Floor Statements

Mr. President, my wife Marcelle and I have been privileged to know Bill and Dorothy McSweeny during the time I have been in the Senate.

During my conversations with them, I have especially appreciated their sense of history. When Mr. McSweeny writes an op-ed piece, based on his knowledge and experience, I think we should pay special attention.

Recently, he wrote one for the Washington Post. Nothing I could say would add to the value of this fine statement, so I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, this Saturday, the Green Mountain Audubon Nature Center in Huntington, VT will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

In 1964, Mrs. Christine Hires of Philadelphia, offered the 150-acre Vermont farm she had owned since 1940, to the newly formed Green Mountain Audubon Society. Mrs. Hires' dream was to keep the land open to visitors and in its natural condition. An open house was held on September 19 and 20 of that year. The Green Mountain Audubon Nature Center was established.

Since 1964, the center has grown to 255 acres of varied habitat including hardwood forest, cedar swamp, beaver pond, meadows, pristine stream and river edge. The original farmhouse and barn are currently used as office and program space for Audubon Vermont. The center also includes a sugar house, the ``Clubhouse'' for summer camps and programs and a full-scale replica of an Abenaki longhouse.

Annually, nearly 15,000 visitors enjoy the nature trails, bird and other wildlife watching as well as a variety of environmental education programs the center is known for. Some 4,500 children and adults take part in educational programs led by Audubon teacher-naturalists each year.

I want to congratulate Green Mountain Audubon on 40 years of bringing people closer to nature through environmental education, natural resources stewardship, its citizen science efforts and, of course, sound conservation advocacy. This weekend's celebration will honor the oldest operating nature center in Vermont and the many individuals who have contributed to its success. Well done.

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

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

Madam President, I have offered this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Nelson of Nebraska, Senator Jeffords, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Feinstein.

I rise today to offer an amendment that would end an ill-advised attempt by the Department of Homeland Security to privatize jobs that are vital to keeping Americans safe. This amendment would prohibit DHS from spending money to contract out immigration information officer, contact representative, or investigative assistant positions. I am pleased to have Senators Ben Nelson, Lieberman, and Jeffords as cosponsors. The House voted for this exact amendment earlier this year by a vote of 242 to 163, with 49 Republicans supporting it. I trust that we will have a similar bipartisan majority in the Senate.

Immigration information officers, IIOs, are responsible for screening applications for immigration benefits for fraud and for performing criminal background checks on applicants. There are more than 1,200 IIOs and contact representatives around the Nation working for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, CIS, branch of DHS. The work they do in attempting to discover and prevent immigration fraud--and prevent dangerous people from abusing the immigration system--is clearly ``inherently governmental,'' making them an inappropriate target of a privatization effort.

As our Nation continues to face the threat of terrorism, CIS carriers a heavy burden in its attempt to process immigration and naturalization applications while ensuring that terrorists--along with other fraudulent actors--do not abuse our immigration system. Information officers have played a vital role in meeting this burden. Indeed, the agency's own job description requires that IIOs have the ``[s]kill to identify fraudulent documents in order to prevent persons from appealing for benefits for which they are not eligible,'' a skill that is obviously all the more important in this era. They are also required by DHS to have ``[k]nowledge and skill in interviewing techniques and observation of applicants in order to determine if an applicant is misrepresenting the facts in order to appear eligible for a benefit.'' I am offering this amendment because I believe that weeding out potential fraud in our immigration system must remain a responsibility of Government employees, especially when the perpetrator of the fraud may be a dangerous criminal or terrorist.

In addition to their security-related work, these IIOs perform duties that are directly related to achieving President Bush's goal, stated during his 2000 campaign and since, of providing more efficient services to lawful immigrants. IIOs increase efficiency by, as their job description states, exploring ``all avenues of assistance available to the customer; determin[ing] the benefit most advantageous if more than one exists, and try[ing] to motivate the customer to file the appropriate application(s).'' IIOs also have extensive knowledge and use discretion in their positions--they are required to have ``knowledge of the exclusion and deportation regulations'' and ``knowledge and familiarity with the immigration and nationality laws.'' As CIS continues its efforts to reduce the backlog faced by immigration applicants to 6 months, the last thing we should be doing is replacing knowledgeable immigration professionals with inexperienced contract workers.

Should a private contractor win the work currently performed by IIOs, that contractor will be responsible for adjudicating immigration benefits and detecting fraud and criminal activity, requiring the contractor to make decisions that are both sensitive to national security and have a huge impact on the lives of millions of immigrants. This would be a bad idea in any era, but it is particularly inappropriate now.

I have a personal interest in this issue because about 100 fine Vermonters currently work as IIOs. I know the fine work they do, and I know that my staff and, indeed, all of our staffs rely on them and their counterparts throughout the country when we are seeking to help our constituents. I know that our Nation will be better off if these fine men and women remain in their current positions.

Thirty-five members of this body are already on record in opposition to contracting out the IIO positions. We wrote to Secretary Ridge a year ago, seeking the cancellation of the A-76 process. I have since joined with Senators Lieberman, Byrd, and Kennedy in obtaining documentation from DHS about its decision to launch the A-76 process to hire private contractors to perform the work currently done by IIOs. The documents the Department has provided have proven illuminating. They have shown that officials within CIS did not think there should be private sector competition for these jobs, and believed that the IIOs were performing inherently governmental work. These officials took their concerns to the leadership at DHS, but their views were overruled, and the competition proceeded.

Grant Thornton and PEC Solutions, outside consultants hired by DHS, drafted memoranda and presentations to demonstrate that going forward with the job competition was unwise. These views, too, were ignored.

The decision to contract out these positions is all the more disturbing because it has the hallmarks of a decision made simply to meet a quota. The Bush administration set a goal of privatizing 15 percent of Government jobs shortly after it took office. When the original decision to submit the IIO positions to competition was made, they were still INS and Department of Justice employees. According to a senior official at CIS, that original decision was made when the Office of Management and Budget informed DOJ that it had only hours to submit 1,200 positions that could be privatized. Only James Ziglar, then the INS Commissioner, even knew that the IIO positions would be submitted to OMB.

After the INS was transferred to DHS, the new Department had to decide whether to continue with the competition. DHS announced its decision to subject the jobs to competition in August 2003, and DHS documents suggest that the 15-percent goal remained a major factor in the decision, with the leader of the DHS privatization office referring to the need to meet OMB's 15-percent goal as recently as October 2003. This was true even though Congress prohibited agencies in February 2003--10 months earlier--from applying or enforcing any numerical goals or targets for subjecting employees to public-private competition, and even though the administration grudgingly announced it would abide by the law forbidding this quota in July 2003.

This amendment would also protect the jobs of investigative assistants. These CIS employees work in the Fraud Detection Unit, searching a variety of private, governmental, and criminal databases to find information about applicants for immigration benefits. These positions were created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, to ensure that only qualified personnel would have access to highly sensitive databases. Despite the nature of the position and the circumstances under which it was created, DHS has demonstrated interest in privatizing these positions as well. This amendment would put a stop to that misguided effort as well.

In conclusion, this amendment would protect Federal employees who are trying to weed out fraud in the immigration system and assist lawful immigrants seeking benefits to which they are entitled. It had overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, passing with nearly 50 Republican votes. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Madam President, I will summarize what this is about for my colleagues. There is an attempt to privatize a number of jobs in the Department of Homeland Security. These jobs are vital to our American security. I do not believe they should be privatized. A majority of the other body feels the same way.

My amendment would prohibit DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, spending money to contract out immigration information officer, contact representative, or investigative assistant positions. That is why I am glad Senators Nelson of Nebraska, Lieberman, Jeffords, and Feinstein have cosponsored this amendment.

This is not a partisan issue. The House voted for this exact amendment. They just copied the wording of it. They voted overwhelming for it, 242 to 163, with 49 Republicans supporting it. I hope we will have similar bipartisan support in the Senate.

Let me explain immigration information officers. We call them IIOs. They are the people who screen applications for immigration benefits for fraud. They perform criminal background checks on applicants. There are more than 1,200 of these IIOs and contact representatives around the Nation. They work for the Citizenship and Immigration Service, a branch of DHS.

The work they do in attempting to discover and prevent immigration fraud and prevent very dangerous people from abusing the immigration system is clearly inherently governmental.

This is not a custodial service. This is not a landscape service. These are things preventing immigration fraud. It is clearly inherently governmental. So it should not be part of a privatization effort.

As we all know, our Nation continues to face the threat of terrorism. CIS carries a heavy burden to attempt to process immigration and naturalization applications, but they have to ensure that terrorists, along with a lot of fraudulent actors, do not abuse our immigration system. They play a vital role in meeting this burden. In fact, the agency's own job description requires that ``they have the skill to identify fraudulent documents in order to prevent persons from appealing for benefits for which they are not eligible.'' That is a skill obviously all the more important in this era.

They are also required by DHS to have knowledge and skilled interviewing techniques in observation of applications. What they have to do comes from years of experience. They have to be able to find those people who are seeking a benefit who are not eligible.

I have spent a lot of time on immigration matters and I believe that weeding out potential fraud in our immigration system is a major responsibility of our Government. It is a major responsibility of our Government employees. We do not turn it over to somebody else, especially when the perpetrator of that fraud could be a very dangerous criminal or a terrorist. I do not want to have it turned over to Fraud Catchers USA. I want it within our Government so we know what standards are being followed.

They also perform duties that are directly related to achieving President Bush's goal of providing more efficient services to lawful immigrants. They increase efficiency, explore all avenues of assistance available to the customer to determine the benefit most advantageous when more than one exists, again based on vast experience.

The administration wants to reduce the backlog faced by immigration applicants to 6 months. Well, suddenly putting in a whole new service to do it makes little sense. If a private contractor does it, that contractor is going to be responsible for adjudicating immigration benefits and detecting fraud and criminal activity that will require the contractor to make decisions that are sensitive to our national security. It is also going to have a huge impact on the lives of millions of immigrants. I think this would be a bad idea in any era, but with the terror threat we face now, I think it is a very bad one.

The amendment would also protect the jobs of investigative assistants who work in the fraud detection unit. These positions were created in the aftermath of September 11 attacks. Despite the nature of the position, despite the circumstances under which it was created, DHS has demonstrated interest in privatizing these positions as well. I think that is a mistake.

As I said, this passed overwhelmingly in the other body, Republicans and Democrats alike supporting it. I hope we would do the same.

I see the distinguished Senator from Nebraska on his feet, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I have great respect for the Senator from Wyoming. He is a friend. I understand what he is saying. Unfortunately, the reason why this position was not taken in the other body is what he has asked for is something they could do anyway, simply ask for a reporting requirement. What they have done, in asking for that, they simply put it over for another 60 days and then do exactly what they want. I don't think anybody questions the reporting that would come back from the very department that wants to do this would be to say: Do what you want to do. They accept the report, they accept the way it will be done. Rather than needing 60 days, they could probably do it in 6 minutes.

What I am concerned about is the reason why there is such a bipartisan support for this in the other body--not for the gutting amendment of the Senator from Wyoming but for our amendment--was this makes sure that these very critical services are in the hands of Government agencies.

There are jobs that can be privatized but I think sometimes we privatize what we should not. We sometimes privatize law enforcement and we have seen some of the problems we have had in our prisons when we have done that. Otherwise we privatize investigations and we find that people have their records and their reputations ruined by private companies that do not meet the standards they are supposed to follow and afterwards they say, Sorry, we made a mistake.

Frankly, if you vote for the second-degree amendment you are voting to outsource positions that are critical to our security. We have had 35 Senators who have already written to Secretary Ridge, asking him not to do this. Basically the second-degree amendment simply says tell us why you think you should do it and just go ahead and do it anyway.

