Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to speak on an issue about which I have spoken a number of times and which I passionately believe needs to be addressed--frankly, it is one that is well past the maturation stage where it should have been addressed--and that is an independent look at our intelligence operations, particularly as they relate to the pre- Iraqi invasion and how conclusions were drawn, so that can speak to the American people about the facts we had.

It is an issue which I think is essential to the national security of the American people. If we don't learn from our mistakes, we are bound to make those mistakes again. It is high time we have gotten around to it.

In the past few days, the administration and the world have come to understand and acknowledge on a broad basis the colossal intelligence failures that led us to war, a war that may have led to good ends, but the Nation clearly didn't come to those conclusions on the basis of the information we now seem to be discovering.

There is a question about means to an end that I think is pretty simple in the kinds of discussions I think all of us have in the families and in the communities in which we live. I don't think we want to get into a position where means justify ends when they don't relate to them. I just point that out as some of this discussion has evolved.

On January 8, Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the lack of connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, stating;

I've not seen a smoking gun, concrete evidence about that

connection.

We were told something different.

Then the President, in his latest State of the Union Address, referred only to weapons of mass destruction and related program activities, whatever that is--a far cry from the active nuclear program and stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons warned of in his last State of the Union Message in 2003.

It was last week's testimony from David Kay, the man responsible for the weapons search in Iraq, that finally brought this matter to maturity and captured the attention of the Nation, the administration, and the world, and that has really changed the whole context of this debate and discussion.

Dr. Kay, a man who told us last fall that Iraq's nuclear programs were only at the most rudimentary level, told the Senate Armed Services Committee there was no evidence of stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

David Kay has made an important recommendation--one that I think has been obvious for a number of months--that an independent inquiry be established so that the American people, so that the allies of the United States and those who would work with us, so that all of us who are involved in policymaking know we have the facts that allow us to make good decisions so that we are not committing the lives of our men and women in our military to efforts that are based on false premises, whether those are intentional or unintentional.

We need to have the right answers, and that recommendation apparently has now led--some might say forced--the President to announce he will name a panel to look at the intelligence issues related to Iraq.

I welcome the President's reversal on this critical need, and I suspect we will

see a reversal of support for that concept among my colleagues, about which there have been some healthy debates in the last months.

This is about the Nation's national security, make no mistake. We need to understand on a collection basis, on an analysis basis, and, yes, on a use basis, just exactly how we got to the kinds of conclusions we did. The means need to be understood so that we can connect them with the end, so that we don't make the same mistakes again and again.

I have serious concerns, however, at least from early reports about what the details of the President's plan for this commission will be, that the response is inadequate--I think seriously inadequate. This needs to be an independent commission.

How do we get to an independent commission? How do we make certain that the judgments we get are not designed or at least limited to only a mission defined by those we are actually looking at? And second, will that commission be allowed to explore the use of intelligence, or the misuse, if you will?

I haven't seen the details. I don't think any of us have. We are reading press reports. But if they are true, it would give the appearance that we don't want to have a commission that is going to deal with the fundamental crux of a lot of these questions. Quite obviously, if we don't deal with the crux of the questions, then are we going to get results that create credibility with the American people, with this body, with the world, on whom we need to count to do things as we go forward? Are we going to get to those kinds of conclusions?

If that is not the case, then I don't think we are headed in the right direction. I am very afraid we are moving into something that may satisfy a call for a commission to investigate our intelligence, but not yet at the fundamental problems that led us to this particular decision in Iraq, but also can be and may have well been replicated in other areas.

I actually think the President is right to talk about it in a broader context. It is just an issue of, sequentially, which one do we look at first. Even by the inspection on the ground, we are told that 15 percent of the issues haven't been examined on the ground in Iraq. We need to deal with where our men and women are being killed now, as opposed to putting off and putting together all of these various issues.

We have what some people might say is a tactical issue with respect to Iraq and a strategic problem with our intelligence operations in a more general context. Fine, we should look at a broader scope of issues to get to the restructuring of our intelligence operations, but we need to deal with the reality of, how did our intelligence serve us so poorly, how were the conclusions so far off the mark? Was there a problem with collection? Was there a problem with analysis? Or was there a problem in selectivity and use of the intelligence provided?

As I said, it was last summer when I first offered legislation to establish an independent commission. I think we ought to get to a truly bipartisan, independent commission, one that is not unlike what we see with the 9/11 Commission, headed by the former Governor of New Jersey, a Republican, who is doing, in my view, an incredible service to our Nation. It is a diligent, independent, bipartisan approach to find out the facts that led to that tragedy with which all of us live each and every day, whether it is in your local hometown, like it is the case in mine, or whether it is in the broader context of the Nation.

Given the fact that we have had Presidential claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium in Africa, which could not be justified or substantiated by intelligence, is enough to ask the question whether intelligence was properly used. It clearly was not, because the President himself has denied that that should have been in the State of the Union.

So how did that intelligence get misused? How did that come about? Similarly, with regard to the aluminum tube issue, on which a whole host of folks have spoken out both publicly, and I have read some things privately, that call into question whether that was ever a viable concept for intelligence to be used as one of the justifications for entering into this conflict.

How can that happen? We need to have certainty and independence in judging how we got to the collection, the analysis, and the use of the intelligence. I think that is important if we are going to go forward with certainty and credibility with regard to our efforts in using our intelligence for proper and effective policy formulation in the years ahead. We need it so we can speak to the world with credibility, and it will not take place, in my view, if we do not have that independent commission.

So I want to reemphasize the point that use of the information is also very important. We have seen time after time, and opinion after opinion, of a number of people, outside of the David Kay remarks, that much of the use has actually been disputed within the intelligence community. I cite in particular an officer from the State Department, Gregg Thielmann--and I will try to get his particular title--who has made the assertion that we are basically operating under faith-based interpretations of a lot of information. He goes back and cites the Nigeria uranium and the use of aluminum tubes, disputes about stockpiles that were reported, and many elements of different perspectives with regard to the intelligence that was available to policymakers.

How did we get such a one-sided view? I think some people would argue it might be misuse. Some may argue it is selectivity. I think we need an independent commission so we can get to the bottom of these. I think we need to understand how the administration could make public statements that contradicted some of the analysis or failed to incorporate the balance that was actually involved in the communities' reports. Why did these reports Congress mandated under the very resolution that granted the President the authority to go to war include some of those unsubstantiated claims I talked about? Were members of the intelligence community pressured to produce analyses that conformed to the administration policies? They even set up an extra body within the Defense Department to derive points of view that would be used in the Defense Department independent of traditional agencies that are involved in the intelligence. Did the administration officials seek to bypass that normal process by cherry-picking?

I think all of these questions are real and they are ones that need to be independently analyzed. There are plenty of outside experts. I think a lot of people have heard about the Carnegie Endowment study that reported last week, and I quote:

Administration officials systematically misrepresented the

threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missile programs.

They may not have all of the information. That is why we need a commission to straighten this out and to give us all confidence that we can go forward.

I spoke about Mr. Thielmann, who was the former director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs in the State Department. He is incredibly offended by the difference between the information he saw and presented to the Secretary of State, as the one who is responsible for collating that, and what he has seen stated in the public. So how did those kinds of differences come to pass? Why are we dealing with such discrepancies?

The commission I proposed would be established by law independent of any executive orders to change its mission, change its role, change its scope. Its members would be selected by the leadership of both parties, balanced, kind of like the 9/11 Commission which I think people would argue as being very independent and is on the right track; receive an independent budget so there would not be issues about how thoroughly they might be able to pursue particular avenues of research; and would be directed to examine every aspect of this critical problem; obviously all elements of the collection, all elements of the analysis, and all elements of use from top to bottom, from our intelligence operatives to the White House.

By the way, in my view, Congress looks to provide the checks and balances that are expected through our constitutional offices.

I think this commission should be thorough and we need an end result

that gives us all confidence that when we make decisions that send 120,000, 130,000 or 150,000 of our men and women into battle that they are fighting a war based on information that was intended to give pure advice as best understood. I do not think the looking back--20/20 hindsight is always better, but looking back, one has to question whether the claims that Saddam Hussein posed a dire and immediate threat to the United States were real. It is important that we have a full examination, particularly when there were other alternatives that would not have necessarily cost American lives, such as continued pursuit of U.N. inspections which were claimed to have been ineffective, further diplomacy pointless, when in fact apparently all of those efforts at U.N. inspections and other things had actually been successful. There has been a huge failure, one that is very real in the lives of the families who have given up their sons and daughters, and I think one that morally requires we have an independent, bipartisan commission that gets to answers independently of any of us who have been involved in the decisionmaking, because if we do not have that I think we are going to always have questions of credibility as we go forward.

So I hope we can work together. I certainly intend to offer either on a stand-alone basis or in an amendment format an additional opportunity to support a truly independent and bipartisan commission that can get to the bottom of something I think is fundamental to the national security of this Nation, and make sure all of our sons and daughters are fighting wars and protecting America with the kind of information that is there for the best interests of us executing our policies, not for the best execution of our political desires.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator from Missouri be willing to take a question with regard to the Senate Intelligence effort?

First of all, I compliment him. I am quite supportive of the Senate Intelligence Committee doing a total rundown on both the collection and the analysis that led both to the Iraq situation and some of the failures he mentioned with regard to Iran and Libya and different points of view. God knows the Pakistani dissemination of technology we have read about in the newspapers in recent months is a pretty horrific proliferation issue about which I think all of us should be concerned.

But there is this fundamental issue of whether intelligence has been misused and whether we are getting the checks and balances in looking at the collected and analyzed information. Are we looking at the full range of possibilities?

I ask my colleague from Missouri, am I correct that the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that studying the use of the intelligence information was really not part of the efforts the Senate Intelligence Committee would take on in this process? I think the record would be specific. But is that the case or not?

Will the Senator yield?

It seems to me it is absolutely essential we understand how the President of the United States can put those 16 words--which were in absolute conflict with the information that generally was available in the Intelligence Committee, if I read that properly--into the State of the Union Message of 2003 with regard to aluminum tubes and with regard to uranium and then later the whole discussion, particularly Secretary Powell's presentation to the U.N. of the use of aluminum tubes. This was also in very strong contradiction to much of the information that is now available. We could go on, with unmanned aerial vehicles and a whole series of other issues.

So somehow or another there were disputes about the response that one should make with regard to collection and analysis of data. And that gets at the fundamental question of how did we use or misuse the intelligence that was presented. To not come up with an answer that is credible to the American people, credible to policymakers in this body, and credible to our allies and the world community is a failure of leadership on our part. It becomes absolutely essential that any independent commission needs to deal with the use, not just the collection and analysis.

Is that how the Senator from Illinois feels?

Mr. President, I yield myself about 10 minutes, if that is appropriate.

I thank the Chair.

First of all, I want to speak today about this appropriations bill that is now on the floor. I have serious ambivalence about how we should deal with the specifics of this measure. I know members of the Appropriations Committee, led by the Presiding Officer, have worked long and hard. They have worked in a fair way to try to make sure they put together the best final product they can, have been sensitive to the needs of their colleagues, and have worked to try to be balanced about how they brought forth this final product. Unfortunately, through the conference process, a product has emerged that differs from that sought by our leaders here in the Senate.

It is with some ambivalence that I feel the need to express some of the reasons why I will not be supporting the Omnibus appropriations bill for 2004. It contains what I believe are serious policy flaws that, furthermore, don't deal actually with the appropriations process. They go far beyond what should be addressed, debated and concluded in the democratic forum of this Senate, and in the House.

It seems to me that the most serious problem here is not even those policies, although they are very important in and of themselves, but this process that has somehow overturned the policies supported by wide majorities in both houses, policies we worked so long and hard to deal with--I think this process is out of kilter.

But I also believe that, at a policy level, they are important, things such as overtime. It is just hard to believe when we can pass a dividend and capital gains tax cut to help those who are already doing well to improve wealth, and, to put it in economic terms, to reward capital, we are turning our backs on labor and on work.

I don't mean labor in an organized sense. I mean our workforce, the people who work. It seems to me that people who work should have at least the same value attested to their efforts as people who invest. Here we are talking about 8 million people who will come off these rolls of potential overtime benefits. For what reason? For what reason are we doing this when we want to reinforce the work ethic in this country? And these are the people who have modest to middle-income positions in our society.

It is extraordinarily difficult to understand this decision when you consider the context that both this Senate and the House of Representatives have opposed changes to our overtime rules. This bill is a turnaround from the will of both bodies on this matter. It is incredibly difficult for me to understand why we are moving forward with this bill when we have something that strikes at the heart of what it is we value in this country. Work ought to be something that is rewarded. It ought to be recognized. It has been a part of the consensus we have in this country. Obviously, it is broadly conceived as being the right thing by the majority of folks in both houses and on both sides of the aisle. I have grave difficulty understanding this. It goes to the fundamental essence of how our economy works. Work ought to be valued at least the same as capital in this society.

Here we are turning our backs on it. We are sending the wrong signal to our kids, and to society in general. It is a big mistake, in my view--so big that I think it actually compromises the value of the overall piece of legislation.

Second, I have serious concerns about media concentration. Of course, a lot of us do not often like things that are said in the media. We don't like that to-and-fro which impacts us individually. But society is better by it. It is a lot better when we have a healthy debate of ideas and different viewpoints come out. That is what democracy is about.

