Floor Statements

Mr. President, on Tuesday, the Foreign Relations Committee

discharged a resolution which speaks to the situation in Darfur, Sudan. I am alarmed by reports of atrocities there. I am worried that genocide may be unfolding.

We need to make a determination about what is going on in Darfur and respond accordingly. Administration officials have termed it ethnic cleansing. This would be horrific in and of itself. But we also have to ask whether or not Khartoum's actions are an intent to destroy in whole or in part a particular ethnic or racial group or groups. If so, what should we do about it? These are questions we must answer right away.

As you know, the administration has been heavily involved in negotiations between the government in Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels. If an agreement is reached, it will bring an end to twenty years of civil war between the Muslim north, and non-Muslim south.

It will end 20 years of attacks against Muslims in the Nuba mountains and southern Sudanese; 20 years during which the government of Sudan targeted civilians either with its military forces, or through government allied militias; 20 years during which 2 million people have died; 20 years during which millions were displaced both within Sudan and beyond its borders.

The war sparked outrage among members of the international community because of the brutality of attacks against men, women and children. Some cast the war as Muslim versus Christian. I think this captures only a fraction of the story. Arab militias took southern, non-Muslims, black Africans captive as slaves. They pursued a scorched earth policy in southern villages. Muslims living in the Nuba Mountains, who happen to be black, were victims of attacks as well. One is left to wonder if the real cause of the attacks wasn't good old fashioned racism. And while the United States continues to spend valuable diplomatic time and political capitol to bring an end to the north-south conflict, history is repeating itself in western Sudan.

Early last year, ethnic minorities living in western Sudan took up arms to protest Khartoum's arming of Arab militias in the region, and what they believed was economic marginalization by the government in Khartoum. The wisdom of this course of action on the part of the rebels may be debatable. What is not debatable is the disproportionate response of the government--ethnic cleansing in Darfur by means of a well orchestrated campaign of attacks aimed specifically at non- military persons who belong to the same ethnic groups as the rebels.

Khartoum is employing the same tactics in Darfur that they used against those living in southern Sudan: Aerial bombardment of civilians with helicopter gun ships and planes, and attacks by government supported Arab militias known as janjaweed, which employ scorched earth tactics against villages inhabited by black Africans. We are receiving reports of a variety of abuses perpetrated by the janjaweed--routine rape of women, murder of men, the wanton burning of children--from credible sources working in Darfur. In my view, these deliberate attacks and atrocities against civilians constitute crimes against humanity.

President Bush's statement on Sudan issued on April 7, while helpful, was inadequate. He condemned the atrocities in Darfur, but the statement does not speak to the ethnic nature of the attacks. We all know that ethnic cleansing has the potential to turn into genocide. By failing to highlight this very dangerous dimension of Khartoum's campaign, the president failed to speak to the most alarming aspects of the crisis.

The statement says that President Bush expressed his views condemning the atrocities directly to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Since U.S. officials have acknowledged that the actions constitute ethnic cleansing, describing them as well ``organized,'' and ``comprehensive,'' I sincerely hope the President took Bashir to task about the particular evil of such actions. Given the vagueness President Bush's statement, however, one is left to wonder.

Our Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Rich Williamson, has said that 30,000 people are dead as a result of the conflict. One million people--25 percent of the population--are displaced, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR.

All of them are in dire need of assistance because on top of razing entire villages and firebombing civilians, in addition to burning crops, raping women, torturing men and throwing children into burning huts, on top of all the misery the government has heaped on the people of Darfur for months, Khartoum has refused to allow humanitarian relief organizations free, unfettered, regular access to the region. According to the State Department, it takes aid workers 2 months to get visas. And this is an improvement--it used to take 3 to 4 months.

After pursuing a scorched earth policy in Darfur for months--burned crops, stolen cattle and poisoned wells--the government's latest outrage is cynically ordering people to return to their homes. The few agencies on the ground in the area indicate that people cannot venture even 100 yards outside the displaced persons camps without being attacked. Even if they are able to make it home safely, there is absolutely no likelihood of people surviving in communities that literally no longer exist. At this point, return is not an option and Khartoum is well aware of this.

And the attacks by the janjaweed continue despite the April 8 cease- fire agreement.

Over 100,000 people have fled across the border into Chad. They too are still subject to attack from the janjaweed. UNHCR is in the midst of attempting to relocate refugees farther from the border to enhance their safety. Only half of refugees are living in camps in more secure locations. The other half are making do the best they can. A report issued by Refugees International indicates that many refugees are living in the open with no food, water or shelter.

According to UNHCR's public documents, it needs $27 million to address the needs of refugees in Chad. It has less than half of that on hand. Soon the rainy season will make roads impassible, preventing the delivery of food and shelter materials. The World Food Program is attempting to stockpile food in advance of the rains, but they have a 35 percent funding shortfall as well. We have contributed significant funds, but we and the rest of the international community need to do even more.

Congress needs to do more as well. S. Con. Res. 99 speaks to the nature of the violence and urges the President to do two main things:

First, develop a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to the nearly 1 million people who have been driven from their homes that does not necessitate permission from the government of Sudan. I hope that this plan includes immediate use of the commodities we are holding in the Emerson Trust stockpiles. I would also encourage the administration to come up with a way to deliver food through neighboring countries, including Chad.

Let me also say that I expect and welcome a request in the forthcoming supplemental for money to meet the humanitarian needs engendered by the crisis in Darfur.

Second, it urges the Secretary of State to develop options to increase sanctions on Sudan if the attacks in Darfur do not stop immediately.

I co-sponsored this resolution because I think that these are important steps. They are only steps however. If we do not see any change on the ground by the end of May, we should go even further than this resolution suggests.

We should amend the Sudan Peace Act, which was aimed at jump-starting the north-south peace process, so that it is relevant to the situation in Darfur. Three changes are essential. First, the act, Public Law 107- 245, imposes sanctions on the government of Sudan if the President determines that it is not making a good faith effort to negotiate a peace agreement. The act should be amended to require that the President certify that neither the government nor government allied militias have attacked civilians in Sudan 30 days from the enactment of the act and every 90 days thereafter. If the President cannot certify such, then the sanctions in section 6, paragraph 2 should be triggered.

The same certification should apply to humanitarian access. This is already in the legislation, however the requirement is obviously not explicit enough

for the White House. Despite the restrictions placed on the non- governmental organizations attempting to go into Darfur, on April 21, the President certified the government of Sudan had not unreasonably interfered with humanitarian efforts. Making the law more explicit may prevent another such mistake.

Finally, we should add a requirement that our permanent representative to the U.N. Security Council pursue a Security Council Resolution condemning the government of Sudan for its actions in Darfur, and calling for accountability for those who are found responsible for orchestrating and carrying out the atrocities.

Mr. President, the administration has said that it will not attempt to secure the north-south peace agreement at the expense of the people in Darfur. I agree. In fact, a north-south agreement will be meaningless in the face of ethnic cleansing in western Sudan. I believe that we must ratchet up the pressure on the Government of Sudan, and our partners in the international community to bring an end to the criminal acts of the government in Khartoum.

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

Mr. President, we are about to vote. I had an opportunity to speak earlier today. Let me conclude and then yield back whatever time remains by saying Mr. Negroponte is a serious diplomat with significant experience. When he appeared before our committee, he impressed me that he was more likely to be straightforward and unequivocal in answering our questions.

I will end where I began. I quite frankly think we owe him and his wife a debt of gratitude for being willing to take on what, without exception, in my view, is the most difficult and, at this moment, most dangerous job in U.S. diplomacy.

I urge my colleagues to vote for Mr. Negroponte, notwithstanding that they may feel, as I do, that this administration's policy on how to handle the circumstance in Iraq has been seriously wanting.

Do not confuse the lack of a coherent policy, from my perspective, anyway, with a lack of competence and ability of Ambassador Negroponte. I urge a yes vote on Ambassador Negroponte.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, it gives me great pride and pleasure today to rise and honor a Delaware jurist who is a recognized leader not only in his native State of Delaware, but throughout this country and around the world. His name is Randy Holland.

Justice Holland has served on the Delaware Supreme Court since 1986, with the distinction of being the youngest person ever to serve on my State's highest court. And for the past four years, he has served as the National President of the American Inns of Court. His second term ends next week, and I rise today to commend his leadership to this prestigious legal society.

Justice Holland's stewardship of the American Inns of Court, with its roots dating back to England in the 1400s, has earned him an extraordinary, rare and high honor.

He is only the third American judge to recently receive this prestigious award. The other two are United States Supreme Court Justices.

Lincoln's Inn of London, England, announced that Justice Holland has been elected an Honorary Master of the Bench. The Honorary ``Benchers'' are persons of distinction selected from common law countries around the world. The only American judges to receive this high recognition and distinction are Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court and now Justice Holland.

In commenting upon Justice Holland's election, William Blair, a distinguished Barrister, President of the Commercial Bar Association in England, and brother of Prime Minister Tony Blair, stated ``We feel that this is an important mark of friendship between the Inns of Court of England and the American Inns of Court. What is most gratifying for us is that the common aims of the organization are ethics, civility, professionalism and legal excellence--which are surely more necessary now than ever. My fellow Benchers were greatly impressed by Justice Holland's distinguished judicial record.''

To put this honor in context, Lincoln's Inn is the oldest of the four Inns of Court in London. Its formal records date back continuously to 1422. For six centuries, the Inns of Court in London have educated English trial lawyers, who are known as Barristers.

St. Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, joined Lincoln's Inn in 1496. The chapel bell at Lincoln's Inn came from Spain in 1596 as part of the spoils of Cadiz. When Dr. John Donne was Preacher to Lincoln's Inn in 1624, he wrote his famous poem ``for whom the bell tolls.''

Along with this international honor, Justice Holland has been recognized by his fellow jurists and attorneys in this country. His numerous awards include: the 1992 Judge of the Year Award from the National Child Support Enforcement Association, the 2002 Alumni Award of Merit from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, the 2003 American Judicature Society's Herbert Harley Award, and the 2004 Widener Law School Adjunct Professor Distinguished Service Award.

Ethics and mentoring are the hallmarks of Justice Holland's service on the bench and his call to his fellow attorneys in the bar. He chaired the national Advisory Committee to the American Judicature Society's Center for Judicial Ethics and currently he chairs the American Bar Association national Joint Committee on Lawyer Regulation. Justice Holland is also a member of the American Law Institute and is an adjunct professor at several law schools.

In addition to these many accomplishments, Justice Holland has published three books on the history of the Delaware Constitution and the Delaware Supreme Court.

Of course, Justice Holland will tell you that he derives his greatest pride from his family--his wife and friend since grade school, Ilona, and his son, Ethan.

Justice Holland deserves a tremendous thank you for his leadership on the bench and bar--from Delaware, attorneys throughout this country, and indeed from jurists and barristers worldwide. Congratulations.

Mr. President, I rise today to condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence 2 weeks ago in Kosovo, which claimed the lives of 20 persons, injured more than 600 others, displaced more than 4,000 individuals, destroyed more than 500 homes, and destroyed or damaged more than 30 churches and monasteries.

In a reversal of the brutal murders and ethnic cleansing carried out in 1998 and 1999 against Kosovar Albanians by the forces of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the perpetrators of this violence were the former victims--the ethnic Albanians. Their principal targets were Kosovo Serbs, although Ashkali and other minorities in the province also suffered.

There is no way to gloss over or disguise these events: They are a disaster of the first magnitude. Five years ago last week, I submitted the resolution that was adopted by this body, authorizing military action against the Milosevic government in order to rescue the persecuted Kosovar Albanians. Over the subsequent eleven weeks the United States and its allies successfully waged an air war, which resulted in the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo. A United Nations Security Council Resolution created a protectorate administered by the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo--known popularly by its acronym UNMIK--under the military protection of NATO's Kosovo Force or KFOR.

Since the summer of 1999 the international community, working through these civilian and military structures, has attempted to pacify and stabilize the situation, rebuild the shattered infrastructure, and help guide the embittered and traumatized population toward eventual democratic self-rule. Resolution of Kosovo's final status was

understandably deferred until significant progress was achieved.

From thousands of miles away it is difficult to appreciate the scope of the effort that the international community has devoted to Kosovo. I might offer a very personal example. My older son, Beau, served for nearly a year in UNMIK as a lawyer, helping the Kosovars to build a legal system that would impartially dispense justice to all inhabitants of the province. Tens of thousands of other Americans, together with citizens of dozens of other countries, have similarly worked in civilian and military capacities for the last five years.

Although there has, in fact, been considerable progress in several areas, the recent violence graphically demonstrates that, on the whole, the effort is in danger of failing. The economy is in sad shape with more than half the population unemployed. Kosovar Albanians complain that the lack of action on final status has choked off any significant direct foreign investment, which is the sine qua non for economic development. But it would be irresponsible to move to final status before stability and democracy have been achieved--as clearly they have not yet been.

So where do we go from here? Kosovo is a complex problem, for which there are no simple answers. In fact, every policy in the short run carries significant downside potential. Nonetheless, we must immediately take several steps.

First of all, through KFOR and UNMIK, we must make it unmistakably clear to all the citizens of Kosovo that the violence must cease completely.

Second, all citizens of Kosovo must cooperate with KFOR, UNMIK, and the Kosovo police in identifying for prosecution the perpetrators of violence and the destruction of property.

Third, all displaced persons and refugees must be returned to their former towns and villages, guaranteed their personal safety, and granted assistance to rebuild their homes as speedily as possible. In this regard, I am encouraged by the commitment made by the Kosovo Assembly to establish a fund for the reconstruction of homes, churches, and other property destroyed during the March attacks.

Fourth, the United Nations should undertake a review of the structure and organization of UNMIK.

Fifth, the authorities in Pristina and Belgrade should reinvigorate and intensify their dialogue.

A resolution submitted by my good friend from Ohio, Senator Voinovich, and of which I am an original co-sponsor, makes many of these points.

I would add a few more important policy recommendations.

The so-called ``benchmarks'' established by UNMIK must be reviewed. I have supported the policy of ``standards before status'' whereby Kosovo must fulfill rigorous goals before the province's final status is considered. I still believe that, in general, this is the correct course. The precipitous calls by some people for abandonment of the benchmarks and rapid independence for Kosovo would, I believe, be a cure worse than the disease. The international community simply cannot reward murder and violence. ``Riots before status'' is not the answer.

Nonetheless, I believe that the UNMIK benchmarks have been too elaborately constructed. Few countries could completely fulfill their requirements. In the wake of the violence, the benchmarks should be streamlined and prioritized, with emphasis given to personal security, minority rights, and some kind of decentralization of government, although not the apartheid-like ``cantonization'' being demanded by politicians in Serbia.

If by the middle of 2005 the benchmarks on personal security and minority rights can be completely fulfilled, and significant progress made on the other benchmarks, then discussion of final status for Kosovo can begin.

We should do our best to strengthen the moderates in Kosovo and Serbia, but there are, unfortunately, very few such ``good guys'' on the political scene in Pristina and Belgrade. Short-term political expediency seems to trump principle, despite the occasional lofty sounding speeches. Most Kosovar Albanian leaders hesitated before publicly condemning the ethnic violence, Prime Minister Rexhepi being a very positive and conspicuous exception. General Ceku's call for restraint on the part of members of the Kosovo Protection Corps was also helpful. In the future, all Kosovar leaders must get the message that rewards will flow to those who genuinely try to build a peaceful, democratic, multi-ethnic society.

It would be easier to be sympathetic to the cries from Belgrade to defend and give special rights to the Kosovo Serbs if Serbian politicians had not been so demagogically nationalistic in the weeks and months prior to the violence. The new Serbian Government led by Prime Minister Kostunica seems hell-bent on insulting the very international community that it needs for support in the Kosovo question, and in other matters.

Above all, the Kostunica administration has repeatedly thumbed its nose at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In a speech in late February, Kostunica himself candidly explained: ``This country is not a simple deliverer of human goods to The Hague tribunal.'' No political campaign can justify this kind of know-nothing jingoism.

Then just last Tuesday the Serbian Parliament outdid even Kostunica's blustering when it voted by a wide margin to pay all Serbian war crimes indictees at ICTY ``compensation for lost salaries, plus help for spouses, siblings, parents, and children for flight and hotel costs, telephone and mail bills, visa fees, and legal charges.'' The measure was supported by deputies from the parties of ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj and of Milosevic. Both these gentlemen, of course, are currently residing in prison in The Hague. The party of Prime Minister Kostunica joined in voting for this measure, which, were it not so grotesque, might almost be labeled comic opera.

As long as up to 16 indictees, including three former Serbian generals, are openly living in Serbia, and the ``butcher of Bosnia,'' former General Ratko Mladic, is also probably there, the Serbian Government cannot expect much international support. The U.S. Government has just announced that it is suspending all economic assistance not used for democratizing purposes because of Belgrade's unsatisfactory level of compliance with ICTY, and until it cooperates fully, Serbia will not be allowed to join NATO's Partnership for Peace.

We can take some solace in the opposition to the Serbian Parliament's resolution by a few smaller parties, including that of Defense Minister Boris Tadic, a genuine democrat and man of principle. During the Kosovo violence, Tadic, who has carried out a vigorous reform of the Serbian military and security services, proved that he has instituted civilian control by keeping the lid on hotheads calling for intervention, reportedly in cooperation with U.S. Admiral Gregory Johnson, NATO's AFSOUTH Commander. There is a chance that later this year Mr. Tadic may run for President of Serbia against a candidate of Seselj's party.

In order to get Kosovo back onto the right path, the U.S. Government must alter its policy. And make no mistake about it: Kosovo matters. It matters to the people of Kosovo. It matters to the people of Serbia. It matters to the stability of the entire area of the former Yugoslavia. It matters to the Balkans, since Serbia is the key to regional stability, and because the fate of Kosovo directly impacts ethnic Albanians in neighboring Albania, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in southern Serbia, and in Montenegro. In that context, Kosovo matters to the security of all of Europe and, hence, to the security of the United States of America.

One thing is crystal clear: the Bush administration can no longer afford to relegate Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, and Macedonia to the back burner of its international concerns. The administration has been living in an ideologically driven dreamworld in which victory in the Balkans was prematurely declared in order to get on with perceived higher priorities like national missile defense.

Lest anyone think I am criticizing the focus on the war on terrorism in Central Asia and the Middle East, I am not. As early as the fall 2000 election campaign--nearly one year before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--Presidential candidate George W. Bush announced that he would unilaterally withdraw U.S. ground forces

from the NATO-led peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. His future National Security Advisor Dr. Rice echoed this misguided notion in a newspaper interview. The following spring, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, flying in the face of all objective evidence, declared that the problem of Bosnia had been settled three or four years earlier. Even in this body resolutions for withdrawal of U.S. forces were periodically submitted, but, I am happy to say, rejected.