I hope we would not vote for it.

Madam President, I have served for over a quarter of a century on the Appropriations Committee with the distinguished senior Senator from Mississippi. I hope this doesn't hurt him back home when I can state unequivocally that nobody works harder than he does. Nobody is more conscientious in going through legislation. I know he has worked very hard on the appropriations bill before us. As he knows, I have supported him in the subcommittee on a great deal of measures in this bill. We have similar views.

On the question of vetoes, I can remember the last time a piece of legislation I was working on with the White House, saying they would veto legislation if we put in the TRICARE provisions to provide health care for our National Guard and Reserve members and their families, even at a time when an extraordinary, unprecedented number of National Guard and Reserve members were being called up for the war in Iraq and were being required to serve way beyond the time anyone ever anticipated. Nobody could understand why the White House would do that which basically undercuts the brave men and women who are going over there. Fortunately, Republicans and Democrats came together in this body and the other body and passed the legislation with very strong bipartisan support and somehow the veto threat disappeared.

I suspect the same thing. This bill is not going to be vetoed on this issue. I understand the threats. I have been here for 30 years, and I have seen Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents and administrations. It never comes through the Presidents. It says their senior advisers would recommend a veto threat. I have seen hundreds of these in my 30 years I have been in the Senate. I have probably seen about a dozen vetoes come out of the hundreds and hundreds of threats, even though they have been ignored.

The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee has a responsibility to bring that forward. But he knows, as I do, that we hear veto threats almost as though they were being printed and cranked out when any bill comes along.

I think it never would have passed a body as tightly controlled by the Republicans as the House of Representatives, it would never have passed with the overwhelming support had they really thought there would be a veto.

I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, be added as a cosponsor to my amendment to the underlying amendment.

Madam President, I would say only this: If the Thomas amendment is adopted, it effectively kills the Leahy amendment and allows the outsourcing to go forward on what is a critical governmental responsibility.

As I have said before, I would be happy to see a private enterprise stake. As we know, this administration has dramatically increased the number of Government employees. They went down substantially during the 8 years of President Clinton's administration, and they have increased more than any time in a dozen years by this administration. Maybe they could look for areas of outsourcing but not outsourcing in those areas that are critical to our lives and our national security and fight against terrorism.

I am perfectly willing to go to a vote on the Thomas amendment, but I would remind everybody that it kills the Leahy-Nelson et al amendment and allows at a time of heightened terrorist threat the Department of Homeland Security, which dramatically increased the number of employees, to take some very key governmental employees and turn them over to the private sector and say the private sector can handle our security from terrorists who might try to come in under the immigration rubric better than our own Government could do.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I wonder if I might ask the senior distinguished Senator from Mississippi a question. He has said this matter has to go to conference. He is absolutely right. He will hold the majority votes in the conference. Why not this: Why not set both the Thomas amendment as a freestanding amendment, the Nelson-Leahy, et al, amendment, as a freestanding amendment, take them both to conference?

The reason I suggest it is because the Senator from Wyoming is in the Senate, and it is his amendment. That way he could be part of it.

The Senator from Mississippi is absolutely right. We go forward with a vote--I was suggesting a way to save having to put the other amendment up at another time. It still becomes a matter of conference. If the distinguished Senator from Mississippi wishes to go forward with the vote on the Thomas, that is fine with me.

I would state, as I have before, that is a defeat of the underlying Nelson-Leahy, et al, amendment which will come up in another form at a later time. I am perfectly willing to go ahead and vote now.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Jeffords, and Mrs. Feinstein, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the managers, we have had the basic debate on this amendment. I ask that we have 2 minutes on each side and then go to a vote, if that is agreeable. I will make that request.

I ask unanimous consent that we have 4 minutes equally divided and that it then be in order to request the yeas and nays and go to a vote.

I apologize. I thought the distinguished Senator from Mississippi had been advised of this amendment. It is basically my underlying amendment as freestanding.

Mr. President, as I said before, the amendment I have offered is the same amendment that passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives, with strong Republican support.

It says on these very critical--very critical--steps based in the former INS in which they try to weed out possible terrorists on immigration applications that this not be contracted out to a private company but be done by professionals. That is really the bottom line. We can talk about it for hours. We have had the debate before.

I withhold the remainder of my time, and I will ask for the yeas and nays once time is yielded back.

Mr. President, do I have time remaining?

Mr. President, we are talking about people who attempt to discover and prevent immigration fraud, prevent dangerous people from abusing the immigration system. This is inherently governmental. We have kept inherently governmental things like law enforcement within the Government. We should do it here with these 1,200 immigration information officers who contact representatives around the Nation. We have an inherent body of expertise that we need in this fight against terrorism.

I yield back my remaining time and ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 3581, As Amended

Mr. President, I have already spoken in favor of Justice Schneider. Mike and I first met when we were both much younger prosecutors. I urge my colleagues on this side of the aisle to support his nomination.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, today, the Senate is considering the nomination of Judge Michael Watson for a lifetime seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Judge Watson enjoys the strong support of Senator DeWine and Senator Voinovich, for whom he worked in the Ohio Governor's office.

I noted when this matter was considered by the Judiciary Committee that proceedings on it had been rushed and highly irregular. Corners had been cut at every stage, from the noticing of his hearing late on Friday of a holiday recess for a day when the majority was told no Democratic Senators could attend, to the promise that the hearing would be postponed if his rating was negative--it was and the hearing was not. Then, of course, there was the premature listing of his nomination on the agenda before Members had a fair opportunity to review his answers to written questions.

A few minutes before a committee meeting a lengthy letter arrived from a Republican former colleague of Judge Watson attempting to address some of the ethics concerns that had been raised, and then during the meeting another letter was mentioned from the nominee promising not to use his judicial campaign donations to buy tickets to partisan political events, which he had previously said he might do.

It also seems clear from the incompleteness of the Senate questionnaire submitted by this nominee in the late spring that his answers to some of our standard questions were not vetted to determine if they were fully responsive. They were not and, in essence, we have been told that we have received all the information this nominee is going to give. At the same time we have heard that this nominee has been telling people in Ohio that he has been promised that his confirmation is a done deal, and if that were true then what incentive would he have to provide us with more complete information.

Surely, for example, the lack of information about some of the cases handled by this nominee or the names of opposing counsels familiar with his work made it difficult for the American Bar Association to speak with anyone but loyal friends and colleagues. Nevertheless, the ABA-- which has been exceedingly generous to President Bush's judicial nominees--gave Judge Watson a partial `not qualified' rating. This is cause for concern, because the ABA usually gives sitting judges nominated by George Bush a minimum rating of unanimously ``qualified,'' and often a rating of ``well qualified.''

When such a red flag is raised, it is our practice to seek input from the legal community in the nominee's home State about whether there is any cause for concern, since the ABA does not tell us the basis of its votes. Indeed, the credibility of the ABA's ratings has been called into question regarding some of the inflated ratings given to some nominees, despite serious issues such as inexperience or lack of compliance with attorney or judicial codes of conduct.

It does appear that Judge Watson has many fans but it is also true that some, from both parties, have expressed serious concerns that he is simply too political to be rewarded with a lifetime seat on the Federal bench.

I have been concerned that he is not the type of consensus nominee who should be moving so quickly or at all at this stage in a presidential election year. I would note that in 2000, 13 of President Clinton's district court nominees nominated as late as Judge Watson or later never got a hearing or a vote in committee, and the only district court nominees who received committee votes in July of that election year were those who moved by consent. I can recall no nominee with a partial ``not qualified'' rating getting through in July 2000. In fact, I know that anyone President Clinton nominated after the first quarter of 2000 for which there was a single objection by any Senator never got a vote.

Similarly, in 1996, the last time a President was running for reelection, more than half of the district court nominees sent to the Senate as late or later in the year as Judge Watson never got a vote in committee. When a Democrat was in the White House, only consensus nominees moved this late in the year as part of a package or agreement, and Judge Watson was nominated too late to be part of the package agreed to earlier this year for confirmation votes.

The Senate has already confirmed three district court nominees and two circuit court nominees of President Bush from Ohio, some of whom have been extremely controversial and divisive. We moved forward with those nominations even though two of President Clinton's nominees to Ohio were blocked by Republican Senators, Steve Bell and Professor Kent Markus.

Steve Bell, an expert in environmental law, waited more than 16 months and never was allowed a hearing or a vote on his nomination. No one questioned Bell's legal qualifications, and unlike Judge Watson, he did not receive a partial rating of not qualified, yet he never got a hearing or a vote. Mr. Bell is the son of U.S. District Court Judge Sam Bell of Silver Lake, a Republican appointee to the Federal courts. Mr. Bell was formerly the assistant law director in the City of Akron under Republican Mayor Roy L. Ray from 1981 to 1984 and an assistant U.S. attorney, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, from 1984 to 1988. Because he moved to northern Ohio to prevent any appearance of impropriety from practicing before his father's colleagues, this was used as the basis for blocking him from getting a hearing on his nomination to a seat in southern Ohio, where he was born and raised and where he practiced law for much of his career. He never got a hearing or a vote by Republicans.

Similarly, Professor Kent Markus, who leads the Dave Thomas Adoption Law Center at Capital University and previously served as an assistant to Lee Fisher and Janet Reno, never got a hearing or a vote. According to Professor Markus' testimony at a hearing about Democratic nominees who never got a hearing, Senator DeWine told him in 2000 that there were no objections to the merits of his nomination but that no Clinton nominees would be confirmed to the sixth circuit for ``political reasons.'' Yet here we are with a Bush judicial nominee in Ohio in September of this election year, who some consider to be too political, being pushed forward to confirmation. This is such a double standard.

As I noted in committee, I have found some of Judge Watson's answers to questions unsettling. Why was information about Judge Watson currently running for office in a partisan race not made available from the outset? While being up for election is not disqualifying, we are justifiably wary after another nominee of President Bush, Ron Clark of Texas, continued to run for election in a partisan race after

he was confirmed by the Senate. According to press accounts, even though his seat was a so-called ``judicial emergency,'' Mr. Clark asked the President not to sign his commission for office until he finished his race and sat for another session in the Texas legislature so that he could help elect a Republican speaker of the house and vote on things like redistricting, and President Bush delayed signing Clark's appointment papers. After information surfaced about the White House's willingness to delay the appointment of Mr. Clark, he stepped out of the race but told voters that they could still vote for him, and he won. This was shocking and inappropriate behavior by a man confirmed to sit as a Federal judge.

In Judge Watson's situation we have heard that he is actively seeking donations for his State race while also telling donors that he expects to be confirmed shortly. In his written answers, he states that he has ``informed [his] contributors that [he is] in the confirmation process.'' I was troubled by his initial response to my question about what he will do with the funds he has amassed if he is confirmed. He stated that he has not determined whether, if he is confirmed, he will return the money to donors, contribute it to charity or use the money to ``purchase individual tickets to other political events.'' This option is clearly prohibited by Canon 7 of the Code of Conduct for United States judges, which applies to nominees, and bans such partisan activities as buying tickets to partisan events.

Judge Watson's friend subsequently wrote a letter to the Senate claiming that the Code of Conduct for United States judges does not apply to nominees, but anyone who reads Canon 1 of the Code would see that it says, ``the Code is designed to provide guidance to judges and nominees for judicial office.'' That letter also asserts that nominees have one year ``to come into full compliance with its terms,'' which is simply incorrect. There is a narrow exemption related to divesting from profit-sharing or deferred compensation arrangements that is wholly inapplicable to the mandate of Canon 7 prohibiting political activity. The letter is similarly misguided when it asserts a wholly new interpretation on the restriction against soliciting campaign funds, by claiming that Federal judges or nominees could solicit such funds as long as they did not do so ``personally'' and instead used agents to do so. This novel interpretation would create a gaping hole in the Federal prohibition against such partisan activity. Fortunately, the approach advocated by the letter has not been embraced or adopted by the Federal courts.

