Floor Statements

Mr. President, I will be speaking as the designee of Senator Reid, the Democratic leader.

I rise to speak to the resolution congratulating the people of Iraq for their historic elections which took place on January 30.

The Iraqi elections were an important step forward and a tribute to the courage of the Iraqi people. It was actually incredible to see them go to the polls literally as they heard explosions in the streets. The images that we saw were quite moving.

The election is only the first step in a long road filled with potentially lethal potholes, and the next months are going to be very critical.

If the elections are to be a true turning point in the history of Iraq, then it is critical, and I believe the administration fully understands, that the administration act with the urgency that is needed in several key areas to sustain this very positive momentum.

In my view, the first priority is to build Iraqi capacity. The election, hopefully, strengthened the political legitimacy of the Iraqi government, but it did nothing to build its governing capacity.

The Iraqi government is no more capable today than it was the day before the elections of providing law and order, defeating the insurgents, or delivering basic services like water, gasoline, and electricity.

We have squandered 2 years developing these capabilities, and now it is time to move into high gear, especially in training Iraqi forces that are able to operate independently and effectively. Our ability to draw down responsibly in Iraq depends on that happening.

Second, we must promote political power sharing. Because many Sunni Arabs stayed home or, quite frankly, were scared away, understandably I might add, from the polls, they may feel even more alienated and continue to support the insurgency.

I am encouraged by conciliatory statements by some Sunni-affiliated organizations that suggest they are willing to work with the new government in drafting Iraq's permanent constitution. We all should remember this election was primarily about electing people who are going to be the people who write the constitution. In a sense, it is a little bit like our Constitutional Convention that took place in Philadelphia. These folks are going to write

a constitution, then they are going to present it to the Iraqi people essentially in a referendum at the end of this year, next fall. If the Sunni Arabs are not in on the deal, it is not likely to be accepted.

We must use our influence with the Shi'a and the Kurds to reach out to those who were left out, that is the Sunni Arabs, who are willing to participate in the writing of that constitution. They also have to be well represented in the cabinet of this transitional government.

Finally, just as the international community appointed a first-rate representative to the independent Iraqi election commission, so, too, should it consider similar assistance as Iraqis begin to grapple with the complexities of drafting a constitution.

Thirdly, we have to make Iraq the world's problem, not just our own. Secretary Rice said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ``the time for diplomacy is now.'' The proof will be the administration's efforts and success in getting more help to train Iraqi security forces and to build Iraq's infrastructure. The administration has to make a diplomatic full court press.

Our allies claim to be concerned about the plight of the Iraqi people. Well, now is their chance to prove it. The Europeans have to get over it. George Bush has been elected for the next 4 years. The fact is, they must get involved and stop shirking their responsibility. We also must help the Iraqi government develop positive relations with its neighbors and regional states. Our Presidential elections are over, the American people have spoken, and it is time for our allies to get over their past differences with the Bush administration and act in their own self-interest to promote a stable, unified, representative Iraq.

A week ago, several of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle had the chance to visit with President Chirac. I think it is fair to say we sensed a new willingness to work with us if France is given a seat at the table.

Similarly, Chancellor Schroeder, during Secretary Rice's visit last week, offered additional German assistance to train Iraqi security forces, build Iraqi ministries, and support Iraqi civil institutions.

We must not squander yet another opportunity to bring our key allies into the effort.

Last April, I called for the creation of a board of directors--a contact group--consisting of the major powers, the Iraqi government, and key regional countries to support Iraq's transition. It would meet on a monthly basis to coordinate diplomatic, political, economic, and security support for Iraq.

I urge the administration to reconsider creating a contact group. The President could use his forthcoming visit to Europe to launch the effort.

A broader group which includes other nations on the U.N. Security Council, the G-8, and the multinational force can meet on a regular, but more infrequent basis to discuss ways to support the contact group's efforts.

Fourth, we must show reconstruction results. More than a year ago, the administration told Congress it urgently needed $18.4 billion for Iraq's reconstruction.

Congress delivered but the administration has not: Less than 20 percent of that money has been spent. Electricity production in Iraq has fallen to below the level it was under Saddam. Lines for gasoline stretch for miles. Oil production is lagging behind targets.

The administration must develop a plan to spend the money efficiently, with clear benchmarks. We should emphasize small-scale, Iraqi-run projects that deliver quick benefits to the Iraqi people--at least 40 percent of whom are unemployed and on giving our military commanders more flexibility to spend money directly on reconstruction.

Finally, I know that I do not need to remind my colleagues that we must support our military.

Our troops in Iraq must be equipped and trained for the mission in Iraq. The troop rotation schedule must not degrade readiness or diminish retention.

Above all, the administration must do what it has consistently failed to do in Iraq: Level with the American people.

A week ago Sunday was a good day for democracy, but there are many hard days and more sacrifice ahead. The President must make that clear if he is to sustain the support of the American people.

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

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time is allotted to the Senator from Delaware on the Rice nomination?

Mr. President, I rise today to support Dr. Rice's nomination to be Secretary of State. I don't do it as fulsomely as I rose to support the nomination of the previous Secretary of State. I will explain why.

I believe the President of the United States is entitled to his Cabinet unless the person he selects is so far out of the mainstream, incompetent, clearly of questionable character, or, as some in the past have been, dedicated to the express purpose of dismantling the very agency to which they were being assigned, such as President Reagan--as my mother would say, God love him--who wanted to do away with the Department of Education and assigned two people to be the head of the Department of Education for the express purpose of eliminating an agency that I thought needed to remain, or in the special case when the office calls for an unusually different relation, as the Attorney General does. The Attorney General does not work for the President. He is the people's lawyer. He is hired by the President, but he or she is the people's lawyer and, in the worst of all cases, sometimes required to investigate the President himself and in the best of cases is required to interpret the constitutional laws of the land.

I very reluctantly voted against Attorney General Gonzales's nomination to be Attorney General because I believe he has so wrongly interpreted law on torture and did such great damage as a consequence of that decision. There were significant consequences. There is a fundamentally different relationship and a fundamentally different constitutional obligation. It is his judgment that I question, and I currently believe he should not be Attorney General.

Dr. Rice does not fit in any of those categories. I have known and worked with her for the past 4 years. She is knowledgeable, she is smart, she is honorable, and her relationship with the President is essentially to be the public face of the President of the United States here.

As the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have a special responsibility to work with Dr. Rice, so I am going to vote for Dr. Rice, but I am going to do so with some frustration and reservations. Let me explain why. I have said this to Dr. Rice, so she is not hearing this for the first time.

Last week, we gave Dr. Rice an opportunity to acknowledge the mistakes and misjudgments of the past 4 years. The point is not to play the game ``gotcha.'' It is not about embarrassing the President. It is about learning from our mistakes so we do not repeat them. A second term is also a second chance.

Instead of seizing that opportunity, Dr. Rice stuck to the administration's party line: Always right; never wrong. It is as if acknowledging mistakes or misjudgments is a sign of weakness. I do not think it is. I think it is powerful evidence of strength and maturity.

But during the hearing, Dr. Rice claimed that my colleague, Barbara Boxer, was impugning her integrity when she asked about her changing rationale for the war in Iraq.

Now, I wish instead that Dr. Rice had acknowledged the facts. This administration secured the support of the American people, and of Congress, for going to war based on what it insisted was an imminent threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Now, when it turns out there are no such weapons, Dr. Rice and the President claim the war was now about removing a dictator. I am glad Saddam is gone. He deserves his own special place in hell, but removing him from power was not the justification initially offered by this administration to go to war. Again, it is an example of what Barbara Boxer was talking about: a changing rationale for war. Why Dr. Rice would not acknowledge that is beyond me.

Reading the resolution that Congress passed giving the President the authority to use force if necessary, it was about ``disarming'' Saddam. And reread the words of the President and other senior officials. In speech after speech, television appearance after television appearance, they left the American people with the impression that Iraq was on the verge of reconstituting nuclear weapons. In fact, Vice President Cheney said they already had them.

The administration left the American people with the impression, even today, that Saddam had other weapons of mass destruction, and that he was complicit in the events of 9/11 and that he collaborated with al- Qaida--I assume collaborated with al-Qaida for purposes of the 9/11 attack. Back then the administration liked to claim that President Bush never said Iraq was ``an imminent threat.'' Well, this is what he and other senior officials did say. They referred to it as an ``immediate threat,'' a ``mortal threat,'' an ``urgent threat,'' a ``grave threat,'' a ``serious and mounting threat,'' a ``unique threat.'' And it would be funny, the denial that they did not say ``imminent threat'' if it were not so deadly serious.

This is my point: Especially in matters of war and peace, we have to level with the American people if we want not only to secure their support but to sustain their support.

My poor colleagues are tired of hearing me say, for the last 2 years, the following: No foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. And this administration has been very reluctant to keep them informed. Informed means all the information and a truthful rendition of the balance of the information they have.

During the time I was criticizing President Bush for his assertions about aluminum tubes and his administration's assertions about other things, the press kept saying to me: Why won't you say the President is a liar? He was not lying. But what the President did--he got the intelligence, as we did on the committee. We can argue whether a minority or a majority, but a significant number of the intelligence assets in the U.S. Government said: We think those aluminum tubes are or could be used for gas centrifuges. A significant number said: No, they are not used for that. They are for artillery.

Well, my criticism of the President was not that he, in fact, chose to believe that portion of the intelligence community which said they were used for gas centrifuge systems, which is needed to build a nuclear capability and if you are going to use uranium; my problem with it was, both he and Dr. Rice implied there was no dissent, that this was the view of the intelligence community, when it was not. There was, at a minimum, a significant dissent both in Energy and at the CIA, and other places. So they did not lie. They chose to pick the portion--I am not saying they did it for any reason other than they believed it, but they chose to pick the portion of the intelligence community's assessment which fit with their objectives, without ever mentioning, acknowledging, or suggesting there was any dissent within the intelligence community.

I love my colleagues now who keep saying: Don't blame it on Rice. Don't blame it on Gonzales. Blame it on the intelligence community. I think our former Director of the CIA is getting a bad rap here.