Now we are waging war, attempting to quell resistance movements in Afghanistan and Iraq. We all know that our armed forces are stretched perilously thin, and obviously some troop adjustments have had to be made. U.S. forces in Bosnia have been reduced to little more than one thousand, or about 5 percent of their initial strength. Later this year NATO will turn over command of SFOR to the European Union, although some American troops will remain at our base in Tuzla, at the request of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Let me repeat that for my colleagues: the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the representatives of all three major groups--the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats--concurring, requested that American troops stay on in Bosnia after the EU takes command of the peacekeeping force. The fact is that the United States has stature unequaled in that part of the world perhaps even higher in Kosovo than in Bosnia.

As in SFOR, we have drastically reduced our troop strength in KFOR. Given the events of the past few weeks, we dare not reduce it further. KFOR troops played a key role in quelling the Kosovo violence. I am told that of the various national contingents, American KFOR troops especially distinguished themselves.

Further proof of the Bush administration's downgrading the importance of the region was its abolishing the position of Special Coordinator for the Balkans. This position should be reinstated and filled by a senior career diplomat with extensive experience in Balkan affairs.

This new Special Coordinator should immediately engage the political leadership in Pristina and Belgrade in serious dialogue. I do not want to pre-judge what the final international legal status of Kosovo will be, although I cannot imagine that Kosovo will ever revert to direct control from Belgrade. Whatever the end result, direct negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade must be an integral part of the process. No other path would stand the test of time.

The United States was Serbia's ally in two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. The United States is revered by Kosovar Albanians as their savior from the recent tyranny of Slobodan Milosevic. We have earned a credibility that no other country, or group of countries, possesses.

This administration should utilize this unique position, in coordination with other members of the contact group, to jumpstart the process of creating a safe, prosperous, democratic, multi-ethnic Kosovo.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to recommend that the United States Senate give its advice and consent to ratification of the Additional Safeguards Protocol between the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Ratification of the Additional Protocol will make a real contribution to U.S. nuclear non- proliferation efforts, and it will do so without putting at risk any sensitive national security information.

As my colleagues surely know, the Additional Protocol is an outgrowth of the world's discovery in 1991 that Iraq had come perilously close to developing a nuclear weapon, without the IAEA realizing it. One reason for Iraq's near-success was that the IAEA was allowed to inspect only those facilities that Iraq declared to it. If a uranium enrichment facility was across the hall from a declared facility--and in some cases it was about that bad--the IAEA had no mandate to inspect it. We, the world, and the IAEA itself realized that a revised safeguards regime was needed.

The Additional Protocol that was developed to address this concern requires a signatory to provide yearly reports covering more nuclear facilities than those included in the declarations required by the so- called ``comprehensive'' safeguards agreements that have defined the IAEA's role in recent decades. It also allows the IAEA to inspect non- declared facilities, if the organization believes that illegal nuclear activities may be taking place there. This is a significant expansion of IAEA inspection rights, and it's something that the United States rightly wants to be adopted by all the non-nuclear weapons states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the NPT).

The United States, as a recognized nuclear weapons state under the NPT, is not required to provide information to the IAEA or to accept IAEA inspections. In 1967, however, when the NPT was being negotiated, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that the United States would voluntarily submit to safeguards on nuclear materials. He did this to assuage the concerns of non-nuclear weapons states that feared that the five nuclear weapons states would otherwise enjoy an unfair commercial advantage regarding their nuclear power industries. Accordingly, a U.S.-IAEA safeguards agreement, also known as the ``Voluntary Offer,'' has been in place since 1980. Truth be told, this Voluntary Offer is more symbolic than real; until 1994, the IAEA only applied safeguards to two commercial power reactors and two fuel fabrication facilities in the United States, from a list of 250 eligible facilities. In recent years, it has inspected

only sites for which the United States requested inspections, like the site where we store the highly enriched uranium we removed from Kazakhstan.

Our willingness to accept IAEA safeguards helped to secure the world's agreement to the NPT. Similarly, our stated willingness to accept the Additional Protocol was crucial to gaining the world's agreement, in 1995, to the indefinite extension of the NPT. And our ratification of the Additional Protocol will strengthen our ability to convince more non-nuclear weapons states to sign their own additional protocols.

When the Additional Protocol enters into force, the United States will submit additional information on civil nuclear facilities on an annual basis and identify additional civilian facilities, a small number of which might someday be inspected. All implementation activities under the Additional Protocol will be subject to a ``National Security Exclusion,'' however, that will allow our Government to exclude the application of the Additional Protocol wherever it would result in ``access by the Agency to activities with direct national security significance to the United States or to locations or information associated with such activities.'' Just as under the Voluntary Offer, the United States will retain the trump card of not declaring a facility, not submitting certain information, or denying or halting an inspection if our national security interests come into play. If we decide to permit an IAEA inspection, we will also have the right to employ ``managed access'' to protect national security information. (All countries will have the right to use managed access to protect confidential business information; because the United States is a recognized nuclear weapons state, we will have the right to use managed access more broadly.)

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has looked carefully at how our special rights would be invoked and whether sensitive facilities will be prepared to accept an IAEA inspection if the President or the interagency process decides to permit that inspection. We are satisfied that a Federal agency with a legitimate national security concern will have no difficulty ensuring that sensitive information is protected.

The resolution of ratification that the Committee recommends will ensure that the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol does not enter into force until the President certifies that all the necessary regulations will be in place and all the necessary site vulnerability assessments will have been completed within 180 days of entry into force. (No reporting to the IAEA is required until 180 days after entry into force, so no inspections of newly-declared facilities would occur before then.) The resolution of ratification also addresses the protection of classified and proprietary information, the addition or deletion of locations from U.S. reports to the IAEA, U.S. intent to use its special rights as a nuclear weapons state under the NPT, and the adoption of subsidiary arrangements or amendments under the Additional Protocol. In short, the Committee has covered all the bases to ensure that adoption of the Additional Protocol will support our nuclear non-proliferation policy without endangering sensitive national security information.

The resolution of ratification also calls for annual reports on U.S. efforts to get all the non-nuclear weapon states to adopt additional protocols and on U.S. help to the IAEA to conduct effective inspections. Those are important efforts that every member of this body should support. For all the difficulties it faces in gaining access to sites of concern, the IAEA has shown a real determination to get into those sites. Getting more states to sign and implement additional protocols will help the IAEA to gain that access. And once they get in, IAEA inspectors have shown a real ability to uncover information that rogue states thought they had concealed. But they are vitally dependent upon member states--and especially the United States--for the equipment and training that enable them to know what to look for and how to detect it in a manner that is scientifically valid, maximizes detection capabilities, and preserves a chain of custody so as to leave no doubt about the validity of their analysis.

U.S. ratification of our Additional Protocol is only one step among many that are needed to make nuclear non-proliferation work. Even to bring the Additional Protocol into force, we will then need to enact implementing legislation; the Executive branch will then have to promulgate appropriate regulations; and preparations for possible IAEA inspections will have to be completed.

In addition, the United States must marshal all its foreign policy tools to move states of concern away from nuclear weapons and to foster further international cooperation on non-proliferation. Some good work has been done in recent months. Libya signed an agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom to give up its weapons of mass destruction and long-range ballistic missile programs. The Proliferation Security Initiative was created and cooperating states agreed to coordinate their interdiction efforts while adhering to international law. The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council agreed on a draft resolution to bar proliferation to non-state entities.

At the same time, however, much remains to be done. For example, North Korea continues to move toward having a large enough nuclear arsenal that it might contemplate using it, or even selling or giving away some of its nuclear weapons or fissile material. Meanwhile, although we have engaged in six-party talks that included North Korea, both we and the North Koreans have yet to give our negotiators the authority to get down to business and discuss a phased agreement under which North Korea would gradually dismantle all its nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile programs, in return for various security assurances and diplomatic or economic benefits. So nothing significant has yet been achieved on the diplomatic front, while the clock keeps ticking on the nuclear weapons front. And we face the risk that South Korea, a crucial player on this issue, will develop a policy that is at odds with ours.

The situation regarding Iran is also difficult, although much has been achieved in the last year. Exposure of Iran's two decades of lying and deception regarding its nuclear activities has led Iran to sign the Additional Protocol and to permit IAEA inspections that have proven quite embarrassing to Iran. Pursuant to an agreement with the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, Iran has also agreed to suspend all its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities. Iran has tried to backtrack on its commitments, and I personally have no confidence that Iran has come clean on its nuclear weapons efforts. So we must continue to press Iran to realize that its national interest will best be served by rejecting nuclear weapons. We must work to maintain solidarity with our European allies, with the Russian Federation, with Japan, and with the IAEA to send the message that Iran's real choice is between international acceptance and world rejection. I don't think that Iran wants to become another North Korea. We must make clear that the path of nuclear weapons can lead only to such a fate, and also that the path of non-proliferation will lead to a better future for Iran and all of its people.

We must also work to make the international nuclear non-proliferation regime still more effective. One element of the NPT is a promise to non-nuclear weapons states that, in return for forswearing nuclear weapons, they will enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology. That bargain has become frayed. Iran, Iraq and North Korea have all used their ostensibly civilian facilities to mask covert weapons programs.

In Iran and North Korea, we were at least able to sound the alarm. Both states had secret efforts to produce weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium and were caught. In Iraq, however, absent the Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein might have obtained highly enriched uranium without anybody realizing it.

