not weigh down the President's DNA initiative with the IPA. For this reason, my colleagues and I today introduce the President's proposal--important, consensus legislation that should be enacted by Congress without delay.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill, the following letter, and the following article all be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003.'' This bill consists of the President's DNA initiative, which will expand and improve DNA databases used for criminal investigations and authorize additional funds to clear the backlog of untested DNA evidence in the nation's crime labs.

This bill offers several advantages over another version of the President's proposal that recently was introduced in the Senate. Today's bill gives States greater leeway in the use of DNA grants, removes arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on the testing of criminal suspects' DNA samples, authorizes additional funds to clear the backlog of non-DNA forensics evidence, and--most importantly avoids tying this critical program to unrelated and highly controversial anti- death penalty legislation. I include in the record at the end of this statement a news story that describes the nature of the state counsel and other extraneous provisions that others have sought to attach to the President's proposal.

The bill that I introduce today is an unencumbered--and unabridged-- version of the President's DNA initiative: the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act and the Rape Kits and DNA Evidence Backlog Elimination Act, which authorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program and provide $755 million over five years to address the DNA backlog crisis in the nation's crime labs.

Today's bill includes the following improvements over other congressional versions of the President's proposal: First, this bill also expands funding for non-DNA forensics funding. Section 211 of the bill authorizes $100 million in new grant programs to eliminate ``the backlog in the analysis of any area of forensic science evidence, including firearms examination, latent prints, toxicology, controlled substances, forensic pathology, questionable documents, and trace evidence.''

Second, this bill increases the authorization for the Paul Coverdell grant program, in recognition of the fact that this program never has been funded at more than a small fraction of its authorization. Other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative only authorize decreasing Coverdell funding in the coming years. This bill resets the clock on the Coverdell program, authorizing 2004 funding at the level for 2001, and subsequent years accordingly. This will allow sharp increases in Coverdell funding in the coming years.

Third, today's bill allows states to test DNA samples from convicts seeking exoneration against the national DNA database, in order to determine if the convict has committed other rapes or murders. The other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would bar such testing; they effectively would give convicts a free roll of the dice to challenge their current convictions while protecting them against the risk that they will be linked to other crimes. There is no reason why states should be prevented from solving such other crimes. If DNA evidence is good enough to test a prisoner's conviction for the crimes that we do know that he committed, it also is good enough to establish the prisoner's involvement in crimes that we do not yet know that he committed.

Fourth, this bill includes all Federal felony arrestees in the federal DNA database. Other versions of this bill exclude arrestees and place other unnecessary and arbitrary limits on the federal DNA index. The federal government already maintains fingerprints for all federal felony arrestees--there is no reason to treat DNA evidence differently. Nor is there any reason to prevent states and the federal government from solving other crimes committed by suspects arrested for a federal felony offense.

The Department of Justice has expressly informed Congress of the benefits of casting a wide net when including criminal suspects in the federal DNA database. During a July 17 hearing on the President's DNA initiative before the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Sarah Hart, the Director of the National Institute of Justice, testified that:

The efficacy of the DNA identification system depends

entirely on the profiles entered into it. Experience

demonstrates that broad collection and indexing of DNA

samples is critical to the effective use of the DNA

technology to solve rapes, murders, and other serious crimes.

The DNA sample that enables law enforcement to identify the

perpetrator of a rape, for example, often was not collected

in connection with an earlier rape. Rather, in a large

proportion of such cases, the sample was taken as a result of

the perpetrator's prior conviction for a non-violent crime

(such as a burglary, theft, or drug offense).

For example, in Virginia, which has authorized the

collection of DNA samples from all felons since 1991, a

review of cases in which offenders were linked to sex crimes

through DNA matching found that almost 40% of the offenders

had no prior convictions for sexual or violent offenses. Most

serious offenders do not confine themselves to violent

crimes. The experience of States with broad DNA collection

regimes demonstrates that DNA databases that include all

felons dramatically increase law enforcement's ability to

solve serious crimes.

Fifth, today's bill tolls the statute of limitations when a perpetrator has been identified through DNA--including in rape cases. Other congressional versions of the President's initiative inexplicably exclude sexual-assault crimes from the initiative's DNA tolling provision. There is no reason to do so. Indeed, it is in sexual-assault cases that DNA evidence is most likely to identify a perpetrator. At the July 17 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee's Crime Subcommittee, the Department of Justice testified in favor of tolling the statute of limitations to the full extent permitted by the Constitution.

Sixth, this bill allows grants for DNA training and research to be made to prosecutors' organizations, universities, and other private entities. Competing bill versions limit such grants to state and local governments, which is inconsistent with the President's DNA initiative.

Finally, the bill that I introduce today does not include the so- called ``Innocence Protection Act'' (IPA), a controversial anti-death penalty bill. The other congressional versions of the President's initiative have incorporated the IPA as a third title to the President's bill. At the July 17 hearing on the President's initiative, the Department of Justice made very clear that it ``do[es] not believe that legislation embodying the important proposals in the President's DNA initiative should be joined to these controversial [IPA] measures, which intrinsically are unrelated to DNA.''

In an October 27 letter to several members of Congress, the National District Attorneys Association also voiced strong objections to the capital-counsel provisions included in the IPA titles of the other bills. The NDAA's letter stated:

Section 321 [of these bills] attempts to re-establish the

old 'death penalty resource centers.' As you no doubt recall,

Congress abolished funding for such centers because they

devolved into organizations dedicated solely to the abolition

of the death penalty and were staffed and controlled by those

dedicated to the disruption of the criminal justice system by

whatever means available, ethical or otherwise. Section 321

would cause a return to such tactics by removing the ability

for the state judiciary to appoint counsel in death penalty

cases and giving that authority to a self-appointed group of

anti-death penalty attorneys.

. . . NDAA strongly urges deletion of Section 321 from this

bill . . . .

Elimination of Section 321 . . . keeps the appointment and

control of capital defense counsel in the hands of state

court judges who are responsible for insuring that defendants

receive quality representation. With Section 321 there is no

oversight of those individuals selected to develop state

standards for capital defense counsel.