The last time I checked, both sides of this body supported the media concentration rule at 35 percent. And somehow we have a different rule than what was agreed to by both houses. I heard the distinguished minority leader speak to the essence of the institution, and the institution is broader--not just the Senate but the Senate and the House. How can we reach agreements on things and then come out with a different result on something as important as how we communicate with the public in this country? How do we change the dynamics of political debate and news coverage on which the people rely to fulfill their civic duty and gather information to make decisions, such as who they are going to support? How will they make informed decisions when we have this concentration? It is an incredibly difficult concept for me to understand.

We don't raise a lot of cows in New Jersey, but we eat a lot of meat. I don't understand the country-of-origin labeling issue. Why would we not take the steps that are necessary to protect the American people and to protect the country's economic interests so we can keep the export markets open? This is not fundamentally sound on either the safety of the public or our own economic security. Why are we trying to cut jobs in this country? It is bad enough that we are cutting overtime. Now we are undermining our ability to actually be effective in the global market because we are making policy that reflects a narrow interest as opposed to the public's interests and the broader economic interests of the country.

It is hard to understand at a period in time when we are down 2.3 million jobs

in less than 3 years, where there hasn't been the kind of growth in economic reality of people's lives--that is, going to work: jobs. Here we have something that endangers the public and strikes at the heart of economic growth. Economic growth makes a difference in families' lives in America: jobs. I have trouble understanding this.

I heard my distinguished colleague from New Jersey yesterday come down and talk about the destruction of records on the purchase of firearms after 24 hours.

Where are we coming from in a world where we have a war on terror with people who like to buy guns and go and use them for purposes that are antagonistic to the security of the American people? We are passing a law that is going to make that activity much more available. We can't check out records of air flights into the United States in a week, and now we are willing to say that we are going to take records on the purchase of a gun and have them destroyed within 24 hours? Please, somebody tell me the rationality of that in the midst of a war on terrorism.

Our President spent three-quarters of the State of the Union address talking about how we need to protect Americans both at home and abroad, and we turn around and embed in this legislation--by the way, not pass in this body--we turn around and change a fundamental issue with regard to gun safety in this country. It is very hard for me to understand that. We are turning our backs on protecting the American people.

I heard my colleague from New Jersey say this is a real deal where he comes from, a real deal. Seven hundred people in my State--10 people in my hometown--died on 9/11. I don't understand why we are changing the elements of safety and security of the American people in an appropriations bill. Why are we doing that? What special interest is arguing for that? What interest makes that so important we do that here and now? I find it incredible we think this is the right way to move forward on gun safety.

Overtime and the value of work, free expression of political opinion in our country as reflected in our media rules, and the gun law changes in this climate of heightened concern about homeland security, I don't understand why these major policy moves are embedded in an appropriations bill, particularly when both Houses--at least on parts of these issues--have already said this is not the direction we want to take.

To be honest, I believe I have a sense that the President can do whatever he wants to do with regard to this issue. I think they have already done that. This authorization is embedded in this bill. But I know they can stand back and stop this with the same regulations they proposed to start.

The distinguished Senator from Nevada, our assistant minority leader, is exactly right. I have read those exact words and know the President can use his authority for good or he can turn his back on Americans.

I understand this is not part of the legislative process that we have all been a part of in the Senate and that in the House of Representatives.

If the Chair will yield 1 minute.

Madam President, I repeat, the policies of this bill on overtime, media concentration, and certainly gun safety records are just incredibly out of connection with the reality of the world in which we live today. Work should be valued, open debate should be valued, and the safety of our citizens, our homeland security, should be valued.

Again, I compliment the leadership on its work on this appropriations bill. I just do not understand why we have had to mix it up and put it into a bowl of seriously flawed policies. There is a whole series of other policies, including vouchers in the school system, that have occurred without real debate--and I could go on--but overtime in this country is a value of work. Media concentration was designed so that America could have a free press and a free debate. We ought to be making sure we protect these fundamental rights. It ought to be done in a democratic way. I hope my colleagues will stand with us on principle on the Omnibus appropriations bill to fix it and come back to the fundamental underlying appropriations process.

Will the Senator from Alaska yield for a unanimous consent request?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the concurrent resolution which I will send to the desk correcting the enrollment of the omnibus conference report. The resolution restores the Senate language barring the implementation of the regulations which will deny overtime pay to millions of workers; that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I rise along with my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd, to introduce the Mutual Fund Investor Confidence Restoration Act of 2003, a bill that would improve the oversight of the mutual fund industry, enhance fund governance, and protect the millions of Americans who invest in these funds.

Mutual funds are the primary means for investors to participate in the market. Approximately 95 million Americans invest in mutual funds, and investments total near $7 trillion dollars. The industry, one of our oldest and most-revered, is entrusted by those shareholders with their dreams of a comfortable retirement, the ability to pay their children's college tuition, buy a first home or pursue other life-long dreams.

It's not a stretch to say that in many ways the mutual fund industry has been the standard bearer for ethical behavior, strong oversight and governance committed to investor protection in our capital markets. Few, if anyone, would dare to have suggested that our mutual fund industry could become fertile ground for the types of `infectious greed' we witnessed during the governance and accounting scandals a few years ago.

But that is just what has happened.

Today, the mutual fund industry faces its own litany of scandals centered on allegations of investor fraud,

flawed corporate governance, financial conflicts of interest and outright investor abuse. Names like Putnam and Canary Capital have become synonymous with Enron, Tyco and WorldCom in terms of the financial harm inflicted upon investors, undermining their confidence and trust in America's financial markets.

The vast majority of those who work in this industry are decent, hard-working individuals who make a significant contribution to the betterment of our nation.

Unfortunately, there are also far too many associated with this profession--including some investment advisors, fund board members, and those in fund company management--who are all too willing to disregard their fiduciary obligation to shareholders in order to pursue their own personal self-enrichment.

Investors should not perceive that the deck is stacked against them. They should not think that there are different rules--one that applies to them and a different and considerably less stringent set that applies to wealthy industry insiders.

The legislation we are introducing today, The Mutual Fund Investor Confidence Restoration Act will make sure that the playing field stays level.

This bill has five primary themes: improving mutual fund governance; enhancing cost, fee and other important disclosures to shareholders; preventing abusive mutual fund practices such as late trading and market timing; strengthening mutual fund industry oversight; and promoting fund shareholder literacy.

Let me give a more detailed summation of what this legislation would do and why it is so important.

Boards of directors for mutual funds have been criticized recently for the high number of directorships that members hold, the lack of board independence from fund management and the failure of several to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. This legislation would strengthen fund governance by establishing truly independent mutual fund boards, chairmen, nominating committees and independent audit committees that conform to Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements for those at publicly traded companies.

The bill would also improve fund governance by requiring Sarbanes- Oxley-like ``certification'' from Board Chairmen and newly-designated Chief Compliance Officers that shareholders safeguards are in place within the fund.

Also, it would ensure that accurate disclosures to shareholders, including cost and fee information, are contained in the prospectus.

The legislation includes other `certifiable' requirements for board chairmen and chief compliance officers, including disclosures that internal controls, a code of ethics and personnel designated to ensuring adherence to stated polices and compliance with relevant securities laws, including measures preventing market-timing and late trading abuses, are in place at the fund and with the investment adviser. Additionally, the legislation calls for the disclosure of insider transactions by mutual fund managers and Board notification of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) deficiency letters.

Another issue of concern with the mutual fund industry is the inadequate and confusing disclosure provided to shareholders regarding expenses. Fund shareholders are responsible for paying various fees and costs related to the operation and trading activity of the fund. While funds provide investors with certain fee-related disclosure, shareholders are largely in the dark about many other costs that impact the value of their fund's assets.

The legislation includes numerous provisions aimed at improving the cost, fee and other disclosures shareholders receive from mutual funds. These would include requirements that funds disclose the actual cost borne by each shareholder for the operating expenses of the fund and the estimated expenses paid for costs associated with management of the fund that reduces the fund's overall value, including brokerage commissions, revenue sharing and directed brokerage arrangements, transactions costs another fees.

The legislation would require a breakdown of these respective costs to be displayed graphically, in order to provide shareholders with the requisite information to compare the costs associated with owning shares of various mutual funds.

In addition these requirements, the legislation would require fund companies and investment advisers to fully disclose certain sales practices, including revenue-sharing and directed brokerage arrangements, shareholder eligibility for breakpoint discounts and the value of research and other services paid for as part of brokerage commissions, directing the SEC to study so-called ``soft-dollar'' arrangements.

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. President, this bill includes measures aimed at preventing abusive mutual fund practices, such as late trading and market timing, that diminish the shareholders' assets of a particular fund. First, the legislation seeks to ensure that fund companies and investment advisers have adequate shareholder safeguards in palace, and that they `certify' these internal control procedures. Those would include establishing a code of ethics, improving the accurate disclosure of fund company policies, and ensuring compliance efforts are overseen by the chief compliance officer.

The bill also would also take steps aimed at directly preventing abusive practices and conflicts of interest. The recent scandals surrounding mutual funds primarily focus on brokers and fund officials that have engaged in the improper trading of mutual fund shares through late trading and market timing. Late trading refers to the practice of placing orders to buy or sell mutual fund shares after 4 p.m., and market timing is short-term trading in and out of stocks in the hope of exploiting an inefficiency in the fund's share price.

To address the issue of market timing, the legislation requires the SEC to ensure that fund companies are in compliance with the Investment Company Act rules requiring them to use fair value calculation to determine the net asset value a fund company's securities when market quotations are otherwise unavailable or do not accurately reflect the companies fair market value. This provision would eliminate the stale pricing that allows market timers to profit, often illicitly, from the inaccurate pricing of a fund's shares.

The legislation would also require the SEC to establish a rule requiring fund companies and investment advisers to develop and disclose formal policies related to market timing and short term trading. Certification by fund company management would further ensure that policies are being adhered to.

To address late trading, the bill requires the SEC to issues rules and establishes guidelines for trades in fund securities that go through newly established ``permitted intermediaries'', such as broker- dealers. The rules would allow these permitted intermediaries to execute trades of a fund after the funds net asset value has been derived, if the intermediary has; a policy in place that the company does not permit late trades, mechanisms in place to detect late-trades and if that intermediary make those procedures available for inspection by the SEC. Non-permitted intermediaries would be required to submit their transactions to the fund company prior to market close.

To reduce other conflicts, the legislation would prohibit mutual fund managers from jointly managing a hedge fund, and would prohibit short- term trading by fund and investment company management and requires disclosure of insider transactions.

In seeking to bolster mutual fund industry oversight, this legislation would require the SEC to review the allocation of the resources it has dedicated to industry oversight and the General Accounting Office (GAO) to study the feasibility of establishing a new, independent regulator--the Mutual Fund Oversight Board. The bill also would direct the SEC to establish incentives and protections for whistleblowers and would require the GAO to independently review and report to Congress on the coordination of enforcement efforts between the SEC, its regional offices, and state regulators.

Finally, this bill calls for a study into ways in which we can improve and promote financial literacy among mutual fund shareholders. And the legislation, through its enhanced disclosures to shareholders, already makes a significant contribution to improving

shareholder understanding of the policies of the fund and the costs associated with its management and operation.

Mr. President, I rise along with my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd, to introduce the Mutual Fund Investor Confidence Restoration Act of 2003, a bill that would improve the oversight of the mutual fund industry, enhance fund governance, and protect the millions of Americans who invest in these funds.

Mutual funds are the primary means for investors to participate in the market. Approximately 95 million Americans invest in mutual funds, and investments total near $7 trillion dollars. The industry, one of our oldest and most-revered, is entrusted by those shareholders with their dreams of a comfortable retirement, the ability to pay their children's college tuition, buy a first home or pursue other life-long dreams.

It's not a stretch to say that in many ways the mutual fund industry has been the standard bearer for ethical behavior, strong oversight and governance committed to investor protection in our capital markets. Few, if anyone, would dare to have suggested that our mutual fund industry could become fertile ground for the types of `infectious greed' we witnessed during the governance and accounting scandals a few years ago.

But that is just what has happened.

Today, the mutual fund industry faces its own litany of scandals centered on allegations of investor fraud,

flawed corporate governance, financial conflicts of interest and outright investor abuse. Names like Putnam and Canary Capital have become synonymous with Enron, Tyco and WorldCom in terms of the financial harm inflicted upon investors, undermining their confidence and trust in America's financial markets.

The vast majority of those who work in this industry are decent, hard-working individuals who make a significant contribution to the betterment of our nation.

Unfortunately, there are also far too many associated with this profession--including some investment advisors, fund board members, and those in fund company management--who are all too willing to disregard their fiduciary obligation to shareholders in order to pursue their own personal self-enrichment.

Investors should not perceive that the deck is stacked against them. They should not think that there are different rules--one that applies to them and a different and considerably less stringent set that applies to wealthy industry insiders.

The legislation we are introducing today, The Mutual Fund Investor Confidence Restoration Act will make sure that the playing field stays level.

This bill has five primary themes: improving mutual fund governance; enhancing cost, fee and other important disclosures to shareholders; preventing abusive mutual fund practices such as late trading and market timing; strengthening mutual fund industry oversight; and promoting fund shareholder literacy.

Let me give a more detailed summation of what this legislation would do and why it is so important.

Boards of directors for mutual funds have been criticized recently for the high number of directorships that members hold, the lack of board independence from fund management and the failure of several to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. This legislation would strengthen fund governance by establishing truly independent mutual fund boards, chairmen, nominating committees and independent audit committees that conform to Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements for those at publicly traded companies.