A smarter state, using a civilian program as the rationale, could build uranium enrichment facilities, spent fuel reprocessing cells, and the like--and properly report these efforts to the IAEA. It could acquire weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and place the material under IAEA safeguards. In other words, it could become a potential nuclear weapons

power without violating safeguards. Then it could withdraw from the NPT, and develop and assemble nuclear weapons in a short time.

That's the challenge we need to address. How do we counter not just states that do things in a ham-handed manner, but states that skillfully exploit the loopholes of the NPT? The Additional Protocol can help make it much harder to hide a covert nuclear program, if we persuade the rest of the world to sign such protocols as well. But how can we combat the ``breakout'' scenario?

One idea gaining currency is to allow non-nuclear weapons states to continue to possess civilian nuclear programs, but not a closed nuclear fuel cycle. A state could have civilian nuclear reactors to produce electrical power, but must import the nuclear reactor fuel and return any spent fuel. This would ensure that a state did not obtain fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon.

IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei would allow only multinational facilities to produce and process nuclear fuels, and give legitimate end-users assured access to these fuels at reasonable rates. Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Dr. William Perry recently endorsed this proposal, adding that states that refuse this bargain should be subject to sanctions. President Bush has not endorsed multinational facilities, but called upon members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to refuse to export enrichment and reprocessing equipment to any state that does not already possess full scale enrichment and reprocessing plants.

Any agreement on revising the nuclear non-proliferation regime will be difficult to achieve. Non-nuclear weapons states will ask what they will get for surrendering a well established right. States with nuclear fuel industries may worry that they will go out of business if only a few multinational facilities are allowed to operate enrichment and reprocessing activities. But the United States and other concerned states should set a goal of reaching a consensus in time for next year's NPT Review Conference. We have a window of opportunity, and we should use it.

There is another bargain central to the NPT, one that this administration largely prefers to ignore. In return for forswearing nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapons states received a commitment from the five permanent nuclear powers, reaffirmed as recently as 2000, to seek eventual nuclear disarmament.

Nobody, including me, expects the United States to give up its nuclear deterrent any time in the foreseeable future. But the administration's drive to research and possibly produce new nuclear weapons--including low-yield nukes--is a step in the wrong direction. It signals to the rest of the world that even the preeminent global power needs new nuclear weapons to assure its own security.

The administration threatens to take another backward step on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. An FMCT has been a U.S. objective for eight years, and this administration castigated other countries for preventing negotiations from starting. Now that there is a chance of success, however, the administration says that we may refuse to negotiate. This only undermines solidarity with our allies, which have worked for years to help us convince other countries to negotiate.

For all the flaws of the NPT, it is an essential treaty. It has been vital to encouraging states like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina to end their nuclear weapons programs. The United States must work to improve the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and it must also do all that it can to abide by the bargains between the nuclear ``haves'' and the nuclear ``have nots'' that underlie world willingness to eschew the most awesome and awful weapons mankind has ever invented.

In conclusion, I want to congratulate and thank my chairman, Senator Dick Lugar, for his fine leadership in bringing this resolution of ratification to fruition. It was not an easy task, and he demonstrated exceptional leadership. I am grateful also to our staffs, especially Ken Myers, III and Thomas Moore on the majority side, and Edward Levine and Jofi Joseph on the Democratic side. Finally, I want to commend the interagency committee that worked with us, and especially Ms. Susan Koch of the National Security Council staff. She is a real professional, and we would not have gotten to this day without her.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004, along with Senators Murray, Hollings, Smith, and Allen.

Two years ago, I held a hearing entitled, ``Theft of American Intellectual Property: Fighting Crime Abroad and At Home,'' and I issued a report on the status of our fight against this crime. Today, I attended a hearing chaired by Senator Specter on a similar topic, again driving home for me the serious problems encountered in today's world by American intellectual property.

What I have learned is that every day, thieves steal millions of dollars of American intellectual property from its rightful owners. Over a hundred thousand American jobs are lost as a result.

American innovation and creativity need to be protected by our government no less than our personal property, our homes and our streets. The Founding Fathers had the foresight to provide for protection of intellectual property, giving Congress the power to ``promote the progress of science and useful arts'' by providing copyrights and patents.

American intellectual property represents the largest single sector of the American economy, employing 4.7 million Americans. It has been estimated that software piracy alone cost the U.S. economy over 118,000 jobs and $5.7 billion in wage losses in the year 2000. Even more, the International Planning and Research Corporation estimates that the government loses more than a billion dollars worth of revenue every year from intellectual property theft.

To put that in perspective, with a billion dollars in additional revenue, the American government could pay for child care services for more than 100,000 children annually. Alternatively, $1 billion could be used to fund a Senate proposal to assist schools nationally with emergency school renovations and repairs.

There is another problem. Counterfeiters of software, music CDs and motion pictures are now tampering with authentication features. Holograms, certificates of authenticity, watermarks and other security features allow the copyright owners to distinguish genuine works from counterfeits. But now, highly sophisticated counterfeiters have found ways to tamper with these features to make counterfeit products appear genuine and to increase the selling price of genuine products and licenses. Put another way, not only do crooks illegally copy American intellectual property, they also now illegally fake or steal the very features property owners use to prevent that theft.

Copyrights mean nothing if government authorities fail to enforce the protections they provide intellectual property owners. The criminal code has not kept up with the counterfeiting operations of today's high-tech pirates, and it's time to make sure that it does. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 updates and strengthens the Federal criminal code, which currently makes it a crime to traffic in counterfeit labels or copies of certain forms of intellectual property, but not authentication features. For example, we can currently prosecute someone for trafficking in fake labels for a computer program, but we cannot go after them for faking the hologram that the software maker uses to ensure that copies of the software are genuine.

In addition, many actions that violate current law go unprosecuted in this day and age when priorities, such as the fight against terrorism and life-threatening crimes, necessarily take priority over crimes of property, be they intellectual or physical. Moreover, the victims of this theft often do not have a way to recover their losses from this crime. For this reason, the Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 also provides a private cause of action, to permit the victims of these crimes to pursue the criminals themselves and recover damages in federal court.

Current law criminalizes trafficking in counterfeit documentation and packaging, but only for software programs. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2003 updates and expands these provisions to include documentation and packaging for phonorecords, motion pictures, other audiovisual works, and copies of other copyrighted works.

The existing provision with regard to counterfeiting addresses certain items of intellectual property, including motion pictures, software, and phonorecords. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 updates the coverage of this statute to include other copyrighted works, such as books. As published books and ebooks begin to be subject to the piracy already witnessed by motion picture, softward and recording industries, they need the same protection.

This issue is not going way; to the contrary, it is growing, and Congress continues to focus on potential solutions, as evidenced by today's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and an upcoming hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee. The 2002 version of this bill did not manage to secure passage and enactment into law, but there is reason for optimism that this year its fate will be different. America's content providers, and the many jobs that depend on them, could certainly use the help.

America is a place where we must encourage diverse ideas, and with that encouragement we must protect those ideas. They are the source of our music, our art, our novels, our movies, our software, our products, all that is American culture and American know-how. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 gives our ideas the protection they deserve.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004, along with Senators Murray, Hollings, Smith, and Allen.

Two years ago, I held a hearing entitled, ``Theft of American Intellectual Property: Fighting Crime Abroad and At Home,'' and I issued a report on the status of our fight against this crime. Today, I attended a hearing chaired by Senator Specter on a similar topic, again driving home for me the serious problems encountered in today's world by American intellectual property.

What I have learned is that every day, thieves steal millions of dollars of American intellectual property from its rightful owners. Over a hundred thousand American jobs are lost as a result.

American innovation and creativity need to be protected by our government no less than our personal property, our homes and our streets. The Founding Fathers had the foresight to provide for protection of intellectual property, giving Congress the power to ``promote the progress of science and useful arts'' by providing copyrights and patents.

American intellectual property represents the largest single sector of the American economy, employing 4.7 million Americans. It has been estimated that software piracy alone cost the U.S. economy over 118,000 jobs and $5.7 billion in wage losses in the year 2000. Even more, the International Planning and Research Corporation estimates that the government loses more than a billion dollars worth of revenue every year from intellectual property theft.

To put that in perspective, with a billion dollars in additional revenue, the American government could pay for child care services for more than 100,000 children annually. Alternatively, $1 billion could be used to fund a Senate proposal to assist schools nationally with emergency school renovations and repairs.

There is another problem. Counterfeiters of software, music CDs and motion pictures are now tampering with authentication features. Holograms, certificates of authenticity, watermarks and other security features allow the copyright owners to distinguish genuine works from counterfeits. But now, highly sophisticated counterfeiters have found ways to tamper with these features to make counterfeit products appear genuine and to increase the selling price of genuine products and licenses. Put another way, not only do crooks illegally copy American intellectual property, they also now illegally fake or steal the very features property owners use to prevent that theft.

Copyrights mean nothing if government authorities fail to enforce the protections they provide intellectual property owners. The criminal code has not kept up with the counterfeiting operations of today's high-tech pirates, and it's time to make sure that it does. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 updates and strengthens the Federal criminal code, which currently makes it a crime to traffic in counterfeit labels or copies of certain forms of intellectual property, but not authentication features. For example, we can currently prosecute someone for trafficking in fake labels for a computer program, but we cannot go after them for faking the hologram that the software maker uses to ensure that copies of the software are genuine.

In addition, many actions that violate current law go unprosecuted in this day and age when priorities, such as the fight against terrorism and life-threatening crimes, necessarily take priority over crimes of property, be they intellectual or physical. Moreover, the victims of this theft often do not have a way to recover their losses from this crime. For this reason, the Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 also provides a private cause of action, to permit the victims of these crimes to pursue the criminals themselves and recover damages in federal court.