The IPA titles included in the other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would authorize $500 million in Federal funding for State public defenders in State capital cases. There is no reason for Congress to finance the States' public-defender systems. The States adequately fund these programs themselves--indeed, many have enacted reforms and substantially increased funding for public defenders in recent years. When the IPA originally was introduced in 2000, it was targeted at the State of Texas. In 2001, the Texas legislature enacted reforms that completely overhauled the State's public-defender system. Yet the IPA provisions of the other Senate bill would declare Texas's reforms ``ineffective,'' and would force the State to again replace its indigent-defense system. Such a mandate makes no sense.

Moreover, there is no reason why States cannot or should not fund their own indigent-defender systems. Basic principles of federalism dictate that each level of government should finance its own operations. Once States become accustomed to and budget for Federal funds, they never are able to reject the money (or its conditions) in the future. And Federal funding inevitably comes with increasing Federal strings. In the long run, the States risk losing control over their own public-defender programs. There is no reason to start down this path.

The IPA proposals in the other congressional versions of the President's initiative begin by placing a number of conditions on the states' receipt of federal funds. Among these conditions is that states transfer control over capital defense to an ``entity'' composed of persons with ``demonstrated knowledge and expertise in capital representation.'' (This means private defense lawyers; public prosecutors likely would be barred by their jobs from serving or would be conflicted out.) This new ``entity'' would be charged with: (1) setting standards for capital-defense counsel; (2) deciding which lawyers meet those standards; and (3) appointing lawyers from the roster of qualifying attorneys to represent defendants in particular cases.

Essentially, the bill's new ``entity'' would completely control staffing of the defense in capital cases. From past experience with the ``capital resource centers,'' which were defunded by Congress in 1996, we know that hard-core death penalty opponents tend to gravitate toward these jobs, and will engage in litigation abuse when not supervised. Congress should not require the states to repeat its own past mistakes. It should not place anti-death penalty partisans in charge of public representation of capital defendants.

The other congressional versions of the President's proposal also include these additional highly problematic provisions:

They allow free DNA testing under very low standards. The competing bills provide that DNA tests shall be available to any prisoners if a negative test match would ``raise a reasonable probability that the applicant did not commit the offense.'' This standard is too low. Not all DNA evidence clearly came from the perpetrator of the crime or had anything to do with the crime--for example, a blood spot near the crime scene may or may not have come from the perpetrator. The ``reasonable probability'' standard means a prisoner could secure a test even if, despite a negative match, the other evidence would still show that the prisoner more likely than not committed the crime.

The bill requires only a chance that the prisoner did not commit the crime. Almost every prisoner with material to test will be able to meet this standard. Reopening old cases forces victims and their families to relive the ordeal of the crime. They should not be put through this unless a negative test result could at least show more likely than not that the prisoner did not commit the crime.

During the July 17 hearing before the House Crime Subcommittee, NIJ Director Sarah Hart expressly warned congress of the consequences of applying unduly low DNA testing standards. Director Hart testified:

[W]hile post-conviction DNA testing is necessary to correct

erroneous convictions imposed prior to the ready availability

of DNA technology, experience also points to the need to

ensure that postconviction DNA testing is appropriately

designed so as to benefit actually innocent persons, rather

than actually guilty criminals who wish to game the system or

retaliate against the victims of their crimes. Frequently,

the results of postconviction DNA testing sought by prisoners

confirm guilt, rather than establishing innocence. In such

cases, justice system resources are squandered and the system

has been misused to inflict further harm on the crime victim.

The recent experience of a local jurisdiction is instructive:

``Twice last month, DNA tests at the police crime lab in

St. Louis confirmed the guilt of convicted rapists. Two other

tests, last year and in 2001, also showed the right men were

behind bars for brutal rapes committed a decade or more

earlier.

`` [The St. Louis circuit attorney's] staff spent scores of

hours and thousands of dollars on those tests. She personally

counseled shaking, sobbing victims who were distraught to

learn that their traumas were being aired again.

`` One victim, she said, became suicidal and then vanished;

her family has not heard from her for months. Another, a deaf

elderly woman, grew so despondent that her son has not been

able to tell her the results of the DNA tests. Every time he

raises the issue, she squeezes her eyes shut so that she will

not be able to read his lips.

`` `She finally seemed to have some peace about the rape,

and now she's gone back to being angry,' the woman's son

said.

`` DNA tests confirmed that she was raped by Kenneth

Charron in 1985, when she was 59. To get that confirmation,

however, investigators had to collect a swab of saliva from

her so that they could analyze her DNA. They also had to

inquire about her sexual past, so they could be sure the

semen found in her home was not that of a consensual partner.

`` The questioning sent the woman into such depression that

she's now on medication. `None of this needed to happen,' her

son said. ''

Post-conviction DNA testing is not without its costs. It should be allowed only in carefully measured circumstances.

Another problematic provision in the other congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative would employ an unduly low standard to authorize new trials for very old cases. This provision of these bills is designed to allow new trials for prisoners who may have been convicted 20 or more years ago. But it is very often impossible to retry a case this old--key witnesses die or disappear or their memories simply fade, and other evidence deteriorates or is lost. For many such cases, ordering a new trial effectively means that the prisoner walks free.

Congress should make sure that there is compelling evidence of innocence before ordering new trials in old cases. Unfortunately, these other bills would allow a new trial if test results simply ``establish by a preponderance of the evidence that a new trial would result in an acquittal.'' The key language here is ``result in acquittal.'' It means a test result would not even have to indicate actual innocence; it need only conflict with other evidence of guilt so as to undermine the jury's ability to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. Prisoners could win new trials--and go free--even if, despite the negative DNA match, other evidence still shows the prisoner very likely committed the crime. Current law, Federal Rule 33, uses the liberal ``result in acquittal'' standard to allow new trials based on new evidence, but only within three years of trial. It usually is not difficult to retry a case within three years. But for older cases, Congress should insist on a showing of actual innocence before ordering an often-impossible new trial.