The bill would also improve fund governance by requiring Sarbanes- Oxley-like ``certification'' from Board Chairmen and newly-designated Chief Compliance Officers that shareholders safeguards are in place within the fund.

Also, it would ensure that accurate disclosures to shareholders, including cost and fee information, are contained in the prospectus.

The legislation includes other `certifiable' requirements for board chairmen and chief compliance officers, including disclosures that internal controls, a code of ethics and personnel designated to ensuring adherence to stated polices and compliance with relevant securities laws, including measures preventing market-timing and late trading abuses, are in place at the fund and with the investment adviser. Additionally, the legislation calls for the disclosure of insider transactions by mutual fund managers and Board notification of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) deficiency letters.

Another issue of concern with the mutual fund industry is the inadequate and confusing disclosure provided to shareholders regarding expenses. Fund shareholders are responsible for paying various fees and costs related to the operation and trading activity of the fund. While funds provide investors with certain fee-related disclosure, shareholders are largely in the dark about many other costs that impact the value of their fund's assets.

The legislation includes numerous provisions aimed at improving the cost, fee and other disclosures shareholders receive from mutual funds. These would include requirements that funds disclose the actual cost borne by each shareholder for the operating expenses of the fund and the estimated expenses paid for costs associated with management of the fund that reduces the fund's overall value, including brokerage commissions, revenue sharing and directed brokerage arrangements, transactions costs another fees.

The legislation would require a breakdown of these respective costs to be displayed graphically, in order to provide shareholders with the requisite information to compare the costs associated with owning shares of various mutual funds.

In addition these requirements, the legislation would require fund companies and investment advisers to fully disclose certain sales practices, including revenue-sharing and directed brokerage arrangements, shareholder eligibility for breakpoint discounts and the value of research and other services paid for as part of brokerage commissions, directing the SEC to study so-called ``soft-dollar'' arrangements.

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. President, this bill includes measures aimed at preventing abusive mutual fund practices, such as late trading and market timing, that diminish the shareholders' assets of a particular fund. First, the legislation seeks to ensure that fund companies and investment advisers have adequate shareholder safeguards in palace, and that they `certify' these internal control procedures. Those would include establishing a code of ethics, improving the accurate disclosure of fund company policies, and ensuring compliance efforts are overseen by the chief compliance officer.

The bill also would also take steps aimed at directly preventing abusive practices and conflicts of interest. The recent scandals surrounding mutual funds primarily focus on brokers and fund officials that have engaged in the improper trading of mutual fund shares through late trading and market timing. Late trading refers to the practice of placing orders to buy or sell mutual fund shares after 4 p.m., and market timing is short-term trading in and out of stocks in the hope of exploiting an inefficiency in the fund's share price.

To address the issue of market timing, the legislation requires the SEC to ensure that fund companies are in compliance with the Investment Company Act rules requiring them to use fair value calculation to determine the net asset value a fund company's securities when market quotations are otherwise unavailable or do not accurately reflect the companies fair market value. This provision would eliminate the stale pricing that allows market timers to profit, often illicitly, from the inaccurate pricing of a fund's shares.

The legislation would also require the SEC to establish a rule requiring fund companies and investment advisers to develop and disclose formal policies related to market timing and short term trading. Certification by fund company management would further ensure that policies are being adhered to.

To address late trading, the bill requires the SEC to issues rules and establishes guidelines for trades in fund securities that go through newly established ``permitted intermediaries'', such as broker- dealers. The rules would allow these permitted intermediaries to execute trades of a fund after the funds net asset value has been derived, if the intermediary has; a policy in place that the company does not permit late trades, mechanisms in place to detect late-trades and if that intermediary make those procedures available for inspection by the SEC. Non-permitted intermediaries would be required to submit their transactions to the fund company prior to market close.

To reduce other conflicts, the legislation would prohibit mutual fund managers from jointly managing a hedge fund, and would prohibit short- term trading by fund and investment company management and requires disclosure of insider transactions.

In seeking to bolster mutual fund industry oversight, this legislation would require the SEC to review the allocation of the resources it has dedicated to industry oversight and the General Accounting Office (GAO) to study the feasibility of establishing a new, independent regulator--the Mutual Fund Oversight Board. The bill also would direct the SEC to establish incentives and protections for whistleblowers and would require the GAO to independently review and report to Congress on the coordination of enforcement efforts between the SEC, its regional offices, and state regulators.

Finally, this bill calls for a study into ways in which we can improve and promote financial literacy among mutual fund shareholders. And the legislation, through its enhanced disclosures to shareholders, already makes a significant contribution to improving

shareholder understanding of the policies of the fund and the costs associated with its management and operation.

Mr. President, I want to speak for about 5 minutes about encouraging my colleagues to sustain this point of order. I want to use some of the comments I heard about gimmickry because I am concerned about the budget issues, and this is absolutely relevant. It was gimmickry to say we are spending $400 billion on a prescription drug benefit for seniors and then hide it in HSAs, $12 billion support for the insurance industry, lots of support, some of which I actually might even have agreed to with regard to encouraging corporations to maintain their insurance policies so Medicare does not have to pick it up, all of that is true. But we have a major league problem. There is no cost containment in this program of any serious effect.

I come from a State where there are a lot of pharmaceutical industries and we were talking about importing price controls from Canada. We had that debate around here. I am not for that. I think we ought to deal with a market structure that is fair and respectful of the buyers actually competing for the price.

Last time I checked, the Federal Government, when it buys a tank, actually goes out and negotiates the price. When it is buying airplanes, we talk about negotiating the price. I think it is absolutely essential that if Medicare is the provider of the resources, the taxpayer, that they be able to negotiate their price.

One of my problems with this bill--which I will remind people is 1,200 pages long and not many of us have read it--is that it has a lot of unintended consequences. It has one very real intended consequence which is to dampen competition which might lower prices. We are increasing the demand curve and we are keeping the supply curve the same, and that raises prices. That is exactly what happens. That is economics 101.

By the way, the VA is a perfect example of it, and I thank Senator Graham for pointing this out. When the VA is negotiating prices, it is not 24 percent across the board. It is on individual drugs. They can save about half of what would be paid if they went to a pharmacy.

This is not my chart but it is actually doggone good. I take this Lopressor for high blood pressure. No wonder I have high blood pressure being in the Senate. It costs 1 cent per pill. At the drugstore it is 87 cents.

Here is another one. This is Zantac. I guess if one has an ulcer-- some people get ulcers when they are around here--it costs 2 cents at the VA. It costs $1.83 at the drugstore. That is price control, price containment at the VA, while the drugstore is charging what the market will bear. That is what our seniors are doing. That is going to back into the longrun explosion of costs with regard to this bill, about which a lot of conservatives are concerned. I am concerned about it.

We say this is $400 billion, it is out of tilt with the budget resolution in the first year, but if we think we know whether this bill is going to produce $400 billion worth of expenditures over the next 10 years, I think we are kidding ourselves.

Nobody knows what is inside this bill on each individual page. There is going to be a lot of difference by the time we get there. The one thing we do know when we go from 40 million seniors to 70 million seniors is this thing is going to explode in the second 10 years. The estimate is it will cost $1.3 trillion to $2 trillion.

Frankly, it is going to increase the unfunded mandate for Social Security and from about $18 trillion to $25 trillion. I cannot even think of those numbers, but that is a huge problem if we are not willing to deal with the reality of what we have to do.

That is why it is important on the budget to take into consideration whether VA and the Medicare system are actually going to negotiate these prices because they can hold down those costs. If we do not want to deal with that, then we are going to have those kinds of long-term results which are going to end up undermining the ability of the American people to continue to have the kind of support they expect from Medicare and other things.

I said last night, there is a lot of good in this bill. Unfortunately, at least in New Jersey, 300,000 folks who do not have insurance or drug coverage right now are going to get it, but 550,000 are going to be impacted negatively. It is real. We have done the analysis. We know it.

What is important is we are putting ourselves on a track where we will not be able to afford Medicare A, B, prescription drugs, or any of these things. I think we are putting ourselves on a track because we have been unwilling to deal with cost containment in a serious way. The way to do that is not command and control. It is 15 percent of the market. People negotiate for the Federal Government in every other purchase they do. They ought to be doing that here. It would make a big difference on cost containment.

I urge my colleagues to sustain the point of order.

Mr. President, today along with Senators Schumer, Lautenberg, and Reed, I am introducing the Act to Save America's Forests. This important legislation is designed to protect our national forests from needless clearcutting, safeguard our roadless areas, and preserve the last remaining stands of Ancient forests in this country.

There used to be over one billion acres of forest on the land that is now

the United States. Over 95 percent of that original forest has been logged, and less than one percent is in a form large enough to support all the native plants and animals. This land is under continuous threat, and if we don't act now to protect these Ancient forests we might lose many of them forever.

Our national forests also are under attack by clearcutting. Removing huge groups of trees at once creates a blighted landscape, destroys wildlife habitats, increases soil erosion, and degrades water quality. In the last ten years, over a quarter-million acres of our national forests were clearcut. Clearcutting destroys a vibrant, ecologically diverse natural forest, which is usually replaced, if at all, with a single species tree farm: tightly packed rows of the most profitable trees. This is forest management focused solely on economics, not ecology. And it is not the way to save America's forests.

This bill is a balanced, scientific approach to forest management. It bans all logging operations in roadless areas, Ancient forests, and forests that have extraordinary biological, scenic, or recreational values. These are our most fragile ecosystems and need to be protected. This bill also bans clearcutting in our national forests except in specific cases where complete removal of non-native invasive tree species is ecologically necessary.

However, this bill does not ban all logging in our national forests. It allows a method of logging called ``selection management,'' which cuts individual trees instead of the whole forest, leaving a healthy, diverse woodland. Selection management is less harmful to the soil, less destructive to wildlife, and less disturbing to people who enjoy the scenic beauty of our forests. Selection management can be sustainable and profitable, as demonstrated by a number of private forests around the country.

This legislation emphasizes biodiversity and sustainable management, allowing ecologically sound logging practices in some of our national forestland and fully protecting the rest. That's why over 600 scientists, including Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. E.O. Wilson, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, support this bill. I am proud to introduce this legislation to protect and restore America's public forests, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill that will ensure that we properly budget for what we are now learning will be a long and costly war in Iraq. This legislation, which requires the President to submit a report every 90 days on the projected total costs of military operations and reconstruction efforts to Iraq is identifcal to an amendment I offered to the supplemental appropriations bill to October. That announcement was agreed to by unanimously consent. Unfortunately, it was removed in conference.

In recent days, the Administration has finally begun to acknowledge what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote in an internal memorandum last month: that Iraq will be a ``long, hard slog.'' This past Thursday, November 20, President Bush told us that quote, ``We could have less troops in Iraq, we could have the same number of troops in Iraq, we could have more troops in Iraq, whatever is necessary to secure Iraq.'' The following day, the New York Times, citing a ``senior Army officer,'' reported that the Army was planning to keep about 100,000 troops in Iraq through early 2006.

For over a year, this Administration has downplayed the costs of the war in Iraq. Last September, after White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay put the figure at between $100 billion and $200 billion, OMB Director Mitch Daniels insisted that that estimate was, quote: ``very, very high.'' Mr. Lindsay, whose candor reportedly cost him his job, was the Administration official to provide anything close to a realistic estimate. In December, Director Daniels put the figure at $50 billion to $60 billion. A few weeks later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us that the war would cost under $50 billion.

As the Administration planned for war, it stopped making any public estimates at all. As Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said in February, quote: ``I think it's necessary to preserve some ambiguity of exactly where the numbers are.'' Administration officials also insisted repeatedly that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. To quote Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz again: ``There's a lot of money there, and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.''

The Administration failed to include any military or reconstruction costs in its Fiscal Year 2004 budget estimate, and refused to submit to Congress a budget amendment. As a result, we passed a budget resolution that included enormous, fiscally irresponsible tax cuts but no money for a war that was already upon us. Even after President Bush had issued his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, the Administration, along with my Republican colleagues, opposed a series of efforts to put aside between $80 billion and $100 billion for the war. Only the following week, after the budget resolution was passed, did we receive the first supplemental request, for nearly $75 billion, of which nearly $60 billion was for defense and nearly two and a half billion was for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Even with the war having begun, the Administration continued to downplay the expected costs of reconstruction. On March 27, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' And, on April 10, Secretary Rumsfeld said, quote: ``I don't know that there's much reconstruction to do.''

These reassurances were contradicted flatly by outside experts. In March, a panel led by former Nixon and Ford Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger estimated that the cost of postwar reconstruction would be at least $20 billion a year. The panel, which included the first President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili, and former Reagan U.N. ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, concluded that President Bush had failed, quote: ``to fully describe to Congress and the American people the magnitude of the resources that will be required to meet the post-conflict needs'' of Iraq.

But the Administration continued to insist otherwise. In April, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios was asked whether the Administration was sticking to its estimate of total costs. He responded, quote: ``That is our plan and that is our intention. And these figures, outlandish figures I've seen, I have to say, there a little bit of hoopla involved in this. Three months later, OMB Director Josh Bolton promised, quote: ``We don't anticipate requesting anything additional for the balance of the year.''

Then we got the bill: a second supplemental request for $87 billion, of which more than $20 billion was for the reconstruction of Iraq.