Admittedly, the ethical rules are rules of reason. In rare instances, like Judge Watson's, an individual is not required to choose between the possibility of a Federal judgeship and the possibility of a State judgeship. At the same time, given the vital importance of the ethical constraints to the public confidence in the fairness of our courts, such a person must exercise extra caution to steer clear of conduct that could call into question his or her impartiality under the Federal rules. If Judge Watson were following the advice and interpretations offered in the letter of his friend, he would be unlikely to comport his conduct with the Code of Conduct for United States judges which expressly applies to nominees such as him.

I do appreciate that, despite the justifications offered by his friend, Judge Watson has informed Senator DeWine that if he is confirmed he has decided to donate his campaign funds ``to a charity dedicated to the protection of the health and welfare of children,'' in compliance with ``State election laws.'' I am happy that Senator DeWine has been able to get the nominee to make these assurances and promise that he and his campaign committee will disclose the names and amounts of his donors.

In addition to the assurances of Senator DeWine, who I hold in high esteem, we have also heard positive things about the nominee from prominent members of the legal community in Ohio since a vote on his nomination in committee was postponed. Some came from unexpected sources. I remain troubled but given the support of the Senators from Ohio and lawyers from Ohio, I will not oppose this nomination.

I congratulate Judge Watson and his family on his confirmation. He is being given a position of great public trust, and I hope that he will live up to the assurances he has given to the Senate and be fair and non-partisan as a Federal judge.

Mr. President, as we approach the end of this Congress, we will reach a point when a number of us will make statements reflecting on those who will not be returning to the Senate next year. I will miss a number of Senators who have chosen not to seek reelection. Today, I want to focus on a Senator who is responding to the country's call by joining with another extraordinary American leader, John Kerry, in this year's national campaign. I speak, of course, of John Edwards, whose energy, optimism and good sense have been a great asset to the Senate over the last 6 years.

I read that political partisans at corporate business and insurance organizations have established a ``November Fund'' of $10 million to seek to smear John Edwards. I hope that before the American people or the media fall prey to these attacks, they consider the facts. In that regard, I urge Americans to read ``Four Trials''. This extraordinary book is an autobiographical account of John Edwards's life and some of the cases in which he represented ordinary citizens who had suffered grievous wrongs. John is rightly proud of his hard work as the lawyer representing E.G. Sawyer, Jennifer Campbell, Josh Howard, Valerie Lakey and so many other middle class and working class families against powerful interests that both harmed them and then refused to acknowledge responsibility for causing that harm.

I wish that those preparing to launch attacks against John Edwards and other trial lawyers would read ``Four Trials.'' It has recently been released in paperback, so now for only $13 they may save themselves millions in negative attack ads. No one who knows the story of John Edwards's legal career can have anything other than admiration for what he was able to achieve through hard work, persistence and belief in the American people who serve on our Nation's juries. That faith in ordinary Americans and commitment to justice is what he is now bringing to American voters across the Nation.

My plea may be futile when addressed to the rabid partisans who, again this year, will apparently stop at nothing. Those who will foster and promote attacks on John Kerry's military service and on John Edwards's representation of injured, ordinary citizens in need of a voice have likewise savagely attacked John McCain during the Republican primaries 4 years ago and Max Cleland 2 years ago.

They promote attacks to divide us. They lessen America by fostering squabbles for partisan gain. I was pleased to see John Kerry and John Edwards issue a call at the Democratic nominating convention in August for the Republican ticket and its supporters to abandon negative attacks. I am disappointed that Republican partisans have not risen to that challenge but continue to engage in what is rightfully termed a ``smear and fear'' campaign. George Bush could have and should have called a halt to the scurrilous attacks upon John Kerry's heroic military service but seems more than willing to see Karl Rove's well- known smear tactics dominate this fall's campaign.

The upcoming wave of attacks against John Edwards will be one financed by those who oppose lowering drug prices for seniors, oppose a real patients' bill of rights and oppose accountability for misconduct that shatters the lives of ordinary Americans. Let them tell David and Sandy Lakey that John Edwards, and lawyers like him who fight for victims, should not be allowed to seek justice in America.

I urge fair-minded Republicans and independents as well as Democrats to consider John Edwards's life and work and to read ``Four Trials.'' It will make you cry. It will remind you that good-hearted people like John and Elizabeth Edwards do the right thing and seek to help their neighbors. It will make you proud to live in a country where ordinary Americans can take on the powerful with the help of a committed legal advocate and achieve some measure of justice.

I look forward to the days and weeks ahead when more and more of the country will have the opportunity to get to know John Edwards. I have every confidence that come the inauguration in January, John will return as President of the Senate as a part of his duties as Vice President of the United States. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve with him, and I look forward to working with him on behalf of the American people in the years to come.

Mr. President, on Memorial Day, my wife Marcelle and I were honored to attend the dedication of the gleaming new World War II Memorial. This memorial is not only a testament to the sacrifice of the 16 million courageous men and women who served in that grand struggle, but, in some ways, it speaks to the tireless energy of our friend and former Senate majority leader, Bob Dole.

Senator Dole received a Purple Heart in Italy, yet never let the lingering effects of his very serious wounds stand in the way of his overall effectiveness and ability to lead the Senate. After he left office, he turned his special brand of energy and intelligence towards ensuring the completion of the new memorial. He helped raise awareness of the project across the country and was critical to helping gain congressional approval of the measure.

During the dedication, Senator Dole gave a moving tribute to his comrades-in-arms. These remarks helped give further context and meaning to the pillars, plaques, and fountains that make up this grand memorial.

I will ask to have these remarks included in the Record, and I implore all of my colleagues to take a few minutes to read this speech.

Today is a particularly fitting day to read Senator Dole's remarks, as today is his birthday. I want to wish my friend a very happy birthday.

I ask unanimous consent the speech be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I regret that the President and the Republican leadership in the Senate continue to choose division over cooperation and confrontation over consensus on the Presidents' most controversial judicial nominees. Senators can work together, Republicans and Democrats. The conflict we are experiencing on the Senate floor, which has the collateral consequence of disrupting important and unfinished work of the Senate, is by Republican partisan design. It is bad for the Senate and the country.

Earlier this morning I was at the White House for the signing of the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act. Senator Campbell and I were the lead sponsors in the Senate on this successful effort, which we know as the ``Steve Young Act'' to honor an outstanding law enforcement officer.

Another example of our bipartisan cooperation is the resolution the Senate passed unanimously last night regarding with the consequences of the Supreme Court's decision in the Blakely case and the need to clarify Federal criminal sentencing law, S. Con. Res. 130. The Senate has now said, consistent with the record we developed at our recent Judiciary Committee hearing, that the Supreme Court should expeditiously clarify the status of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals urged expedited consideration. The Department of Justice is bringing cases to the Supreme Court and should seek expedited consideration to afford the opportunity needed to obtain that necessary guidance.

There are scores of other measures on the Senate Calendar of Business on which we should be acting and could have been acting this week. We still need to enact the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, S. 2013; the Ag Workers bill, S. 1645; the Dream Act, S. 1545; the judicial pay raise, S. 1023, the Anti-Atrocity Act, S. 710; the authorization for mental health courts, S. 2107; and other needed legislation on which there is so much bipartisan agreement.

With all this to do, with the 13 appropriations bills as yet unfinished, without a budget, without serious oversight of significant problems, it is incredible

to me that the Republican Senate leadership is devoting this week to divisive cloture votes on controversial nominations. Why they choose to sow division rather than make progress on matters that could improve the lives of so many Americans across the country is for others to explain.

Criticism of this ``do-nothing'' Congress is becoming universal. Conservative writers who are more prone to promote the Republican agenda than criticize its leadership have even joined in the chorus. Maybe that explains this misguided exercise, maybe it is reaction to all the criticism and an effort to shore up the extreme right-wing of Republican support. I do not know.

I fear more and more that some want the Senate to become a wholly- owned subsidiary of this Presidency and the Federal courts to become an arm of the Republican Party. That is wrong, that is unwise, that is unsound. The American people need to say no and preserve this great democracy.

Rather than doing the people's business, the Senate is being forced into contrived stunts for partisan political purposes. I urge the Republican leadership to use the upcoming recess to learn about the Senate and its role in our Federal Government. Maybe read Master of the Senate, the extraordinary and award winning book by Robert Caro, or the Constitution of the United States.

The American people deserve better. The Senate deserves better. Senator Byrd has spoken to this situation. Senator Daschle, Senator Reid and all Democratic Senators have demonstrated over and over again our good faith and commitment to moving forward. Let us all, Republicans and Democrats, come back from the upcoming hiatus in our Senate proceedings with a commitment to find the common ground that Senator Daschle spoke about so well last month in the interests of the American people.

Mr. President, as we go out of session for the long recess at the end of this week, I am disappointed to report that Congress seems content to let the issue of foreign prisoner abuse linger without effective congressional oversight.

The House Armed Services Committee made it clear weeks ago that it believed the ongoing military investigations into the abuses were sufficient. Until today, the Senate Armed Services Committee had not held a hearing on the prisoner abuse issue in more than a month. Chairman Warner called a hearing this morning to hear a report on one of the investigations: an assessment of Army detention operation doctrine and training, completed by the Army Inspector General.

Waiting for the administration to investigate itself is not the answer. There are at least four completed and seven ongoing military reviews into the treatment of prisoners held in detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. While these reviews are necessary, they fail to address critical issues: What role did White House officials, the Justice Department and other agencies play in developing the policies that allowed these abuses to occur? The military investigations may uncover what went wrong at the bottom of the chain of command, but it will take aggressive congressional oversight to discover what went wrong at the top of the chain.

We need to get to the bottom of this scandal, but we also need to get to the top of it. Only by doing that can we responsibly put it behind us and repair the damage it threatens to our security, to our credibility and to the safety of our troops.

Numerous attempts in Congress to uncover the truth have failed because Republicans have circled the wagons and refused to support oversight efforts. In the past week, Democratic members of the House introduced resolutions requiring the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to turn over all documents related to the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The resolutions failed on straight party-line votes, first on July 15 in the House International Relations Committee, and yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee.

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to make progress as long ago as June 17, 2004, but the Committee, on a party- line vote, rejected a subpoena resolution for documents relating to the interrogation and treatment of detainees. Since that date, no action has been taken by the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite the clear need to resolve these issues.

In the June 17 Committee meeting, and in subsequent days on the Senate Floor, several Senators said that we

should give the administration more time to respond to inquiries, even though some of us had been asking for information for more than a year. Questions were submitted to the Attorney General on June 15, following his appearance before the Committee a week earlier. In the June 8 hearing, the Attorney General refused to provide information and essentially demanded that the Committee issue a subpoena for the requested materials.

On June 17, Democratic Judiciary Committee members were urged to withhold a subpoena and to give the Attorney General until the end of the month to respond. At that time, Chairman Hatch said he believed the administration should comply; he said that it was ``the right thing to do.'' He said that if the administration did not respond by the end of June, then ``I may very well vote for a subpoena at that time.'' That same day, Senator DeWine said, ``I think the administration has to [clarify the policy] and has to release the information that will clarify that.'' Senator Specter said, ``I believe that this committee ought to know what the interrogation practices are and I am prepared to pursue them.'' But all in all, the Republicans asked us to give the Department more time, to wait for the Attorney General to answer our questions.