There are other problems with the IPA titles in the various congressional versions of the President's DNA initiative. These titles would vastly expand DNA testing by authorizing tests even for prisoners who pleaded guilty. According to the Department of Justice, 90 percent of Federal prisoners pleaded guilty. Extending free tests to these prisoners literally expands the pool of potential test seekers by an order of magnitude. A guilty plea also means that there is no trial record, which makes it much more difficult to assess the potential relevance of DNA-test evidence.

These other bills also impose broad and potentially costly new evidence-retention requirements on the States--requirements that appear to require States to preserve all potential DNA evidence in all cases, indefinitely. And these bills also would give the newly created capital-counsel ``entities'' an unwarranted degree of control over defense attorneys' budgets. States traditionally have charged courts and other responsible agencies with monitoring budgets for capital representation. Prosecutors do not have unlimited budgets. There is no reason to allow the capital-counsel entity to draw a blank check on State treasuries.

There are other problems with the IPA titles of the competing bills. Suffice it to say that these titles are unrelated to the President's DNA initiative and both the Department of Justice and the NDAA oppose adding them to the President's bill. We should not weigh down the President's DNA initiative with the IPA. For this reason, my colleagues and I today introduce the President's proposal--important, consensus legislation that should be enacted by Congress without delay.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill, the following letter, and the following article all be printed in the Record.

Madam President, if ever there was a bill where one could say its time has come, this is such a bill. It is critically important at this time for us to move forward to a vote on the Healthy Forests initiative. The House has passed a bill. We can pass a bill, get it to conference and the President for it to become law before the end of this legislative session. That must be our goal.

I begin by thanking Senator Cochran and members of his committee. They worked very hard to arrive at a compromise that was bipartisan, that could pass the Senate and be signed by the President. I am very appreciative of their hard efforts.

I thank the President for his leadership 2 years ago in putting this proposal together. What has been passed is not precisely what he proposed, but that is part of the compromise legislative process. We have worked to get a bill we can pass and, while not exactly what the President has proposed, as I said, it is a very good effort.

I want to select one other person who illustrates the effort to make this bipartisan. Last year, Senator Feinstein was involved in our negotiations to come up with a bill. We got very close, but we could never get a bill we thought would have 60 votes to pass the Senate.

What did she get for her very hard efforts at fighting for this issue? She got vituperative ads run against her in her home State by radical environmental groups that criticized her for even talking to Republicans to try to come up with a solution.

The reason I mention Senator Feinstein is because she was working on this long before the California fires that are now raging out of control. In fact, this compromise was put together before those fires ever started. So the people who were working on this before I think deserve some very special credit.

I also express thanks to those now supporting us because they have seen what can happen in the form of the California fires. Two years ago, we had these kinds of fires in Arizona. I thought that would awaken people to the danger that our overcrowded forests presented. I guess I didn't do a good enough job and others didn't in showing people what could happen in other places.

In just two fires, an area larger than the size of the State of Rhode Island burned. Two-thirds was on one of our very fine Indian reservation areas and about a third on Forest Service land. The President came to visit. Whole towns were evacuated. People lost their lives. But it still wasn't enough.

Earlier this year, the President again came to Arizona after the Aspen fire. The Aspen fire, on top of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, burned about 350 homes in the space of less than 4 hours. I thought, finally this will awaken people. Still, it did not occur.

Over time, thanks to the leadership of the members of the Agriculture Committee and others, this legislation was put together. I express my appreciation that now that this conflagration is occurring in California, we are actually able to get this bill done. I think the Arizona experience illustrates the solution as well as the problem.

Let me give one example. I mentioned the Rodeo-Chediski fire. Most was on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. They are subject to the same environmental laws that apply to the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. They went to work and got the work done. They began salvage operations--in fact, they completed salvage operations on the Indian reservation for the timber that had burned.

The reason they can do that is because it is very hard to sue an Indian tribe. Obviously, nobody did, and they got the work done, and their land has basically been salvaged from that fire.

The Forest Service put out a very small proposal on what is called a categorical exclusion area. Boom, they got hit with a lawsuit. Over a year later, the judge finally said: This process has to go forward. So he denied the relief of the plaintiffs who were not even from the State of Arizona.

It was basically too late to do very much work. They got some of it done, but the wood began to rot. It is called bluing, and it loses its character which is suitable for timber. You have to use

it for pallets and other uses that have low economic value. That was on a small piece of the land. The rest will never be salvaged. Why? Because it is easy to sue the Forest Service.

One of the things this legislation does, the Senator from Arkansas noted, is to streamline the process. One of the ways it does that is to say instead of having an unlimited number of alternative plans for a particular project in your NEPA analysis, under the National Environmental Policy Act, you do an environmental impact statement and show the various options: the no-action option, the option that is proposed, and one alternative.

Under existing law, you might have to have 20 alternatives. That might make sense if you are doing timber sales for logging. That is not what we are doing. We are trying to restore the health of the forest. The whole concept has been environmental, and there has been a lot of environmental work done on these projects before they are ever proposed, so you don't need a lot of alternative plans. That is just one example.

Madam President, I appreciate the hard work of my colleagues and hope they support this legislation.

Mr. President, in 1997, the Senate unanimously passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution that stated that the Senate would reject any climate agreement that did not mandate ``new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period'' as the United States or that ``would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.'' The Kyoto Protocol failed to meet these conditions, and consequently, President Clinton never submitted the protocol for Senate ratification, nor has President Bush.

The initiative before us, The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, also fails to comply with the Byrd-Hagel resolution. First, it unilaterally commits the United States to carbon emissions restrictions, and second, it puts into place the regulatory structure for future carbon dioxide emissions reductions. This initiative represents the first phase in a long-term effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that would ultimately inflict serious harm on the U.S. economy. There is no need at this time to go down that path.

There are many reasons why the U.S. should avoid committing itself to carbon dioxide reductions. First, carbon dioxide is the unavoidable consequence of burning carbon-based fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. The only way to get energy from a carbon-based fuel is to force the carbon to combine with oxygen through burning it. The result of that process is carbon dioxide, an odorless, colorless, non-toxic gas that sustains life. Reducing carbon dioxide to levels that would be climatically meaningful would mean using something other than coal, oil or natural gas to fuel our economy. Unfortunately, there are no economically viable alternatives to replace these fuels at this time.