Current law criminalizes trafficking in counterfeit documentation and packaging, but only for software programs. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2003 updates and expands these provisions to include documentation and packaging for phonorecords, motion pictures, other audiovisual works, and copies of other copyrighted works.

The existing provision with regard to counterfeiting addresses certain items of intellectual property, including motion pictures, software, and phonorecords. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 updates the coverage of this statute to include other copyrighted works, such as books. As published books and ebooks begin to be subject to the piracy already witnessed by motion picture, softward and recording industries, they need the same protection.

This issue is not going way; to the contrary, it is growing, and Congress continues to focus on potential solutions, as evidenced by today's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and an upcoming hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee. The 2002 version of this bill did not manage to secure passage and enactment into law, but there is reason for optimism that this year its fate will be different. America's content providers, and the many jobs that depend on them, could certainly use the help.

America is a place where we must encourage diverse ideas, and with that encouragement we must protect those ideas. They are the source of our music, our art, our novels, our movies, our software, our products, all that is American culture and American know-how. The Anticounterfeiting Act of 2004 gives our ideas the protection they deserve.

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

Mr. President, like a lot of my colleagues this week, I have been visited here in Washington by a number of my constituents.

We get to hear, first hand, about the lives of the people we represent, about how we can help them or hurt them.

As we debated the budget this week, a couple of those meetings really stood out in my mind. When I met with Delaware's League of Local Governments, their top priority was increased funding for public safety and homeland security. These are the mayors and county executives from my State, the public officials closest to the needs of our communities.

They came to tell us that they need more cops on the beat, they need more resources and more attention from us here in Washington to deal with the security of the chemical plants in their towns, to name just one important example.

As they brought this message to us here in Washington, not just to me but to all of us in the Congress, we were presented with this budget resolution, that cuts 30 percent from the support for first responders, the very fire fighters and police officers that we so often pay lip service to. Lip service is all they get from this budget.

I joined with my colleagues in offering an amendment to restore and increase funding for homeland security,

in keeping with the message we heard this week from our State and local officials. But that amendment was rejected, because it would have taken a small amount from the tax cuts--just a small amount--from the tax cuts going to those with the top 1 percent of incomes in this country.

I offered an amendment during the budget debate to restore funds cut from the COPS Program, that has put more policemen and women on the streets of towns and cities in Delaware and across the country. This budget, in a false economy, had reduced funding for law enforcement grants by over 60 percent.

My amendment would have restored a billion dollars to the COPS program, the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, and the Byrne program. And it would have taken an additional 1 billion dollars off of the deficit.

Those amendments were rejected to protect the tax cuts that go to the top 1 percent of income earners in this country. Those are not the priorities of the local government officials who came here this week looking for help to strengthen public safety in their communities.

But that is the top priority of this budget resolution: sacrificing every other priority to avoid shaving barely 1 percent off of a tax cut that will total $690 billion dollars for people in the top 1 percent income level in this country over the next 10 years.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with the American Legion of Delaware this week. It is always moving, and a little humbling, to meet with the men and women who have given so much to this country. But these days, with so many of our troops still in the field, these meetings have even more meaning.

I know that a lot of my colleagues met with their veterans this week, too, and that they heard the same thing I did: health care is their top priority. This budget makes it harder for veterans to get health care, and makes it more expensive.

We offered amendments this week to add $2.7 billion to this budget for veterans' health care, and to pay for it by shaving less than 1 half of 1 percent off of the tax cuts for those in the top 1 percent of income earners in this country. That amendment was rejected, too.

To prevent a tiny reduction in the tax breaks for those who have the most we refused to add funds for veterans' health care.

In the debate this week on the budget resolution we made fundamental choices, and those choices revealed the principles, the values, that will guide us for the rest of this legislative session, and for years to come.

The values in this budget are not those of the local officials who came to see me this week. They are not the values of the veterans who came to town, either. And they are not my values.

When you write a budget, you have to put your money where your mouth is. At the end of the day, you have to be willing to make the choices-- you have to set the priorities. And at the end of the day, those priorities, those values, will be written in black and white--and in the gallons of red ink in this budget resolution.

The statement made by this budget is one that I categorically reject, and that I urge my colleagues to reject.

I have to say that the budget resolution that is before us this week is perhaps the most irresponsible, disingenuous, and I have to add, the most callous that I have seen in my time here in the Senate.

This budget resolution, puts us on a track toward historical levels of debt, to be left to our children and grandchildren. This budget resolution slights the most basic responsibilities of our Government, with cuts in homeland security, in education, health care, transportation, clean water, and scientific research, despite growing needs in all of those areas.

This budget resolution will cripple our ability to meet the looming crisis in the Social Security System because it borrows virtually all of the reserves that Social Security is now building up in anticipation of the retirement in just over 10 years of the baby boom generation.

Even borrowing all of those Social Security reserves does not balance this budget. Even cutbacks in heath care, in medical research, in law enforcement, in education won't bring this budget back into balance. These false economies that will cost us more in the future will not bring the budget into balance.

In fact, under this budget, deficits continue to grow and grow, into the future. On paper, this budget claims to reduce the deficit over the next 5 years. There are 2 problems with that claim.

First, the claim that this resolution will reduce the deficit ignores the cost of the continuing war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the continuing war on terrorism. Whatever those costs may be, there is one number that we know for a fact is false, is dead wrong, and that number is zero.

By the estimate of the Congressional Budget Office, those costs could run to $280 billion over the next 10 years.

There is supposedly an allowance in this budget for $30 billion, but that is only a small fraction of what we can expect, and it is not even counted as part of the deficit. If we spend it, it will add to the deficit, but in this resolution, it is not counted, nor is the $250 billion more the CBO expects us to spend.

Millions of Americans are finding out now, and tens of millions will soon find out, that the Alternative Minimum Tax, designed to make sure millionaires did not manage to escape paying tax altogether, is set to fall on middle-class families. It will cost tens of billions of dollars to prevent that from happening. The administration agrees that it needs fixing, too. But this resolution assumes only 1 year of AMT relief, leaving out of the deficit count tens of billions in certain costs over the coming years.

The claim that this resolution reduces the deficit over the next 5 years is based on taking all of the reserves of the Social Security system, reserves that will be needed in the next decade for the largest wave of retirements in our country's history. If you leave that out, the deficit 5 years out will be closer to $550 billion, not the $237 billion they claim.

The other problem with the claim that this resolution will reduce the deficit in the next 5 years, is that the next 5 years, as bad as they are, are not real problem. The real problem our Nation will face lies in the years after that, when the deficits explode, on a collision course with the coming crisis in the Social Security system. It matters little what happens in the next 5 years if we careen into budget collapse in the years that follow.

That is just what this resolution would do. It leaves us on a path to add more than $2 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years.

It demands sacrifice from the middle class, who face rising health care costs and high college tuition payments at a time when job security is shaky, when the search for a new job takes longer and longer, and when we are losing the bedrock manufacturing jobs that have been the foundation of our middle class.

This budget demands sacrifice from everyone, except those Americans who have already been most blessed by the opportunities and advantages offered by this great country. For those Americans, who have received and will receive the lion's share of the recent tax cuts, not a dime of sacrifice will be asked.

Out of a total, 10-year tax cut of over $1.8 trillion, the top one percent will get $690 billion. The average taxpayer in the top 1 percent will get a 10-year tax cut of over half a million dollars. That is what this budget resolution, and the votes we have taken here on the Senate floor, will go to any length to protect. The reason that the rest of us must sacrifice, we are told, is that we face massive deficits. We just don't have enough money.

Like the child who killed his parents, and then begged for mercy because he was an orphan, the majority, who has insisted in the face of exploding deficits on tax cut after tax cut after tax cut, now claims we do not have the money to fund the most basic promises to American citizens.

To make up for those deficits, to pay for those tax cuts, this budget goes after those who are least able to help themselves. Unfortunately, their sacrifices will be in vain because this budget will still leave us with a massive burden of increasing debt. But this budget does not ask for a dime of sacrifice from those who have enjoyed the greatest economic success in this country, and who--on top of their growing

wealth and incomes--have been the major beneficiaries of the recent rounds of tax cuts.

Over and over in this debate we have debated amendments to restore cuts in public safety and homeland security, in veterans' health care, in education funding--to keep the many promises to Americans that we have made. To support those priorities that help average Americans, those amendments called for small reductions in the tax cuts going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

We are not talking about cancelling tax cuts for average Americans. And we are not talking about cancelling tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. We are just talking about reducing the already huge tax cuts that they are going to receive.

If this budget resolution is adopted, we will break promises to governors, mayors, school boards, teachers, parents, and children. The No Child Left Behind program will be funded at a level $8.6 billion below what we promised when that law was passed.

If this resolution is adopted, we will leave veterans' health care $2.7 billion below what it is needed to keep our commitment to those who have already given so much--who continue to give so much--to our country.

If this resolution is adopted, we will shortchange the working poor in this country who are doing just what we hoped they would do when we reformed welfare. But the earned income tax credit, that President Reagan himself called the best anti-poverty program we have, will be cut by $3 billion. That program will be cut by $3 billion, because this Senate refused to take a tiny nick out of the tax cuts going to those with an average income of a million dollars a year. This Senate would rather take $3 billion from the working poor than take a tiny fraction from the those who already have so much.