The fact is, we have to be honest with ourselves and the world; otherwise, we are going to do terrible damage to our most valuable asset, our credibility. After Iraq, it is going to be much harder to rally the world to our side if we have to face a truly imminent threat to our security from, say, Iran or North Korea.

The same goes for the way Dr. Rice answered my questions about training Iraqi security forces. Time and again, this administration has tried to leave the American people with the impression that Iraq has well over 100,000--as high as 120,000; or I think there was even a higher number offered--of fully competent police and military. They don't say fully competent; they say trained.

Now again, it is like that story I have told. We Catholic kids go to Catholic school. We learn to go to one of the Sacraments in the Catholic Church, Penance. You go to confession. They explain to us that when we go to confession, we should confess all our sins. My nuns told me the story about Johnny, who said to the priest: Bless me father for I have sinned. I stole a gold chain. And he failed to tell the priest that attached to that gold chain was an antique gold watch. He did not lie. He stole the chain. But when you say what you did, you should say all of what you did.

Failure to acknowledge, as my grandfather used to say, the ``hull'' of it, failure to do that is, at a minimum, misleading--at a minimum, misleading. That is what has happened here.

So 120,000 troops trained. There may be 120,000 people who we put uniforms on--and I will not go through it in the limited time I have; I will submit for the Record the facts as I believe them based on talking to our military and police trainers--but the real question is, How many American forces doing the job of policing the streets, going after insurgents, guarding the borders, whatever functions we are now providing, how many of those could be replaced with an Iraqi now? I think the number is closer to somewhere between 4,000 and 18,000.

Now, the good news--when I asked the question, I thought she would say we have made mistakes. We went for quantity not quality. We realize we had to fundamentally change our training programs. We brought in General Patraeus, who is a first-rate guy. He is well underway of doing that--which he is--and we are going to get it right. But, no, we have 120,000 trained forces out there.

Well, the fact is, we are months, if not years, from reaching the target we need of putting uniformed soldiers, uniformed cops, and uniformed National Guard with Iraqi uniforms into Iraq.

The bottom line is, we should focus on real standards, not raw numbers. To my mind, there is a real simple standard. An Iraqi soldier and policeman should be considered fully trained when he or she is capable of doing the job we are now asking an American young man or woman to do. How many meet that standard today? Nowhere near, as I said, 120,000. In my judgment, it is closer to 14,000 total. Army trained is probably closer to 5,000.

So last week's hearing was a chance for Dr. Rice to wipe the slate clean with the American people and with our allies. I wish she had seized it.

This is not about revisiting the past. It is about how Dr. Rice and the administration will meet the challenges of the future.

I notice, in the defense of Dr. Rice, I no longer hear on the floor disagreements--I don't want to get him in trouble--disagreements with the position taken by my friend, the chairman of our committee, or by my friend, Mr. Hagel, or Mr. McCain, or myself, or others. I do not hear people saying we have conducted this postwar policy very well. I do not hear anybody defending that. They are now saying, which is good: Hey, wait a minute, I guess we have made mistakes.

Why the administration cannot do that is beyond me. They are not up for reelection again. It would seem to me it would be a way to coalesce support.

In my judgment, America faces two overriding national security challenges in this new century. First and foremost, we must win the struggle between freedom and radical Islamic fundamentalism. Secondly, we must keep the world's most dangerous weapons away from its most dangerous people.

On the latter point, the man we owe the greatest debt of gratitude to on making progress on that score is my friend and colleague, Senator Lugar, and former Senator Nunn. Senator Lugar is the guy who is following up on this and the guy forcing us all to face the reality that much more is needed to be done.

To prevail, we have to be strong. We also have to be smart, wielding the force of our ideas and ideals together with the force of our arms.

Today, after a necessary war in Afghanistan and an optional war in Iraq, we are rightly confident in the example of our power. But we have forgotten the power of our example.

Foreign policy is not a popularity contest. We must confront hard issues. Sometimes they require us to make hard choices that other countries do not like. But above all, they require American leadership, the kind of persuasion that brings along others to our side.

We have been having a tough time doing just that the past few years. So despite our great military might, in my view, we are more alone in the world than we have been in recent memory. As a result, we are much less secure than we could or should be.

That is because virtually all the threats we face--from terrorism, to the spread of weapons of mass destruction, to rogue states that flout the rules, to endemic and pandemic diseases--cannot be solely met by the unilateral use of force.

I had hoped to hear from Dr. Rice how she planned to help rebuild America's power to persuade, and to restore our Nation's respect that it once enjoyed. For she said, now is the time for diplomacy. Parenthetically, I think diplomacy was needed 4 years ago. I am happy now is the time for diplomacy.

I also had hoped to hear her ideas for contending with a series of problems the administration has put on the back burner but whose pots are boiling over, such as the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran, the dangerous backsliding of democracy in Russia, and the genocide in Sudan, to only name a few.

Over the past few years, North Korea has increased its nuclear weapons capacity by as much as 400 percent. It may now have as many as eight nuclear weapons to test, hide, or sell to the highest bidder.

Dr. Rice told us it is ``unacceptable'' for North Korea to have these nuclear weapons, but she did not tell us what that meant or how the administration proposed to stop this growing threat.

Over the past few years, the reform movement in Iran has been crushed and the regime has accelerated its own nuclear program. There may be nothing we can do to persuade Iran not to develop these weapons by diplomacy, but our European allies are trying through a combination of carrots and sticks. They believe they cannot succeed, though, unless the United States engages directly in this effort.

I asked Dr. Rice whether we should be a party to a deal in which the Iranians agreed--if there was a way to verify--that they would stop their attempts to build a nuclear weapon and end their missile program. She said: Well, we have a lot of other problems with Iran.

Of course we do. But our No. 1 problem is the growing danger they will develop nuclear weapons. Our best chance

of stopping that is to work with the Europeans in showing Iran it can get more if it does the right thing, and what it risks if it does not. But we are sitting on the sidelines, in my view. Nothing Dr. Rice said gave me confidence we are really going to get on the playing field.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time do I have?

Over the past few years, President Putin has reversed the course of democratic development and the rule of law in Russia. The administration has been largely silent. How can we be so concerned about the advancement of democracy in the Middle East and so unconcerned about the regression in Russia?

The President gave a powerful, eloquent inaugural address about expanding freedom around the world. Every American shares that ideal-- it goes to who we are as a people, to our experience, and to our interests.

The question isn't the goal, it's how you achieve it. I wonder if the President plans on bringing a signed copy of his address to President Putin when he meets with him next month. I fear that in Russia and many other places, the gap between the administration's rhetoric and the reality of its policies is only going to get wider.

At the same time, we have gotten little in return for turning a blind eye to Russia's regression. One of the most important programs to protect America' security--the effort to help Russia account for, secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction and related materials-- has become mired in redtape that the two Presidents need to cut through.

Finally, in Darfur, Sudan we have watched a terrible tragedy unfold. Militia supported by the government have killed as many as 100,000 civilians and chased as many as 2 million from their homes.

Four months ago, before the Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary Powell rightly called it genocide. Since then, the situation has gotten even worse. Yet we heard virtually nothing from Dr. Rice about what the administration and Congress can do, now, to stop this slaughter and to help African allies develop their own peacekeeping capacity.

Let me end with something hopeful that Dr. Rice talked about: putting diplomacy back at the center of America's foreign policy.

That effort is long overdue. Be that as it may, I strongly agree with Dr. Rice that this is the time for a new diplomatic offensive with old allies, rising powers, and even hostile regimes.

But our diplomacy has to be sustained. It has to do as much listening as it does talking. And it has to use all the tools at our disposal.

Our military might is critical. It gives credibility to our diplomacy. And it gives us the most powerful tool in the world to act, if necessary, against dictators who are systematically abusing the rights of their people, or against regimes with no democratic checks that are harboring terrorists and amassing weapons of mass destruction.

But there are many other critical tools that have atrophied under this administration--our intelligence, our public diplomacy, our alliances, international organizations, treaties and agreements, development assistance, trade and investment. We need to wield them with the same determination with which we use force--even if it can be frustrating and even if the payoff takes years, even a generation.

That is what we did after World War II. That is why we prevailed in the Cold War.

Now, faced with a new but no less dangerous set of challenges, we must recapture the totality of America's strength.

Mr. President, I will conclude by suggesting that we are now faced with a new but no less dangerous set of challenges than we were in World War II, and we have to recapture the totality of America's strength.

Above all, we have to understand that those who spread radical Islamic fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction, although they may be beyond our reach and there is no choice but to confront them and to defeat them, there are still hundreds of millions of hearts and minds around the world who practice Islam who are open to American ideas and ideals, and we have to reach them.

Dr. Rice says she is going to make diplomacy her primary task. I will work with her in that effort.

One of my colleagues said--by the way, I want to note parenthetically that I think it is totally appropriate for Senator Dayton and Senator Kennedy and my friend from California to say what they have said, to take the positions they have taken. It is consistent with the facts as they see them. They choose to view one side of the coin. I am viewing the other side of the coin.

One of my colleagues said he is voting his notion that this is going to get worse. I forget the exact phrase my friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, used. Well, it reminded me of a comment by Samuel Johnson who described second marriages as the triumph of hope over experience. Well, I may be guilty in this second term of choosing hope over experience, because my experience thus far with this administration on foreign policy has been very disquieting. My hope is that the new--and I suspect she will be; I hope she will be confirmed-- the new Secretary of State will, in fact, play a role in trying to change that policy, engage in diplomacy, and use the totality of our strength, which includes our ideas and our ideals, as well as our military power.

I reserve whatever time I may have and thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I don't speak for those who are going to vote no today. But I think the irony here is that their no vote is a demonstration of how clearly we are united on one point: We want to win in Iraq.

The reason they are voting no is they believe Dr. Rice has misled, in many ways, and as a consequence undermined our ability to succeed. I choose to believe and take the opposite view. But I want to make it clear that those who say no today are actually doing a service to the Senate and possibly making it less likely that the Secretary of State will be less candid with us, or not as candid as she has been in the past. I think the no votes are likely to encourage candor, because that is what it is about. They are voting no in large part because they think she has not been candid and has undermined our ability to succeed.