This was made clear in a review of available energy technologies published in Science magazine in November 2002. In that review, a team of scientists many of whom are climate alarmists--concluded that our fossil fuel-dominated energy system ``cannot be regulated away'' and that we must instead rely on ``the development within the coming decades of primary energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.''

The review notes that the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for a stabilization of greenhouse gases at levels that avoid ``dangerous anthropogenic [man-made] interference with the climate system.'' Nobody really knows what that level is, but the authors of the study argue that stabilization at levels as low as 450 parts per million may be necessary to do this. The review states that, ``[t]argets of cutting to 450 parts per million . . . could require a Herculean effort.'' And, ``[e]ven holding at 550 parts per million is a major challenge.'' Incidentally, we are currently at 370 parts per million, so the Herculean effort would still result in carbon dioxide levels significantly higher than we have now.

Now I realize that the initiative before us falls well short of stabilizing atmospheric emissions at 450 or 550 parts per million. But let me be clear that if the Senate passes this initiative it would set a precedent that would lead to future, more costly reduction requirements. Currently, the executive branch has no authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, the Clean Air Act expressly forbids the executive to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. This initiative would create the architecture for a series of increasingly stringent controls on energy use. It is widely acknowledged that if indeed global warming is a serious problem, that even the Kyoto Protocol is woefully inadequate to meet the challenge. As noted by the EU, and elsewhere, ``avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system . . . would require substantial (50 to 70%) global reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions.'' So this precedent-setting initiative would be the first stage of what appears to be a monumental and extravagantly expensive undertaking, and the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would still be higher than they are now after all our efforts and all the cost.

The Science review notes that the world's power consumption is about 12 trillion watts, 85 percent of which is supplied with fossil fuels. By 2050, total energy consumption will be as much as three times the amount currently produced by fossil fuels. The review states: ``Energy sources that can produce 100 to 300 percent of present world power consumption without greenhouse emissions do not exist operationally or as pilot plants.''

The authors conclude that the ability to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions without seriously damaging the economy is not possible at this time: ``CO2 is a combustion product vital to how civilization is powered.'' All of the possible alternative fuels ``have serious deficiencies that limit their ability to stabilize global climate.'' The authors simply hope that we can ``develop revolutionary changes in the technology of energy production, distribution, storage, and conversion.''

In other words, the means to meaningfully reduce carbon dioxide emissions are not available, suggesting that the economy would suffer from a premature attempt to reduce emissions.

How would this initiative affect the U.S. economy? The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration makes it quite clear that policies that regulate carbon dioxide emissions would most heavily impact coal, which is the United States' most plentiful and affordable domestic energy source, and is the most important fuel in electricity generation. Currently, 52 percent of America's electricity needs are generated from coal. And while that share is projected to decrease somewhat over the next 20 years, total coal use may well go up to keep up with growing electricity demand. It doesn't make a lot of sense to target our most important and plentiful domestic energy resource.

Incidentally, my State's only significant coal reserves are located on Black Mesa and the mine there is a major employer of Native Americans from the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation. This

mine also supplies secure, affordable energy for millions of Southwest families.

There is also a lot of concern up here about the decline in manufacturing jobs nationally. But the Energy Information Administration also makes it clear that energy intensive manufacturing industries would also be harmed by policies that regulate carbon dioxide.

Finally, we are not the only nation to come to the realization that Kyoto-style policies carry a hefty price tag. Russia made it quite clear at a recent United Nations' World Climate Conference that the Kyoto Protocol does not serve the economic interests of her people, and therefore will not be pursuing greenhouse emissions reductions. Andrei Illarionov, President Putin's chief economic advisor has stated that Kyoto is incompatible economic growth, noting that 40 years of data from 150 countries shows that GDP growth is highly correlated with increased carbon dioxide emissions. Thus Kyoto is incompatible with Putin's goal of doubling Russia's economic growth over the next 10 years, which would put the country slightly above its Kyoto target. Moreover, Illarionov stated: ``But Russia isn't going to stop at this level, so the carbon dioxide level will be much higher.'' He concludes that supporting Kyoto would mean ``dooming the country to poverty, backwardness and weakness.''

And that is the message I want to leave with my colleagues. Engaging in Kyoto-style emission reduction programs are incompatible with economic growth at our current levels of technology, and to act now without sound scientific justification would be foolish. I urge my colleagues to vote no on S. 139.

Mr. President, 73 million acres of national forests are at unnaturally high risk of catastrophic wildfires because of unhealthy forest conditions. Efforts by the Forest Service to restore forest health and prevent catastrophic wildfires have been frustrated by requirements for detailed documentation, administrative appeals of proposed forest treatment projects, lawsuits and injunctions.

The U.S. Forest Service recognizes that it must be able to move more quickly to achieve results on the ground. One of its reports, ``The Process Predicament--How Statutory, Regulatory, and Administrative Factors Affect National Forest Management, dated, June, 2002, cited a study conducted by the National Academy of Public Administration where it was estimated that planning and assessment consume 40 percent of total direct work at the national forest level, representing an expenditure of more than $250 million per year.

We cannot continue to shuffle paper while our forests burn. Federal land management must address dangerous fuel loads and declining forest health before we can ever hope to stem the wildfires that have plagued Arizona and other parts of our country. H.R. 1904 allows the Federal land management agencies to take action in protecting forest health.

It would streamline the administrative process by allowing the Federal land management agencies, in their preparation of environmental assessments or environmental impact statements, to describe a proposed action, an alternative of no action, and one additional action alternative if the additional alternative is proposed during scoping or the collaborative process and meets the purpose and need of the project.