This war--which I opposed--has been far more costly to the American taxpayer than was necessary. The Administration's blind assumption that we would be greeted as liberators has resulted in unnecessary costs. The failure to prevent looting, for example, or to anticipate sabotage, has made reconstruction more expensive than the Administration promised.

The Bush Administration's unilateral approach to the war has also cost U.S. taxpayers. It is worth remembering that while the first Persian Gulf War cost more than $61 billion, our allies paid for all but $4.7 billion. Had President Bush managed to enlist more of our friends and allies in this effort, the American taxpayer would not be footing this enormous bill practically alone.

We are also paying for the vast majority of reconstruction costs, and may be paying more in the future. The World Bank has estimated Iraq's reconstruction costs to be $56 billion. Iraq also has $120 billion in debts that have not yet been restructured. Outside contributions have been relatively meager. The recent donors' conference in Madrid produced pledges of $13 billion, but two thirds of that amount was in the form of loans. As for Iraqi oil, next year's revenues will be used entirely for government operations, leaving nothing for reconstruction.

It is long past time for the Administration to be more forthcoming about the future costs of operations in Iraq. Right now, the only estimates come from outside sources, such as the Congressional Budget Office, which earlier this month estimated that with 67,000 to 106,000 military personnel in Iraq, the annual cost of the occupation would be between $14 billion and $19 billion. Given recent revelations about the Army's current planning, we might now expect those upper range costs, at least through 2006. And even these figures seem low considering that we are now spending in Iraq at the rate of $4 billion a month, which would translate into $48 billion per year.

We cannot continue to play guessing games with the war in Iraq, our national defense, or our children's future. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the Fiscal Year 2004 ``on-budget deficit'' to be $644 billion. We have serious domestic needs in everything from health care, to education, to the environment. We are not adequately protecting ourselves against terrorism, denying our first responders

the resources they need and leaving critical infrastructure such as chemical facilities unguarded. We are underfunding veterans' benefits at a time when thousands of new veterans are returning home from Iraq wounded and disabled. And we are overstretching our troops and may have to consider a significant increase in end-strength. All of these priorities are put at risk so long as we fail to budget for future costs of the war and occupation in Iraq.

The Senate clearly recognized the seriousness of this problem when it agreed unanimously last month to this legislation. There is simply no reason why we should not expect the Administration to plan for the future costs of the occupation of Iraq, to budget accordingly, and to keep Congress and the American people informed.

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

Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill to establish an independent, bipartisan commission to examine intelligence issues related to Iraq. This commission is necessary because what we have discovered on the ground in Iraq has shown our intelligence to be wrong. It is necessary because Administration officials misused intelligence--that is, they made public statements and submitted reports to Congress that the Administration knew at the time to be unsupported by the available intelligence. And it is necessary because inaccurate and misused intelligence played a role in leading us to war.

Accurate, objective, and credible intelligence is a fundamental cornerstone of our national security, particularly in an age of shadowy terrorist networks and clandestine weapons programs. Unless we improve our intelligence, we risk failing to identify serious threats to the United States and being distracted by lesser dangers at the expense of larger and more urgent security concerns.

This effort must include not only the collection and analysis of intelligence, but the use, reporting, and dissemination of intelligence assessments. If the American people are asked to go to war to preempt an attack, or--as in the case of Iraq--to prevent a possible future threat from emerging, it is critical that the public statements of our officials be supported by the available intelligence. If members of Congress are to consider authorizing the use of force, particularly against countries that have not attacked the United States, they must be provided with honest and complete intelligence. And if our allies are to be asked to join us in confronting these threats, the intelligence that we share with them and that we rely on to bolster our case must be credible in the eyes of the world.

I first proposed an independent commission to examine intelligence related to Iraq last summer, when it became clear that President Bush had made an important but unsubstantiated claim in his January 2002 State of the Union address. That claim was, quote: ``The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''

Although this statement has been dismissed as the ``16 words,'' its significant cannot be overstated. The State of the Union address is the most important, the most scrutinized speech the President delivers. The statement concerned the most important topic a President can discuss-- whether to send Americans to war. And this claim was the most important element of the President's argument for war: that there was evidence that Saddam Hussein might have the necessary materials to produce a nuclear bomb. As for the reference to the British government, it is hard to imagine how the use of the word ``learned'' could imply anything other than that the United States independently believed that the claim was true.

It turns out that the Bush Administration had ample reason to know at the time that what the President was telling the nation could not be substantiated. The CIA had sought to dissuade the White House from making claims about uranium purchases. And on February 5, a week after the State of the Union address, Secretary of State Powell made a presentation to the Untied Nations in which he omitted the claim precisely because it was not supported by the available intelligence.

Despite this knowledge, the Administration never issued a clarification. As a result, the President's statement stood, as an important element of the Administration's case for war. Only last summer, after Americans learned from Ambassador Joe Wilson and others what Administration officials knew at the time, did the Administration acknowledge that the uranium allegation should never have been included in the State of the Union Address.

The case generated outrage across party lines. Republicans as well as Democrats expressed serious concern about the credibility of the Administration and the country. They stressed that cabinet members, the vice president, and the entire administration are responsible for honestly representing intelligence. They called for someone in the Administration to be held accountable. The Senate passed a resolution by voice vote. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee promised to undertake a, quote ``very aggressive review.'' And the Bush Administration insisted that it would cooperate. As White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated on June 11, quote: ``The Administration welcomes the review. It's important.''

In July, when I first sought to establish this commission, there was no dispute that the use of intelligence, as well as the collection and analysis of intelligence, should be examined. Republicans who voted against the commission did so, they said, because the commission would intrude on the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee. I was, and remain supportive of efforts by the committee to look into the use of intelligence related to Iraq, an inquiry that is clearly included within the committee's jurisdiction. But it was and is my belief that an independent, bipartisan commission, building on the findings of Congressional and other investigations, could undertake the most thorough, depoliticized review possible.

Now, however, it seems an independent commission is the only remaining means left to examine the use, or misuse, of intelligence. On November 13, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee announced that there would be no examination of how intelligence was used by policymakers. I deeply regret this decision by the chairman and fervently hope the committee will ultimately exercise its role, established in the resolution laying out its jurisdiction, in overseeing the, quote: ``use or dissemination'' of intelligence. In the meantime, I would expect that an independent commission would receive strong bipartisan support.

It is now beyond question that our intelligence on Iraq was inaccurate. After months of searching, investigative teams have yet to find stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. David Kay, who heads up the Iraqi Survey Group, has stated that Iraq's nuclear program was only at the, quote: ``very most rudimentary level.'' The Administration has yet to produce evidence of the high-level ties between Iraq and al Qaeda that it warned of prior to the war. And now, tragically, we must add to the list of intelligence failures the inability to anticipate the current resistance to U.S. occupation. Clearly, the facts and circumstances surrounding these failings warrant a detailed and systematic review.

But what of the use of intelligence? As important as the State of the Union address was, that speech was only part of a larger case made by the Administration for war. Administration officials made many claims--particularly those related to chemical and biological weapons-- that were expressed in terms that were more specific and more certain than the intelligence may have supported. Most troubling, however, were the highly dubious assessments and suggestions related to nuclear programs and terrorism with which the Administration built its most powerful and emotionally potent argument. That argument had three elements: 1. That Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, and possibly even a nuclear weapon; 2. that Saddam Hussein was allied with al Qaeda, and that he may have been involved with the terrorist attacks of September 11; and 3. that the threat was imminent.

The Administration began to make its argument in the summer of 2002. As vice President Cheney stated in an August 26 speech, quote: ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' In an indication of how Administration officials would make their case over the next seven months, the vice president insisted that the intelligence indicated no doubt, no internal disagreement, and no uncertainty.

Then, on September 12, President bush, in his speech to the United Nations, went further, stating, quote: ``right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.'' the President also made two statements regarding Iraq's alleged nuclear program. The first was that Iraq had made, quote: ``several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.'' He failed to mention that neither the Department of Energy nor the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were intended for that purpose. The President's second statement added the missing ingredient: the uranium itself. As the President stated, quote: ``Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within year.'' This was the context for the President's claim made in the State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Africa.

The Administration continued making its case throughout the fall of 2002, adding claims concerning ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. One of many examples was Secretary Rumsfeld's September 26 statement that the

Administration had, quote: ``very reliable reporting of senior level contacts going back a decade.''

As Congress deliberated whether to authorize the use of force against Iraq, the Administration officials made increasingly alarming statements about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda and about its nuclear weapons program. On October 7, three days before the vote in the House of Representatives and four days before the vote in the Senate, President Bush gave a speech in which he said, unequivocally, that, quote: ``We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade,'' and, quote: ``The evidence indicates the Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.'' He repeated the allegations about uranium tubes and the warning about purchases of uranium. Then the President put it all together--the implication that Iraq was connected to the September 11 attacks, the implication that Iraq could have a nuclear bomb at any time, and the warning that Saddam Hussein could decide on any day to explode a nuclear bomb in the United States. Here is what the President said: ``Why do we need to confront it [Saddam] now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.''

This was the most powerful, dire, and convincing warning a President could give. And it was based on one inference that the President has acknowledged he never had any evidence of, that Saddam was tied to September 11, and another which had already been refuted by many within the Administration, that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

Later statements included Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's claims to specific knowledge of the whereabouts and movements of biological and chemical weapons. On March 11, he stated, quote: ``We know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours, and placing them in residential neighborhoods.'' On March 30, he said, quote: ``We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.''

The Administration also continued to insist that the threat was imminent--a claim that served to counter arguments that the United Nations should be given more time. On February 6, the day after Secretary of State Powell made his presentation to the UN, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made an appeal for immediate action. ``Why now?'' he asked. ``The answer is that every week that goes by, his weapons of mass destruction programs become more mature.'' That same day, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``Connections with terrorists, which go back decades, and which started some 10 years ago with al Qaeda, are growing every day.''

Finally, on March 16, the day before President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, Vice President Cheney went beyond claims that Iraq had the intent to produce nuclear weapons, and even beyond the claims that Iraq was seeking centrifuge equipment or uranium. Rather, the vice president stated flatly, quote: ``We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' This assertion, which the vice president has recently acknowledged was a misstatement, was not corrected. Instead, it was allowed to stand as nearly the final word on why we were going to war.

Questions surrounding the Administration's use of intelligence extend beyond public statements, to include reports to and testimony before Congress. One example of unsubstantiated reporting was the January 20 report to Congress, mandated by the use of force resolution, that cited Iraq's failure to declare its, quote: ``attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it''--the same unsubstantiated claim made in the President's State of the Union address.

This commission would be authorized to examine other intelligence issues related to Iraq, as well. The Administration made claims related to weapons delivery systems, including President Bush's assertion on October 7 that, quote: ``Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas,'' and that Iraq could use them for, quote: ``missions targeting the United States.'' There has never been evidence that Iraq had UAVs with ranges of thousands of miles.

Administration officials made claims related to the occupation, including Vice President Cheney's March 16 assertion that, quote: ``I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators,'' and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz's November 17 analogy to, quote: ``post- liberation France.''

The Administration also downplayed the costs of the occupation. Despite White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey's estimate that the occupation would cost between $100 and $200 billion--an estimate for which he was apparently fired--Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on January 19 put the figure at, quote: ``something under $50 billion,'' On February 27, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitiz stated that, quote: ``there's a lot of money there, and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.'' And, on March 27, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.''

The independent commission I propose would be authorized to examine the relationship between policy makers and the intelligence community. Were members of the intelligence community pressured to produce analyses that conformed to the Administration's policies? Did Administration officials seek to bypass the normal analysis process by cherry-picking bits of intelligence that suited their agenda, through the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense or through other special or ad hoc arrangements? Did the Administration base its analyses on foreign intelligence sources of dubious credibility? These questions must be answered, and corrective measures undertaken, if our intelligence community is to be as effective and objective as we need it to be.

Perhaps the most egregious undermining, indeed betrayal, of the intelligence community was the identification by senior Administration officials of a covert CIA operative. The operative is the spouse of a person who has been called a national hero by President George H.W. Bush but who questioned the current Administration's statements regarding Iraq. The leak of this operative's identity sent an implicit warning to others in the intelligence community who might disagree with the Administration's positions. It potentially endanged the life of the operative and those with whom the operative worked. And it rendered the operative's skills, experience and sources permanently useless, thus wasting precisely the kind of intelligence asset that the United States so desperately needs right now.

The purpose of this commission is to identify ways in which we can learn from past mistakes and thus improve our collection, analysis, reporting, use and dissemination of intelligence. The commission's members, who will come from both parties, will be prominent Americans with experience in intelligence, the armed forces and other relevant areas. Their work will build on relevant Congressional and other investigations.

The commission, through an objective, independent, highly professional examination process, will help depoliticize an extremely complicated and sensitive topic. By reviewing intelligence related to Iraq beginning in 1998, it will draw conclusions about the use of intelligence by a Democratic as well as Republican Administration. And by reporting its recommendations directly to the President and to Congress, it will serve as a valuable resource outside the context of open political debate. In this respect, I disagree with the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee who has stated that the full Congress and the public could ``decide for themselves whether the intelligence was accurately represented by government officials.''

This issue is far too serious to simply ignore. Over one hundred thousand brave Americans are currently serving

in Iraq, facing challenges that require accurate and objective intelligence. We have an obligation to pursue every opportunity to improve that intelligence. Meanwhile, the United States faces other threats--from despotic regimes with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, from terrorism, and from the horrible possibility that terrorists could acquire these weapons. Our ability to confront these threats requires that our intelligence be accurate and objective. And, as we seek to enlist our friends and allies in our efforts to address these common threats, we must ensure that our intelligence is credible.