I look forward to working with Dr. Rice. I suspect there will be an overwhelming vote. Please don't read a no vote as not being united in the effort to win in Iraq. That is why some of my colleagues are voting no; they think she has undermined our ability to win in Iraq. I choose to differ with them, but we do not differ on the point that we need to succeed in Iraq.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the Democratic Leader in introducing S. 12, a bill to combat international terrorism.

We all know that the primary security threat facing America is from terrorists motivated by a radical Islamic fundamentalism. Since the 9/ 11 attacks, we have done much to confront this threat, but we must do much more. As the 9/11 Commission reported, we are safer, but we are not yet safe. I know that all Senators are committed to the objective of making our country safer.

We must understand that those who would spread radical Islamic fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction are beyond the reach of reason. We must--and we will--defeat them. But hundreds of millions of hearts and minds around the world are open to American ideas and ideals. We must reach them.

This bill contains a range of proposals that are designed to strengthen our anti-terrorism efforts in a broad range of areas. It will strengthen our military by expanding our special forces. It will strengthen our intelligence operations by increasing the cadre of the trained linguists in the government. It will strengthen our public diplomacy by increasing funds for State Department programs, international exchanges, and international broadcasting. It will strengthen our effort to expand basic educational opportunities in the Muslim world and combat radical madrassas. It will strengthen our assistance to non-governmental organizations working to build democratic institutions. It will strengthen our programs to help Russia account for, secure and destroy dangerous nuclear materials. And it will strengthen our law enforcement by increasing support for cops on the beat--the people

who labor on the front lines of homeland security.

I cannot take credit for every proposal in this bill. Many of them are ideas contributed by my Democratic colleagues. The Democratic Leader has graciously allowed me to be the lead sponsor of the bill, for which I am grateful. I look forward to working with all my colleagues to strengthen America's defenses against the threat of terrorism--through this and other legislation--in the coming Congress.

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

Mr. president, I wish to speak briefly about section 7109 of the bill, which relates to public diplomacy responsibilities of the Department of State. I commend the conferees for setting forth the important statement that public diplomacy must be integral to American foreign policy. I don't have any doubt that Secretary Powell understands that fact, but it is worth codifying this statement in law.

Section 7109 adds a new section 60 to the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956, which, as the name implies, is the main operating statute for State Department activities. Subsection (b) of section 60 instructs the Secretary of State to make every effort to coordinate the public diplomacy activities of the Federal Government, and to coordinate with the Broadcasting Board of Governors to develop a strategy ``for the use of public diplomacy resources.''

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, is an agency that is separate and distinct from the Department of State. It was established as a separate agency in 1998 for an important reason: to place a ``firewall'' between the foreign policy makers and the journalists who operate our international broadcast services as a means of protecting journalistic integrity. The Board consists of nine members, one of whom is the Secretary of State. Of course, the two agencies do cooperate, as current law already instructs. The State Department has a voice in the Board's activities through the Secretary's seat on the Board, and the Department has a statutory mandate under the U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994 to provide ``information and guidance on foreign policy issues to the Board.'' And, by law, the Secretary must be consulted whenever decisions are made about adding or deleting language services.

The requirement for a strategy under section 60 must be read in light of this existing law. It does not breach the firewall. Rather, it recognizes the reality that creating a public diplomacy strategy for the Government will involve collaboration between the State Department and the BBG. The provision in this legislation does not give the Secretary any more authority with regard to the international broadcasting activities of the BBG than he has under current law, nor does it give the BBG any authority over other public diplomacy activities outside of international broadcasting.

Subsection (b) of section 7109 amends current law to further delineate the responsibilities of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Among other things, this subsection tells the Under Secretary to assist the Broadcasting Board of Governors to ``present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively,'' and to ``submit statements of United States policy and editorial material to the [BBG] for broadcast consideration.'' These provisions are consistent with the current practice under which editorial statements of U.S. policy are reviewed by

the Department of State. The language in the bill that material is to be submitted for ``broadcast consideration'' makes clear that final authority about what is to be broadcast rests with the BBG.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Isn't it true that the disadvantage to U.S. businesses of requiring smaller, more frequent shipments to each country of use is substantial? When a foreign entity seeks to import a schedule I or II drug, or a schedule III or IV narcotic from the United States, they must first secure an import permit that is shared with the U.S. manufacturer and DEA. Our companies then have 60 days in which to obtain independent safety and quality testing on each separate product batch to be shipped. Upon completion of that testing, the manufacturer submits a highly detailed export permit application for DEA's approval. If DEA fails to issue the permit within 60 days, the entire process must be restarted. Because independent testing is expensive and the export process is highly paper intensive, it is not unusual for companies to struggle against the 60-day deadline only to have to begin again. Unfortunately, while we engage in this burdensome process, patients suffer without their drugs and foreign physicians seek out substitutes to unreliable U.S. supplies.

This process was put in place long before the adoption of our international drug control treaties and the anti-diversion protections they provide. It is now outdated and unnecessary.

Will the Senator yield for another question?

While the Controlled Substances Act restrictions made sense when they were adopted over 30 years ago, would you agree that changes in the way international pharmaceutical markets work, and in the way controlled substances are tracked, and have since rendered the requirements unnecessary? Our legislation was developed in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration to ensure that all necessary anti-diversion controls remain.

Under our bill, each country is required to have an established system of controls deemed adequate by the DEA. Only DEA permit or license holders in those countries may receive regulated products. Re- exports are limited to one single cross-border transfer. The DEA must be satisfied by substantial evidence that the exported substance will be used to meet an actual medical, scientific or other legitimate need and that the second country of receipt will hold or issue appropriate import licenses or permits. The exporter must notify the DEA in writing within 30 days of a re-export, and an export permit must have been issued by the DEA.

The legislation specifically retains the Drug Enforcement Administration's authority to deny a request to export or re-export a controlled substance. A company seeking to export a drug for subsequent transfer must provide the DEA with exhaustive information on both the country of initial export and the countries to which the controlled substances would ultimately be destined. In addition, DEA must be provided follow-up notification of any cross border shipment within 30 days of that transfer. The U.S. Government will know where all drugs are being shipped and for what purpose. Without that information, U.S. pharmaceuticals will never leave our soil.

Mr. President, much of the Senate's attention this week was consumed with completing lingering business, be it, appropriations bills or debt extension. In contrast, I rise today to ask my colleagues to cast their eyes forward to a new matter that we must focus on when Congress reconvenes in January--the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. As most know, I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most important legislation I've championed during my 30- year tenure in the Senate. I care deeply about this law, and take seriously my responsibility to ensure it is funded and renewed.

After more than 5 years of hearings, and legislative drafts and redrafts, in September 1994, the Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Violence Against Women Act. The Violence Against Women Act created new Federal criminal laws addressing domestic violence and rape, and established discretionary grant programs within the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services for State, local, and Indian tribal governments and non-profit service organizations. The Violence Against Women Act of 2000 renewed these programs, made targeted improvements to certain provisions and introduced new initiatives.

Since the bill was enacted, we've witnessed an incredible transformation in State and Federal criminal and civil law enforcement, communities' victim services, and societal attitudes towards domestic violence and sexual assault. In 2004 alone, Congress spent $520 million for Violence Against Women programs. Over the past decade, nearly $3.8 billion has been appropriated to make women's homes and communities safer.

We've made extraordinary progress in ending violence against women and its devastating impact on families. With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act we started talking about that dirty little secret that no one wanted to say out loud. A rape victim or battered wife can now turn to a trained police officer, an emergency room nurse, or a 1-800 Hotline operator. We transformed private ``family matters'' into public crimes with true accountability and meaningful victim services.

The Violence Against Women Act is working. Since its enactment, domestic violence has dropped by almost 50 percent. Incidents of rape are down by 60 percent. The number of women killed by an abusive husband or boyfriend is down by 22 percent. More than half of all rape victims are stepping forward to report the crime. Over a million women have found justice in our courtrooms and obtained domestic violence protective orders. The signs of success abound.

But progress is not enough. Sadly, domestic violence and sexual assault persist. As more and more brave women are stepping forward to report a rape or seek a restraining order against an abusive husband, more demands are

placed on women's shelters, state prosecutors, courtroom victim advocates, and other resources. We cannot let the Violence Against Women Act become a victim of its own success. Instead, it must be soundly and quickly reauthorized next year.

Despite best efforts, a complete bill reauthorizing the Act is not yet ready for introduction today. However, a draft is near completion. I am listening closely to those on the front lines--police, trial judges, emergency room nurses and many others--and making targeted improvements to existing grant programs and tightening up criminal laws. We are learning about the new challenges and the persistent problems of old. A wide variety of groups are working with me to put together the next iteration of the Violence Against Women Act, including the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Family Violence and Prevention Fund, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, Legal Momentum, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic Violence, the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Center for Victims of Crime, National District Attorneys Association, the National Council on Family and Juvenile Court Judges, the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association and the American Medical Association.

The Violence Against Women Act of 2005 that I intend to introduce at the commencement of the next Congressional session is a comprehensive and ambitious bill that will move our country forward in our fight to end family violence. The reauthorization will include at least nine titles. Major components of title I on the courts and crime include provisions to: 1. renew existing foundational programs for law enforcement, lawyers, judges and advocates; 2. stiffen existing criminal penalties for repeat federal domestic violence offenders; 3. appropriately update the stalking criminal law to incorporate new surveillance technology like Global Positioning Systems (GPS); and 4. ensure that offender re-entry programs develop procedures and resources for prisoners with a history of family violence. Title II on victim services would, among other items: 1. create a new dedicated program for rape crisis centers; 2. reinvigorate programs to help older and disabled victims of domestic violence; and 3. strengthen existing programs for rural victims and victims in underserved areas.

I am particularly heartened by new titles that deal with children and teenagers. Reports indicate that from three to ten million children are experiencing domestic violence in their homes each year. Treating children who witness domestic violence, dealing quickly with violent teenage relationships and teaching prevention to children and teenagers are keys to ending the violence.

In some instances, women face the untenable choice of returning to their abuser or becoming homeless. Indeed, 44 percent of the Nation's mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. In response, efforts to ease the housing problems for battered women are contained in my draft bill.