The legislation would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to issue interim final regulations which will serve as the sole means by which administrative review may be sought for authorized hazardous fuel reduction projects. It further directs that authorized hazardous fuel reduction projects be subject to judicial review only in U.S. District Court where the Federal land to be treated is located. It would encourage the court to expedite proceedings with the goal of rendering a decision as soon as practicable. It would further direct the court-- in its consideration of injunctive relief--to balance the short and long-term effects to the ecosystem of undertaking the project versus the short and long-term effects to the ecosystem of not undertaking the project.

H.R. 1904 would authorize hazardous fuel reduction projects to protect wildland-urban interface areas, municipal watersheds or water supply systems, and areas where windthrow, blowdown, ice storm damage, or the existence of insects or disease poses a significant threat to ecosystems or forests or rangeland resources on Federal land or adjacent non-Federal land, or contain threatened and endangered species habitat.

It outlines a path to unlock the gridlock that has precluded our Federal land managers from moving forward to protect our forest health.

Unfortunately, it appears that even at this date, after the bill has been reported favorably from the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and following lengthy bipartisan discussions, some Members of this Senate remain unwilling to move this vital legislation forward. If we fail to act, our communities and our forests will continue to be at risk from insect damage and fire that threatens our citizens and their homes and property.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a Sense of the Senate resolution that states that Congress should add to the number of years that repeal of the death tax will last until we archive its permanent repeal.

The death tax is an unfair, inefficient, economically unsound and, frankly, immoral tax that should not come back. I have introduced legislation, S. 13, to repeal it permanently in 2005. Unfortunately, under current law, it will only be repealed for 1 year, in 2010. The House of Representatives voted four times in the last 2 years to make repeal permanent, but because of Senate rules, we need 60 votes to do this.

And so, I propose a resolution that expresses the sense of the Senate that we should add 1 or more years to the 1-year repeal that is on the books. We could do this by moving the repeal date forward, for example, to 2009 or 2008; or we could extend the repeal through 2011 or 2012. This would signal to the American people that we will not let this tax come back.

I plan to follow up this resolution with a concerted effort next year to in fact add 1 or more years of repeal. We must end this tax on virtue, work, savings, job creation and the American dream, and we must end if forever. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in this effort.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a Sense of the Senate resolution that states that Congress should add to the number of years that repeal of the death tax will last until we archive its permanent repeal.

The death tax is an unfair, inefficient, economically unsound and, frankly, immoral tax that should not come back. I have introduced legislation, S. 13, to repeal it permanently in 2005. Unfortunately, under current law, it will only be repealed for 1 year, in 2010. The House of Representatives voted four times in the last 2 years to make repeal permanent, but because of Senate rules, we need 60 votes to do this.

And so, I propose a resolution that expresses the sense of the Senate that we should add 1 or more years to the 1-year repeal that is on the books. We could do this by moving the repeal date forward, for example, to 2009 or 2008; or we could extend the repeal through 2011 or 2012. This would signal to the American people that we will not let this tax come back.

I plan to follow up this resolution with a concerted effort next year to in fact add 1 or more years of repeal. We must end this tax on virtue, work, savings, job creation and the American dream, and we must end if forever. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in this effort.

Mr. President, I rise today to address the Class Action Fairness Act of 2003. This legislation first was introduced and reported by a Judiciary subcommittee 5 years ago, during the 105th Congress. It is time to enact this legislation into law.

There is no need to recount the parade of horribles that makes the need for this legislation manifest. Suffice to say that even the liberal Washington Post has noted that ``national class actions can be filed just about anywhere and are disproportionately brought in a handful of State courts whose judges get elected with lawyers' money.'' And as one study has noted, ``[v]irtually every sector of the United States economy is on trial in Madison County [Illinois], Palm Beach County [Florida], and Jefferson County [Texas].''

The problem has grown much worse in recent years. Over the course of the 1990s, class-action filings increased by over 1,300 percent. What this suggests is that class-action litigation has become unhinged from actual events. These lawsuits are not being filed because businesses are injuring consumers 13 times more frequently than they did at the beginning of the last decade. Rather, these numbers reflect a breakdown in the litigation system itself. That system no longer bars frivolous suits that are brought purely for attorneys' own gain.

I would like to address several points about this year's bill. First, there has been much argument from the opponents of this bill that its sponsors are doing something sneaky by employing rule XIV to bring a modified bill to the floor. The bill that we currently are considering includes a restored, modified version of the original bill's provision governing mass actions--which provision had been stripped out of the bill by a last-minute amendment in the Judiciary Committee. Bill opponents seem to suggest that whatever damage was done by that amendment they secured fair and square, and that bill supporters have no business undoing the damage on the Senate floor.

It is true that the committee amendment stripping the mass-action provision damaged the bill. The State of Mississippi, among others, entertains actions that are class actions in all but name--these suits technically are not class actions, but they function as their equivalent. And as any lawyer who has observed patterns of class-action litigation can tell you, a reform bill that did not apply in Mississippi would hardly be much of a reform at all.

If anything is improper about the way that the mass-action provision has been handled, it is the way that the original provision was stripped from the bill in the Judiciary Committee. I know, because I was there when it happened and saw it all. The stripping amendment was not circulated to Judiciary members in advance of the Committee's executive session--in contravention of the Committee's own self-imposed rules governing additional amendments to the bill. Most of us had not even had an opportunity to read the amendment. Chairman Hatch already had shown great indulgence toward bill opponents by allowing an additional day's markup of the bill, when he could have insisted on a final vote earlier. An additional amendment nevertheless was allowed, and was adopted once it was clear that it had the support of swing voters on the Committee--as well as the support of all Members who are hostile to the bill. The rest of us who support the underlying bill were forced to accept the amendment, without an opportunity to even learn what it would do.

By contrast to the way that the original amendment was handled, everyone has been afforded ample notice of the modified mass-action provision included in the current bill. This modified provision was negotiated among the bipartisan group of supporters of the original bill--including those whose support led to the adoption of

the original amendment. When a compromise finally was reached, it was announced during an executive session of the Judiciary Committee and reported in the newspapers. And if that was not adequate notice, Chairman Hatch provided a detailed description of the modified provision in the committee report for this bill, which was published last July. Yet to hear bill opponents tell the story, you would think that the modified proposal had been hidden from all members until this bill was introduced. This is simply absurd--a stealth amendment is not one that is announced months beforehand in a committee report.