And then, the Attorney General--through an aide--on July 1, again thumbed his nose at his obligations to the Committee of jurisdiction over the Department of Justice. He refused to provide a comprehensive set of answers to questions submitted by the nine Democratic members of this Committee, he refused to provide almost all of the documents that were requested, and, again, he refused even to provide an index of the documents being withheld. Because of the continued stonewalling by the administration, Congress and its committees of jurisdiction over the Department of Justice remain largely in the dark about these pertinent matters.

Other Senate committees have faced similar obstacles, even when there have been bipartisan requests for information. The Pentagon played games with the Senate Armed Services Committee for seven weeks before showing members the reports on treatment of prisoners in Iraq produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC. While such reports are generally not released, the ICRC agreed early on that members of Congress should have access to them on a confidential basis. Members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees were first shown ICRC reports on Iraq last Wednesday, July 14, after having requested them in early June.

Access to these reports was extremely limited, causing some Members of the House Armed Services Committee to complain that the information was stale and that Pentagon briefers were unable to shed light on the abuses. It is puzzling that Members of Congress--and specifically Members of the committees of jurisdiction--should be treated so incidentally.

The ICRC reports did make an important contribution, however. They apparently confirm that U.S. officials should have been alerted to the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison months before the Pentagon announced an investigation on January 16, 2004, and before General Taguba was assigned to lead this inquiry on January 31, 2004. According to House members, the ICRC reports alleged serious abuses at Abu Ghraib last fall, a time period that coincides with the point at which U.S. military intelligence reportedly took control of certain cellblocks of Abu Ghraib. In addition to the ICRC reports, the New York Times has reported that in November 2003, a small group of interrogators at Abu Ghraib began sharing allegations of prisoner abuse with senior officers. It is hard to comprehend the administration's apparent failure to respond to the ICRC and to internal military reports of abuse for weeks or months in late fall and early winter.

Some individuals who committed abusive acts are being punished, as they must be. But this issue runs much deeper. What of those who gave the orders, set the tone, or looked the other way? What of the White House and Pentagon lawyers who tried to justify the use of torture in their legal arguments? The White House has now disavowed the analysis contained in the August 1, 2002, Office of Legal Counsel memorandum. That memo, which was sent to the White House Counsel, argued that for acts to rise to the level of torture, they must go on for months or even years, or be so severe as to generate the type of pain that would result from organ failure or even death. The White House and the Department of Justice now call that memo ``irrelevant'' and ``unnecessary'' and say that DOJ will spend weeks rewriting its analysis.

A troubling editorial in the July 15 Washington Post charges that several detainees in secret CIA custody have probably been tortured, and that the August 1, 2002, memo was written after those acts occurred in order to justify the acts as legal.

Meanwhile, we continue to hear of more documents. The Department of Justice admitted in the July 1 letter to the Judiciary Committee that it had ``given specific advice concerning specific interrogation practices,'' but would not disclose such advice to members of the Committee, who are duly elected representatives of the people of the United States, as well as members of the committee of oversight for the Department of Justice. USA Today reported on June 28 that the Justice Department issued a memo in August 2002 that ``specifically authorized the CIA to use `waterboarding,' '' an interrogation technique that is designed to make a prisoner believe he is suffocating. This memo is reportedly classified and has not been released. According to USA Today: ``Initially, the Office of Legal Counsel was assigned the task of approving specific interrogation techniques, but high-ranking Justice Department officials intercepted the CIA request, and the matter was handled by top officials in the Deputy Attorney General's office and Justice's Criminal Division.''

While former administration officials grant press interviews and write opinion articles denying wrongdoing, and the White House and Justice Department hold closed briefings for the media to disavow the reasoning of this previously relied upon memoranda and to characterize what happened, Senators of the United States are denied basic information and access to the facts. I would hope that the significance of such unilateralism and arrogance shown to the Congress and to its oversight committees will register with each and every Member of this body.

These memos, which may have governed official action for nearly two years, are of particular concern because so much of what is happening in detention centers remains hidden. In addition to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, several shadowy detention centers are operated by the intelligence agencies or possibly the military, some under total secrecy. A report on secret detentions was released on June 17, 2004, by Human Rights First, a non-profit research and advocacy organization formerly called the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. This report raises many important questions on the issue of foreign prisons. I will ask unanimous consent that the introduction be printed in the Record. The report, Ending Secret Detentions, describes a number of officially undisclosed locations that sources-- typically unnamed government sources quoted in the press--have described as detention centers for terrorism suspects. These sources have discussed facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Diego Garcia, and on U.S. war ships. The ICRC has not been allowed to visit these facilities. It issued a public statement in March expressing its growing concern over ``the fate of an unknown number of people captured . . . and held in undisclosed locations.'' To date, its requests for access to the prisons have been denied.

In Iraq, where the Bush administration claims to be following the Geneva Conventions, Human Rights First states that it is unclear if the ICRC has access to all detention facilities in the country. Even if it did, the Secretary of State admitted in June that he had approved requests to hide certain detainees from the International Red Cross.

And what of the secret detention centers? Have these facilities been managed by officials operating under the legal analysis contained in DOJ memos that argue for a very narrow reading of

the prohibition on torture? Have they been managed by officials acting in accordance with the President's determination that al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects are not protected by the Geneva Conventions? What is the legal status of these individuals? Even in Iraq, where, as I just mentioned, the administration claims to be applying the Geneva Conventions, there is a great deal of ambiguity. The Human Rights First report describes new categories of prisoners in Iraq, including ``security detainees,'' ``high value detainees,'' and a group of prisoners whose status the Coalition Provisional Authority declined to discuss. These are not categories of prisoners defined in the Geneva Conventions, and without full access given the ICRC, no one can verify the circumstances under which they are being held and interrogated.

The administration can provide a significant amount of information about its practices in handling foreign detainees without jeopardizing national security and while still protecting sensitive information. This should include relevant facts about detention centers, and an accounting of the number of detainees, their nationality, and the legal authority under which each is held. I also restate my longstanding request for the documents produced by the White House, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and other agencies that form the legal basis for this Administration's treatment and interrogation of foreign prisoners.

With his words, President Bush says he wants the whole truth, but with his actions he and his administration instead have cynically blocked the doors that lead to the answers. The American people and the American troops who are put at risk by these policies and abuses need and deserve to understand how this happened, and they need to know it will not happen again. For the sake of our national security interests and our credibility, we need to show the world the right way that a democratic society corrects its mistakes. Thwarting adequate oversight and avoiding accountability will not make this problem go away, it will compound it.

I ask unanimous consent the report to which I referred be printed in the Record.

(There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in

Mr. President, I came to this floor more than 2 months ago to decry the Senate's failure to respond to a crisis, caused by Federal policy, that has disrupted the operations of small and large businesses throughout the United States. This crisis has continued unabated since then, but the requests for help from these businesses have continued to fall on deaf ears.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security announced that for the first time ever, the annual cap for H-2B visas had been met. These visas are used by a wide range of industries throughout the Nation to fill temporary labor needs. In my home State of Vermont, they are used primarily by the tourist industry.

The Department of Defense appropriations conference report, before us today, includes a very narrow solution to this problem, benefiting a single industry that uses H-2B visas. The conference report exempts aliens seeking jobs in the ``fish roe'' industry from counting against the H-2B cap. The provision does nothing to help the broad categories of employers who use H-2B visas.

Across the country, businesses in a wide range of industries have been scrambling this summer, having been forced to discard business plans that relied on the foreign employees who had always before been available to them. For years, these employers had applied in the spring for the employees they needed for the summer, filling positions for which they were unable to find American workers. The cap had never been reached, and they had no reason to believe this year would be different. I know that the March announcement came as a shock to many employers in my State, and dozens of them contacted my office to see what could be done. This setback fell equally hard on employers in other States.

In response to these requests, I joined with a substantial bipartisan coalition in introducing S. 2252, the Save Summer Act of 2004. Senator Kennedy is the lead sponsor of the bill, which has 18 cosponsors, including 8 Republicans.

Our bill would add 40,000 visas for the current fiscal year, providing relief to those summer-oriented businesses that had never even had the opportunity to apply for visas. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership has refused to move this bipartisan bill. The leadership has refused even to move a bill that Senator Hatch introduced, and which was supported only by Republicans. Instead, a tiny minority of Senators has been given a veto over doing anything to address this problem for the current fiscal year or years to come.

The Senate must act in a comprehensive way to solve this problem. I urge the majority leader to bring H-2B legislation to the floor as soon as possible, so we can assure that the summer of 2005 will not be a replay of the summer of 2004.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce with Senator Hatch the Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2005 through 2007. I thank Senator Hatch, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for his hard work and support of this legislation.

In the 107th Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives properly authorized spending for the entire Department of Justice, (DOJ or the Department,) for the first time since 1979. Congress extended that authorization in 1980 and 1981. Until 2002 Congress had not passed nor had the President signed an authorization bill for the Department. In fact, there were a number of years where Congress failed to consider any Department authorization bill. This 23-year failure to properly reauthorize the Department forced the appropriations committees in both houses to reauthorize and appropriate money.

We ceded the authorization power to the appropriators for too long, but in the 107th Congress Senator Hatch and I joined forces with House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner and ranking member Conyers to create and pass bipartisan legislation that reaffirmed the authorizing authority and responsibility of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees--the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, Public Law 107-273. A new era of oversight began with that new charter for the Justice Department, with the Senate and House Judiciary Committees taking active new roles in setting the priorities and monitoring the operations of the Department of Justice, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, and that bill helped our oversight duties in many ways. And, as we have learned in the past 3 years, the fight against terrorism makes constructive oversight more important than ever before.

Already this Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner and ranking member Conyers have authored and shepherded through the House of Representatives a new Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act for fiscal years 2004 through 2006, H.R. 3036. I commend both Chairman Sensenbrenner and ranking member Conyers for working in a bipartisan manner to pass that legislation in the House of Representatives.

The Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, fiscal years 2005 through 2007 is a comprehensive authorization of the Department based on H.R. 3036 as passed by the House of Representatives on March 30, 2004. Our bipartisan legislation authorizes appropriations for the Department for fiscal years 2005 through 2007, provide permanent enabling authorities which will allow the Department to efficiently carry out its mission, clarify and harmonize existing statutory authority, and repeal obsolete statutory authorities. The bill also establishes certain reporting requirements and other mechanisms intended to better enable the Congress and the Department to oversee the operations of the Department. Finally, our bill incorporates numerous other pieces of legislation--on such issues as preventing and recovering missing children, cigarette trafficking, intellectual property, going after terrorists who commit violent acts against American citizens overseas, among others--currently pending before Congress that enjoy strong bipartisan support.

I will now highlight a number of the provisions that make up this authorization bill.

Title I of our bill authorizes appropriations for the Department of Justice for each of fiscal years 2005 through 2007. With minor exceptions, these authorizations generally reflect the President's budget request.

Title II makes numerous improvements and upgrades to the Department's grant programs that assist law enforcement and criminal justice agencies; build community capacity to prevent, reduce and control crime; assist victims of crime; and prevent crime.

We decided to combine the current Byrne formula grant, Byrne discretionary grant and Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, LLEBG, programs into one Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program with an authorization of $1.075 billion and a list of 35 uses-- a combination of the traditional Byrne and LLEBG grants regulations-- for which these grants may be used.