Doctors and nurses, like police officers on the beat, are often the first witnesses of the devastating aftermath of abuse. As first responders, they must be fully engaged in the effort to end the violence and have the tools they need to faithfully screen, treat and study family violence. My bill would strengthen the health care system's response to family violence with programs to train and educate health care professionals on domestic and sexual violence, foster family violence screening for patients, and more studies on the health ramifications of family violence.

Leaving a violent partner often requires battered women to achieve a level of economic security. The next iteration of the Violence Against Women Act should seek to help abused women maintain secure employment, insurance coverage, and child support resources.

In addition, my bill would improve and expand the immigration protections for battered women. I am very appreciative of Senator Kennedy's leadership and expertise on this issue. In addition, it would ensure that victims of trafficking are supported with measures such as permitting their families to join them in certain circumstances, expanding the duration of a T-visa, and providing resources to victims who assist in investigations or prosecutions of trafficking cases brought by State or Federal authorities. Finally, my bill will focus more closely on violence against Indian women and suggest ways to better coordinate services to Indian women.

I am pleased to be working on such a thorough effort to renew the Violence Against Women Act. I believe this bill raises important issues, and pushes local and federal policymakers to ask what more should be done for battered women and their children. In the coming weeks, I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to craft a compromise measure. Senator Hatch and the Judiciary Committee's new Chairman, Senator Specter and Ranking Member Senator Leahy, have long supported the Violence Against Women Act and I am confident that we will work together to create an effective reauthorization bill. I also appreciate the efforts in the House of Representatives including those of a long-standing champion of the Violence Against Women, Representative Conyers.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor a great Delawarean and a great American, David Dietz. David is a stellar example of an individual whose remarkable success in business has not diminished his commitment to the betterment of his community and those in need.

If you traveled around Delaware asking folks about David Dietz, you would quickly learn the extent of his impact. In the business world, David has served on numerous committees, won an abundance of awards, and his restaurant, the Brandywine Brewing Company, in Greenville, has been named the Best of Delaware several times over. Yet I believe that it is when David steps out of his role as businessman and entrepreneur he truly shines.

David is a man with many causes--juvenile diabetes, child abuse prevention--but it is his involvement with women's health that moves me to recognize him today.

In 1993, as a response to Delaware's high breast cancer mortality rate, my wife Jill was driven to form the Biden Breast Health Initiative. BBHI is a nonprofit organization devoted to educating young women on breast health and the importance of early detection in fighting breast cancer. Two years ago, BBHI introduced the Educate For Life scholarship program, which offers three grants to Delaware high school seniors--one student from each of Delaware's counties--who will pursue educational opportunities in the fields of health care or education. This year, as well as the year of its inception, the Educate for Life benefit has been sponsored by David's restaurant, and it has been a resounding success.

David not only generously donates his time and expertise to the planning and implementation of the event, but also a portion of the evening's proceeds. We could not do it without him and his staff.

For his deeply felt responsibility to the community, for his dedication to being a man of action and not just words, and for his ability to reach out to others in need, I am pleased to acknowledge David Dietz.

Mr. President, I was not able to participate in today's debate and vote on the extension of the national debt limit. I was attending the funeral of a great civil rights leader in Delaware, Jane E. Mitchell. Had I been here to vote, Mr. President, I would have cast a symbolic vote against an extension of the debt limit. Today's fiscal mess, the transformation of historic surpluses into record deficits, is not an accident. It is the inevitable outcome of policies that consistently ignored evidence and experience.

When we launched out on a course of tax cutting, with expanding domestic and international obligations and responsibilities, many of us in Congress argued that we could not afford to do everything, that we needed a fiscal policy that matched our revenues with our expenditures. Some tax cuts, especially for the middle class, were needed, tax cuts that could have revived job growth and aided economic recovery. Instead, we have a policy that calls for permanent tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor those who are already well off. When twice the administration asked us to appropriate funds for our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, I stood here on the Senate floor and said that we should pay for those obligations with smaller tax cuts for our wealthiest taxpayers, and not just pass the bill on to all our children.

We are here today because that advice was ignored, those hard choices were ducked, and the bill for our decisions will be sent to our children and grandchildren, in the form of the additional debt we will authorize today. It did not have to be this way, Mr. President. In the next Congress, the threat of massive deficits, which have made us increasingly dependent of foreign lenders to stay afloat, will still be with us. My symbolic vote against raising the debt limit would have been a protest of the policies that have brought us to this point, and a demand that we change course.

Mr. President, I wish to honor the life of a truly great woman, Jane E. Mitchell. She passed away on Saturday, November 13, after 83 years of standing up for the rights of others. Her impact on the State of Delaware is profound, and her spirit everlasting.

Many in Delaware know Jane Mitchell as the wife of Littleton ``Lit'' Mitchell, Delaware's first African-American lawyer and a remarkable force in the civil rights movement. With all of his astounding accomplishments, though, Lit never made a decision without talking it over with Jane. She may not have had his public profile, but she certainly knew the intricacies of the issues and just how much was at stake.

Far beyond her role as the wife of an influential man, Jane Mitchell was an extraordinary person in her own right. Her life is a story of achievement--each one greater than the last. In her nursing career, Jane began making history by being the first African-American at Delaware State Hospital to treat both black and white patients. Her career led her to become the first African-American nursing director in the State, and she was eventually the president of the State Board of Nursing and vice-president of the Delaware Nurses Association before her retirement.

After retiring, Jane Mitchell devoted her life to volunteering. Her causes were numerous, and she was passionately committed to each. She continued her work in medicine and civil rights, and became a powerful voice in the fight to improve the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1998, a building was erected in her name at the Delaware Psychiatric Center.

Jane E. Mitchell has been described as a pioneer, a trailblazer and a heroine. She devoted her life to promoting the welfare of others. Whether it was in her role as nurse, advocate, volunteer or wife and mother, Jane never wavered in her enthusiasm for doing good and making a difference. I am saddened by her passing, yet she continues to inspire me. Jane Mitchell's legacy is great, and I am honored to recognize her today.

Mr. President, today the Senate considered a protocol to the current tax convention between the United States and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There is substantial trade and cross- border investment between our two countries; the tax convention provides an important basis for facilitating this economic relationship. The original convention was concluded in the early 1990s, and there have been several developments in U.S. tax treaty policy in the intervening years that the protocol seeks to address. It contains several significant provisions, including a revised provision designed to ensure that the treaty cannot be used for inappropriate purposes--a so-called antitreaty-shopping provision. I commend Chairman Lugar for his diligence in bringing the protocol before the Senate.

During the Foreign Relations Committee's review of the protocol, I raised a concern about a provision in the current treaty that is not addressed by the protocol. Article 24(1) of the current treaty permits the United States to tax former citizens for a period of 10 years after they lose their citizenship, if the loss of their citizenship has as one of its principal purposes the avoidance of income tax. With one exception, this provision in the treaty is consistent with U.S. law-- specifically, section 877 of the Internal Revenue Code--as it existed at the time the treaty was concluded. The exception is this: the treaty does not allow the United States to tax former citizens who become nationals of the Netherlands. Such an exclusion for nationals of the treaty partner is unique in our tax treaty practice; it is not found in any other treaty, nor is it contained in our model treaty.

The protocol before the Senate does not close this gap. Consistent with statutory amendments made by Congress in 1996, it does extend the taxation authority of the United States to former long-term residents who leave the United States to avoid taxation. But the exclusion for nationals of the Netherlands remains.

Maintaining this exclusion for nationals of the Netherlands is unwarranted, and raises two concerns. First, I wanted to be sure that retaining the exclusion would not serve as a precedent in future tax treaty negotiations. The Treasury Department has noted that such an exclusion for nationals of the treaty partner has not been included in over two dozen tax treaties negotiated since the treaty with the Netherlands entered into force. More important, the Treasury has committed in writing that it does not intend the provision in the Netherlands treaty to serve as a precedent in the future.

Second, I was concerned that maintaining the exclusion might subvert the purpose of section 877 of the Internal Revenue Code. Based on the information we have received from the Treasury, and after consultation with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, it seems unlikely that the provision in the treaty will, in practice, undermine the operation of section 877. The reasons for this are set forth in detail in the materials that I will seek to include in the Record.

Finally, it is worth noting that Congress amended section 877 in section 804 of The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, also known as the FSC/ETI bill, which was enacted last month. The primary purpose of the provision remains: to continue to tax people who expatriate in order to avoid tax. But the test under the revised section 877 is a more objective test--one based on income levels--than had been applied under the prior law. A question therefore arises about the relationship between the revised language in section 877 and the provision in the U.S.-Netherlands treaty, which uses a more subjective test of whether a ``principal purpose'' of the expatriating act is to avoid taxation. In a letter that I will insert in the Record, the Treasury has set forth information about its intentions for applying the treaty provision in light of the revisions to section 877.

The committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing on the protocol on September 24, 2004. The committee did not vote on the protocol, however, and therefore there is no committee report. So that may colleagues and the public will have a better understanding of the issues I have described, I will ask consent to include two sets of documents in the Record. The first is a series of questions for the record that I submitted after the hearing, and the responses from the Treasury witness at the hearing, Barbara Angus, who serves as the international tax counsel at the Department. It should be noted that these questions and answers for the record were written before enactment of the revisions to section 877 of the Internal Revenue Code in the FSC/ETI bill. The second set of documents is an exchange of letters between myself and Ms. Angus on November 15, 2004, which elaborates on the issues that I have discussed, including the Department's intentions for interpreting the revisions to section 877.

Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the materials I have described.

Mr. President, I rise today to commend the Senate for its actions yesterday in passing the Justice for All Act of 2004, bipartisan, bicameral legislation I sponsored along with Senator Hatch and others. And I commend the other body for swiftly acting in passing the same legislation last evening. I hope the bill will now be signed into law without delay. This is one of the most important pieces of legislation I have ever introduced and one of the most important things the Senate will consider during the 108th Congress.

As I have said many times, DNA has become the guilty man's worst enemy and the innocent man's best friend. It is a two-edged sword which we must use to both put criminals behind bars and exonerate anyone who has been wrongfully convicted. I started looking at the issue of improved prosecution of sexual assault crimes almost two decades ago when I began drafting the Violence Against Women Act. This legislation is the next step, a way to connect the dots between the extraordinary strides in DNA technology and my commitment to ending violence against women. We must ensure that justice delayed is not justice denied.