Unless we identify and correct the mistakes of the past, we will not be safer.

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

Mr. President, today along with Senators Schumer, Lautenberg, and Reed, I am introducing the Act to Save America's Forests. This important legislation is designed to protect our national forests from needless clearcutting, safeguard our roadless areas, and preserve the last remaining stands of Ancient forests in this country.

There used to be over one billion acres of forest on the land that is now

the United States. Over 95 percent of that original forest has been logged, and less than one percent is in a form large enough to support all the native plants and animals. This land is under continuous threat, and if we don't act now to protect these Ancient forests we might lose many of them forever.

Our national forests also are under attack by clearcutting. Removing huge groups of trees at once creates a blighted landscape, destroys wildlife habitats, increases soil erosion, and degrades water quality. In the last ten years, over a quarter-million acres of our national forests were clearcut. Clearcutting destroys a vibrant, ecologically diverse natural forest, which is usually replaced, if at all, with a single species tree farm: tightly packed rows of the most profitable trees. This is forest management focused solely on economics, not ecology. And it is not the way to save America's forests.

This bill is a balanced, scientific approach to forest management. It bans all logging operations in roadless areas, Ancient forests, and forests that have extraordinary biological, scenic, or recreational values. These are our most fragile ecosystems and need to be protected. This bill also bans clearcutting in our national forests except in specific cases where complete removal of non-native invasive tree species is ecologically necessary.

However, this bill does not ban all logging in our national forests. It allows a method of logging called ``selection management,'' which cuts individual trees instead of the whole forest, leaving a healthy, diverse woodland. Selection management is less harmful to the soil, less destructive to wildlife, and less disturbing to people who enjoy the scenic beauty of our forests. Selection management can be sustainable and profitable, as demonstrated by a number of private forests around the country.

This legislation emphasizes biodiversity and sustainable management, allowing ecologically sound logging practices in some of our national forestland and fully protecting the rest. That's why over 600 scientists, including Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. E.O. Wilson, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, support this bill. I am proud to introduce this legislation to protect and restore America's public forests, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill that will ensure that we properly budget for what we are now learning will be a long and costly war in Iraq. This legislation, which requires the President to submit a report every 90 days on the projected total costs of military operations and reconstruction efforts to Iraq is identifcal to an amendment I offered to the supplemental appropriations bill to October. That announcement was agreed to by unanimously consent. Unfortunately, it was removed in conference.

In recent days, the Administration has finally begun to acknowledge what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote in an internal memorandum last month: that Iraq will be a ``long, hard slog.'' This past Thursday, November 20, President Bush told us that quote, ``We could have less troops in Iraq, we could have the same number of troops in Iraq, we could have more troops in Iraq, whatever is necessary to secure Iraq.'' The following day, the New York Times, citing a ``senior Army officer,'' reported that the Army was planning to keep about 100,000 troops in Iraq through early 2006.

For over a year, this Administration has downplayed the costs of the war in Iraq. Last September, after White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay put the figure at between $100 billion and $200 billion, OMB Director Mitch Daniels insisted that that estimate was, quote: ``very, very high.'' Mr. Lindsay, whose candor reportedly cost him his job, was the Administration official to provide anything close to a realistic estimate. In December, Director Daniels put the figure at $50 billion to $60 billion. A few weeks later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us that the war would cost under $50 billion.

As the Administration planned for war, it stopped making any public estimates at all. As Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said in February, quote: ``I think it's necessary to preserve some ambiguity of exactly where the numbers are.'' Administration officials also insisted repeatedly that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. To quote Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz again: ``There's a lot of money there, and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.''

The Administration failed to include any military or reconstruction costs in its Fiscal Year 2004 budget estimate, and refused to submit to Congress a budget amendment. As a result, we passed a budget resolution that included enormous, fiscally irresponsible tax cuts but no money for a war that was already upon us. Even after President Bush had issued his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, the Administration, along with my Republican colleagues, opposed a series of efforts to put aside between $80 billion and $100 billion for the war. Only the following week, after the budget resolution was passed, did we receive the first supplemental request, for nearly $75 billion, of which nearly $60 billion was for defense and nearly two and a half billion was for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Even with the war having begun, the Administration continued to downplay the expected costs of reconstruction. On March 27, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' And, on April 10, Secretary Rumsfeld said, quote: ``I don't know that there's much reconstruction to do.''

These reassurances were contradicted flatly by outside experts. In March, a panel led by former Nixon and Ford Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger estimated that the cost of postwar reconstruction would be at least $20 billion a year. The panel, which included the first President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili, and former Reagan U.N. ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, concluded that President Bush had failed, quote: ``to fully describe to Congress and the American people the magnitude of the resources that will be required to meet the post-conflict needs'' of Iraq.

But the Administration continued to insist otherwise. In April, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios was asked whether the Administration was sticking to its estimate of total costs. He responded, quote: ``That is our plan and that is our intention. And these figures, outlandish figures I've seen, I have to say, there a little bit of hoopla involved in this. Three months later, OMB Director Josh Bolton promised, quote: ``We don't anticipate requesting anything additional for the balance of the year.''

Then we got the bill: a second supplemental request for $87 billion, of which more than $20 billion was for the reconstruction of Iraq.

This war--which I opposed--has been far more costly to the American taxpayer than was necessary. The Administration's blind assumption that we would be greeted as liberators has resulted in unnecessary costs. The failure to prevent looting, for example, or to anticipate sabotage, has made reconstruction more expensive than the Administration promised.

The Bush Administration's unilateral approach to the war has also cost U.S. taxpayers. It is worth remembering that while the first Persian Gulf War cost more than $61 billion, our allies paid for all but $4.7 billion. Had President Bush managed to enlist more of our friends and allies in this effort, the American taxpayer would not be footing this enormous bill practically alone.

We are also paying for the vast majority of reconstruction costs, and may be paying more in the future. The World Bank has estimated Iraq's reconstruction costs to be $56 billion. Iraq also has $120 billion in debts that have not yet been restructured. Outside contributions have been relatively meager. The recent donors' conference in Madrid produced pledges of $13 billion, but two thirds of that amount was in the form of loans. As for Iraqi oil, next year's revenues will be used entirely for government operations, leaving nothing for reconstruction.

It is long past time for the Administration to be more forthcoming about the future costs of operations in Iraq. Right now, the only estimates come from outside sources, such as the Congressional Budget Office, which earlier this month estimated that with 67,000 to 106,000 military personnel in Iraq, the annual cost of the occupation would be between $14 billion and $19 billion. Given recent revelations about the Army's current planning, we might now expect those upper range costs, at least through 2006. And even these figures seem low considering that we are now spending in Iraq at the rate of $4 billion a month, which would translate into $48 billion per year.

We cannot continue to play guessing games with the war in Iraq, our national defense, or our children's future. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the Fiscal Year 2004 ``on-budget deficit'' to be $644 billion. We have serious domestic needs in everything from health care, to education, to the environment. We are not adequately protecting ourselves against terrorism, denying our first responders

the resources they need and leaving critical infrastructure such as chemical facilities unguarded. We are underfunding veterans' benefits at a time when thousands of new veterans are returning home from Iraq wounded and disabled. And we are overstretching our troops and may have to consider a significant increase in end-strength. All of these priorities are put at risk so long as we fail to budget for future costs of the war and occupation in Iraq.

The Senate clearly recognized the seriousness of this problem when it agreed unanimously last month to this legislation. There is simply no reason why we should not expect the Administration to plan for the future costs of the occupation of Iraq, to budget accordingly, and to keep Congress and the American people informed.

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

Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill to establish an independent, bipartisan commission to examine intelligence issues related to Iraq. This commission is necessary because what we have discovered on the ground in Iraq has shown our intelligence to be wrong. It is necessary because Administration officials misused intelligence--that is, they made public statements and submitted reports to Congress that the Administration knew at the time to be unsupported by the available intelligence. And it is necessary because inaccurate and misused intelligence played a role in leading us to war.

Accurate, objective, and credible intelligence is a fundamental cornerstone of our national security, particularly in an age of shadowy terrorist networks and clandestine weapons programs. Unless we improve our intelligence, we risk failing to identify serious threats to the United States and being distracted by lesser dangers at the expense of larger and more urgent security concerns.

This effort must include not only the collection and analysis of intelligence, but the use, reporting, and dissemination of intelligence assessments. If the American people are asked to go to war to preempt an attack, or--as in the case of Iraq--to prevent a possible future threat from emerging, it is critical that the public statements of our officials be supported by the available intelligence. If members of Congress are to consider authorizing the use of force, particularly against countries that have not attacked the United States, they must be provided with honest and complete intelligence. And if our allies are to be asked to join us in confronting these threats, the intelligence that we share with them and that we rely on to bolster our case must be credible in the eyes of the world.

I first proposed an independent commission to examine intelligence related to Iraq last summer, when it became clear that President Bush had made an important but unsubstantiated claim in his January 2002 State of the Union address. That claim was, quote: ``The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''

Although this statement has been dismissed as the ``16 words,'' its significant cannot be overstated. The State of the Union address is the most important, the most scrutinized speech the President delivers. The statement concerned the most important topic a President can discuss-- whether to send Americans to war. And this claim was the most important element of the President's argument for war: that there was evidence that Saddam Hussein might have the necessary materials to produce a nuclear bomb. As for the reference to the British government, it is hard to imagine how the use of the word ``learned'' could imply anything other than that the United States independently believed that the claim was true.

It turns out that the Bush Administration had ample reason to know at the time that what the President was telling the nation could not be substantiated. The CIA had sought to dissuade the White House from making claims about uranium purchases. And on February 5, a week after the State of the Union address, Secretary of State Powell made a presentation to the Untied Nations in which he omitted the claim precisely because it was not supported by the available intelligence.

Despite this knowledge, the Administration never issued a clarification. As a result, the President's statement stood, as an important element of the Administration's case for war. Only last summer, after Americans learned from Ambassador Joe Wilson and others what Administration officials knew at the time, did the Administration acknowledge that the uranium allegation should never have been included in the State of the Union Address.

The case generated outrage across party lines. Republicans as well as Democrats expressed serious concern about the credibility of the Administration and the country. They stressed that cabinet members, the vice president, and the entire administration are responsible for honestly representing intelligence. They called for someone in the Administration to be held accountable. The Senate passed a resolution by voice vote. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee promised to undertake a, quote ``very aggressive review.'' And the Bush Administration insisted that it would cooperate. As White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated on June 11, quote: ``The Administration welcomes the review. It's important.''

In July, when I first sought to establish this commission, there was no dispute that the use of intelligence, as well as the collection and analysis of intelligence, should be examined. Republicans who voted against the commission did so, they said, because the commission would intrude on the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee. I was, and remain supportive of efforts by the committee to look into the use of intelligence related to Iraq, an inquiry that is clearly included within the committee's jurisdiction. But it was and is my belief that an independent, bipartisan commission, building on the findings of Congressional and other investigations, could undertake the most thorough, depoliticized review possible.

Now, however, it seems an independent commission is the only remaining means left to examine the use, or misuse, of intelligence. On November 13, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee announced that there would be no examination of how intelligence was used by policymakers. I deeply regret this decision by the chairman and fervently hope the committee will ultimately exercise its role, established in the resolution laying out its jurisdiction, in overseeing the, quote: ``use or dissemination'' of intelligence. In the meantime, I would expect that an independent commission would receive strong bipartisan support.

It is now beyond question that our intelligence on Iraq was inaccurate. After months of searching, investigative teams have yet to find stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. David Kay, who heads up the Iraqi Survey Group, has stated that Iraq's nuclear program was only at the, quote: ``very most rudimentary level.'' The Administration has yet to produce evidence of the high-level ties between Iraq and al Qaeda that it warned of prior to the war. And now, tragically, we must add to the list of intelligence failures the inability to anticipate the current resistance to U.S. occupation. Clearly, the facts and circumstances surrounding these failings warrant a detailed and systematic review.

But what of the use of intelligence? As important as the State of the Union address was, that speech was only part of a larger case made by the Administration for war. Administration officials made many claims--particularly those related to chemical and biological weapons-- that were expressed in terms that were more specific and more certain than the intelligence may have supported. Most troubling, however, were the highly dubious assessments and suggestions related to nuclear programs and terrorism with which the Administration built its most powerful and emotionally potent argument. That argument had three elements: 1. That Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, and possibly even a nuclear weapon; 2. that Saddam Hussein was allied with al Qaeda, and that he may have been involved with the terrorist attacks of September 11; and 3. that the threat was imminent.

The Administration began to make its argument in the summer of 2002. As vice President Cheney stated in an August 26 speech, quote: ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' In an indication of how Administration officials would make their case over the next seven months, the vice president insisted that the intelligence indicated no doubt, no internal disagreement, and no uncertainty.

Then, on September 12, President bush, in his speech to the United Nations, went further, stating, quote: ``right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.'' the President also made two statements regarding Iraq's alleged nuclear program. The first was that Iraq had made, quote: ``several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.'' He failed to mention that neither the Department of Energy nor the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were intended for that purpose. The President's second statement added the missing ingredient: the uranium itself. As the President stated, quote: ``Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within year.'' This was the context for the President's claim made in the State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Africa.