I am a longtime supporter of the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program and the LLEBG, both of which have been continuously targeted for elimination by the Bush administration. LLEBG, which received $225 million this year, provide local governments with the means to underwrite projects that reduce crime and improve public safety, and allow communities to craft their own responses to local crime and drug problems. The Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program, which Congress funded at $659,117,000 in FY 2004, makes grants to States to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system, with emphasis on violent crimes and serious offenders, and to enforce State and local drug laws. As a senator from a rural State that relies on LLEBG and Byrne grants to combat crime, I have been concerned with the President's proposals for funding and program eliminations of these well-established grant programs. Our legislation makes it clear that the same authorized funding levels and uses will be available under the new consolidated grant program as under the previous two grant programs.

I am pleased that Title II also extends the authorization of appropriations for the Regional Information Sharing System, RISS, at $100 million for each of fiscal years 2005 through 2007. RISS serves as an invaluable tool to Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies by providing much-needed criminal intelligence and investigative support services. It has built a reputation as one of the most effective and efficient means developed to combat multi- jurisdictional criminal activity, such as narcotics trafficking and gang activity. Without RISS, most law enforcement officers would not have access to newly developed crime-fighting technologies and would be hindered in their intelligence-gathering efforts.

By providing State and local law enforcement agencies with rapid access to its secure, state-of-the-art, nationwide information sharing system, RISS gives law enforcement officers the resources they need to identify and apprehend potential terrorists before they strike. With this in mind, I authored Title VII of the USA PATRIOT Act, Public Law 107-56, to increase information sharing for critical infrastructure protection. The law expanded RISS to facilitate information sharing among Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute terrorist conspiracies and activities, and increased authorized funding to $100 million.

Proper funding provides RISS with the means to maintain six regionally-based information sharing centers that allow for information and intelligence services to be disseminated nationwide addressing major, multijurisdictional crimes. In addition, as the September 11 terrorist attacks and calls for increased vigilance against future attacks demonstrated, RISS requires additional support to intensify antiterrorism measures.

Each RISS center has up to 1,600 member agencies, the vast majority of which are at the municipal and county levels. Over 400 State agencies and over 850 Federal agencies, however, are also members. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, Internal Revenue Service, Secret Service, Customs, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among the Federal agencies that participate in the RISS Program.

Unfortunately, the Consolidated Appropriations law for FY 2004 did not provide full funding for RISS, instead including $30 million for the program. For the coming fiscal year, the President has proposed $45 million. We must ensure that RISS can continue current services, meet increased membership support needs for terrorism investigations and prosecutions, increase intelligence analysis capabilities and add staff to support the increasing numbers of RISS members.

This title also contains a reauthorization of the Crime Free Rural States program that we created in the DOJ Authorization bill in the last Congress. This program authorizes $10 million annually for rural States to address specific crime problems plaguing their areas. In Vermont, for example, this funding could be used to battle heroin abuse and its consequences.

This authorization bill contains a number of provisions of great interest to victim service organizations and those who administer Federal grants for victim assistance and compensation. In particular, I am pleased that we have responded to repeated requests from the field to increase the amount that State assistance and compensation programs may retain for administrative purposes. I have been proposing such an increase for many years, without success.

Under current law, not more than 5 percent of victim assistance and compensation grants may be used for the administration of the State program receiving the grant. The House bill effectively decreases this already-low apportionment by combining administrative costs with training costs--currently 1 percent under guidelines promulgated by the Office for Victims of Crime, OVC. By contrast, we propose raising the amount that can be used for both worthwhile purposes to 7.5 percent of the grants. While this is still less than 10 percent retention permitted, for example, by the Violence Against Women Act, it will help States to accommodate the addition of training purposes in their costs.

Our bill will also amend the Victims of Crime Act, VOCA, to clarify the provisions establishing the Antiterrorism Emergency Reserve in various ways. The original H.R. 3036 permits replenishments of the emergency reserve based upon amounts obligated rather than amounts actually expended in any given fiscal year. Our bill includes two additional clarifications that I proposed. First, it makes explicit that the emergency reserve may be replenished only once each fiscal year, and may not be continually replenished as amounts are obligated or expended. Allowing continual replenishments could result in the obligations or expenditures exceeding the $50 million emergency reserve maximum. Second, we have ensured that all emergency reserve funds-- whether carried over, used to replenish the reserve, obligated or expended--fall above the cap on spending from the Crime Victim Fund as set by appropriations legislation.

Section 242 of the House-passed bill authorized the Assistant Attorney General for the Office for Justice Programs, OJP, to impose special conditions and determine priorities for formula grants. It was unclear to me why the authority to determine formula grant priorities was necessary and what its real impact would be on local victim services. Could it be read to authorize OJP to infringe on the discretion of each State to meet its own needs, as for example by mandating that State VOCA programs give priority to public agencies over nonprofit community organizations, or fund faith-based programs before secular programs? Priorities are already set out by Congress in the authorizing statutes, as is the requirement that programs coordinate public and private victim services in their communities, and the Justice Department should not be allowed to override those congressional directives. Moreover, VOCA already has extensive reporting requirements that enable the Department to monitor how States are distributing these funds. We have therefore deleted the authority to determine formula grant priorities, while retaining the special conditions provision.

Subtitle D of Title II deals with approaches to prevent crime. I am especially pleased that we included provisions that will specifically aid in preventing rural crime because rural States and communities face a number of unique law enforcement challenges. We added these provisions from Senator Daschle's Rural Safety Act, S. 1907, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor. I commend our Democratic leader for his commitment to providing real and meaningful investments to address the unique set of challenges facing rural law enforcement agencies.

Rural law enforcement officers patrol larger areas, operate under tighter budgets and with smaller staffs than their urban and suburban counterparts. This legislation creates programs specifically designed to meet the many complex needs of rural law enforcement agencies and officers. Methamphetamine production and use, for example, is a growing concern for Vermonters. Because the ingredients and the equipment used to produce methamphetamines are so inexpensive and readily available, the drug can be manufactured or ``cooked'' in homemade labs. This has become one of the major problems facing law enforcement agencies nationwide. Last month, the Vermont State Police busted the first known methamphetamine lab in the state. We must help our law enforcement agencies as they struggle to keep up with its troubling growth.

To help law enforcement combat the spread of methamphetamine and other challenges, we authorize in this bill $20 million in grants for FY 2005 to provide for the cleanup of methamphetamine laboratories and related hazardous waste in units of local government and tribal governments located outside a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area; and the improvement of contract-related response time for cleanup of methamphetamine laboratories and related hazardous waste in units of local established methamphetamine prevention and treatment pilot programs in rural areas, and provide additional financial support to local law enforcement.

We also establish a rural 9-1-1 service program to provide access to, and improve a communications infrastructure that will ensure a reliable and seamless communication between, law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical service providers in units of local government and tribal governments located outside a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area and in States. Grants--authorized at $25 million for fiscal year 2005--under this program will be used to establish or improve 9-1-1 service in rural communities. Priority in making grants under this program will be given to communities that do not have 9-1-1 service.

I am pleased that our bill includes the Campbell-Leahy-Hatch Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2003, a bill to reauthorize an existing matching grant program to help State, tribal, and local jurisdictions purchase armor vests for use by law enforcement officers. This bill was passed by the Senate by unanimous consent a year ago this month and it awaits consideration by the House of Representatives.

This measure marks the third time that I have had the privilege of teaming with my friend and colleague Senator Campbell to work on this legislation. We authored the Bulletproof Vest Grant Partnership Act of 1998 in response to the tragic Carl Drega shootout in 1997 on the Vermont-New Hampshire border, in which two State troopers who did not have bulletproof vests were killed. The Federal officers who responded to the scenes of the shooting spree were equipped with life-saving body armor, but the State and local law enforcement officers lacked protective vests because of the cost.

Two years later, we successfully passed the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000, and I hope we will go 3-for-3 this time around. Senator Campbell brings to our effort invaluable experience in this area and during his time in the Senate he has been a leader in the area of law enforcement. As a former deputy sheriff,

he knows the dangers law enforcement officers face when out on patrol. I am pleased that we have been joined in this effort by 12 other Senate cosponsors.

Our bipartisan legislation will save the lives of law enforcement officers across the country by providing more help to State and local law enforcement agencies to purchase body armor. Since its inception in 1999, this highly successful Department of Justice program has provided law enforcement officers in 16,000 jurisdictions nationwide with nearly 350,000 new bulletproof vests. In Vermont, 148 municipalities have been fortunate to receive to receive funding for the purchase of almost 1200 vests. Without the Federal funding given by this program, I daresay that there would be close to that number of police officers without vests in Vermont today.

The Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2003 will further the success of the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program by reauthorizing the program through fiscal year 2007. Our legislation would continue the Federal-State partnership by authorizing up to $50 million per year for matching grants to State and local law enforcement agencies and Indian tribes at the Department of Justice to buy body armor.

We know that body armor saves lives, but the cost has put these vests out of the reach of many of the officers who need them. This program makes it more affordable for police departments of all sizes. Few things mean more to me than when I meet Vermont police officers and they tell me that the protective vests they wear were made possible because of this program. This is the least we should do for the officers on the front lines who put themselves in danger for us every day. I want to make sure that every police officer who needs a bulletproof vest gets one.

We also included in this authorization bill the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking, PACT, Act, as passed by the Senate by unanimous consent on December 9, 2003, but which has yet to be taken up and passed by the House. I commend Senators Hatch and Kohl for their leadership on this measure and thank them for working with me, among others, to craft the compromise language that we include in this bill to crack down on the growing problem of cigarette smuggling, both interstate and international, as well as to address the connection between cigarette smuggling activities and terrorist funding. I am proud to join Senator Hatch, Senator Kohl and 10 others as a cosponsor of the standalone bill.

I also thank the National Association of Attorneys General and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids for working with us and contributing to this language. I want to say a special thanks to Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who also serves as the current Chair of the NAAG Tobacco Committee, for his valuable input on the problems with cigarette smuggling that States are facing and his support for this compromise measure. I also want to thank the Vermont Grocers Association, the Vermont Retail Association, the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Conference of State Legislatures for their support for this measure.

The movement of cigarettes from low-tax areas to high-tax areas in order to avoid the payment of taxes when the cigarettes are resold has become a public health problem in recent years. As State after State chooses to raise its tobacco excise taxes as a means of reducing tobacco use and as a source of revenue, many smokers have sought cheaper means by which to purchase cigarettes. Smokers can often purchase cigarettes and tobacco from remote sellers, Internet or mail order at substantial discounts due to avoidance of state taxes. These sellers, however, are evading their tax obligations because they neither collect nor pay the proper State and local excise taxes for cigarette and other tobacco product sales.

We have the ability to dramatically reduce smuggling without imposing undue burdens on manufacturers or law abiding citizens. By reducing smuggling, we will also increase government revenues by minimizing tax avoidance. My friend General Sorrell has told me that this has become a rapidly growing problem in Vermont as more and more tobacco product manufacturers fail to collect and pay cigarette taxes. Criminals are getting away with smuggling and not paying tobacco taxes because of weak punishments, products that are often poorly labeled, the lack of tax stamps and the inability of the current distribution system to track sales from State to State. These lapses point to a need for uniform rules governing group sales to individuals.

The PACT Act will give States the authority to collect millions of dollars in lost State tax revenue resulting from online and other remote sales of cigarette and smokeless tobacco. It also ensures that every tobacco retailer, whether a brick-and-mortar or remote retailer of tobacco products, play by the same rules by equalizing the tax burdens.

Moreover, the PACT Act gives States the authority necessary to enforce the Jenkins Act, a law passed in 1949, which requires cigarette vendors to report interstate sales of cigarettes. This legislation enhances States' abilities to collect all excise taxes and verify the deposit of all required escrow payments for cigarette and smokeless tobacco sales in interstate commerce, including internet sales. In addition, it provides Federal and State law enforcement with additional resources to enforce state tobacco excise tax laws.