For 3 years now, I have called on Congress to enact this important legislation. In 2002, I introduced with Senator Specter, S. 2513, the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2002. That Senate unanimously passed that bill during the 107th Congress, but the House failed to act. That bill grew out of a series of hearing I chaired in the Judiciary Committee which focused on the crisis involving untested rape kits sitting in police evidence bins around the country, each one containing the key to solving a sexual assault crime and putting a rapist behind bars. My hearings included testimony estimating that there were 300,000 to 500,000 untested rape kits nationwide.

In some of the most moving testimony I have heard in my 32 years in this body, we listened to Debbie Smith describe the horror of being the victim of sexual assault, followed by an additional 6 years of terror while awaiting the apprehension of her rapist. As I will discuss in a moment, the key to Debbie's road to recovery lay in an untested rape kit connected to her assault. Finally, that rape kit was tested, her assailant was identified and convicted, and she began to find closure.

In followup to the Senate's passage of S. 2513, I introduced at the start of the 108th Congress with Senator Specter S. 152, the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2003. That legislation built upon S. 2513 from the prior Congress and was again joined by over 20 bipartisan cosponsors. The DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2003 provided the hundreds of millions of Federal dollars desperately needed by state and local crime labs around the country to clear out the backlog of hundreds of thousands of untested DNA evidence kits from sexual assaults and other violent crimes.

An important provision of S. 152 allowed the Justice Department to bring ``John Doe/DNA'' indictments against an unknown or unnamed perpetrator of sexual assault in any case where a DNA sample from the suspect was recovered from a crime scene. This innovative procedure would allow prosecutors to investigate and indict sex crimes, even where the victim could not identify her assailant, thus preventing the statute of limitations from expiring before the perpetrator could be identified and charged. My ``John Doe/DNA'' indictment provision became law in 2003 as part of the Protect Act/Amber Alert Act, S. 151/H.R. 1104.

Last year, Senator Hatch and I introduced S. 1700, the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003, which contained most of the key elements of S. 152. We were joined by Senators Specter, Leahy, DeWine and Feinstein and dozens of other cosponsors in this legislation. For the last year, disagreements over a specific title of S. 1700, the Innocence Protection Act, held up consideration of the bill. Members from both sides of the aisle were supportive of my DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act, which was included in other titles of the bill. I am pleased that we finally reached a compromise on the very important title addressing post-conviction DNA testing, which cleared the way to consider the entire bill. We have also added into the legislation important victims' right provisions, resulting in the newly named Justice for All Act of 2004.

The bill we passed yesterday, a combination of the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology and the victims' rights legislation, harnesses the power of DNA to give prompt justice to victims of sexual assault crimes and to free the wrongly convicted. This bill takes every component of DNA technology and makes it accessible and more useful to Federal, State and local law enforcement, to prosecutors and defense attorneys, to medical personnel and to victims of crime.

Promoting and supporting DNA technology as a crime-fighting tool is not a new endeavor for me. A provision of my 1994 Crime Bill created the Combined DNA Index System, CODIS, which is an electronic database of DNA profiles, much like the FBI's fingerprint database. CODIS includes two kinds of DNA information--convicted offender DNA samples and DNA from crime scenes. CODIS uses the two indexes to generate investigative leads in crimes where biological evidence is recovered from the scene. In essence, CODIS facilitates the DNA match. And once that match is made, a crime is solved because of the incredible accuracy and durability of DNA evidence.

Mr. President, 99.9 percent--that is how accurate DNA evidence is. Mr. President, 1 in 30 billion--those are the odds someone else committed a crime if a suspect's DNA matches evidence at the crime scene. Twenty or 30 years--that is how long DNA evidence from a crime scene lasts. Just ten years ago DNA analysis of evidence could have cost thousands of dollars and taken months; now testing one sample costs $40 and can take days. Ten years ago forensic scientists needed blood the size of a bottle cap, now DNA testing can be done on a sample the size of a pinhead. The changes in DNA technology are remarkable, and mark a sea change in how we can fight crime, particularly sexual assault crimes.

The FBI reports that since 1998 the national DNA database has helped put away violent criminals in over 9,000 investigations in 50 states. How? By matching the DNA crime evidence to the DNA profiles of offenders. Individual success stories of DNA ``cold hits'' in sexual assault cases make these numbers all too real. During just the last several months, DNA evidence pinpointed a suspect in 3 rapes in Miami, Florida, caused a man to be charged in a 20-year-old Missouri rape case, proved critical in convicting a New York man accused of committing 9 rapes over a decade, helped charge a man in a 28-year-old San Francisco rape and homicide case, and resulted in the charges against a Virginia man in a 23-year-old rape case. All across this country, rapists and murderers are getting caught for crimes which are often years or even decades old. Crime solved, streets safer.

Undoubtedly, DNA matching by comparing evidence gathered at the crime scene with offender samples entered on the national DNA database has proven to be the deciding factor in solving stranger sexual assault cases--it has revolutionized the criminal justice system, and brought closure and justice for victims. A laboratory expert testified that Virginia has a 48 percent hit rate because the State collects samples from all convicted felons and aggressively analyzes crime scene evidence with no backlog. This means that almost 1 out of every 2 violent crimes could be solved by the national DNA database.

In light of the past successes and the future potential of DNA evidence, the reported number of untested rape kits and other crime scene evidence waiting in police warehouses are simply shocking--the Justice Department recently estimated the number to be as many as 500,000. One woman in particular has reminded State and Federal lawmakers that we cannot ignore even one rape kit sitting on a shelf gathering dust. That woman is Debbie Smith. In 1989, Mrs. Smith was taken from her home and brutally raped. There were no known suspects, and Mrs. Smith lived in fear of her attacker's return. Six years later, the Virginia crime laboratory discovered a DNA match between the rape scene evidence and a state prisoner's DNA sample. That ``cold hit'' gave Mrs. Smith her first moment of real security and closure, and since then she has traveled the country to

advocate on behalf of assault victims and champion the use of DNA to fight sexual assault.

The bill approved yesterday provides over $755 million over 5 years to eliminate the backlog in rape kits and other crime scene evidence, eliminate the backlog of convicted offender samples awaiting DNA testing, and improve state laboratory capacity to conduct DNA testing. I am pleased that the backlog elimination grant program in this legislation is entitled, ``The Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grants.'' It is a fitting tribute.

The Justice for All Act of 2004 is a natural extension to the Violence Against Women Act, which required the Attorney General to evaluate and recommend standards for training and practice for licensed health care professionals performing sexual assault forensic exams. So I knew that any DNA bill aimed at ending sexual assault must include resources for sexual forensic examiners. This bill provides $500 million in training grants to help ensure that nurses, police and paramedics know how to best collect and preserve DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and to help local law enforcement agencies put the DNA profiles of convicted felons into state and national databases.

The bill also expands the CODIS database by mandating the inclusion of DNA samples from all convicted federal felons, and by permitting states to include the DNA samples from suspects arrested for and charged with a crime. At the same time, our bill retains important provisions to expunge DNA samples from the database for those whose convictions are overturned or against whom criminal charges are dropped. The bill also contains tough new penalties for the improper use or disclosure of DNA samples.

Today's bill also makes two small, but important, amendments to the Violence Against Women Act. First, it amends the law to include legal assistance for victims of dating violence, and it amends the eligibility criteria for discretionary programs so that tribal domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions can directly receive grants funds, including those funds unreleased from past fiscal years.

I am also gratified that this legislation includes the Innocence Protection Act, which I cosponsored last Congress with Senator Leahy. This section will immeasurably improve the administration of justice in our legal system, particularly where justice is most important, and where we can least afford to make mistakes--imposition of the death penalty. Those who support the death penalty also have a duty to ensure that it is fairly administered. The advent of DNA testing has provided us with a wealth of opportunities to make certain that we are prosecuting the right people. This legislation makes post-conviction testing to federal inmates who assert that they did not commit the crime for which they have been imprisoned. It also incentivizes States to take similar measures to ensure that individuals have a proper opportunity to prove their innocence. It also mandates proper preservation of DNA evidence so that the DNA can be tested if appropriate.

As for competent counsel in death penalty cases, nobody can look me in the eye and tell me that our system for representation in capital cases works as it should. This bill will take a big step toward fixing that by providing money for grants to States to improve their systems of representation, on both the prosecution and defense side, in capital cases.

In closing, I would be remiss if I did not pause to thank some of the many people who have helped bring about the introduction of this bill. In particular, I wish to thank Senator Hatch, the chairman the Judiciary Committee, for devoting so much time and effort to work with me in developing this legislation, along with his chief counsel Bruce Artim and his counsels Brett Tolman and Mike Volkov. I also commend Senator Leahy, the distinguished ranking member of the committee, and his chief counsel Bruce Cohen and senior counsel Julie Katzman, who have worked tirelessly on this bill, and is the principal sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act. I also thank our other principal Senate sponsors, including Senator Specter and his chief counsel David Brog; Senator DeWine, and his counsel Rob Steinbuch; and Senator Feinstein and her chief counsel David Hantman.

I also commend our colleagues in the other body who led the fight in the House of Representatives to enact this important legislation. Their efforts were instrumental in achieving the final bill both bodies passed yesterday. Specifically, I commend Representative Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and his staff, including Phil Kiko, Jay Apperson, and Katy Crooks. I also thank Ranking Member Conyers and his staff, including Perry Applebaum and Bobby Vassar. I also thank Representative Delahunt for his leadership, and his counsels Mark Agrast and Christine Leonard.

Finally, I thank my own staff who have worked diligently over the last 3 years to pass this important legislation, including Louisa Terrell, Jonathan Meyer, and Neil MacBride.

Mr. President, yesterday's action by Congress were a long time coming, and I join my cosponsors in thanking our colleagues for passing this legislation. I now hope the President will quickly sign this bill into law, so that we can finally tackle the untested rape kits and start bringing hope and closure to victims of sexual assault.

Mr. President, I compliment the chairman and ranking member of the committee.