The Administration continued making its case throughout the fall of 2002, adding claims concerning ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. One of many examples was Secretary Rumsfeld's September 26 statement that the

Administration had, quote: ``very reliable reporting of senior level contacts going back a decade.''

As Congress deliberated whether to authorize the use of force against Iraq, the Administration officials made increasingly alarming statements about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda and about its nuclear weapons program. On October 7, three days before the vote in the House of Representatives and four days before the vote in the Senate, President Bush gave a speech in which he said, unequivocally, that, quote: ``We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade,'' and, quote: ``The evidence indicates the Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.'' He repeated the allegations about uranium tubes and the warning about purchases of uranium. Then the President put it all together--the implication that Iraq was connected to the September 11 attacks, the implication that Iraq could have a nuclear bomb at any time, and the warning that Saddam Hussein could decide on any day to explode a nuclear bomb in the United States. Here is what the President said: ``Why do we need to confront it [Saddam] now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.''

This was the most powerful, dire, and convincing warning a President could give. And it was based on one inference that the President has acknowledged he never had any evidence of, that Saddam was tied to September 11, and another which had already been refuted by many within the Administration, that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

Later statements included Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's claims to specific knowledge of the whereabouts and movements of biological and chemical weapons. On March 11, he stated, quote: ``We know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours, and placing them in residential neighborhoods.'' On March 30, he said, quote: ``We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.''

The Administration also continued to insist that the threat was imminent--a claim that served to counter arguments that the United Nations should be given more time. On February 6, the day after Secretary of State Powell made his presentation to the UN, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made an appeal for immediate action. ``Why now?'' he asked. ``The answer is that every week that goes by, his weapons of mass destruction programs become more mature.'' That same day, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``Connections with terrorists, which go back decades, and which started some 10 years ago with al Qaeda, are growing every day.''

Finally, on March 16, the day before President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, Vice President Cheney went beyond claims that Iraq had the intent to produce nuclear weapons, and even beyond the claims that Iraq was seeking centrifuge equipment or uranium. Rather, the vice president stated flatly, quote: ``We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' This assertion, which the vice president has recently acknowledged was a misstatement, was not corrected. Instead, it was allowed to stand as nearly the final word on why we were going to war.

Questions surrounding the Administration's use of intelligence extend beyond public statements, to include reports to and testimony before Congress. One example of unsubstantiated reporting was the January 20 report to Congress, mandated by the use of force resolution, that cited Iraq's failure to declare its, quote: ``attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it''--the same unsubstantiated claim made in the President's State of the Union address.

This commission would be authorized to examine other intelligence issues related to Iraq, as well. The Administration made claims related to weapons delivery systems, including President Bush's assertion on October 7 that, quote: ``Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas,'' and that Iraq could use them for, quote: ``missions targeting the United States.'' There has never been evidence that Iraq had UAVs with ranges of thousands of miles.

Administration officials made claims related to the occupation, including Vice President Cheney's March 16 assertion that, quote: ``I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators,'' and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz's November 17 analogy to, quote: ``post- liberation France.''

The Administration also downplayed the costs of the occupation. Despite White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey's estimate that the occupation would cost between $100 and $200 billion--an estimate for which he was apparently fired--Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on January 19 put the figure at, quote: ``something under $50 billion,'' On February 27, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitiz stated that, quote: ``there's a lot of money there, and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.'' And, on March 27, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated, quote: ``We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.''

The independent commission I propose would be authorized to examine the relationship between policy makers and the intelligence community. Were members of the intelligence community pressured to produce analyses that conformed to the Administration's policies? Did Administration officials seek to bypass the normal analysis process by cherry-picking bits of intelligence that suited their agenda, through the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense or through other special or ad hoc arrangements? Did the Administration base its analyses on foreign intelligence sources of dubious credibility? These questions must be answered, and corrective measures undertaken, if our intelligence community is to be as effective and objective as we need it to be.

Perhaps the most egregious undermining, indeed betrayal, of the intelligence community was the identification by senior Administration officials of a covert CIA operative. The operative is the spouse of a person who has been called a national hero by President George H.W. Bush but who questioned the current Administration's statements regarding Iraq. The leak of this operative's identity sent an implicit warning to others in the intelligence community who might disagree with the Administration's positions. It potentially endanged the life of the operative and those with whom the operative worked. And it rendered the operative's skills, experience and sources permanently useless, thus wasting precisely the kind of intelligence asset that the United States so desperately needs right now.

The purpose of this commission is to identify ways in which we can learn from past mistakes and thus improve our collection, analysis, reporting, use and dissemination of intelligence. The commission's members, who will come from both parties, will be prominent Americans with experience in intelligence, the armed forces and other relevant areas. Their work will build on relevant Congressional and other investigations.

The commission, through an objective, independent, highly professional examination process, will help depoliticize an extremely complicated and sensitive topic. By reviewing intelligence related to Iraq beginning in 1998, it will draw conclusions about the use of intelligence by a Democratic as well as Republican Administration. And by reporting its recommendations directly to the President and to Congress, it will serve as a valuable resource outside the context of open political debate. In this respect, I disagree with the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee who has stated that the full Congress and the public could ``decide for themselves whether the intelligence was accurately represented by government officials.''

This issue is far too serious to simply ignore. Over one hundred thousand brave Americans are currently serving

in Iraq, facing challenges that require accurate and objective intelligence. We have an obligation to pursue every opportunity to improve that intelligence. Meanwhile, the United States faces other threats--from despotic regimes with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, from terrorism, and from the horrible possibility that terrorists could acquire these weapons. Our ability to confront these threats requires that our intelligence be accurate and objective. And, as we seek to enlist our friends and allies in our efforts to address these common threats, we must ensure that our intelligence is credible.

Unless we identify and correct the mistakes of the past, we will not be safer.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to join this historical debate on health care for America's seniors. I also rise so that I can provide a perspective to the people of New Jersey on why I will regrettably be voting against this Medicare conference report.

I particularly find it unfortunate and disappointing because there are 300,000 seniors in New Jersey, out of about 1.2 million, who lack any prescription drug coverage. Those seniors make tough choices between medicine and other of life's expenses, as we have heard talked about in political debate for years.

I truly want to be a positive participant in assuring access to quality drug coverage at an affordable price for all of America's seniors. I think all of us do. That is why I voted affirmatively on a bipartisan Senate bill. I worked very closely with the senior Senator from Iowa to put together what I thought was an outstanding bill, one I would have been proud to support.

Those 300,000 seniors badly need and deserve affordable, quality coverage. But just as badly as they need it, we need to make sure their gain does not come at the expense of harming others. If the left-out seniors were the only ones impacted by this bill, I would vote for this plan we now are debating. I would vote for it because I thought it was going to provide access to those 300,000 folks and that would happen regardless of all the ideological or political arguments that have been made over the last several days.

Sadly, hundreds of thousands of other seniors in my State will be seriously and negatively impacted by this bill. The fact is, this plan harms more New Jersey seniors than it helps. I calculate that, at a minimum, 500,000 seniors will be harmed, breaking the first rule of medicine: ``Do no harm.''

The negative impact comes at a very high financial cost not only to my State but to the Nation at large. I believe the scarce resources we are using would be better used to make the limited and complex benefit more substantial and to reduce the harm to those who already have benefits that they will lose.

This Senator can only wonder in that context that we feel compelled to lavish $14 billion of subsidies on HMOs and other insurers to provide them profit incentives to compete with traditional Medicare as opposed to improving the benefits to uninsured seniors who are constructively a part of this bill. We could close that so-called donut hole, that gap.

With all due respect to the Herculean efforts of those on both sides of the aisle who cobbled together this compromise--and I really do want to congratulate and thank those who worked so hard. Ranking Member Baucus, and Senator Breaux, the senior Senator from Louisiana, as well the senior Senator from Iowa, have done a great job of trying to get to a conclusion on which we could all agree. In my case, the cost/benefit for New Jersey seniors just does not work. It just flat out does not work.

My staff and I have done the numbers. We have worked very hard, to the

best of our ability, to really scrub down these numbers and to come up with a conclusion on whether this works for our folks. Considering we are in a mad dash to absorb and analyze this 1,100-page bill, I will bet there is not a single Senator who has read it. I could be wrong. Maybe there are one or two who just did not have anything to do in the last 24, 36, 48 hours, but I doubt if there is anyone who has read this. The result is that the only certainty about this bill is that in addition to its unintended consequences, even from the well-intended, it is certain to have unfortunate consequences for many American seniors, as well as all of us who might hope to be seniors one of these days.

So my reason for opposing this legislation is that this body should be thoughtful and careful when we are spending $400 billion for a good cause, but we ought to make sure we are not doing more harm than good. That is objection 1. Objection 2 is if we do not plan to implement this bill in its broad form before 2006, I do not understand why we need to cram all of this analysis into 48 hours or 72 hours over a 3- or 4-day period.

Why before Thanksgiving? What is the hurry when we have a bill this complex, this big, and we only have 3 or 4 days to look at it? I think there are a lot of problems stuck right in here.

So let me repeat what I do know. For roughly $4,000 of out-of-pocket payments, a senior will get $5,000 worth of return, plus a catastrophic coverage for everything above $5,000 of drug spending.

Let me repeat: A $4,000 payment for $5,000 worth of coverage will come with a complex concoction of HMOs, PPOs, PDPs, premiums, deductibles, copays, formularies, annual price increases, shifts of providers, and a bevy of choices that are more to the confusion of seniors than they are to the security of seniors. In fact, the complexity of navigating this proposal for an individual senior is almost enough of a reason for me to vote no on the bill to start with.

I have stood in all kinds of townhall meetings with seniors just trying to explain the simple first steps of this bill. I think we are going to be creating a tremendous industry of opportunity out there informing seniors about what is going to be borne from this 1,100 pages, 1,200 pages of work. Somebody is going to have to tell folks how they get through this.

That said, this bill does provide favorable relief to doctors, as I have heard some talk about, serving Medicare patients. It gives some needed aid to hospitals, particularly America's rural hospitals, as the Senator from Wyoming adequately presented. Of course, in a thousand pages plus, there have to be some good things, and there are. We are spending $400 billion.

A few of the benefits I have talked about are good but, in my view, they come at too high a price, and that is before one weighs in on the serious push in this bill to get Medicare on a pathway to privatization and the dismantling of the social safety net and coverage of our seniors' health which has been so fundamental to the success of moving so many of our seniors out of poverty into longer, healthier lives.

While this bill fundamentally being debated is in the context of prescription drugs in general, spending $400 billion, one would think that might have some positive implications for the broader health care system. To that end, I believe this bill falls far short of the mark. Once again, at least from my perspective, it does more harm than good.

Cost containment through Medicare negotiating the cost of drugs with the drug industry could have led to lower prices for everybody in America. You have unbelievably strong buying power out of Medicare--if they were negotiating those prices. We are talking about reimportation? We could do a heck of a lot better if we just had Medicare go out and negotiate those prices. That would help all Americans: Children, generation Xers, juniors, seniors, corporate America. That is not happening.

Other missed opportunities? Cost containment is omitted in this bill. The only containment of costs that I see falls on the shoulders of beneficiaries with escalating copays and premium hikes.

Equally troubling, reforming reimbursement rates for cancer treatment by doctors would have strengthened Medicare, as opposed to limiting oncological drug payments that undermines cancer care. For my State, this is really a troubling and unacceptable aspect. The fact is, we have the third highest incidence of cancer in our State. I think we are putting at risk the treatment of that not only for our seniors but for the whole of the community.

Egregiously--and this is where I strongly disagree with those who would make this case--the diversion of $6 billion into these health savings accounts in this bill I think is a big mistake. It encourages the healthy and the wealthy out of the employer-based health care system, leaving the older and sicker and more poor in the system that remains or until employers drop coverage altogether. Frankly, I think this appears to be a handout to insurers. Several credible studies, including the Rand Corporation's, suggest a major reduction in employer health care coverage will follow as the likely outcome of this tax cut proposal because of adverse selection.

I don't understand this. This doesn't seem to be relevant to the purpose we are about in a $400 billion prescription drug benefit for seniors. Once again, I think this legislation in this area does more harm than good. It certainly does with respect to the U.S. Treasury because I think it has the capacity to go well beyond the $6 billion in cost over a period of time, particularly as it is more of a savings program than it is one that is going to help on health care.

That is the big picture for me. As you can tell, I don't think it is so good. But let me now illustrate the specifics, as least as I see them, in a cost-benefit analysis for New Jersey's seniors because that is what I care about. It is clear to me this is the analysis that is the most important from my perspective. It is the primary driver for how I came to my conclusion with respect to this bill.

This is not about insurers and HMOs. It is not about what the Democratic caucus would argue. It is not about what political scorekeepers think. It is not even about the pharmaceutical industry, which, by the way, in our country is most heavily concentrated in my State. It generates about 65,000 jobs and produces about $30 billion worth of business and revenues. It is really important to our State. But simply my analysis is about New Jersey's seniors and their role and participation in this program across this Nation. On that basis, I would like to talk about some of what we see.

First of all, I think from all of the independent analyses we see, approximately 94,000 New Jersey retirees will lose their employer-based prescription drug benefits. There are estimates of 2.1 to 2.7, whether it is CBO or some private estimates. The middle of the range number for New Jersey is about 94,000.

We have, in New Jersey, a substantial number of seniors, what people call dual eligible, who would receive this wraparound of their Medicaid benefits, various low-income folks, 152,000 of those who receive their benefits through Medicaid and, as we all know, will be paying copays and potentially have an accelerated rise in health costs. They certainly will be on formularies that may limit their choices of drugs. Those 152,000 seniors I think will find this difficult.