I would also note today--speaking about the bill more generally--that it is hardly a radical reform. As two Democratic cosponsors of the bill recently emphasized in a letter to all Senators, the current bill ``does not contain any tort reform whatsoever. There are no caps on damages or attorney's fees, no limits on joint and several liability, and no new pleading requirements.'' These Senators also point out that as a result of a Democratic amendment added to the bill in the Judiciary Committee, ``federal jurisdiction does not extend to cases in which the claims involved less than $5 million or in which two-thirds or more of the plaintiffs are from the same state as the defendant.''

This last provision substantially dilutes the bill. The plaintiffs' lawyers who routinely file these class actions are among the wiliest members of the profession--I expect that they will have little difficulty structuring their plaintiff class such that more than two- thirds of plaintiffs are from the state in which the principal defendants are located and the action is filed. If this loophole is exploited to the extent that I fear that it will be, the principal effect of today's bill will be not to remove cases to federal court, but rather to keep them in the courts of the state where the defendants and most plaintiffs are located. Of course, such a reform would not be without its advantages. At the very least, those states that tolerate predatory class actions in their courts would be forced to bear the consequences of such litigation, because the suits would be directed at local businesses. This change might yet alleviate the collective-action problems and indulgence of regional prejudice that underlie much of the current class-action crisis.

Finally, in closing I would remark on the strange new federalism that this bill appears to have evoked in some of its opponents. In a statement of additional views in the committee report for this bill, all seven Judiciary Committee members who voted against the bill have denounced it as a violation of the high principle of States' rights. They describe the bill as raising ``serious constitutional issues'' by ``undermin[ing] James Madison's vision of a Federal government `limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic.' '' These opponents even invoke the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Morrison (2000), which struck down as beyond Congress's power a Federal law regulating violent crime that is unrelated to commercial activity. As bill opponents remind us, Morrison requires Congress to respect the distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.

What may strike the casual observer as unusual is that the very members who invoke Morrison against this bill recently have denounced that very decision--and any judicial nominee suspected of harboring views in line with the Supreme Court majority in that case--in the course of the judicial-confirmation process. On this very day, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing for one of the President's nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. I would not be surprised to learn that the same Judiciary Committee members denouncing this bill on the Senate floor today will then proceed down the Capitol elevators, take the shuttle to the large Judiciary hearing room, and denounce the President's nominee as a secret supporter of United States v. Morrison.

To conclude, I would simply note that it is beyond argument that the interstate commerce clause and Article III's authorization for diversity jurisdiction were included in the Constitution in order to empower Congress to protect both interstate commerce and out-of-State defendants from local prejudice. Nothing could be a more appropriate application of these congressional powers than the legislation that we are considering today. Yet to listen to this bill's opponents, one might come away with the impression that the interstate commerce clause was designed to allow Congress to regulate all violent crime, and any other subject that touches Congress's fancy and that happens to poll well--any subject, that is, except for interstate commerce. The opponents of this bill can play at either John Paul Stevens or John Calhoun. They cannot play at both--or at the very least, they ought not do so on the same day.

I look forward to Congress's enactment of the important legislation before us today.

Mr. President, I would like to say a few words to my colleagues about a respected Arizonan, Ken Evans, who is stepping down as president of the Arizona Farm Bureau on November 1.

Ken has been a community leader, farmer, rancher, businessman, and agriculturist in my state of Arizona for many decades. As president of the Farm Bureau for the last 11 years, he has been an outstanding spokesman for the agricultural community. He has helped both the agricultural producers and the consumers of Arizona with his energetic leadership. His aid and advice were invaluable to me and other policymakers, both in the state and here in Washington.

I express my thanks for his service and wish him success in all of his future endeavors.

Mr. President, I rise today to note that the Arizona Bankers Association will commemorate its 100th anniversary next month-- on November 13.

The Arizona Bankers Association was founded in 1903 by bankers from across what was still known as the Arizona Territory. The association was established to represent Arizona's diverse banking industry as it developed and grew to meet the financial needs of the early settlers. While at first its members served a sparsely populated territory, they now serve on the fastest growing States in the Nation. today, the Arizona Bankers Association represents banks of all sizes from every corner of our great State, employing over 10,500 people.

The Arizona Bankers Association's success and longevity are testament to the commitment and dedication of the banks and bankers who comprise its membership. The tremendous economic growth that draws so many people from other parts of the country to Arizona is due, in no small part, to the financial services and capital that are provided through the association's member banks. These institutions have nearly $3 billion outstanding in loans to small business and some $42 billion in total loans and leases.

To the member institutions of the Arizona Bankers Association, I offer my best wishes on achieving this impressive milestone and on beginning their second century of advocacy, service, and leadership. I look forward to continuing to work with them to provide Arizonans and Arizona's businesses with the financial services and credit that will lead the state to even greater prosperity in the years ahead.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately following morning business on Tuesday morning, there be an additional 10 minutes equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the Daschle amendment No. 1734, as further modified, provided that no second-degree amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business not to exceed 70 minutes with the time divided as follows: Senators Kyl and Dorgan in control of the first 5 minutes, which will be equally divided; the majority leader or designee in control of the next 6 minutes; the minority leader or designee in control of the second 6-minute period; the minority leader or designee in control of the next 6 minutes; the majority leader or designee in control of the final 6-minute period.

I further ask unanimous consent that the next period of time be divided as follows: Each side permitted to ask up to five questions for up to 1 minute each in an alternating fashion, to be followed by a response of up to 2 minutes to be controlled by the other side of the aisle, with the Democrats to ask the first question.

I further ask unanimous consent that the final 10 minutes be equally divided for closing comments.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that upon yielding of the floor, any debate time remaining during that period of controlled time be yielded back.

Time on the Republican side will be controlled by Senator Santorum or Senator Sununu.