This bill was held up for a long while. Provisions were added to the bill, which I totally support, that will allow people who were wrongly accused of having committed crimes to be able to have DNA testing to prove their innocence.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand why this is so important. All of you should know so you can tell your constituents. In fact, we set up a provision in the crime bill whereby when there is a rape or a sexual assault, we have put a lot of money--you have put a lot of money over the years into providing for training of police, training forensic nurses and doctors to be able to take DNA samples.

There are over 800,000 so-called rape case kits sitting on shelves of the cities where you live and the States you represent. They have never been tested because of the cost of testing them. The bottom line is that an estimated 48 percent of outstanding rapes could be solved by just comparing the database that will come from testing these kits and the existing database in our State prison systems where DNA is already on the record. This will liberate thousands of women from the fear and concern that the man who raped them is out there and will be back again.

We have done a good thing today. You should let your people back home know. It is a big deal.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, unless someone else wishes to speak on this, 15 minutes. I think I can do it in 10, but let's say 15 minutes to protect myself.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this is very straightforward. Right now, the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee are ex officio members of the Intelligence Committee, with no voting rights, no requirement that they be there to make a quorum. Quite frankly, they are there to be able to listen when they seek to do that.

Senator Lugar and I are proposing the same exact status be made available for the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. I know the argument will be, why don't we make everybody, every chairman, every ranking member, ex officio members? But the Foreign Relations Committee does need access to this information.

I know it will come as a shock, but because of the necessary requirement of focusing on certain subject matters, which hopefully we gain some expertise on, the Foreign Relations Committee and its chairman and ranking member, hopefully, have some insights occasionally which other Members may not have because they do not spend the time on that issue. Just as in the Armed Services Committee, the ranking member and the chairman may have access to information that is not intelligence information but is information that would shed light upon judgments being made by the Intelligence Committee as a consequence of information made available by the CIA and other intelligence operations. Because, as we all know, intelligence operations can have major impacts for good or for ill on American foreign policy.

I am necessarily, as we all are, restrained from giving contemporary examples of that, but I have been here a long time and go back to the period of the Cold War. I sat on the Intelligence Committee at the time, but I was not a ranking member. I was on the Intelligence Committee for 10 years, I think as long as anybody who served in this body. There may be somebody who served longer than me on that committee. But one of the things I learned is occasionally the Intelligence Committee would come up with initiatives made available under our special rules, which are necessary, special rules that are applicable only to the Intelligence Committee, and access and brief only the Intelligence Committee, and many members on the committee would not be aware that there were totally different operations going on on a diplomatic front or on an arms control front or on a matter relating to national security that were not explicitly--explicitly-- intelligence matters.

Let me give you a few examples without giving, obviously, the details, but generic examples. Intelligence collection and analysis are essential to the verification of compliance with arms control and nonproliferation agreements. A few years ago, we on the Foreign Relations Committee heard that a particular intelligence system that is important to that function--that is, collecting intelligence for compliance on nonproliferation treaties and arms control--we heard that function was in danger of being lost.

We took the initiative. We raised it with the Intelligence Committee because we had heard this. We let them know what we had heard to make sure the executive branch retained this particular system that we believed, in the Foreign Relations Committee, was essential to a matter relating to nonproliferation, something that most of the members on the Intelligence Committee, understandably, serving on many committees other than Foreign Relations or Armed Services, did not see the particular relevance of. So when briefed by the Intelligence Committee, it seemed all right. It didn't seem like this particular system was critical for a foreign policy initiative that was underway and a treaty that existed. And by the way, we only heard about it from someone in the executive branch who had made it known to a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Intelligence is also needed to give warning of new dangers and opportunities around the world. That may require different capabilities from those of us who serve on the Armed Services Committee or who served in the Armed Services. The Armed Services Committee rightly worries about intelligence support for military operations. Why is that unrelated to major diplomatic operations? That can have as much consequence on American security as tactical military operations.

The Foreign Relations Committee has a concern to ensure that there is a balance, that U.S. intelligence resources are not devoted primarily or overwhelmingly to tactical targets. My friend, the chairman of the committee, may disagree with me, but if I translate that, we only have so many assets that can be brought to bear. If I can make an analogy to the FBI, there are only 11,600 FBI agents, I think maybe 11,800. By the way, I might note, before 9/11 there were only 11,300. So we haven't done much there.

But let's assume we say what is going on right now. There is a decision being made that those agents should focus on counterterror. That is a legitimate issue. But what about the Mafia? What about organized crime units that deal in drugs that are not involved in terror? It is a legitimate issue to debate as to where the resources should be placed. Of that 11,800, you have about 4,000 people to be made available. You only have so many satellites. You only have so many agents. You only have so many resources. And, understandably, the Armed Services Committee wants to make sure those resources are focused on those tactical issues that are critically important.

I am not suggesting they should not. But there should be a voice there that is fully informed on the foreign policy side and has access that other members of the Foreign Relations Committee do not have because, as we all know, there are certain things that are made available to the Foreign Relations Committee, under our rules, only to the ranking member and only to the chairman and not the whole membership. And so absent having the fact that we have a member who may be brighter than and more informed than the chairman or the ranking member, they don't have the same access. They don't have the same access to all the diplomatic initiatives that are underway.

So if it makes sense to have Armed Services have tactical input here, it seems to me that this false separation of our foreign policy and our defense policy is one of the reasons we got ourselves in trouble to begin with. What are we doing now? We are agreeing to change the rules. We are about to change the rules, I hope, when we get into reorganizing this body. And we are going to say no longer is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee not able to serve on Armed Services, and no longer is a member of Armed Services not able to serve on the Foreign Relations Committee. Why? We are going around making sure that there are not stovepipes in the Intelligence Committee. We finally figured out there should not be stovepipes in terms of information and access and expertise as it relates to strategic doctrine, foreign policy, and tactical military operations. It is necessary.

I know of one matter on which we were kept in the dark for some months, then briefed earlier this year. And we have gotten no information since. We go back, the chairman and I, and say: We want more information.

They say: We already told the Intelligence Committee.

Then the Intelligence Committee tells us, which is literally true: We can come and read whatever it is that is there.

We all know how this place works. If you are not there in the middle of a hearing, if you are not there in that closed session, if you are not able to probe what is being said and have a perspective that may be different than the members of the committee, you are not likely to get the information.

That is especially true because if we gained information as ex officio members of the Intelligence Committee, we would be bound by the same nondisclosure rules that apply to other members of the Intelligence Committee. I found in my 10 years on the Intelligence Committee--I think that is longer served time than anybody who presently sits on the Intelligence Committee, or as long; I could be wrong about that--I found, as one of my friends said early on when I got put on that committee originally: I don't want to go on because it is like Pac-Man. They will tell you information that you otherwise could learn, but once they have told you, you can't disclose it because if you do, even though it appears in the New York Times, you have violated the law.

One of the things that is useful, I find that people are much more open with me as a junior member of the Intelligence Committee rather than a 31-year member of the Foreign Relations Committee. So we would be bound by the same rules. The Foreign Relations Committee also has a major concern for the safety and security of overseas embassies. We have shared that concern in this regard with the Intelligence Committee, which doesn't want to see intelligence personnel or information put at risk by ineffective security in our embassies. We will be able to pursue that shared interest more effectively if our chairman and ranking member have ready access to the information on this security and security around the world.

And lastly, because I am getting pretty close here, the idea of being able to completely separate the functioning of our State Department and the functioning of the intelligence community in little neat boxes does not comport with reality. That is not how it works.

Other than the present chairman of the committee maybe not wanting the Government expense of adding two more chairs at the table, I quite frankly don't understand what the problem is.

I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. President, you know, one of the problems of being around here a while is that you get in this body and you take things in a personal context. This has nothing to do with overseeing the Intelligence Committee. This is about expanding the capability of the Intelligence Committee.

Let me give my friend an example. I think he totally misses the point. He views this as an assault on the committee, a weakening. We are looking at them. I wonder if the Senator is aware that on the Foreign Relations Committee, there are numerous occasions when the ranking member and chairman are made aware by the Secretary of State and/or the President himself of a diplomatic initiative that they have no idea is about to be undertaken. I wonder if he knows that. It is not about the collection of intelligence, it is about a diplomatic initiative.

Let me make something up. Assume we were having great difficulty with Canada and they are our enemy. The President and Secretary of State call the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee down to get our judgment on whether, if we made the following entree diplomatically to a particular group in Canada--say, Quebec--we might be able to move the ball, and, at the same time, the Intelligence Committee is hearing information that is meat and potatoes, critically important, that there is an initiative underway in the Intelligence Committee to eavesdrop upon the undertakings of the very people who are about to make this initiative. It might be a useful thing, not an assault on the chairman or a diminution of his authority but another access and avenue of, hopefully, an informed person with a different perspective on something that is not banking, or it is not agriculture; it is serious stuff.

We tend, when we think about intelligence, to think only in terms of covert operations and the military. The fact is, that is part of our problem. This false separation of the conduct of American foreign policy and the policy of our strategic doctrine and our tactical doctrine is part of our problem. So this is not about sitting down and babysitting, or whatever the phrase used by my friend was; this is about being collaborative and letting them maybe know a perspective they didn't know.

Lastly, we all have access to all kinds of information. The problem is, unless we are essentially tasked with the responsibility and obligation, there is so much we have to do, we don't get to do it. I know what the chairman is worried about: this guy sitting next to me. I hired him in the Intelligence Committee 20 years ago. He sat there for 10 years. Now he works for me on the Foreign Relations Committee. There is a worry--not about my particular colleague on my left--but we will have staff there that will do what they do in every committee if they attend a hearing: Mr. Chairman, this is about to happen, and it is a small thing and it totally conflicts with what you have been told by the Secretary of State and it may be useful.

Do I have any time beyond that?

The bottom line is, I wish we would get together in this place and stop viewing everything as sort of an assault on somebody else's jurisdiction. This is not about that. I got off of the Intelligence Committee. I was on the Intelligence Committee, the Budget Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. I concluded that I could not do all four of those, so I got off. I gave up the chairmanship of the Budget Committee because I didn't think I could do that and my job on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee.