The list goes on. It includes Senator Lieberman's amendment, to provide an additional $7 billion for homeland security. These funds would have helped to secure our ports and our borders and our transportation system, guard against bioterror, and support first responders.

That amendment, that would take a little more than 1 percent of the total tax cut going to the wealthiest 1 percent--leaving them with more than nine-tenths of their tax cut, more than $680 billion--that amendment was rejected.

This budget resolution has one principle and one principle only: protect those tax cuts at any cost, including trillions of dollars in additional deficits and debt.

We know what those cuts will cost us in the future, and how much sacrifice they demand from those who can least afford it, but what have they done for us so far?

I ask my colleagues to remember the first time that President Bush called for tax cuts. That was back in the last presidential campaign, when the economy was booming and the budget was in surplus. He promised us that we could afford huge tax cuts, that were designed to shrink federal revenues, and to prevent the build-up of budget surpluses. Hard is as it to recall, the threat he was most concerned with was that we would balance the budget and then keep on building up surpluses.

Then, as the economy slowed down, he claimed that those same tax cuts would stimulate growth--the tax cuts he designed in the midst of the strongest economic boom our country had ever seen.

When those tax cuts failed to stimulate growth, and as deficits began to expand, virtually wiping out the $5.6 trillion ten-year surplus projected when he came into office, we were told that we needed even more tax cuts. Not only have the deficits continued to grow, but those deficits and the tax cuts that brought them on have done nothing to create jobs.

You have to go all the way back to the Hoover administration to find a record of job losses to rival this one. We have come out of recession, and have restored a respectable level of economic growth, and the stock market has come back to around the levels it reached in 1998. We are 37 months past the last peak in the business cycle, and on those measures things are looking up.

But this recovery is unique in our history. When it comes to jobs-- the one real measure of economic health--we are, compared to our experience, 5.4 million jobs behind where we should be. While we have lost 2.4 million jobs over this period, we have also failed to produce new jobs at normal rates.

As the population grows, that means that more and more people are out of work, more than just the 2.4 million who had a job when this administration came into office, and who don't have one now.

In addition, there are millions who should be in the labor force, who have either dropped out and stopped looking, or never entered the labor force--over two and a half million. So while the unemployment rate is officially 5.6 percent, counting those who have despaired of finding work in this economy the rate is actually 7.4 percent.

The reason so many are discouraged from looking for work is clear-- the duration of unemployment is the longest in 20 years. The number of people who have exhausted their long-term unemployment benefits is growing. Despite repeated efforts, this Congress has refused to extend long-term unemployment benefits.

Last month, no new private sector jobs were created. None. The small amount of hiring that happened was done by governments, not by the private sector, the only engine for real, sustained economic growth.

We have enacted tax cuts that will cost us $2.3 trillion dollars, counting the extra interest needed because all of that money is borrowed. We have turned balanced budgets, and historically high surpluses, into historically high deficits.

We are still 2.4 million jobs in the hole, by official numbers and millions more jobs short of where we should be this far into an economic recovery.

This resolution shrugs off these sorry facts. It does nothing to change course in the face of these failures. As a matter of fact, this budget resolution will result in higher deficits than no change in current policy. No budget resolution at all would be better than the one before us today. I will vote against it and hope my colleagues will join me.

Madam President, I am told we used up a lot of the time, necessarily. I ask unanimous consent to have an additional 5 minutes.

Earlier the distinguished Senator from Washington yielded to Senator Carper and me to allow us to both acknowledge support for her amendment and then a total of 10 minutes of morning business to speak to another issue.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my colleagues would permit an additional total of 10 minutes, divided between the junior Senator from Delaware and myself.

Mr. President, I want to relay a telephone number, a number that may not sound familiar but you can be sure is memorized by thousands of women across the country. 1-800-799-SAFE--the number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Each month, over 16,000 women and men call the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with a bilingual staff and a TTY-line for the hearing impaired, the National Domestic Violence Hotline provides immediate, informed and confidential assistance to those caught in family violence. Oftentimes, it is the first call a battered woman makes, even before calling the police or a friend.

The Hotline is located in Austin, TX, but answers telephone calls placed anywhere in the United States and the U.S. territories. A distressed caller is connected to a trained advocate who is able to provide crisis intervention counseling, help create a safety plan, directly connect the caller with a local shelter or provide a range of local referral information. Using a massive database listing more than 5,000 services nationally, one of 30 full or part-time advocates puts a caller in touch immediately with local programs offering shelter and direct care.

I want to share with my colleagues two real-life stories from women who have called the Hotline. One caller dialed the Hotline after her boyfriend pulled a gun and threatened to kill her if she left him. Fearing for her life, she fled with her two young children. They ran to a nearby strip mall where she called the Hotline. As she told a Hotline advocate her story, she watched her abuser search for her in every store in the mall. Once a local shelter was contacted, arrangements were made to rescue the woman and her children from their hiding spot in a back alley behind the restaurant.

An immigrant woman who spoke no English called from a community clinic. She had learned that for the past year her abusive husband had been raping their 15-year-old daughter. Her husband had no idea she was calling the Hotline. He had kept her so isolated on the ranch where they lived that she didn't even know her address. While the woman stayed on the line, an advocate contacted the sheriff's office and together they pieced together enough information to figure out her address. The sheriff made plans to confirm the child abuse at the daughter's school, after which the husband would be arrested immediately. After completing the exchange with the sheriff's office, the advocate contacted the nearest shelter and arranged to pick up the woman and her daughter at the clinic.

These are real women who we see every day at work, at the grocery store

and at the school parking lot whose lives have been dramatically changed, in part, by that first call to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Created by the Violence Against Women Act, the Hotline answered its first call on February 21, 1996, and its one millionth call on August 4, 2003. In the past decade we've witnessed a sea of change in how Americans view domestic violence. It is no longer treated as a private, family matter, but as a public crime. As public awareness has grown--as the Hotline's telephone number is posted on bus billboards and websites, in school offices and doctor's waiting rooms-- there has been a dramatic increase in calls. Between 2000 and 2001 alone, call volume increased by 18.5 percent. In 2002, the Hotline answered almost 180,000 calls, an increase of 7.5 percent from the previous year. The Department of Defense recently requested that the Hotline accept calls from military personnel--a move that will certainly increase the call volume substantially.

While the majority of the Hotline's day-to-day operating costs are paid with Federal dollars designated in annual spending bills, funding has not kept pace with the growing call volume and the Hotline's technology and telecommunication needs. This year, the spending bill appropriated only three million dollars to the Hotline. Older equipment, coupled with increased usage, has set the Hotline up to experience frequent problems with the network, data corruption and the lurking threat of a crash in the entire system. The Hotline tries to answer almost 500 calls a day with old computers and servers. Because the system is outdated and the staff is stretched thin, over 26,000 calls last year went unanswered due to long hold times or busy signals.

We need to answer each and every one of the calls to the Hotline. Today I am launching an innovative and far-reaching solution to the Hotline's problems, the Connections Campaign. The Connections Campaign is a public/private partnership that teams up private telecommunication and technology companies with the Federal Government to solve the Hotline's crisis. Under the Connections Campaign, the same companies-- Microsoft, Sony, BellSouth, Verizon Wireless, IBM, Nortel Networks, Dell and others--that supply Americans with home computers, cell phones and telephone service are donating hardware and software to the Hotline. Items like mapping software, networked computers, servers, flat-screened monitors and telephone airtime are being pledged to the Hotline. This is just the beginning of a multi-year, multi-million dollar initiative to place the Hotline squarely in the twenty-first century.

On the public side of the partnership, I am proud to introduce the Domestic Violence Connections Campaign Act of 2004 which will provide a million dollars to train and assist the Hotline's advocates so that they may effectively use the improved equipment provided by the Connections Campaign. In addition, the Act creates a new research grant program to be administered by the Attorney General that will review and analyze data generated by the Hotline. Taking into consideration needs for caller confidentiality and security, researchers will study Hotline data to determine the trends, potential gaps in service and geographical areas of need. Within three years of enactment, researchers will release a comprehensive Hotline study to Congress and the Attorney General. Finally, my bill provides an $800,000 grant program for the Hotline to increase public awareness about domestic violence and the Hotline's services.

One hand clapping simply does not make enough noise. Federal, State and local government cannot always supply all the answers and resources to resolve our communities' pressing problems. Today's Connections Campaign recognizes that big problems warrant grand, collaborative solutions. Cooperation between the Federal Government and the private sector is critical to enhance the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

A cornerstone of the Violence Against Women Act was my conviction that ending domestic violence and sexual assault required a coordinated, community response. We worked hard to ensure that emergency room personnel, police officers, victim advocates, shelter directors and court clerks worked together to implement the many mandates of the Violence Against Women Act. The Connections Campaign is Act Two. We are now asking that the corporate community get actively involved to strengthen a key safety net for women and their families, the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Today's legislation and the kick-off is just the beginning of what I envision to be a lasting connection between the Hotline and the technology and telecommunications community. I look forward to coming back to the Senate floor to inform my colleagues about the new computers, wireless headsets, upgraded software and other technology that could be provided to the Hotline through the Connections Campaign. In the meantime, let me close by commending and expressing my gratitude to Sheryl Cates, the director of the Hotline and her dedicated staff who are providing the first step to safe, new lives for millions of battered women. They are truly doing God's work.