Mr. President, let me explain what that very rapidly read unanimous consent order provides for. Senator Dorgan and I chair the policy committees of the Democratic and Republican sides and have agreed that every month or so we should have a debate which is really a debate, rather than just a bunch of speeches read, which frequently characterizes what passes for debate here on the Senate floor. Our constituents might tune in and see us reading speeches and wonder whether we have a debate on a specific issue where we mix it up together, respond to each other's points, and have that all relative to a very specific question.

So we agreed we would do that; we would try to pick a topic that was not really current: that we would have different Members on each side engage in these debates when they were held. And we agreed that the first debate topic would be on the general subject of Social Security.

As a result, tonight we have the first of these debates with two Members from the Republican side and two Members from the Democratic side debating a general topic relating to Social Security. All of the requests for time will be through the President, of course, pursuant to this unanimous consent agreement.

It is hoped that as a result of Democrats responding to Republicans and vice versa, asking each other questions, actually there may some elucidation, some light that would come out of this debate, rather than heat, and that we could agree or disagree in an agreeable spirit on an important topic to people around this country.

I am looking forward to this debate. This will be the first of our experiments. Obviously, if the participants have suggestions about how to conduct future debates, we would like to hear those so we can continue, and maybe it will become a tradition in the Senate. I think we are ready for that.

The debate will be started with Senator Sununu from New Hampshire and therefore, again, with Senators Sununu and Santorum having time on this side. I yield now to the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu.

Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this amendment in support of the Senator from New Mexico and in opposition to the proponents of the amendment.

It seems to me, this amendment seeks to put our head in the sand and ignore circumstances around us in the vain hope that somehow everyone else in the world has as good intentions as the United States and if we just wish hard enough that they will not cause trouble.

The amendment says we ought to at least be thinking about what we would do in the event that we decide our deterrent was no longer credible enough to deter the threats against us.

Everyone supports the idea of a deterrent. That includes a nuclear deterrent. That is, frankly, one of the things that kept the Soviets and the United States from engaging in a hot war during the cold war.

What we are saying is, sometimes when things change, you have to think about what that means in terms of your defense posture. This is one of those times. What the amendment would do is stop us from thinking about it. If you concede we need a nuclear deterrent, you should not propose an amendment that says we cannot think about it.

One thing that has changed, we no longer face an opponent which, like the United States, had these huge multimega tonnage weapons that were basically conceived, developed, and deployed in order to scare the other side into believing if they ever attacked, we would incinerate most of the people in the other country. These were not bunker-busting bombs. These were city-killing bombs, bombs that would be detonated over the opponents' city, killing literally millions of people. That was such a scary thought in the cold war it deterred aggression.

The question is, Would that same deterrent work? I ask in the case of Iraq, if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons against the United States, does anyone believe that a credible United States threat would have been dropping one of our large massive nuclear weapons over Baghdad, killing millions of innocent Iraqis? It is not a credible deterrent.

So in a world where you have terrorist organizations and terrorist- sponsored states, and you no longer have the two great superpowers--the Soviet Union and the United States--facing off against each other, the question is, What kind of a nuclear deterrent should we have?

What this amendment would do is stop us from even thinking about that. It seems to me we ought to be thinking about that. And if smaller, more precise weapons could do the job just as well, wouldn't people of good will, who are concerned about unnecessary death, be interested in at least thinking about weapons that would pose a deterrent to an attack but would not kill as many people, would not kill so indiscriminately?

One of the great lessons from this Iraqi experience is that we now have the capability of delivering weapons very precisely. Wouldn't it be better to do that, even in a nuclear context, than the one we are in now?

The Senator from Massachusetts just alluded to the great progress made in precision conventional weaponry. Even that, however, was not sufficient to destroy at least one, and I believe some, of the bunkers in Iraq. And without getting into a lot of detail, let me just say we are well aware that there are countries in the world that have developed extraordinarily robust underground facilities that we are going to have to take out if we are ever to win a military conflict with them. If we do not have the capability of doing that, they have the upper hand.

Wouldn't it make sense to be able to deliver very precisely the kind of weapon that we are asking just to be able to think about here in order to destroy that kind of facility? The conventional weaponry will not do it, as precise as it is. As the Senator from New Mexico pointed out, we are not asking for money to do it. We are just asking to allow our scientists to think about what would be necessary and what would be possible--perhaps maybe not even necessary but perhaps make recommendations to us so we could then act on those recommendations.

To this matter of the time, I am glad the Senator from Massachusetts perhaps conceded the point that if we need to reduce the time necessary to prepare our Nevada Test Site, we should have the ability to do that. All of the experts--the Senator from New Mexico is correct--agree that we should not have to wait 3 years to even test a weapon. As a matter of fact, one of the problems is that we do not necessarily

know whether our nuclear weapons--the existing ones--will work well after all of these years. And our opponents do not necessarily know.

Also, the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which is merely a bunch of computers designed to tell us, as best they can, whether they think these weapons will work, is not a perfect system at all. It is not going to be done for years. It is not at all sure it will provide us what we need to know.

But if we have an inkling that one of our weapons cannot be certified, and we decide to have a test in order to determine whether it can be certified, right now we are in for a very long period of time in which our potential enemies know full well that we do not have full confidence in our stockpile; that we are preparing to conduct tests, and obviously the only reason we are preparing to conduct tests is that we do not have full confidence, and we are going to have to test something in order to see what kind of changes would have to be made. And that process would take 3 years. That process makes no sense at all.

Another argument that makes no sense at all is that it is important for the United States to lead and that it is going to be impossible for us to argue--how little confidence this shows in the United States. Can we have confidence that we are right? The argument is that we cannot lead if we even think about developing new nuclear weapons; we cannot tell others in the world to stop developing nuclear weapons as long as we are developing nuclear weapons.

Now, that is perverse thinking. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was entered into, it recognized that certain countries in the world, including the United States, had nuclear weapons. This was not a bad thing. In fact, the NPT even called for us to share our nuclear peaceful technology with other countries if they would foreswear development of their weaponry.

We have had a self-imposed moratorium now for many years even on the testing of any nuclear weapon. Has it stopped countries from developing nuclear weapons? Has it stopped North Korea? Apparently not. Is it stopping Iran? No. Did it stop China? No. Did it stop India? No. Pakistan? No.