The strength of this institution lies in our willingness to recognize the contribution that each of us can make, the perspective we bring to the table, and, occasionally, just maybe a degree of expertise that maybe another colleague doesn't have. I clearly do not have the expertise of my colleague on the Intelligence Committee on intelligence matters now. He is fully, contemporaneously, totally informed. I don't have the competence on matters relating to the Banking Committee and the international banking system as the chairman and ranking member do because that is their obligation. I don't have the competence my friend from Alaska has on the Appropriations Committee and how all these pieces fit together, but I respectfully suggest that I might be able to contribute.

Whoever succeeds me--the Senator from Connecticut, I think, is next in line to be chairman or ranking member of the Foreign Relations--I respectfully suggest he has a perspective that might be useful.

Why do we view this in terms of competition? If you hang around this place long enough, you kind of go through a couple phases, one of which is you end up sometimes not recognizing the potential strength that lies here.

Senator Hagel and Senator Rockefeller are brilliant members of the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Rockefeller, because he is the cochairman, has not been able to attend one-fifth of our hearings, and he should not be at our hearings. He should be doing the work of the Intelligence Committee because that is his primary responsibility. Senator Hagel is the same way. They are both incredibly well-informed people. They both serve on the committee, but they do not have the full access Senator Lugar has to every diplomatic initiative that Senator Lugar may be aware of or the particular concerns or the sensitivity of a particular initiative and at a particular time.

I conclude by saying, I go back to my days on the Intelligence Committee. I happened to be aware, only because Senator Pell made me aware, of an initiative that was underway in a particular Eastern European country. At the time, Mr. Casey and Ugell were running operations there. Only because I was made aware by the chairman of the committee of what he had been briefed on and was allowed to communicate was I able to say in a hearing and I think--I don't know this for a fact. I know I asked for two hearings, as a member of the Intelligence Committee of the entire Senate. I demanded there be a secret hearing, that we close the doors, only Senators, no staff. It does not often happen because you only have one of two choices when you are informed about what you think is a dangerous initiative that is underway in the intelligence community. You go forward and you blow it and you suffer the consequences, you have broken the law, or under the laws, you can ask for a secret meeting of the Senate.

There was an operation that was proposed. This is years ago in the early days of the Reagan administration, relating to the very country in which there was a serious diplomatic initiative being made, in a sense covertly, not by the intelligence community, but by the State Department and the White House.

When I made the Congress aware of that, it was concluded that maybe it was not a good operation, and I signed on that piece of paper. You still have to sign off: I oppose this action. Whether it is because I did that or not, I cannot say, but the action was jettisoned. It was ill-conceived and totally at odds with the initiative the Reagan administration had going over in another piece of it. I do not know if that was a positive contribution or not, but I can tell you it was a different perspective.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Will the Senator yield for a question? I will be very brief.

I used to have a friend who used to say: You have to know how to know.

The Senator has been on the Intelligence Committee long enough to know that unless one is there and they know what has been said, reading the report is not particularly relevant half the time. My question is this: What is the problem? The committee does not have enough seats? The committee does not have enough chairs if we walk in? What is the deal? What is the concern? That we would release the information more than anyone else on the committee might?

I mean, I am a little confused. Like from that line in the movie: What is the story, Richie? What is the problem? What is the downside? Do we breathe too much of the oxygen in the room? Are we going to take up more time? I do not quite get it.

I understand what the Senator says about how we are covering it. What I do not understand is, no one has said to me what is the downside of Senator Lugar being able to, when he feels like it, show up, sit there and ask questions just like the Senator asks questions because he has a perspective. I am a little curious about that.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the chairman have 2 minutes to respond.

I do not believe that is accurate.

Mr. President, Senator Specter and I introduce today the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004, which takes direct aim at reducing recidivism rates for our Nation's ex-offenders and improving the transition for these offenders from prison back into the community.

All too often we think about today, but not tomorrow. We look to short-term solutions for long- term problems. We need to have a change in thinking and approach. It's time we face the dire situation of prisoners reentering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing, lack of positive influences, a paucity of basic physical and mental health services, and deficient basic life skills.

The bill we introduce today is about providing a second chance for these ex-offenders, and the children and families that depend on them. It's about strengthening communities and ensuring safe neighborhoods.

Since my 1994 Crime Bill passed, we've had great success in cutting down on crime rates in this country. Under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, we've funded over 114,000 officers all across the country. And our crime rate has plummeted. Murder is down 37.8 percent, rape 19.1 percent, and aggravated assaults 28 percent. The overall crime rate sharply declined by 28 percent.

But now, we are seeing some troubling indicators that crime is back on the rise. Murder was up 2.5 percent in 2001, 1 percent in 2002, and 1.3 percent in 2003. Forcible rape is up as is robbery. Car theft is up 10 percent over the last four years.

If we are going to ensure that these latest numbers are only a blip on the continued downward trend of crime rates, as opposed to the beginning of a comeback in crime, we simply have to make strong, concerted, and common-sense efforts now to help ex-prisoners successfully reenter and reintegrate into their communities.

There's a record number of people currently serving time in our country--over two million. This translates into 1 out of every 143 U.S. residents. In its latest statistics on the matter, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the Nation's overall prison population increased by over 40,000 from midyear 2002 to midyear 2003, the largest increase in 4 years.

Also vital to realize is that 95 percent of all these millions we lock up will eventually get out. That equals nearly 650,000 being released from Federal or State prisons to communities each year. In a State like Delaware, that's over 4,000 inmates per year. And here's the kicker--a staggering \2/3\ of these released state prisoners are expected to be rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release. Two out of every three! You're talking about hundreds of thousands of reoffending ex-offenders each year and hundreds of thousands of serious crimes being committed by people who have already served time in jail.

And, unfortunately, it's not too difficult to see why such a huge portion of our released prisoners recommit serious crimes. Up to 60 percent of former inmates are not employed; 15 to 27 percent of prisoners expect to go to homeless shelters upon release; and 57 percent of Federal and 70 percent of State inmates used drugs regularly before prison, with some estimates of involvement with drugs or alcohol around the time of the offense as high as 84 percent.

These huge numbers of released prisoners each year and the out-of- control recidivism rates are a recipe for disaster--leading to untold damage, hardship, and death for victims; ruined futures and lost potential for re-offenders; and a huge drain on society at large. One particularly vulnerable group is the children of these offenders. We simply cannot be resigned to allowing generation after generation entering and reentering our prisons. This pernicious cycle must come to an end.

My 1994 Crime Bill recognized these extraordinarily high rates of recidivism as a real problem. My bill, for example, created innovative drug treatment programs for State and Federal inmates to help them kick their habit.

But this is only one piece of the puzzle. I introduced a bill in 2000 that would have built on my 1994 Crime Bill--the ``Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2000'', S. 2908. This bill would have created demonstration reentry programs for Federal, State, and local prisoners. These programs were designed to assist high-risk, high-need offenders who served their prison sentences, but who pose the greatest risk of reoffending upon release because they lack the education, job skills, stable family or living arrangements, and the health services they need to successfully reintegrate into society.

Senator Specter has also been a dedicated and tireless leader on crime and public safety issues throughout his career and has, for many years, seen the serious public safety ramifications of high recidivism rates. For example, my colleague from Pennsylvania has been the leader on the effort to ensure that offenders who are being released back into our communities have adequate education and work training to become productive members of our society. I couldn't be more pleased than to join efforts with Senator Specter on the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004.

While we have made some progress on offender reentry efforts since 1994, much more needs to be done. In the current session of Congress, I am pleased that colleagues of mine--from both sides of Capitol Hill and from both sides of the aisle--are also focusing their attention on this vital issue.

I am proud to have worked with Representatives Rob Portman, Danny Davis, and John Conyers, just to name a few, in the House or Representatives. In the Senate, a number of my colleagues, in addition to Senator Specter, have shown strong interest in offender reentry issues, including Senators Brownback, DeWine, Leahy, Kennedy, Landrieu, Bingaman, Hatch, Grassley, and Santorum.

The Second Chance Act of 2004 was introduced in the House and Senate recently, and I was proud to have worked extensively on that bipartisan, bicameral process. The bill Senator Specter and I introduce today builds on those efforts. Like the Second Chance Act, the central component of our bill provides a competitive grant program to promote innovative programs to test out a variety of methods aimed at reducing recidivism rates. Efforts would be focused on post-release housing, education and job training, substance abuse and mental health services, and mentoring programs, just to name a few.

Because the scope of the problem is so large--with 650,000 prisoners being released from state and federal prisons each year--our bill provides more than three times as much funding than the House bill. While the House bill contains $40 million per year for the main grant program, our bill provides $130 million. This isn't being wasteful with our scarce federal resources, it's just an acknowledgment of the scope of the problem we're faced with.

A relatively modest investment in offender reentry efforts compares very well with the alternative, building more and more prisons for these ex-offenders to return to if they are unable to successfully reenter their communities and instead are rearrested and reconvicted of more crimes. We must remember that the average cost of incarcerating each prisoner exceeds $20,000 per year. In Delaware, this translates into over $200 per resident just to pay for jail and prison operating expenses.

In constant 2001 dollars, state prison costs in our country have increased from $11.7 billion per year in 1986 to $29.5 billion in 2001. And even with these kinds of resources being spent, by the end of 2002, 25 States and the Federal prison system reported operating at 100 percent or more of their highest capacity. My own home State of Delaware continues to see a prison system bulging at the seams. We have tried, but simply cannot build our way out of this problem. We need tough--but smart--strategies to stop the revolving door of prisoners being released from prison, only to re-offend and land right back behind bars. We simply can't be penny-wise but pound-foolish.

The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 also requires that Federal departments with a role in offender reentry efforts coordinate and work together; to make sure there aren't duplicative efforts or funding gaps; and to coordinate reentry research. Our bill would raise the profile of this issue within the executive branch and secure the sustained and coordinated federal attention offender reentry efforts deserve.

We also need to examine existing Federal and state reentry barriers-- laws, regulations, rules, and practices that make it more difficult for former inmates to successfully reintegrate back into their communities; laws that confine ex-offenders to society's margins, making it even more likely that they will recommit serious crimes and return to prison.