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

Mr. President, I want to relay a telephone number, a number that may not sound familiar but you can be sure is memorized by thousands of women across the country. 1-800-799-SAFE--the number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Each month, over 16,000 women and men call the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with a bilingual staff and a TTY-line for the hearing impaired, the National Domestic Violence Hotline provides immediate, informed and confidential assistance to those caught in family violence. Oftentimes, it is the first call a battered woman makes, even before calling the police or a friend.

The Hotline is located in Austin, TX, but answers telephone calls placed anywhere in the United States and the U.S. territories. A distressed caller is connected to a trained advocate who is able to provide crisis intervention counseling, help create a safety plan, directly connect the caller with a local shelter or provide a range of local referral information. Using a massive database listing more than 5,000 services nationally, one of 30 full or part-time advocates puts a caller in touch immediately with local programs offering shelter and direct care.

I want to share with my colleagues two real-life stories from women who have called the Hotline. One caller dialed the Hotline after her boyfriend pulled a gun and threatened to kill her if she left him. Fearing for her life, she fled with her two young children. They ran to a nearby strip mall where she called the Hotline. As she told a Hotline advocate her story, she watched her abuser search for her in every store in the mall. Once a local shelter was contacted, arrangements were made to rescue the woman and her children from their hiding spot in a back alley behind the restaurant.

An immigrant woman who spoke no English called from a community clinic. She had learned that for the past year her abusive husband had been raping their 15-year-old daughter. Her husband had no idea she was calling the Hotline. He had kept her so isolated on the ranch where they lived that she didn't even know her address. While the woman stayed on the line, an advocate contacted the sheriff's office and together they pieced together enough information to figure out her address. The sheriff made plans to confirm the child abuse at the daughter's school, after which the husband would be arrested immediately. After completing the exchange with the sheriff's office, the advocate contacted the nearest shelter and arranged to pick up the woman and her daughter at the clinic.

These are real women who we see every day at work, at the grocery store

and at the school parking lot whose lives have been dramatically changed, in part, by that first call to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Created by the Violence Against Women Act, the Hotline answered its first call on February 21, 1996, and its one millionth call on August 4, 2003. In the past decade we've witnessed a sea of change in how Americans view domestic violence. It is no longer treated as a private, family matter, but as a public crime. As public awareness has grown--as the Hotline's telephone number is posted on bus billboards and websites, in school offices and doctor's waiting rooms-- there has been a dramatic increase in calls. Between 2000 and 2001 alone, call volume increased by 18.5 percent. In 2002, the Hotline answered almost 180,000 calls, an increase of 7.5 percent from the previous year. The Department of Defense recently requested that the Hotline accept calls from military personnel--a move that will certainly increase the call volume substantially.

While the majority of the Hotline's day-to-day operating costs are paid with Federal dollars designated in annual spending bills, funding has not kept pace with the growing call volume and the Hotline's technology and telecommunication needs. This year, the spending bill appropriated only three million dollars to the Hotline. Older equipment, coupled with increased usage, has set the Hotline up to experience frequent problems with the network, data corruption and the lurking threat of a crash in the entire system. The Hotline tries to answer almost 500 calls a day with old computers and servers. Because the system is outdated and the staff is stretched thin, over 26,000 calls last year went unanswered due to long hold times or busy signals.

We need to answer each and every one of the calls to the Hotline. Today I am launching an innovative and far-reaching solution to the Hotline's problems, the Connections Campaign. The Connections Campaign is a public/private partnership that teams up private telecommunication and technology companies with the Federal Government to solve the Hotline's crisis. Under the Connections Campaign, the same companies-- Microsoft, Sony, BellSouth, Verizon Wireless, IBM, Nortel Networks, Dell and others--that supply Americans with home computers, cell phones and telephone service are donating hardware and software to the Hotline. Items like mapping software, networked computers, servers, flat-screened monitors and telephone airtime are being pledged to the Hotline. This is just the beginning of a multi-year, multi-million dollar initiative to place the Hotline squarely in the twenty-first century.

On the public side of the partnership, I am proud to introduce the Domestic Violence Connections Campaign Act of 2004 which will provide a million dollars to train and assist the Hotline's advocates so that they may effectively use the improved equipment provided by the Connections Campaign. In addition, the Act creates a new research grant program to be administered by the Attorney General that will review and analyze data generated by the Hotline. Taking into consideration needs for caller confidentiality and security, researchers will study Hotline data to determine the trends, potential gaps in service and geographical areas of need. Within three years of enactment, researchers will release a comprehensive Hotline study to Congress and the Attorney General. Finally, my bill provides an $800,000 grant program for the Hotline to increase public awareness about domestic violence and the Hotline's services.

One hand clapping simply does not make enough noise. Federal, State and local government cannot always supply all the answers and resources to resolve our communities' pressing problems. Today's Connections Campaign recognizes that big problems warrant grand, collaborative solutions. Cooperation between the Federal Government and the private sector is critical to enhance the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

A cornerstone of the Violence Against Women Act was my conviction that ending domestic violence and sexual assault required a coordinated, community response. We worked hard to ensure that emergency room personnel, police officers, victim advocates, shelter directors and court clerks worked together to implement the many mandates of the Violence Against Women Act. The Connections Campaign is Act Two. We are now asking that the corporate community get actively involved to strengthen a key safety net for women and their families, the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Today's legislation and the kick-off is just the beginning of what I envision to be a lasting connection between the Hotline and the technology and telecommunications community. I look forward to coming back to the Senate floor to inform my colleagues about the new computers, wireless headsets, upgraded software and other technology that could be provided to the Hotline through the Connections Campaign. In the meantime, let me close by commending and expressing my gratitude to Sheryl Cates, the director of the Hotline and her dedicated staff who are providing the first step to safe, new lives for millions of battered women. They are truly doing God's work.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H. Con. Res 355, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. It is honoring the University of Delaware football team.

Madam President, having been here over 30 years, I understand the Senate rules and that you are not allowed to refer to anybody sitting in the gallery. So I will not refer to the fact that anybody is sitting in the gallery.

I stand here with great pride that my alma mater, the University of Delaware, has won the national football championship for Division I-AA. In my 32 years serving in the Senate for Delaware, I have had the opportunity to give hundreds of speeches on the Senate floor. We have much more, though, than a national championship to celebrate. With our nickname, the Fighting Blue Hens, when we were recruited by the University of Delaware, we probably wished they had some other name like the Fighting Tigers or something; but we are Blue Hens. But we are the Blue Hens, and we are proud of the fact that year in and year out we have this long tradition of having a first-rate football team. But none like this team.

This team played one of the most outstanding seasons in college football history with a record of 15 to 1 and setting a school record for victories in any single season.

After clinching their seventh Atlantic 10 Football Conference Championship, the 2003 squad sailed through the division I-AA playoffs outscoring our opponents with a combined score of 149 points to 23.

In fact, they won the championship game by shutting down--and since our Parliamentarian is a graduate, I almost feel badly mentioning that great college--Colgate University 40 to 0.

My only concern was if we had another game, I would have felt very badly for whomever we played because they just kept getting better and better. You can imagine Senator Carper and I and Congressman Castle attended the majority of these games as devoted fans.

As I earlier said, this marks the university's first division I-AA title crown, but we earned six other football titles as a division II school, including when I was there playing.

The last division II title was in 1979. The reason I mention that is it is significant because our current coach, K. C. Keeler, was a linebacker on that national championship team. In his second year at the helm at the university, K. C. Keeler took this team to a national championship. K. C. is the first to give his predecessor, my old coach, Tubby Raymond, credit for having recruited pretty good guys to play on that team.

Let me conclude by saying I am often asked why I ever thought I should run for President of the United States, as I did, and attempt to get the nomination back in the eighties. There was a simple reason. I learned early on, after being a county councilman and then getting elected as a Senator, I was given the honor of presenting the Washington Touchdown Club's Timmie Award. We used to honor the best ``small college team in America.'' I had the opportunity of giving that to Tubby Raymond.

There were people at an old hotel, including Supreme Court Justices and others. I never saw my old coach flustered, but as I stood up, introduced by Howard Cosell, to present him with this award, I gave him the award, handed him the trophy, and he turned and said: You know, I just want to tell you, Joe Biden was one of the best ball players I ever had play for me. And that was just being a Senator.

So I figured if I had gotten elected President, I would have been able by another means to be named what I always wanted to be, an All- American. And that is the only reason I ever ran for President. I wanted to set that record straight.

I am one of the best ball players Delaware ever had, which is simply not true. But I can tell you it is the only time my former coach was ever flustered. But this guy, Keeler, knows about my lack of talent and about how to recognize talent, and he produced the best football team probably in the history of the State of Delaware. We are here to congratulate them.

I thank my colleagues for allowing us this time.

I yield now to my colleague who is an equally avid football fan and a graduate of the University of Delaware.

Madam President, I ask for 1 additional minute.

Madam President, when the Senator was standing with Congressman Castle in the end zone looking at what was going on, I was in the other end zone begging Andy Hall to throw me the ball.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution and the preamble be agreed to en bloc; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc; and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I support this resolution commemorating an extraordinary holiday, International Women's Day; a day that is celebrated around the globe to mark women's achievements and to recognize pressing gender inequities still to be erased.

There is no doubt that women have made tremendous strides toward equality and justice in the last century. International Women's Day provides an important chance to acknowledge women who have pioneered change and paved the way for millions of women and girls to access equal education, employment and opportunity. On the other side of the coin, International Women's Day provides an opportunity for us to make a new ``to-do'' list and highlight what remains to be done, both at home and abroad.