We also have 220,000 seniors who are currently enrolled in our State pharmaceutical plan. I first want to congratulate the conferees because they did provide for a wrap here around State programs. It is going to be cumbersome and anything but seamless to move from the program that has been in place for 25 years, created by a bipartisan set of Governors and legislators over that period of time, that have provided the State program. We are going to have to change it. We are going to have to have our seniors go into private programs, and then the State is going to have to fill in those gaps, to be able to make sure that our low-income seniors, who have terrific programs, probably the best in the country, are able to maintain the same coverage.

As I say, I think the facilitating language with regard to financial obligations has been very good. I am very

grateful for the work of the conferees with regard to this estimate. But the seamless element, the quality of coverage with regard to this element, this particular program, is going to be very hard to implement. Each of these seniors, the lowest income seniors in our State, is going to end up being faced with formularies and be experiencing changes each year with regard to who has maximum coverage, and it will be a major impact on how they look at it. Plus they are going to end up potentially paying copays and premiums that are slightly more than what they have in current benefits. So there is another 220,000.

Finally, there are about 52,000 seniors in New Jersey's program who pay more for Part 3 premiums due to the premium test--the means testing--that is coming out. Some can argue means testing is good. That is said where you have already very high income seniors.

Now $80,000 in New Jersey, which is where this means testing begins, is not exactly superrich. We happen to have the most wealthy average population in the country. We also have the most expensive cost of living of any place in the country. We pay more in taxes; we send more to Washington than anyplace else in the country. This means testing, which is going to affect about 52,000 of our seniors, is not going to Bill Gates-like folks or Warren Buffett; it is going to middle class New Jerseyans and I think is going to have a lot more bite. I would have liked to have seen it set higher. It was cut back. I frankly wonder if this is going to be good for the overall Medicare Program because we are ultimately going to start pulling out a lot of these high-income seniors. As people know, Part B is voluntary, and we could end up again providing another adverse selection element to the overall underlying traditional Medicare Program.

We will come back to some other perspectives with regard to New Jersey. But by my calculations, it is 94,000 retirees with employer- based coverage. They are going to lose that coverage, at least that quality coverage relative to what they will get in a new prescription drug program in Medicare. There are 152,000 dual eligibles who will end up with payments that are different than what they would have had under the old program; 220,000 of our State beneficiaries will end up with a lower quality, less seamless program than what they have today, and 40,000--I talked about this earlier in my remarks--40,000 diagnosed with cancer every year are going to have a much harder time getting drug treatments that they previously had. It is going to cost about $50 million to the State over the 10-year period in payments with respect to these drugs. Those folks are going to be impacted.

Then there are the 52,000 subject to means testing. That is 558,000. I am not going to be so certain there are not some overlaps here, but we are talking in the neighborhood of about 500,000 folks who are going to be hurt. There are now only 300,000 New Jerseyans who are without drug coverage. I think that speaks for itself. There is a tough tally when you look at those who are harmed and those who are benefited. That, to me, is an important consideration.

That is an important consideration. Those are not the only considerations. With regard to New Jersey, we have certainly one that already meets the Medicare privatization approach that falls under the premium support program demonstration projects. Actually, it looks as if there will probably be two. I don't think our seniors are going to say they want that in their backyard. They like prescription drugs, but they also like traditional Medicare.

I think it is hard for me to go back to them and argue when they have had a chance--by the way, we have seen a lot of people dropping out of Medicare+Plus Choice because they haven't felt like the program is good. Plus a number of insurers dropped people who signed up for it. They thought it was going to be a good deal and it didn't turn out to be so. That is another one that a lot of folks talked about. There are approximately 1 million New Jersey Medicare beneficiaries who are going to see their Part B deductible rise at a faster rate than their Social Security benefit.

Some people will say that is not a part of this bill, that it is something else. But the fact is, we are building an escalator on Part B. It doesn't compare with what I think is going on with Social Security. At least when I go to townhall meetings, that is a real problem for me to try to deal with and explain to folks. That is the challenge.

Roughly 100,000 seniors will be negatively impacted and a lot of others will feel as if they were somehow not properly protected in it. Again, 300,000 don't now have drug coverage.

That system doesn't work. It is arithmetic. It is very straightforward. It seems to me that there is more harm than benefits. For me, the case is closed.

It would be remiss of me not to say that I have another objection that I believe is built into this package. If I could convince myself that New Jersey seniors were going to be benefitted, I would come around on this issue. But I think this package puts America on a pathway to privatization of Medicare. I suggest that is not the right direction. I think we ought to be enhancing and extending the traditional Medicare Program and have a prescription drug benefit. We ought to be using that $12 billion to $14 billion that is going to benefit the managed care industry and the insurance industry to cover up one of those donut holes that we are talking about. We ought to be putting that money to work to enhance traditional Medicare.

While others have spoken eloquently and extensively, maybe even politically about this, I think it is a very serious consideration for those of us who believe that traditional Medicare should be enhanced.

I looked at three steps that will put it on that pathway.

Fourteen-billion dollars in subsidies and protection against skyrocketing health care costs provided to health insurers in this bill doesn't seem to me to be the right place to put us into a comparative cost-benefit analysis with the private providers who I think have many incentives to cherry-pick the healthiest, the wealthiest, and the most able versus what is going to be left in the traditional Medicare program, which raises costs. I think that is step 1.

Step No. 2, this series of demonstration projects which is hardly a level playing field by comparison--and I think it is actually going to be difficult for us to make a real assessment if it--I have heard actually limits this program under 600,000 folks. I think it is also possible that it will be cherry-picked in the areas as opposed to the difficulty of looking at the wide diversity of populations that we have in the country. I am particularly troubled when I look at what I see with regard to what fits into New Jersey with regard to this program. It could be very difficult.

Then the third step is this 45-percent trigger on general fund expenditures that will cause an overall review of traditional Medicare when the breach occurs. I think all of us realize with the changing demographics and the baby boomers going into retirement, and with 40 million seniors growing to 75 million or 77 million seniors over the next 10 to 15 years, we are going to have that happen. I think that is going to lead to pretty hard choices without the kind of triggers we have here.

I think that it is just one more step, one more nail in the box that is trying to change us and move us away from traditional Government- supported and underwritten Medicare to privatization. In my view, after an inadequate analysis of this 1,100-page bill, I really think that may be the most troubling piece.

I think it is very difficult to be certain about any of the conclusions that any of us are drawing with regard to this bill. The one thing that I do know for certain as it shows up both in the marketplace and in the phone calls that we are receiving is that there are great benefits for the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry built into this.

By the way, as I said, the pharmaceutical industry is right smack dab in the middle of my State. I like to see them do well. I like to see them press forward in their research. But I don't think that should come at the serious expense of many of America's seniors. I can say, at least based on what I understand by my analysis, that is not the case with regard to New Jersey seniors.

Frankly, I just do not understand this mad dash to get this done before

Thanksgiving. It obviously must reflect some other agenda than what seems sensible. I think we ought to slow down. We ought to be careful. We ought to be thoughtful. I know there are a lot of people who have spent a lot of time. We have heard about the 6 years of debate and discussion. But to come to a conclusion where we have to make a decision about something that is extraordinarily important to the lives of the people across this country--not only to our seniors but to the families, and the impact it has on the markets that we deal with with regard to prescription drugs--investing $400 billion is a very important issue. It ought to help our seniors as much as possible. It is a good thing. I think all of us want to be supportive. We should do our best with what we have to invest in this project. You have to think about it in the context of a very limited amount relative to how much seniors are going to spend over the next decade. I hear estimates that it may be as much as $1.8 trillion. What we are talking about here is about 20 percent of that.

We have to make tough choices. I appreciate the difficulty with which the Senator from Iowa had to work his way through these difficult areas. I think he made a lot of good choices, but there are some in here that are very difficult. I think we ought to be wise and reflect on this 1,100-page report.

I am convinced we can do better, at least in the cost-benefit analysis that I put together for my State.

As a consequence, I have to oppose this report. I hope we can slow it down and make some revisions and bring it to a positive conclusion which is not ideological and which is not political; that is, believing we are searching for the best interests of all of our seniors in America.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator from Iowa yield for just a question and a comment?

I appreciate the comment with regard to cobbling. It is great to be put in the same company of criticism with regard to the use of the term. I do not want to leave the impression that I don't think there was great thought and effort in putting together this extraordinary piece of legislation. It is actually a tremendous tribute to the Senator from Iowa for the ability to put together all the various interests in common and come up with something that is pretty doggone close for all Members to be able to consider.

My concern is that it is very hard to know from this Senator's point of view all the details. I wish I could say I was absolutely certain that I had analyzed this exactly the right way for those seniors in my State. But this is an incredibly complex issue, not only for the seniors themselves to be facing but also for those who are trying to decide how we are investing $400 billion.

I congratulate the Senator for his efforts. Unfortunately, as I look at it, I come out with a different perspective, but I don't think it is for lack of good intentions, hard work, and great compromise on the Senator's part.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation on an issue that is of utmost importance to me, to the State of New Jersey, and to our Nation: providing universal access to health insurance.

This is an issue I talked about incessantly during my campaign, because I strongly believe it is a national outrage that we are the only industrial society on earth that does not insure the health of all its people.

I begin with a basic premise. Health care is a basic right, and neither the government nor the private sector is doing enough to secure that right for everyone.

Unfortunately, as I have traveled across the State of New Jersey, I have talked to many men and women who lay awake nights trying to figure out how to care for loved ones. I've met people who work two jobs to support their family, and end up taking their kids to the emergency room when they're sick because they are unable to afford preventive care and timely treatment for their children.

In 2002, more than 43 million Americans--or a staggering 17 percent of the total nonelderly population--were uninsured. In my State of New Jersey, 1.1 million citizens lack health insurance.

The number of uninsured grew steadily throughout the 1990's until 1999, when modest increases in employer coverage due to the robust economy, coupled with expansion and improved enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), led to the first decline in the number of uninsured in over a decade. Unfortunately, the number of uninsured is on the rise again, as State budget deficits have forced deep cuts in public health programs and as unemployment has risen.

Unemployment, however, is not the leading cause of being uninsured. In fact, more than eighty percent of the uninsured--four out of five Americans--are in working families. Seventy-two percent live in households with a full-time worker, and 11 percent live with a part- time worker. Low-wage workers are at greater risk of being uninsured, as are unskilled laborers, service workers, and those employed in small businesses.

The consequences of our Nation's significant uninsured population are devastating for our health and our economy.

The uninsured are significantly more likely to delay or forego needed care and are less likely to receive preventive care.

Delaying or not receiving treatment can lead to more serious illness and avoidable health problems, which in turn results in unnecessary and costly hospitalizations. For example, the uninsured are more likely than those with insurance to be hospitalized for conditions that could have been avoided, such as pneumonia and uncontrolled diabetes. In addition, the uninsured with various forms of cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with late stage cancer.

Indeed, my own State of New Jersey struggles to deal with the costs of charity care provided to the uninsured. In 2002, New Jersey hospitals provided $624 million in charity care to the uninsured and underinsured, but were only reimbursed for $381 million of these costs.

In sum, health insurance coverage matters. It matters to families who don't receive adequate care, and it matters to communities. We ignore the issue of the uninsured at our peril and at a great cost to the quality of life--and to the very life--of our citizens. That is why today I am introducing legislation that will provide universal access to health care for all Americans. My legislation, the Universal Secure Access to (USA) Health Care Act has several components:

First, we must cover all children. Despite the success of the CHIP program, over nine million children are still uninsured. These children are less likely to have immunizations and receive less preventive care, which often results in health problems later in life and also leads to poor school performance. The millions of uninsured children cannot control whether they have health care coverage, and it is a measure of the failure of our politics that we do not take care of our children.

My proposal, modeled on legislation introduced by Senator Rockefeller, would create a MediKids program that would provide universal health insurance for children up to age 23 through a new federal program modeled after Medicare, but with benefits tailored toward the needs of children.

Maintaining the health of our children is critical to the future of our country. Indeed, it is clear that providing health care coverage to children impacts more than just their health--it impacts their ability to learn, their ability to thrive, and their ability to become productive members of society. MediKids simplifies the confusing array of health insurance assistance programs for children today and guarantees them coverage until adulthood.

The next step is to demand that the private sector do its part. Under my bill, large employers would be required to provide health coverage for all their workers. A minimum wage in America should include with it minimum benefits, among them health insurance. But unfortunately, the current system puts the responsible employer who provides health insurance at a disadvantage relative to the employers who do not. When employers fail to cover employees, society pays their share of the bill at the emergency room. In fact, the universal health care delivered in the emergency rooms of our community hospitals is the most expensive and short-sighted approach to address the problem of the uninsured Americans.

Under my bill, small businesses, the self-employed and unemployed would be able to buy coverage in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. If it is good enough for Senators, it is good enough for America. Those who are between the ages of 55 and 64 would be able to buy-in to the Medicare program. My legislation would provide tax credits to the self-employed to assist them in purchasing health insurance and would allow them to buy into the FEHBP program. But although I am passionate about universal access to health care, I realize we can't get there yet. Not because the popular will is not there, but because the political will isn't.

Therefore I believe we can and should be doing all that we can to make incremental progress. So I support incremental changes, starting with the most vulnerable populations, and building on Medicaid and CHIP, success public programs. That is why I am a strong supporter of the Family Care proposal, which would cover the parents of children already enrolled in the CHIP program.