Turning over a new leaf and going from a life of crime to becoming a productive member of society is tough enough. We shouldn't have Federal and State laws on the books that make this even more challenging. That's not to say that we don't want to restrict former drug addicts from working in pharmacies, for example, or to bar sex offenders from working in day care centers. But many communities across the country currently exclude ex-prisoners from virtually every occupation requiring a state license, like chiropractic care, engineering, and real estate. Lifting these senselessly punitive bans would make it easier for ex-offenders to stay out of prison.

Our bill provides for a robust analysis of these Federal and State barriers with recommendations on what next steps we need to take. And these reviews are mandated to take place out in the open under public scrutiny.

The Enhanced Second Chance Act also spurs state-of-the-art research and study on offender reentry issues. We need to know who is most likely to recommit crimes when they are released, to better target our limited resources where they can do the most good. We need to study why some ex-offenders who seem to have the entire deck stacked against them are able to become successful and productive members of our society. We need to know what works and how we can replicate what works for others.

Our bill also provides a whole slew of common-sense proposals in the areas of job training, employment, education, post-release housing, civic rights, substance abuse, and prisoner mentoring--efforts and changes in law that we can do now. Some of these important provisions are included in the House bill, others are in addition to those efforts, but all are common-sense efforts in the art of the possible. Our goal is to do as much as possible right now.

Our Enhanced Second Chance Act is a next, natural step in our campaign against crime. Making a dent in recidivism rates is an enormous undertaking; one that requires action now and continued focus in the future. I commit to vigorously pushing this legislation as well as keeping an eye on what steps we need to take in the future. We need to realize that the problems facing ex-offenders are enormous and require sustained focus. The safety of our neighbors, our children, and our communities depends on it.

I'm proud today to introduce the Enhanced Second Chance Act with Senator Specter and ask our colleagues to join with us in this vital effort.

I ask unanimous consent to have the text of our bill printed in the Record.

Mr. President, Senator Specter and I introduce today the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004, which takes direct aim at reducing recidivism rates for our Nation's ex-offenders and improving the transition for these offenders from prison back into the community.

All too often we think about today, but not tomorrow. We look to short-term solutions for long- term problems. We need to have a change in thinking and approach. It's time we face the dire situation of prisoners reentering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing, lack of positive influences, a paucity of basic physical and mental health services, and deficient basic life skills.

The bill we introduce today is about providing a second chance for these ex-offenders, and the children and families that depend on them. It's about strengthening communities and ensuring safe neighborhoods.

Since my 1994 Crime Bill passed, we've had great success in cutting down on crime rates in this country. Under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, we've funded over 114,000 officers all across the country. And our crime rate has plummeted. Murder is down 37.8 percent, rape 19.1 percent, and aggravated assaults 28 percent. The overall crime rate sharply declined by 28 percent.

But now, we are seeing some troubling indicators that crime is back on the rise. Murder was up 2.5 percent in 2001, 1 percent in 2002, and 1.3 percent in 2003. Forcible rape is up as is robbery. Car theft is up 10 percent over the last four years.

If we are going to ensure that these latest numbers are only a blip on the continued downward trend of crime rates, as opposed to the beginning of a comeback in crime, we simply have to make strong, concerted, and common-sense efforts now to help ex-prisoners successfully reenter and reintegrate into their communities.

There's a record number of people currently serving time in our country--over two million. This translates into 1 out of every 143 U.S. residents. In its latest statistics on the matter, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the Nation's overall prison population increased by over 40,000 from midyear 2002 to midyear 2003, the largest increase in 4 years.

Also vital to realize is that 95 percent of all these millions we lock up will eventually get out. That equals nearly 650,000 being released from Federal or State prisons to communities each year. In a State like Delaware, that's over 4,000 inmates per year. And here's the kicker--a staggering \2/3\ of these released state prisoners are expected to be rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of release. Two out of every three! You're talking about hundreds of thousands of reoffending ex-offenders each year and hundreds of thousands of serious crimes being committed by people who have already served time in jail.

And, unfortunately, it's not too difficult to see why such a huge portion of our released prisoners recommit serious crimes. Up to 60 percent of former inmates are not employed; 15 to 27 percent of prisoners expect to go to homeless shelters upon release; and 57 percent of Federal and 70 percent of State inmates used drugs regularly before prison, with some estimates of involvement with drugs or alcohol around the time of the offense as high as 84 percent.

These huge numbers of released prisoners each year and the out-of- control recidivism rates are a recipe for disaster--leading to untold damage, hardship, and death for victims; ruined futures and lost potential for re-offenders; and a huge drain on society at large. One particularly vulnerable group is the children of these offenders. We simply cannot be resigned to allowing generation after generation entering and reentering our prisons. This pernicious cycle must come to an end.

My 1994 Crime Bill recognized these extraordinarily high rates of recidivism as a real problem. My bill, for example, created innovative drug treatment programs for State and Federal inmates to help them kick their habit.

But this is only one piece of the puzzle. I introduced a bill in 2000 that would have built on my 1994 Crime Bill--the ``Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2000'', S. 2908. This bill would have created demonstration reentry programs for Federal, State, and local prisoners. These programs were designed to assist high-risk, high-need offenders who served their prison sentences, but who pose the greatest risk of reoffending upon release because they lack the education, job skills, stable family or living arrangements, and the health services they need to successfully reintegrate into society.

Senator Specter has also been a dedicated and tireless leader on crime and public safety issues throughout his career and has, for many years, seen the serious public safety ramifications of high recidivism rates. For example, my colleague from Pennsylvania has been the leader on the effort to ensure that offenders who are being released back into our communities have adequate education and work training to become productive members of our society. I couldn't be more pleased than to join efforts with Senator Specter on the Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004.

While we have made some progress on offender reentry efforts since 1994, much more needs to be done. In the current session of Congress, I am pleased that colleagues of mine--from both sides of Capitol Hill and from both sides of the aisle--are also focusing their attention on this vital issue.

I am proud to have worked with Representatives Rob Portman, Danny Davis, and John Conyers, just to name a few, in the House or Representatives. In the Senate, a number of my colleagues, in addition to Senator Specter, have shown strong interest in offender reentry issues, including Senators Brownback, DeWine, Leahy, Kennedy, Landrieu, Bingaman, Hatch, Grassley, and Santorum.

The Second Chance Act of 2004 was introduced in the House and Senate recently, and I was proud to have worked extensively on that bipartisan, bicameral process. The bill Senator Specter and I introduce today builds on those efforts. Like the Second Chance Act, the central component of our bill provides a competitive grant program to promote innovative programs to test out a variety of methods aimed at reducing recidivism rates. Efforts would be focused on post-release housing, education and job training, substance abuse and mental health services, and mentoring programs, just to name a few.

Because the scope of the problem is so large--with 650,000 prisoners being released from state and federal prisons each year--our bill provides more than three times as much funding than the House bill. While the House bill contains $40 million per year for the main grant program, our bill provides $130 million. This isn't being wasteful with our scarce federal resources, it's just an acknowledgment of the scope of the problem we're faced with.

A relatively modest investment in offender reentry efforts compares very well with the alternative, building more and more prisons for these ex-offenders to return to if they are unable to successfully reenter their communities and instead are rearrested and reconvicted of more crimes. We must remember that the average cost of incarcerating each prisoner exceeds $20,000 per year. In Delaware, this translates into over $200 per resident just to pay for jail and prison operating expenses.

In constant 2001 dollars, state prison costs in our country have increased from $11.7 billion per year in 1986 to $29.5 billion in 2001. And even with these kinds of resources being spent, by the end of 2002, 25 States and the Federal prison system reported operating at 100 percent or more of their highest capacity. My own home State of Delaware continues to see a prison system bulging at the seams. We have tried, but simply cannot build our way out of this problem. We need tough--but smart--strategies to stop the revolving door of prisoners being released from prison, only to re-offend and land right back behind bars. We simply can't be penny-wise but pound-foolish.

The Enhanced Second Chance Act of 2004 also requires that Federal departments with a role in offender reentry efforts coordinate and work together; to make sure there aren't duplicative efforts or funding gaps; and to coordinate reentry research. Our bill would raise the profile of this issue within the executive branch and secure the sustained and coordinated federal attention offender reentry efforts deserve.

We also need to examine existing Federal and state reentry barriers-- laws, regulations, rules, and practices that make it more difficult for former inmates to successfully reintegrate back into their communities; laws that confine ex-offenders to society's margins, making it even more likely that they will recommit serious crimes and return to prison.

Turning over a new leaf and going from a life of crime to becoming a productive member of society is tough enough. We shouldn't have Federal and State laws on the books that make this even more challenging. That's not to say that we don't want to restrict former drug addicts from working in pharmacies, for example, or to bar sex offenders from working in day care centers. But many communities across the country currently exclude ex-prisoners from virtually every occupation requiring a state license, like chiropractic care, engineering, and real estate. Lifting these senselessly punitive bans would make it easier for ex-offenders to stay out of prison.

Our bill provides for a robust analysis of these Federal and State barriers with recommendations on what next steps we need to take. And these reviews are mandated to take place out in the open under public scrutiny.

The Enhanced Second Chance Act also spurs state-of-the-art research and study on offender reentry issues. We need to know who is most likely to recommit crimes when they are released, to better target our limited resources where they can do the most good. We need to study why some ex-offenders who seem to have the entire deck stacked against them are able to become successful and productive members of our society. We need to know what works and how we can replicate what works for others.

Our bill also provides a whole slew of common-sense proposals in the areas of job training, employment, education, post-release housing, civic rights, substance abuse, and prisoner mentoring--efforts and changes in law that we can do now. Some of these important provisions are included in the House bill, others are in addition to those efforts, but all are common-sense efforts in the art of the possible. Our goal is to do as much as possible right now.

Our Enhanced Second Chance Act is a next, natural step in our campaign against crime. Making a dent in recidivism rates is an enormous undertaking; one that requires action now and continued focus in the future. I commit to vigorously pushing this legislation as well as keeping an eye on what steps we need to take in the future. We need to realize that the problems facing ex-offenders are enormous and require sustained focus. The safety of our neighbors, our children, and our communities depends on it.

I'm proud today to introduce the Enhanced Second Chance Act with Senator Specter and ask our colleagues to join with us in this vital effort.

I ask unanimous consent to have the text of our bill printed in the Record.