Finally, at the request of the National Association of Attorneys General and many State Attorneys General, we have added a new section to provide the States with authority to enforce the Imported Cigarette Compliance Act to crack down on international tobacco smuggling. This additional authority should further reduce tax evasion and eliminate a lucrative funding source for terrorist organizations.

We must not turn a blind eye to the problem of illegal tobacco smuggling. Those who smuggle cigarettes are criminals and we must close the loopholes that allow cigarette smuggling to continue.

The United States has from its inception recognized the importance of intellectual property laws in fostering innovation, and vested in Congress the responsibility of crafting laws that ensure that those who produce inventions are able to reap economic rewards for their efforts. I am pleased that we can today include, as part of the Department of Justice Authorization Act, the Cooperative Research and Technology Enhancement Act of 2004, the CREATE Act, legislation that I cosponsored along with Senator Hatch, Senator Kohl, Senator Feingold, Senator Schumer, Senator Grassley, Senator Johnson, and Senator Cochran. This bill will provide a needed remedy to one aspect of our Nation's patent laws. On June 25, 2004, the CREATE Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent.

When Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, the law encouraged private entities and not-for-profits such as universities to form collaborative partnerships in order to spur innovation. Prior to the enactment of this law, universities were issued fewer than 250 patents each year. That this number has in recent years surpassed two thousand is owed in large measure to the Bayh-Dole Act. The innovation this law encouraged has contributed billions of dollars annually to the United States economy and has produced hundreds of thousands of jobs.

However, one component of the Bayh-Dole Act, when read literally, runs contrary to the intent of that legislation. In 1999, the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit ruled, in Oddzon Products, Inc. v. Just Toys, Inc., that non-public information may in certain cases be considered ``prior art''--a standard which generally prevents an inventor from obtaining a patent. Thus some collaborative teams that the Bayh-Dole Act was intended to encourage have been unable to obtain patents for their efforts. The result is a disincentive to form this type of partnership, which could have a negative impact on the U.S. economy and hamper the development of new creations.

However, the Federal circuit in its ruling invited Congress to better conform the language of the Bayh-Dole Act to the intent of the legislation. The CREATE Act does exactly that by ensuring that nonpublic information is not considered prior art when the information is used in a collaborative partnership under the Bayh-Dole Act. The bill also includes strict evidentiary burdens to ensure that the

legislation is tailored narrowly in order to solely fulfill the intent of the Bayh-Dole Act.

I am pleased that the PIRATE Act, which I cosponsored with Senator Hatch, will be included as part of this bipartisan bill. Like the overall bill, the PIRATE Act is a consensus bill that will give the Justice Department new and needed tools--in this case, these tools are specific to the fight against piracy. This bill was unanimously passed by the Senate on June 25, 2004. By including this measure in the Department of Justice Authorization Bill, we hope to muster more forces to combat the growing problem of digital piracy.

For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof. In the world of copyright, a criminal charge is unusually difficult to prove because the defendant must have known that his conduct was illegal and he must have willfully engaged in the conduct anyway. For this reason prosecutors can rarely justify bringing criminal charges, and copyright owners have been left alone to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so. In a world in which a computer and an Internet connection are all the tools you need to engage in massive piracy, this is an intolerable predicament.

The PIRATE Act will give the Attorney General civil enforcement authority for copyright infringement. It also calls on the Justice Department to initiate training and pilot programs to ensure that Federal prosecutors across the country are aware of the many difficult technical and strategic problems posed by enforcing copyright law in the digital age.

This new authority does not supplant either the criminal provisions of the Copyright Act, or the remedies available to the copyright owner in a private suit. Rather, it allows the Government to bring its resources to bear on this immense problem and to ensure that more creative works are made available online, that those works are more affordable, and that the people who work to bring them to us are paid for their efforts.

I am pleased that the Koby Mandell Act of 2003 was included in this legislation. I am a proud cosponsor of the stand-alone bill. The act would establish an office within the Department of Justice with a mandate to ensure equal treatment of all victims of terrorist acts committed overseas. Its primary role would be to guarantee that vigorous efforts are made to pursue, prosecute, and punish each and every terrorist who harms Americans overseas, no matter where attacks occur. It would also take steps to inform victims of important developments in international cases, such as status reports on efforts to capture terrorists and monitoring the incarceration of those terrorists who are imprisoned overseas. This is important legislation that would send a strong message of resolve that we are committed to finding and punishing every terrorist who harms Americans overseas.

I am pleased that we have included part of S. 1286, the Seniors Safety Act, which I introduced last year. This bill would create an enhanced sentencing penalty for those who commit crimes against the elderly, create new civil and criminal penalties for pension fraud, and create a centralized service to log complaints of telemarketing fraud.

We would also provide the Attorney General with a new and substantial tool to prevent telemarketing fraud--the power to block or terminate service to telephone facilities that are being used to defraud innocent people. The Justice Department could use this authority to disrupt telemarketing fraud schemes directed from foreign sources by cutting off the swindlers' telephone service. Even if the criminals acquire a new telephone number, temporary interruptions will prevent some seniors from being victimized.

We have agreed to incorporate the Federal Prosecutors' Retirement Benefit Equity Act of 2004, which was originally introduced as a stand- alone bill with my good friends Senator Hatch, Senator Mikulski and Senator Durbin. This bill would correct an inequity that exists under current law, whereby Federal prosecutors receive substantially less favorable retirement benefits than other nearly all other people involved in the Federal criminal justice system. The bill would increase the retirement benefits given to Assistant United States Attorneys by including them as ``law enforcement officers,'' LEOs, under the Federal Employees' Retirement System and the Civil Service Retirement System. The bill would also allow the Attorney General to designate other attorneys employed by the Department of Justice who act primarily as criminal prosecutors as LEOs for purposes of receiving these retirement benefits.

The primary reason for granting enhanced retirement benefits to LEOs is the often dangerous work of law enforcement. Currently, Assistant United States Attorneys, AUSAs, and other Federal prosecutors are not eligible for these enhanced benefits, which are enjoyed by the vast majority of other employees in the criminal justice system. This exclusion is unjustified. The relevant provisions of the United States Code dealing with retirement benefits define an LEO as an employee whose duties are, ``primarily the investigation, apprehension, or detention'' of individuals suspected or convicted of violating Federal law. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 8331(20) & 8401(17). AUSAs and other Federal prosecutors participate in planning investigations, interviewing witnesses both inside and outside of the office setting, debriefing defendants, obtaining warrants, negotiating plea agreements and representing the government at trials and sentencings, all of which fall within the definition of the duties performed by law enforcement officers. Indeed, once a defendant is brought into the criminal justice system, the person with whom they have the most face-to-face contact, and often in an extremely confrontational environment, is the Federal prosecutor.

Although prosecutors do not personally execute arrests, searches and other physically dangerous activities, LEO status is accorded to many criminal justice employees who do not perform such tasks, such as pretrial services officers and probation officers and accountants, cooks and secretaries of the Bureau of Prisons. Moreover, because they are often the most conspicuous representatives of the government in the criminal justice system, Federal prosecutors are natural targets for threats of reprisals by vengeful criminals. Indeed, there are numerous incidents in which assaults and serious death threats have been made against Federal prosecutors, sometimes resulting in significant disruption of their personal and family lives.

I am pleased that S. 710, the Leahy-Hatch Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act, was included in this legislation. This measure would expand the grounds for removing alien human rights violators from the United States, or for denying them entry in the first place. We have heard many accounts of abusers who have taken advantage of America's freedoms after committing horrifying violations of their fellow citizens in their native lands. We need to stop that from happening again.

This bill passed the Judiciary Committee last November but has been subject to an anonymous hold on the floor. A similar version of it passed the Senate by unanimous consent in the 106th Congress. It is long past time to make it law.

I would note that on May 12, a Rwandan man wanted on international charges of genocide and crimes against humanity was arrested at his suburban Chicago home by agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE. Before I and others began to raise the issue of the war criminals among us, it was my impression that the former INS paid little attention to rooting out these thugs. I am pleased that the issue has taken on greater importance at ICE and urge the Senate to pass this bill so that we can expand the grounds of inadmissibility and removability for human rights violators.

I am pleased that the DREAM Act has been included in this bill. I am a cosponsor of the bill, which Senators Hatch and Durbin introduced last year and was passed last fall by the Judiciary Committee. It would benefit undocumented alien children who were brought to the United States by their parents as young children, by restoring States' ability to offer them in-State

tuition and offering them a path to legal residency. It has been distressing that a bill with committee approval and 48 sponsors has been unable to get a vote on the floor of the Senate, and I hope that including the DREAM Act in this legislation will give it added momentum.

I am proud that we include Schumer-Specter legislation to honor the sacrifice of the September 11, 2001 terrorist victims by creating congressional medals that would be awarded to their families and loved ones by the President. I am proud to have joined my friends as a cosponsor of this legislation, as have 18 other Senators.

The tragedy of September 11, 2001 demanded unprecedented sacrifices of everyday American civilians and rescue workers 3,000 of whom lost their lives in the attacks. In recognition of their heroic actions on that day, the bipartisan Fallen Heroes of 9/11 Act would create a medal to be awarded posthumously to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The medal would be designed by the Department of Treasury and awarded to representatives of the deceased by the President. The production of the medals would be paid for by the sale of duplicate medals to the public. Those of us who lost loved ones almost 3 years ago can never have them back, but a medal of honor could recognizes the sacrifices and heroic efforts of our fallen citizens.

I am pleased that our Department of Justice authorization bill includes legislation that Senator Hatch and I introduced together to reauthorize and expand the Department of Justice grant program for Boys & Girls Clubs. The original version of this legislation, S. 2363, currently enjoys 44 cosponsors and passed the Senate by unanimous consent last month. It was considered and reported out of the House Judiciary Committee by voice vote earlier this month but still awaits floor consideration.

Children are the future of our country, and we have a responsibility to make sure they are safe and secure. I know firsthand how well Boys & Girls Clubs work and what topnotch organizations they are. When I was a prosecutor in Vermont, I was convinced of the great need for Boys & Girls Clubs because we rarely encountered children from these kinds of programs. In fact, after I became a U.S. Senator, a police chief was such a big fan that he asked me to help fund a Boys & Girls Club in his district rather than helping him get a couple more police officers.

In Vermont, Boys & Girls Clubs have succeeded in preventing crime and supporting our children. The first club was established in Burlington 62 years ago. Now we have 22 club sites operating throughout the State: seven clubs in Brattleboro, one in Springfield, two clubs in Burlington, one in Winooski, two clubs in Montpelier, five clubs in Randolph, one club in Rutland, two clubs in Vergennes and one in Bristol. There are 10 additional project sites that will be on board and serving kids by the end of 2005: one in Bennington, two in Burlington, one in Duxbury, one in St. Johnsbury, one in Hardwick, three in Randolph and one in Ludlow. These clubs will serve well over 10,000 kids statewide.

As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have pushed for more Federal funding for Boys & Girls Clubs. Since 1998, Congress has increased Federal support for Boys & Girls Clubs from $20 million to $80 million in this year. Due in large part to this increase in funding, there now exist 3,300 Boys & Girls Clubs in all 50 States serving more than 3.6 million young people. Because of these successes, I was both surprised and disappointed to see that the President requested a reduction of $20 million for FY 2005. That request will leave thousands of children and their Clubs behind and we cannot allow such a thing to happen.