I was also pleased to be an original cosponsor of Senator Bingaman's bipartisan legislation, the Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act, which would expand coverage for children and pregnant women. It is based on the common sense principle that children deserve to start life healthy and stay healthy.

Health professionals agree that one of the best ways to ensure the birth of a healthy baby is to ensure adequate prenatal care. Yet as a Nation, we do far too little to provide this type of care. This is evident by the stark statistics on the subject: the United States ranks 27th in infant mortality and 21st in material mortality--the worst among developed nations. The statistics in New Jersey are equally stark: New Jersey ranks an abysmal 44th among the States in the percentage of mothers receiving adequate prenatal care, 34th in low birth weights, and 12th in infant mortality rates.

Specifically, this important legislation would allow States to cover prenatal care services for women up to 185 percent of the Federal poverty level through the Children's Health Insurance (CHIP) Program. It would also allow States to extend coverage to children under the CHIP program through age 20, and would increase CHIP funding by $2.65 billion over four years.

I often say that we are not a Nation of equal outcomes, but we should be a Nation of equal beginnings.

Until we give all Americans access to health care, however, we cannot live up to that promise.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation on an issue that is of utmost importance to me, to the State of New Jersey, and to our Nation: providing universal access to health insurance.

This is an issue I talked about incessantly during my campaign, because I strongly believe it is a national outrage that we are the only industrial society on earth that does not insure the health of all its people.

I begin with a basic premise. Health care is a basic right, and neither the government nor the private sector is doing enough to secure that right for everyone.

Unfortunately, as I have traveled across the State of New Jersey, I have talked to many men and women who lay awake nights trying to figure out how to care for loved ones. I've met people who work two jobs to support their family, and end up taking their kids to the emergency room when they're sick because they are unable to afford preventive care and timely treatment for their children.

In 2002, more than 43 million Americans--or a staggering 17 percent of the total nonelderly population--were uninsured. In my State of New Jersey, 1.1 million citizens lack health insurance.

The number of uninsured grew steadily throughout the 1990's until 1999, when modest increases in employer coverage due to the robust economy, coupled with expansion and improved enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), led to the first decline in the number of uninsured in over a decade. Unfortunately, the number of uninsured is on the rise again, as State budget deficits have forced deep cuts in public health programs and as unemployment has risen.

Unemployment, however, is not the leading cause of being uninsured. In fact, more than eighty percent of the uninsured--four out of five Americans--are in working families. Seventy-two percent live in households with a full-time worker, and 11 percent live with a part- time worker. Low-wage workers are at greater risk of being uninsured, as are unskilled laborers, service workers, and those employed in small businesses.

The consequences of our Nation's significant uninsured population are devastating for our health and our economy.

The uninsured are significantly more likely to delay or forego needed care and are less likely to receive preventive care.

Delaying or not receiving treatment can lead to more serious illness and avoidable health problems, which in turn results in unnecessary and costly hospitalizations. For example, the uninsured are more likely than those with insurance to be hospitalized for conditions that could have been avoided, such as pneumonia and uncontrolled diabetes. In addition, the uninsured with various forms of cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with late stage cancer.

Indeed, my own State of New Jersey struggles to deal with the costs of charity care provided to the uninsured. In 2002, New Jersey hospitals provided $624 million in charity care to the uninsured and underinsured, but were only reimbursed for $381 million of these costs.

In sum, health insurance coverage matters. It matters to families who don't receive adequate care, and it matters to communities. We ignore the issue of the uninsured at our peril and at a great cost to the quality of life--and to the very life--of our citizens. That is why today I am introducing legislation that will provide universal access to health care for all Americans. My legislation, the Universal Secure Access to (USA) Health Care Act has several components:

First, we must cover all children. Despite the success of the CHIP program, over nine million children are still uninsured. These children are less likely to have immunizations and receive less preventive care, which often results in health problems later in life and also leads to poor school performance. The millions of uninsured children cannot control whether they have health care coverage, and it is a measure of the failure of our politics that we do not take care of our children.

My proposal, modeled on legislation introduced by Senator Rockefeller, would create a MediKids program that would provide universal health insurance for children up to age 23 through a new federal program modeled after Medicare, but with benefits tailored toward the needs of children.

Maintaining the health of our children is critical to the future of our country. Indeed, it is clear that providing health care coverage to children impacts more than just their health--it impacts their ability to learn, their ability to thrive, and their ability to become productive members of society. MediKids simplifies the confusing array of health insurance assistance programs for children today and guarantees them coverage until adulthood.

The next step is to demand that the private sector do its part. Under my bill, large employers would be required to provide health coverage for all their workers. A minimum wage in America should include with it minimum benefits, among them health insurance. But unfortunately, the current system puts the responsible employer who provides health insurance at a disadvantage relative to the employers who do not. When employers fail to cover employees, society pays their share of the bill at the emergency room. In fact, the universal health care delivered in the emergency rooms of our community hospitals is the most expensive and short-sighted approach to address the problem of the uninsured Americans.

Under my bill, small businesses, the self-employed and unemployed would be able to buy coverage in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. If it is good enough for Senators, it is good enough for America. Those who are between the ages of 55 and 64 would be able to buy-in to the Medicare program. My legislation would provide tax credits to the self-employed to assist them in purchasing health insurance and would allow them to buy into the FEHBP program. But although I am passionate about universal access to health care, I realize we can't get there yet. Not because the popular will is not there, but because the political will isn't.

Therefore I believe we can and should be doing all that we can to make incremental progress. So I support incremental changes, starting with the most vulnerable populations, and building on Medicaid and CHIP, success public programs. That is why I am a strong supporter of the Family Care proposal, which would cover the parents of children already enrolled in the CHIP program.

I was also pleased to be an original cosponsor of Senator Bingaman's bipartisan legislation, the Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act, which would expand coverage for children and pregnant women. It is based on the common sense principle that children deserve to start life healthy and stay healthy.

Health professionals agree that one of the best ways to ensure the birth of a healthy baby is to ensure adequate prenatal care. Yet as a Nation, we do far too little to provide this type of care. This is evident by the stark statistics on the subject: the United States ranks 27th in infant mortality and 21st in material mortality--the worst among developed nations. The statistics in New Jersey are equally stark: New Jersey ranks an abysmal 44th among the States in the percentage of mothers receiving adequate prenatal care, 34th in low birth weights, and 12th in infant mortality rates.

Specifically, this important legislation would allow States to cover prenatal care services for women up to 185 percent of the Federal poverty level through the Children's Health Insurance (CHIP) Program. It would also allow States to extend coverage to children under the CHIP program through age 20, and would increase CHIP funding by $2.65 billion over four years.

I often say that we are not a Nation of equal outcomes, but we should be a Nation of equal beginnings.

Until we give all Americans access to health care, however, we cannot live up to that promise.

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

Mr. President, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to recognize Richard Roberto of John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson, NJ as one of six finalists for the National High School Principal of the Year.

The impact that Mr. Roberto has made on the students and faculty at John F. Kennedy High School cannot be overstated. His leadership has produced remarkable results for students--indeed, test scores are higher at John F. Kennedy, in part, I am sure, because he created an extended year program for juniors and established freshman houses to personalize the learning environment. He also administered the expansion of eight career academies. These academies provide small learning communities in which students can explore diverse interests. As you can see, students have thrived under Mr. Roberto because of his efforts to develop opportunities for their success.

Not only has his work affected students, but his staff development program, which includes a focus on core curriculum content, has fostered collaboration among all the teachers at

John F. Kennedy High School. Through newsletters, needs assessments, teachers surveys, and collaborative groups Mr. Roberto has instituted whole school reform that concentrates on the needs of all members of his faculty.

I congratulate Mr. Roberto on his success in building a school environment that facilitates communication and creates a learning environment enabling student success. His dedication, innovation, and leadership are qualities that every principal in our Nation should have. It is with great admiration that I acknowledge Mr. Roberto as a 2003 Principal of the Year finalist.

Mr. President, today, along with Senators Coleman, Lautenberg and Voinovich, I am submitting a resolution to address a serious and persistent problem: the unfair and inequitable treatment of Israel in the United

Nations. The resolution urges the President and all members of the United States diplomatic corps to dissuade member states of the United Nations from voting in support of General Assembly resolutions that unfairly castigate Israel, and to promote within the United Nations General Assembly more balanced and constructive approaches to resolving conflict in the Middle East.

On October 21, 2003, the United Nations General Assembly ratified a resolution condemning Israeli security measures. The resolution did not call on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist organizations, nor did it name those organizations. Yet it passed by a vote of 144-4, with 12 abstentions. Other than the United States, only Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Israel itself voted against the resolution.

This resolution was only the latest in a long line of General Assembly resolutions castigating Israel with little regard to the security threats that Israel faces. For decades, the Assembly has devoted a disproportionate amount of time and resources to resolutions related to Israel--conducting, for example, 22 rollcall votes on UN General Assembly resolutions that related to Israel out of the 69 for all of the 57th Session of the Assembly. Besides distracting the United Nations from the countless other critical issues the world faces, these resolutions undermine efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East by casting blame almost entirely on one party. They are also unfair in that they subject Israel to discriminatory treatment not accorded to any other member state of the UN.

It is long past time for the General Assembly to stop ratifying these biased, unproductive resolutions. Voting patterns that discriminate against Israel appeared during the Cold War, when conflict in the Middle East was fueled by the rivalry between the West and the Soviet bloc. The Cold War has ended. So, too, should the polarization it engendered. We have also seen new alliances and relationships emerge in the global war on terrorism, and have witnessed the world come together in condemning terrorist violence. I refer to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, passed on September 28, 2001, which reaffirmed that any act of international terrorism constitutes a threat to international peace and security and called on states to work together to prevent and suppress terrorist acts.

Resolution 1373 reminded us of what the United Nations was meant to be--a forum for the world to come together to identify common threats and find common ways to address them. It offered the hope of a world united in its resolve to fight terrorism, with the United States leading that fight--in Afghanistan and in other parts of the world where international terrorists operate.

It is therefore with great disappointment that we witness business as usual at the General Assembly. The spirit of unity that prevailed for a time after September 11 has not led to a common approach to the conflict in the Middle East, and the United States has thus far been unable to enlist its friends and allies in its effort to ensure that Israel is treated fairly.

Since the inception of the United Nations, the United States has played a unique and critical role in ensuring that the U.N. lives up to the promise of its Charter--to maintain peace and security. As the sole remaining superpower, we have an opportunity to shape a global consensus on terrorism and security, one that requires new, more productive approaches to the conflict in the Middle East. This requires that we recognize the harm that comes from repeated, biased condemnations of a valuable ally in the United Nations General Assembly. It also requires sustained efforts, in the United Nations and within our bilateral and multilateral relationships, to change the voting patterns of friends, allies, and other member states.

We must bring our own values and our own vision of peace and security to the United Nations. Voting against resolutions that unfairly castigate Israel is not enough, particularly when we find ourselves in a tiny minority. We must seek to ally the world with us on this critical matter. The resolution we are introducing today thus urges the President and all members of the United States diplomatic corps to dissuade member states of the United Nations from voting in support of General Assembly resolutions that unfairly castigate Israel, and to promote within the Nations General assembly more balanced and constructive approaches to resolving conflict in the Middle East.

The United Nations can be--must be--a forum for defending our values. Through committed leadership, we can begin to change how other countries approach the General Assembly and how they vote on issues related to the Middle East. By doing so, we will be taking an important step toward peace.

Mr. President, it is my honor and pleasure to recognize Dr. Carole A Gavin, recipient of the 2003 New Jersey Professor of the Year Award. This award, which is sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, acknowledges outstanding professors for their excellence in teaching and their commitment to students.

Dr. Gavin has been a professor of English as a Second Language, ESL, and French at Burlington County College since 1971. She has worked tirelessly to develop supportive infrastructures in which her students can learn and thrive. As a professor of ESL and the ESL program coordinator, Dr. Gavin uses innovative strategies to engage her students and help them reach their full potential. For example, the TNT Tutoring Team is an idea that Dr. Gavin developed to match her ESL students with retired professionals from an adult living community. Exposure to the English language is just the beginning of the program. Through writing journals and discussions of current issues, the students gain a cross-generational perspective that enhances their cultural experience. The education the students gain is not one that can be found in any classroom or textbook--the interactions between the senior citizens and the students offer knowledge that will not only help students succeed in passing a test but succeed in life.

Dr. Gavin is also the principal faculty advisor of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. In order to strengthen the resources available to her students, Dr. Gavin assembled 17 new and current faculty members to join her in mentoring the students. Her efforts have succeeded in enriching the programs available to the members of Phi Theta Kappa by offering a diverse group of advisors who bring knowledge and experience from a variety of disciplines. Again, Dr. Gavin's creative ideas have positively impacted the lives of her students.

Along with the 2003 New Jersey Professor of the Year award, Dr. Gavin has been the recipient of several honors including the Lindbach Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence, South Jersey Literacy Award for ESL Program Teaching and various grants, including a Presidential grant to work with Fort Dix Kosovar refugees.

In a Nation where higher education is vital to an individual's success, I applaud the hard work, energy, and expertise of our Nation's professors. Dr. Carole Gavin's successful career as a teacher, mentor and innovator is an inspiration to us all and I am proud to acknowledge her as New Jersey's Professor of the Year.