Women's rights, or lack thereof, in the Middle East and South Asia assumed special prominence in the days and weeks after the tragic events of September 11. Americans became familiar with the Taliban's horrendous repression of Afghan women and girls. Two years after the United States removed the Taliban from power, Americans watched as the Afghan loya jirga, or grand council, met to adopt a new constitution-- an opportunity to debate and create enforceable women's rights. Yet it remains to be seen whether the country's constitution establishes tangible improvements to the plight of Afghan women. In a similar vein, the fall of Saddam Hussein has given Iraqi women an opportunity to engage in public life and seek equal rights. Indeed, the interim Iraqi constitution sets aside 25 percent female participation in the interim government. But the challenges to women's rights in that region of the world abound, ranging from engrained religious and cultural norms to poverty from years of strife. I am convinced, however, that lasting stability and representational government depends upon the emancipation and full participation of women in the Middle East and South Asia. International Women's Day is a chance for us to reiterate that message, in those regions and around the world, that empowering women is the key to lasting peace and prosperity. And to that end, the United States should provide critical resources to help support and empower women and girls around the globe--an articulated priority to this administration, but as of yet an unmet goal.

A fitting tribute to International Women's Day would be ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, also known as the International Women's Rights treaty. It sets out basic women's rights--such as the right to an equal education and the right to own and inherit property. These rights are well settled in the United States, but unfortunately, they are not the norm in too many places around the globe. The treaty is stalled because of the administration's interminable treaty ``review.'' After first telling the Committee on Foreign Relations that it supported the treaty, it has commenced a review of the treaty that has now lasted nearly 2 years. To

date, 174 countries have become party to the treaty. The United States stands with the likes of Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan as those few countries that have yet to become a party. This is not the company that our country--the place where the women's movement began--should keep. An administration that cares about the promotion of women's human rights should declare its unwavering support for the International Women's Rights treaty.

International Women's Day is also a perfect time for my Senate colleagues to recognize and address the plight of refugee women. I urge them to show their support for the Women and Children in Armed Conflict Protection Act of 2003, the ``Protection Act'', S. 1001. There are nearly 20 million people homeless today because of war and internal conflict--and the majority of them are women and children. A tragic irony is that women and kids who find their way into refugee camps sometimes face abuse and exploitation in the very place that is supposed to provide security and safety. The Protection Act of 2003 requires the United States government to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect women and children in all stages of conflicts, and sets out specific codes of conduct for agencies running refugee camps. In addition, the bill supports a variety of programs that are providing help to women in war-torn countries, programs that range from tracing lost relatives to providing legal aid for rape survivors. Most importantly, the bill backs up all of its directives with money--$45 million per year--money that can make a real difference to women in such extreme crisis.

According to Government reports, some 800,000 to 900,000 people are trafficked across international borders worldwide to be enslaved as sweatshop workers, prostitutes, agricultural workers, or domestic servants--up to 20,000 of them are trafficked into the United States. A recent New York Times Magazine article profiled the gory details of sex trafficking in America's towns and suburbs. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is the first Federal legislation that attacked head-on the very serious crime and aftermath of human trafficking. The legislation is wide in scope, tackling among other items, Federal penalties for trafficking, international ramifications for trafficking and the immigration needs of trafficking victims. But there remains much to be done. I want to make sure that we have provided law enforcement all of the legal tools and financial resources they need to go after criminals who engage in trafficking. I want to find out if criminal penalties--both here and abroad--are sufficient to deter traffickers. I want to explore if there are innovative things which can be done with extradition and witness protection to encourage fearful victims and witnesses to come forward to help make these cases. Women and girls are overwhelmingly the victims of trafficking. Stepping up our attention to this crime means speaking up for international women's rights--a perfect endeavor on International Women's day.

I will close my remarks on International Women's Day with a topic that my fellow Senators know animates me--ending violence against women. One in three--that is how many women worldwide are raped, beaten or sexually abused in their lifetime. Violence against women is the quintessential global issue. It strikes in wealthy and poor countries, ravages war-torn countries and peaceful ones alike, and plagues disparate cultures. In a nationwide poll, women in the United States recently named domestic violence as their number one concern--number one. Guaranteeing women safety and immediate accountability for violence is the first step towards creating equal opportunities in the public realm--it is the sock that must go on before the shoes. Our attention and efforts to eradicate violence against women must not wane, and indeed, we need to redouble our efforts. Our International Women's Day and every other day, women all over the world deserve nothing less.

Mr. President, I rise today to make plain my strong opposition to the bill under consideration today, S. 1805, the ``Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.'' Let me state at the outset, I support the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and appropriately use firearms. But this bill has nothing to do with protecting those citizens' rights. Instead, this bill is about protecting rogue gun manufacturers that sell defective products and rogue gun dealers who turn a blind eye to suspicious sales and thefts.

The shorthand title for the bill is accurate, the Gun Industry Immunity Act. I won't mince words, this bill gives an entire industry a free pass. In exchange for that free pass, hundreds of thousands of victims across the county will confront closed doors at the courthouse. While I recognize that the bill carves out a set of exceptions of permissible law suits, this is cold comfort. The exceptions are extremely narrow and do not provide reasonable opportunities for legitimate lawsuits to proceed. I am deeply troubled by the fact that this bill will stop pending and future civil lawsuits against the gun industry, including those filed in the wake of the DC Sniper shootings.

As the American public well knows, prior to their killing spree, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo allegedly obtained a Bushmaster rifle from a store in Tacoma, Washington, the infamous Bull's Eye Shooter Supply Shop. This rifle was one of 238 weapons that disappeared from the store's inventory over a three year period. More than fifty of those same ``missing'' firearms turned up in crime traces. Civil suits have been filed against Bull's Eye alleging that the store was negligent by failing to keep track of its weapons, and against the gun manufacturer alleging that continuing to supply such dangerous weapons to a store that cannot maintain accurate track is also negligent conduct. But under today's bill, these allegations do not fit the narrow exceptions of permissible suits. Legal experts David Boies and Lloyd N. Cutler, as well as the Congressional Research Service, opine that these sniper suits will be dismissed immediately if the President signs the gun industry immunity act. In real terms this means that the snipers' victims, including Denise Johnson, widow of the Montgomery County bus driver Conrad Johnson, and the family of James ``Sonny'' Buchanan, who was gunned down while mowing the lawn, will have no remedies.

Another lawsuit that will be derailed if the gun industry immunity bill passes is a 1999 case against a gun dealer who repeatedly supplied a so-called ``straw purchaser'' with handguns, one of which killed 9- year old Nafis Jefferson in Philadelphia, PA. I was struck by what Nafis' mother said when advised that her lawsuit may be dismissed. She stated, ``Before this happened, I believed in the American dream. You work hard, you have a family, you have a good life. This--this has devastated me. I understand commerce, but there also has to be common sense.''

Under the gun industry immunity bill it is quite likely that a pending suit filed by the families of two New Jersey police officers will be dismissed. The officers' families have sued the gun dealer who sold the gun used to shoot them, one of twelve guns the dealer sold in one transaction, in cash, in circumstances so suspicious that the dealer subsequently called to alert the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Yet rather than having the careful consideration of the facts by judge and jury, today, Congress will decide that Mr. McGuire's and Mr. Lemongello's families cannot pursue any remedies in civil court.

A family in Massachusetts will also be denied a right to sue should the Gun Industry Immunity Bill pass. Twenty-six year old Danny Guzman was killed with a 9 mm Kahr Arms gun. The gun was one of a dozen taken from Kahr's unsecured factory, some by the manufacturer's own employee with a criminal record and history of drug abuse. The guns were taken before serial numbers had been stamped on them, making them very difficult to trace. Eventually, a young child found the gun used in Mr. Guzman's death behind an apartment building close to the scene of the shooting. A Massachusetts court found that the suit alleges valid negligence and public nuisance claims against the gun manufacturer and it is set for trial. Yet today's bill would deny Mr. Guzman's family their day in court.

Some have characterized the lawsuits against the gun manufacturers and dealers as ``junk'' suits that are cluttering our court houses and bankrupting the industry and thus, justifying this extraordinary solution of blanket civil immunity. But our local, State and Federal judges and court personnel are no where to be found in this debate. No letters or reports document an inundation of firearm lawsuits plugging up the halls of justice. Furthermore, there is no evidence that our State and Federal courts cannot efficiently and effectively manage the pending forearm lawsuits. Indeed, the opposite is true. Look no further than a recently issued opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in which the court addressed the certified question on whether state law created a duty to protect victims of handgun violence from injury caused by illegal gun trafficking. This Court wrote a careful and balanced opinion that fully addressed the issue. As a former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I am well aware of the complicated and deliberate process courts follow to develop tort law. I am not persuaded that Congress should tread into these waters so adeptly managed by our nation's judges and juries.

Gun manufacturers and dealers are not above the law. The gun industry Immunity bill is a radical and unprecedented attempt to undercut common tort law, usurp the responsibilities of judges and juries and most importantly, deny worthy victims of their day in court. I urge my colleagues to vote against S. 1805, and thank the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island for his hard work fighting this bill.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is there a unanimous consent agreement on time?

Mr. President, ask the indulgence of my colleague from Ohio, who I guess has the floor now, would he yield me 30 seconds?

Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks of my friend from Connecticut. This is about the raw exercise of political power. I do not know how many times in my 31 years I have ever heard a Senator stand up on the floor when he represents the greatest number of constituents affected by a bill, who are major players in his State, and say he disagrees with their position. We are missing an awful lot of that.

I acknowledge that this man has some political courage. We all would do a lot better if there were a lot more of it to go around.

I yield the floor.