In the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, which Senator Hatch and I worked together to pass in the 107th Congress, we included a provision to reauthorize Justice Department grants to establish new Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. By authorizing $80 million in DOJ grants for each of the fiscal years through 2005, we sought to establish 1,200 additional Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. This was to bring the number of Boys & Girls Clubs to 4,000, serving no less than 5 million young people. The bill we introduce today will build upon this: We authorize Justice Department grants at $80 million for fiscal year 2006, $85 million for fiscal year 2007, $90 million for fiscal year 2008, $95 million for fiscal year 2009 and $100 million for fiscal year 2010 to Boys & Girls Clubs to help establish 1,500 additional Boys & Girls Clubs across the Nation with the goal of having 5,000 Boys & Girls Clubs in operation by December 31, 2010.

If we had a Boys & Girls Club in every community, prosecutors in our country would have a lot less work to do because of the values that are being instilled in children from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Each time I visit a club in Vermont, I am approached by parents, educators, teachers, grandparents and law enforcement officers who tell me ``Keep doing this! These clubs give our children the chance to grow up free of drugs, gangs and crime.''

You cannot argue that these are just Democratic or Republican ideas, or conservative or liberal ideas. They are simply good sense ideas. We need safe havens where our youth--the future of our country can learn and grow up free from the influences of drugs, gangs and crime. That is why Boys & Girls Clubs are so important to our children.

We also incorporated language similar to the Leahy-Grassley-Lincoln Missing Child Cold Case Review Act of 2004, S. 2435, which will allow an inspector general to authorize his or her staff to provide assistance on and conduct reviews of the inactive case files, or ``cold cases,'' involving children stored at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, NCMEC, and to develop recommendations for further investigations. The only alteration we made to the original bill was to include language to also allow the Inspector General of the Government Printing Office to authorize his or her staff to work on cold cases.

Speed is everything in homicide investigations. As a former prosecutor in Vermont, I know firsthand that speed is of the essence when trying to solve a homicide. This focus on speed, however, has led the law enforcement community to generally believe that any case not solved within the first 72 hours or lacking significant leads and witness participation has little likelihood of being solved, regardless of the expertise and resources deployed. With time, such unsolved cases become ``cold,'' and these are among the most difficult and frustrating cases detectives face because they are, in effect, cases that other investigators, for whatever reason, failed to solve.

Our Nation's law enforcement agencies, regardless of size, are not immune to rising crime rates, staff shortages and budget restrictions. Such obstacles have strained the investigative and administrative resources of all agencies. More crime often means that fewer cases are vigorously pursued, fewer opportunities arise for followup and individual caseloads increase for already overworked detectives.

All the obstacles that hamper homicide investigations in their early phases contribute to cold cases. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children our Nation's top resource center for child protection presently retains a backlog of cold cases involving children that law enforcement departments nationwide have stopped investigating primarily due to all these obstacles. NCMEC serves as a clearinghouse for all cold cases in which a child has not been found and/or the suspect has not been identified.

This provision will allow an inspector general to provide staff support to NCMEC for the purpose of conducting reviews of inactive case files to develop recommendations for further investigation and similar activities. The inspector general community has one of the most diverse and talented criminal investigative cadres in the Federal Government. A vast majority of these special agents have come from traditional law enforcement agencies, and are highly-trained and extremely capable of dealing with complex, criminal cases.

Under current law, an inspector general's duties are limited to activities related to the programs and operations of an agency. This measure would allow an inspector general to permit criminal investigators under his or her supervision to review cold case files, so long as doing so would not interfere

with normal duties. An inspector general would not conduct actual investigations, and any inspector general would only commit staff when the office's mission-related workloads permitted. At no time would these activities be allowed to conflict with or delay the stated missions of an inspector general.

From time to time a criminal investigator employed by an inspector general may be between investigations or otherwise available for brief periods of time. This act would also allow those resources to be provided to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Commitment of resources would be at a minimum and would not materially affect the budget of any office.

We have before us the type of bipartisan legislation that should be moved easily through the Senate and House. It is supported by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. I applaud the ongoing work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and hope that we can soon provide NCMEC with the resources it requires to solve cold cases involving missing children.

This authorization bill includes a provision that would help colleges and universities in Vermont and across the nation. It would allow foreigners who are pursuing ``distance learning'' opportunities at American schools to enter the country for up to 30 days to fulfill academic requirements. Under current law, these students do not fall under any visa category, and many are being denied entry and are thus unable to complete their educations. This is a loophole that harms both those students and the institutions that serve them.

In recent months, serious questions have been raised in the media and in several congressional hearings about deficiencies within the translation program at the FBI. Nearly, 2 years ago I began asking questions in Judiciary Committee hearings about the FBI's translation program. Most of these remain unanswered. As a result, members of our committee are no closer to determining the scope of the issue, including the pervasiveness and seriousness of FBI shortcomings in this area, or what the FBI intends to do to rectify personnel shortages, security issues, translation inaccuracies and other problems that have plagued the translator program for years.

Section 205 of the USA PATRIOT Act included an important reporting requirement by the Attorney General to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees about (1) the number of translators employed by the FBI, (2) legal and practical impediments to using translators employed by other Federal, State, or local agencies, on a full, part-time, or shared basis, and (3) the needs of the FBI for specific translation services in certain languages, and recommendations for meeting those needs. To date, the Attorney General has not made the report required by Section 205 most likely because there is no date certain written in the law by which the report must be made. This provision fills that gap by requiring the report ``not later than 30 days after the date of enactment and annually thereafter .with respect to the preceding 12 month period.'' It also expands the reporting requirement to include translators ``contracted'' by the government in addition to those ``employed.''

I have worked my entire professional life to protect children from those who would prey on them. Preventing child exploitation through the use of the Internet is one concrete and important way to help this important cause. In this regard, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998, Public Law No. 105-314, remote computing and electronic communication service providers are mandated to report all instances of child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I respect and applaud the work of NCMEC and its tireless efforts in this important national priority.

In March 1998, Congress mandated that NCMEC initiate the CyberTipline for citizens to report online sexual crimes against children. In December 1999, Congress passed Public Law No. 106-113 to modify 42 U.S.C. Sec. 13032(b)(1) to set forth a ``duty to report'' by ISPs. According to NCMEC, many U.S. electronic communications service providers are not complying with the requirement that they register and use the CyberTipline to report child porn found on their services because supporting regulations required to be promulgated by the Department of Justice on matters such as the contents of the report were never done so.

In this authorization bill we propose language that amends the ``duty to report'' language by providing specific guidance on what information is required to be included in the ISP reports. The information required includes the content and images of the apparent violation, the Internet Protocol Address, the date and time associated with the violation, and specific contact information for the sender.

America's film heritage is an important part of the American experience, an inheritance from previous generations that helps tell us who we are and who we were as a society. They offer insight into our history, our dreams, and our aspirations. Yet sadly, this part of American heritage is literally disintegrating faster than can be saved. Today, I am delighted that with the help of Senator Hatch, the National Film Preservation Act can be included in our Department of Justice reauthorization bill.

I introduced the National Film Preservation Act last November, a bill that will reauthorize and extend the National Film Preservation Act of 1996. We first acted in 1988 in order to recognize the educational, cultural, and historical importance of our film heritage, and its inherently fragile nature. In doing so, Congress created the National Film Preservation Board and the National Film Preservation Foundation both of which operate under the auspices of the Library of Congress in order to help save America's film heritage.

The National Film Preservation Act will allow the Library of Congress to continue its important work in preserving America's fading treasures, as well as providing grants that will help libraries, museums, and archives preserve films and make those works available for study and research. These continued efforts are more critical today than ever before. While a wide range of works have been saved, with every passing day we lose the opportunity to save more. Fewer than 20 percent of the features of the 1920s exist in complete form and less than 10 percent of the features of the 1910s have survived into the new millennium.

The films saved by the National Film Preservation Board are precisely those types of works that would be unlikely to survive without public support. At-risk documentaries, silent-era films, avant-garde works, ethnic films, newsreels, and home movies frequently provide more insight into the American experience than the Hollywood sound features kept and preserved by major studios. What is more, in many cases only one copy of these ``orphaned'' works exists. As the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington, has noted, ``Our film heritage is America's living past.''

I would like to thank Senator Hatch again for working with me to include the ``National Film Preservation Act'' in the bill we are introducing today.

The House-passed bill included an important reporting requirement authored by Rep. Adam Schiff and adopted by the House Judiciary Committee. Specifically, this provision required the Department of Justice to submit an annual report to Congress specifying the number of U.S. persons or residents detained on suspicion of terrorism, and describing Department standards for recommending or determining that a person should be tried as a criminal defendant or designated as an enemy combatant. A Washington Post editorial dated April 3, 2004, praised this provision, while noting that ``If more members of the House took their duty to legislate in this critical area seriously, Congress would craft a bill that actually imposed standards rather than simply inquired what they were.'' I agree, and regret that was unable to persuade Chairman Hatch to retain this modest oversight tool.

I am disappointed that we will not be including the privacy officer provision referred to us by the House. It is critical that the Department have a designated leader who is consistently mindful of the impact of the Department's activities on privacy rights. While there has been some history of a

privacy official at the Department, these positions have been nonstatutory, and thus there has been no guarantee of consistent vigor and accountability on these issues. Given that the Department's mission increasingly involves gathering and assessing personal information, we simply can't afford to have a lapse in accountability on privacy. Moreover, this is not an untested idea. Congress created a privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, and it has been recognized as a successful example of how this role can be helpful in assessing and addressing privacy concerns. We need to follow this lead, and the privacy officer provision would have been a good opportunity to do so.

I look forward to working with Senator Hatch, Congressman Sensenbrenner and Congressman Conyers to continue the important business of reauthorizing the Department of Justice. Clearly, regular reauthorization of the Department should be part and parcel of the committees' traditional role in overseeing the Department's activities. Swift passage into law of the Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2005 through 2007 will be a significant step toward enhancing our oversight role.

Mr. President, I submit today a bill that will assist the States of Vermont and New York in commemorating the extraordinary cultural; historical, and recreational heritage of one of Vermont's greatest natural treasures, Lake Champlain.

Nearly 400 years ago, in 1609, Samuel de Champlain entered a green valley where he arrived at the lake that today carries his name. Lake Champlain stretches nearly 120 miles from Whitehall, NY, to the Richelieu River in Quebec and is nestled between the dramatic peaks of the New York's Adirondacks and Vermont's picturesque Green Mountains.

The Samuel de Champlain 400th Commemoration Commission Act of 2004 will authorize the National Park Service to fund a Commemoration Committee established with the Governors of Vermont and New York in order to plan national events for 2009 that celebrate the arrival of Samuel de Champlain and the rich heritage of the lake--which includes all people present when Champlain arrived in the valley and the communities that exist today.

We Vermonters sometimes affectionately refer to Lake Champlain as the ``Sixth Great Lake,'' and I have many fond memories of this wonderful lake. As a boy I spent time fishing and boating in its waters and over the years have taken my family on many enjoyable ferry rides across the lake. More recently I have become an avid scuba diver, and my own explorations of shipwreck sites in the lake have inspired me to educate others about its history and work to help preserve its unique heritage.

Just as in my own family's history, Lake Champlain's history links together Vermont and our Nation's storied histories.

Shortly after Champlain entered the region, what is now known as Lake Champlain was quickly recognized as the vital transportation route for the Northeast which had been used by Native peoples for centuries. Early settlers used the lake to explore unknown lands and create new settlements in the wilderness of Colonial North America.

Lake Champlain is awash in a rich maritime history. The chain of lakes that includes Lake Champlain has been called the ``The Great Warpath'' because of its use by early Colonial armies and flotillas. It played a critical role in the birth of the United States Navy through early military and naval struggles played out along its shores and in its bays.