It looks to me as though the self-imposed moratorium is not very effective. And leading the world by saying, ``We are not going to test any weapons, would you please not test weapons,'' has resulted in a whole host of countries, most of which are not our allies, developing or seeking to develop nuclear weapons. That is not a good thing. It shows a failed strategy, not a successful strategy.

If these countries are led to believe that the United States will keep up with them, or at least we will not prevent ourselves from thinking about keeping up with them, maybe they will be a little less likely to develop these weapons.

If North Korea, for example, just speaking hypothetically, believes we are serious about preventing them from acquiring a lot of nuclear weapons and proliferating them around the world, clearly, that must mean we are willing to use our own nuclear weapons. They have to depend upon the United States being confident of our nuclear deterrent and being willing to use it under certain circumstances. If they cannot be confident of that, then what incentive do they have, except their good will, to not develop their nuclear weapons?

So far, the idea that we have to not develop or even think about our nuclear weapons in order to induce other countries not to do the same has proven an utter failure. And there are other countries in the world, whose names I could mention, that we believe are also trying to acquire this nuclear capability. So our self-imposed moratorium of even thinking about these weapons is not doing a very good job of convincing other countries to do the same. Better that we recognize reality, get our head out of the sand, and acknowledge that if we are going to rely upon a nuclear deterrent, we had better be able to think about it and even, at some point in the future, be able to do something about it.

Let me just make a couple of quick other points, Madam President.

We have made the commitment, subject to future development, of course, to reduce the very large arsenal of our nuclear weapons, and not just to reduce the number but to reduce the quantity of the very high megatonnage weapons. One of the reasons--well, there are a couple of reasons that are relevant here, but one of the reasons is that we do not think we would need that kind of weapon in the future because we no longer are facing a superpower potential enemy such as the Soviet Union. They are also expensive to maintain, I might add. And, thirdly, we know that over time these weapons deteriorate, and at some point we are going to want to remove them from our arsenal in any event. So we have made that commitment.

Now, which is better? Which is better? That we follow through with that commitment to remove this large number of extraordinarily powerful nuclear weapons that may or may not be all that safe, and think about substituting, in some cases, much smaller, much more precise, much safer weapons maybe or just keeping those large weapons around, hoping they will be safe, hoping they will not deteriorate, hoping they will work but, if we ever had to use one, understanding that it would result in massive casualties?

It seems to me that the people who really value life would want us to think in 21st-century terms, not middle-of-the-20th-century terms, in that regard.

Another point: There is a very important relationship between research and development, and I do not think we should fall into the trap of attempting to separate research from development.

The Senator from New Mexico made the point that nobody is talking here about producing weapons. And we are not. But I hope we do not get to the point that we are so committed to eliminating U.S. nuclear weapons that we would make a decision that said we will never develop or, at this point, we are going to put a legislative ban on the development of any such weapons.

That would send a very bad signal to countries of the world against which we want to have some kind of nuclear deterrent. It is a little bit like asking what our exit strategy from Iraq is. We would like to leave Iraq. But the point is, you don't start signalling before the time is ready that we want to get out of there as soon as we can or the terrorists will simply wait us out. You want to demonstrate that you are committed to stay as long as it takes.

We want to demonstrate to our potential enemies that we are prepared to do what it will take to defend the United States. Why would you want to signal to them that you are going to put an absolute moratorium on research and an absolute prohibition on development? That makes absolutely no sense.

It also ensures that the great scientific minds that in the past have been willing to work on these projects are no longer going to be willing to come to the National Laboratories of the great prominence we have all been so proud of in the past because there is no future in it. They tell us now that they are not getting the kind of students coming out of the universities they were used to. Their manpower, in terms of the capability in nuclear testing, has dwindled to virtually nothing. If they ever had to go back to a test, let alone develop, a nuclear weapon, they would have to bring people out of retirement who understood how it worked back in the 1960s and 1970s, but they would have a lot of difficulty even working with the new kinds of materials, with the new computer technology and other advancements that we would probably want to incorporate into any new designs.

If we are going to entice the best minds to think about this, to keep up with people in other countries that have no compunction about doing this, we have to send them a signal that we are not forever going to shut off any work in this area. What young scientist would want to commit his life's work to this when there is obviously no future in it?

We have to think about these things and not be a Luddite about it, saying there is no problem; we are not going to think about it; we will just shove it under the rug; we are not for progress; we are for only retaining what we developed back in the 1960s and hoping it will work.

That is very backward thinking. It is very dangerous thinking.

There are a lot of issues involved in this particular amendment. What it

boils down to, though, is this: Our first obligation is to ensure the security of the United States.

One of the pillars of our security is our nuclear deterrent. It must be safe and it must be workable. It must be relevant to the new threats we face. If we are precluded by this amendment from even thinking about those things, we have done a great disservice to our constituents. At a time when we are not at peace but at war with terrorists around the globe and at a time when we are not the only nuclear power, but there are all kinds of countries that we are, frankly, quite concerned about developing nuclear weapons, countries such as North Korea and Iran and others that I could mention, that is exactly the wrong time to be sending the signal this amendment would send; that we are going to stick our head in the sand; we are not going to support scientists thinking about these issues and even potentially recommending to us the development of some kind of new 21st century weapons that could better protect our troops, better protect the American homeland, and better defeat our enemies who would do us harm.

I can't think of any reason why Americans would want to support that kind of a policy. Remember, we have not been successful in deterring other nations by this unilateral embargo on our own testing and development. They have gone right ahead with their programs, some of the worst countries in the world. The ``axis of evil,'' North Korea and Iran, has gone right ahead with their programs. So what makes us think that by the United States continuing this see-no-evil unilateral moratorium that the great moral situation of the United States will prevent these countries from moving right along with their projects? History does not support that view.

Better that we have peace through strength. And strength is the strength of the United States in terms of its commitment, in terms of its scientific capability, and in terms of its willpower to think about what we are going to need to defend America in the future.

I hope my colleagues will defeat this amendment as they have before.