The most famous naval battle on Lake Champlain occurred in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, when Benedict Arnold managed to successfully delay a British invasion of the rebelling colonies at the Battle of Valcour Island.

Lake Champlain holds one of the largest and best preserved collections of historic naval and other shipwrecks. As an avid scuba diver, I have viewed many of the shipwrecks first hand and am always awed by how well they have been preserved.

The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Lake Champlain Basin Program, and many other Vermonters and New Yorkers have worked hard to preserve our fabulous maritime archaeological heritage so that other intrepid adventurers can dive in and explore a part of Vermont's past that helped shape the direction of our developing Nation.

Over the years as my family and I explored the lake's maritime history we also learned about its role in the growing economy of our young Nation. As the United States became more settled and stable, Lake Champlain became a center of flourishing commerce in the Northeast and a critical conduit for getting goods up and down the eastern seaboard.

In fact, historians call the 19th nineteenth century Lake Champlain's ``Golden Era'' of waterborne commerce. During that time the lake's peaceful waters were churning with the wakes of hundreds of steamboats, canal boats, ferries, merchant sloops and schooners--all plying their trade to markets in the Northeast and abroad.

Today, the storied waters of Lake Champlain are treasured by Vermonters and New Yorkers and millions more as an outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational resource. Activities such as boating, fishing, and tourism help Lake Champlain support a regional economy of more than $9 billion dollars. No other inland body of water has played such a decisive role in the history of the United States as has Lake Champlain.

The arrival of Samuel de Champlain had profound influence on our Nation's history that goes far beyond the simple naming of a lake--this event lead to a multitude of great historic, cultural, and economic achievements that to this day continue to influence life throughout the United States.

This legislation will help our country and the many small towns and groups around Lake Champlain properly celebrate our common heritage.

Mr. President, I submit today a bill that will assist the States of Vermont and New York in commemorating the extraordinary cultural; historical, and recreational heritage of one of Vermont's greatest natural treasures, Lake Champlain.

Nearly 400 years ago, in 1609, Samuel de Champlain entered a green valley where he arrived at the lake that today carries his name. Lake Champlain stretches nearly 120 miles from Whitehall, NY, to the Richelieu River in Quebec and is nestled between the dramatic peaks of the New York's Adirondacks and Vermont's picturesque Green Mountains.

The Samuel de Champlain 400th Commemoration Commission Act of 2004 will authorize the National Park Service to fund a Commemoration Committee established with the Governors of Vermont and New York in order to plan national events for 2009 that celebrate the arrival of Samuel de Champlain and the rich heritage of the lake--which includes all people present when Champlain arrived in the valley and the communities that exist today.

We Vermonters sometimes affectionately refer to Lake Champlain as the ``Sixth Great Lake,'' and I have many fond memories of this wonderful lake. As a boy I spent time fishing and boating in its waters and over the years have taken my family on many enjoyable ferry rides across the lake. More recently I have become an avid scuba diver, and my own explorations of shipwreck sites in the lake have inspired me to educate others about its history and work to help preserve its unique heritage.

Just as in my own family's history, Lake Champlain's history links together Vermont and our Nation's storied histories.

Shortly after Champlain entered the region, what is now known as Lake Champlain was quickly recognized as the vital transportation route for the Northeast which had been used by Native peoples for centuries. Early settlers used the lake to explore unknown lands and create new settlements in the wilderness of Colonial North America.

Lake Champlain is awash in a rich maritime history. The chain of lakes that includes Lake Champlain has been called the ``The Great Warpath'' because of its use by early Colonial armies and flotillas. It played a critical role in the birth of the United States Navy through early military and naval struggles played out along its shores and in its bays.

The most famous naval battle on Lake Champlain occurred in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, when Benedict Arnold managed to successfully delay a British invasion of the rebelling colonies at the Battle of Valcour Island.

Lake Champlain holds one of the largest and best preserved collections of historic naval and other shipwrecks. As an avid scuba diver, I have viewed many of the shipwrecks first hand and am always awed by how well they have been preserved.

The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Lake Champlain Basin Program, and many other Vermonters and New Yorkers have worked hard to preserve our fabulous maritime archaeological heritage so that other intrepid adventurers can dive in and explore a part of Vermont's past that helped shape the direction of our developing Nation.

Over the years as my family and I explored the lake's maritime history we also learned about its role in the growing economy of our young Nation. As the United States became more settled and stable, Lake Champlain became a center of flourishing commerce in the Northeast and a critical conduit for getting goods up and down the eastern seaboard.

In fact, historians call the 19th nineteenth century Lake Champlain's ``Golden Era'' of waterborne commerce. During that time the lake's peaceful waters were churning with the wakes of hundreds of steamboats, canal boats, ferries, merchant sloops and schooners--all plying their trade to markets in the Northeast and abroad.

Today, the storied waters of Lake Champlain are treasured by Vermonters and New Yorkers and millions more as an outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational resource. Activities such as boating, fishing, and tourism help Lake Champlain support a regional economy of more than $9 billion dollars. No other inland body of water has played such a decisive role in the history of the United States as has Lake Champlain.

The arrival of Samuel de Champlain had profound influence on our Nation's history that goes far beyond the simple naming of a lake--this event lead to a multitude of great historic, cultural, and economic achievements that to this day continue to influence life throughout the United States.

This legislation will help our country and the many small towns and groups around Lake Champlain properly celebrate our common heritage.

Madam President, I am pleased to sponsor this anti- trafficking resolution with Senators Cornyn, Schumer, Lindsey Graham, and Clinton, and to have worked with Senator Cornyn to emphasize the bipartisan commitment to eliminate trafficking. The resolution encourages States to join the 106th and 108th Congresses in passing legislation to combat human trafficking.

We cannot know with any certainty how many people are trafficked, but some experts estimate that nearly a million people worldwide every year are bought, sold, or trafficked, with about 16,000 of those people trafficked to the United States. These people are forced into involuntary servitude or, often, prostitution. Until recently, this issue was not a priority for governments around the world, but we are seeing signs of change, some prompted by our passage in 2000 of the bipartisan Trafficking Victims Protection Act, (TVPA) and last year's reauthorization of that law.

In 2000, I served on the conference committee for the TVPA, which passed in the House and Senate by overwhelming margins and was signed by President Clinton, whose Justice Department was intimately involved in the legislative process. This bill--on which our late colleague Senator Wellstone worked so tirelessly--signaled a bipartisan congressional commitment to the prosecution of traffickers and the protection of their victims. I am proud to have played a role in creating the law, and in reauthorizing it.

In forging the TVPA, Senators Wellstone and Brownback, and Congressmen Christopher Smith and Gejdensen, sought both to eliminate trafficking at home and to make combating trafficking and slavery a foreign policy priority. We are seeing signs of progress in this area, and I believe we will see even more if States become more involved in this issue.

Combating trafficking has been a bipartisan issue. Senators and Representatives who are otherwise ideological opposites have worked together closely on anti-trafficking legislation, and the Justice Departments under both President Clinton and Bush have made it a priority to prosecute those who would deprive others of their most basic liberties. This resolution, too, provides an example of Senators from both sides of the aisle working together to further the cause of eliminating trafficking by punishing its perpetrators. I urge the Senate to pass it today.

Mr. President, the Supreme Court's decision last month in Blakely v. Washington has raised significant concerns about the validity of the Federal sentencing guidelines. Blakely held that sentencing procedures used by the State of Washington violated the defendant's constitutional right to a jury trial because they allowed the judge to impose an enhanced sentence based on facts that were neither found by a jury nor admitted by the defendant.

Within days of this decision, a split developed among the Federal district and circuit courts regarding the applicability of Blakely to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, and one circuit court invoked a rarely used procedural mechanism to certify the question to the Supreme Court. Lower Federal courts continue to reach inconsistent positions on Blakely issues on virtually a daily basis. By all accounts, the confusion and uncertainty is frustrating the orderly administration of justice in courts across the country.

Two and one-half weeks after the Court issued its Blakely decision, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing to consider the implications of the decision for the Federal criminal justice system. As witness after witness described the disarray in the lower Federal courts, it became increasingly clear that the not-hypothetical application of Blakely to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is threatening to undo 20 years of sentencing reform.

Twenty years after enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, we must remind ourselves about the core values and principles that accounted for the bipartisan popularity of the original Federal Guidelines concept. The 1984 act was written and enacted against a history of racial, geographical, and other unfair disparities in sentencing. Congress sought to narrow these disparities while leaving judges enough discretion to do justice in the particular circumstances of each individual case. The task of harmonizing sentencing policies was deliberately placed in the hands of an independent, expert Sentencing Commission.

The Guidelines as originally conceived were about fairness, consistency, predictability, reasoned discretion, and minimizing the role of congressional politics and the ideology of the individual judge in sentencing. Blakely threatens a return to the bad old days of fully indeterminate sentencing when improper factors such as race, geography and the predilections of the sentencing judge could drastically affect the sentence. While I favor Federal judges exercising their discretion in pursuit of individual justice in individual cases, I do not want to see a return to the bad old days.

It may be that the Blakely decision was occasioned in part by recent tinkering with the Sentencing Reform Act that went too far. In recent years, Congress has seriously undermined the basic structure and fairness of the Federal Guidelines system through posturing and ideology. There has been a flood of legislation establishing mandatory minimum sentences for an ever-increasing number of offenses, determined by politics rather than any systemic analysis of the relative seriousness of different crimes. There has been ever-increasing pressure on the Sentencing Commission and on individual district court judges to increase Guidelines sentences. The culmination of these unfortunate trends was the so-called Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act, in which this Congress cut the Commission out altogether and rewrote large sections of the Guidelines manual, including commentary, and in which Congress also provided for a judicial ``black list'' to intimidate judges whose sentences were insufficiently draconian to suit the current Justice Department.

The Feeney Amendment was a direct assault on judicial independence. It was forced through the Congress with virtually no debate and without meaningful input from judges or practitioners. That process was particularly unfortunate given that the Republican majority's justification for the Feeney Amendment--a supposed ``crisis'' of downward departures--was unfounded. In fact, downward departure rates were well below the range contemplated by Congress when it authorized the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, except for departures requested by the Government itself. But having a false factual predicate for forcing significantly flawed congressional action has become all too familiar during the last few years.

The attitude underlying too many of these recent developments seems to be that politicians in Washington are better at sentencing than the Federal trial judges who preside over individual cases, and that longer sentences are always better. Somewhere along the line we appear to have forgotten that justice is not just about treating like cases alike; it is also about treating different cases differently.

These are issues that need to be examined in the future, in a thoughtful and deliberative fashion. The Sentencing Reform Act was the product of many years of work by members on both sides of the aisle. The current Sentencing Guidelines reflect more than a decade of work by the Sentencing Commission. If the Blakely decision ultimately requires some modification of our Federal sentencing system, we must proceed with extreme care. The last thing that any of us want is to risk making an already chaotic situation even worse by enacting ill-considered legislation that is itself subject to constitutional attack.

The Department of Justice, the Sentencing Commission, and other experts who testified before the Judiciary Committee have urged Congress not to act precipitously. I agree that corrective legislation is not immediately necessary and could be counter-productive, provided that the Supreme Court expeditiously clarifies the scope of its Blakely decision.

For these reasons, I am pleased to join Senator Hatch and other Judiciary Committee members in introducing a resolution regarding the Blakely decision. The words of the resolution are clear, unambiguous and unassailable: The Supreme Court of the United States should act expeditiously to resolve the current confusion and inconsistency in the Federal criminal justice system by promptly considering and ruling on the constitutionality of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Congress should take up and pass this resolution without delay.