Floor Statements

Mr. President, over the weekend the country heard one of the more senior Members of this body, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, make a charge against the President of the United States, particularly with respect to the war in Iraq.

The senior Senator from Massachusetts said the war in Iraq was ``hatched in Texas'' in a conversation between the President of the United States and the Republican leadership and that the purpose of attacking Iraq was to help the Republicans politically in the congressional elections of 2002. The Senator from Massachusetts summarized the President's position with respect to the war in a single word. He called it a ``fraud.''

To quote a comment from the Washington Post in another situation dealing with Iraq, this is a serious charge and it deserves a serious response. It is my attempt today to give a serious response to this charge.

If the charge made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts is accurate, then the President is deserving of a serious rebuke. If in fact the charge is not accurate, the senior Senator from Massachusetts is deserving of a serious rebuke.

I intend to examine whether or not the charge could be substantiated and give it the attention that I think it does in fact deserve.

I will turn not to sources that are friendly to the President of the United States; I will go in my analysis to those who have been critical of President Bush with respect to Iraq and to his Presidency generally.

Let me start by quoting a Presidential statement with respect to Iraq:

Saddam Hussein's priorities are painfully clear, not caring

for his citizens but building weapons of mass destruction and

using them--using them not once, but repeatedly in the

terrible war Iraq fought with Iran, and not only against

combatants but against civilians, and not only against a

foreign adversary but against his own people, and he has

targeted Scud missiles against fellow Arabs in Iran, Saudi

Arabia, and Bahrain.

Nobody wants to use force, but if Saddam Hussein refuses to

keep his commitments to the international community, we must

be prepared to deal directly with the threat these weapons

pose to the Iraqi people, to Iraq's neighbors, and to the

rest of the world. Either Saddam acts, or we will have to.

As I say, that was a Presidential quote, but it was not from George W. Bush, and it was not after a meeting in Texas between George W. Bush and Republican leaders. That was a statement made by President William Jefferson Clinton on February 20, 1998--long before the congressional elections of 2002 and 2 years before George W. Bush became President of the United States.

The suggestion that President Bush created the fraud or the specter that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction does not stand up against that statement by President Clinton.

I make reference to the Washington Post. This is a newspaper that is not known for its support of either Republicans or President Bush. But they were a supporter of attacking Iraq and, as I have said, there were those who charged the Washington Post editors with a ``jingoistic rush to war,'' and the paper said, as I have noted:

That is a serious charge and it deserves a serious

response.

Then the paper goes on to make these comments:

In fact, there is nothing sudden or precipitous about our

view that Saddam Hussein poses a grave danger.

Quoting further:

In 1997 and 1998, we strongly backed President Clinton when

he vowed that Iraq must finally honor its commitments to the

United Nations to give up its nuclear, biological, and

chemical weapons, and we strongly criticized him when he

retreated from those vows.

Again, that was a comment made after the supposed meeting in Texas and made after the congressional elections of 2002. If, indeed, President Bush made the decision to go into Iraq for purely political reasons, why would the Washington Post, which is not one of President Bush's supporters, be commenting after those congressional elections in a way that makes it clear they came to the same conclusion that President Bush did?

Would the Senator from Massachusetts suggest that the Washington Post was part of the conspiracy that went on in Texas prior to the congressional elections, and that the Washington Post was complicit in the fraud visited on the American people by the decision to go ahead in Iraq?

The Post editorial goes on, and this was February 27, 2003:

When we cite Mr. Clinton's perceptive but ultimately empty

comments, it is in part to chide him and other Democrats who

take a different view now that a Republican is in charge. But

it has a more serious purpose, too. Mr. Clinton could not

muster the will, or the domestic or international support,

to force Saddam Hussein to live up to the promises he had

made in 1991, though even then the danger was well

understood.

We need not stay within our shores to find those who believe the President made the right decision in Iraq. Let us go overseas. I had occasion to visit with a group of European Parliamentarians. One of them, who came from Great Britain, made this comment to me. He said they have never had a politician in Great Britain who is as poll-driven as Tony Blair, and they never had one who pays so much attention to focus groups. The man said Tony Blair almost allows focus groups to determine what kind of tie he will wear in the morning. Yet when we come to this Iraq business, said this particular Parliamentarian, Tony Blair is going against all of the polls and all of the focus groups. He is acting in a manner that is completely uncharacteristic for him as a politician. He is actually willing to risk his position as Prime Minister in order to make sure we go after Saddam Hussein. He said they cannot understand it, except on one possible basis, and that is that Tony Blair must be completely convinced that the information is correct, that the intelligence is right, and that Saddam Hussein does indeed pose a threat. He said that there is otherwise no explanation for the way he is behaving, that it is contrary to his entire political experience.

Would the senior Senator from Massachusetts suggest that Tony Blair was

part of a conspiracy in Texas prior to the 2002 elections, and that Tony Blair was convinced by the President of the United States he should help him win a Republican victory in the congressional elections by supporting the action in Iraq?

It is interesting when we are talking about Tony Blair we can once again turn to the words of William Jefferson Clinton. On March 18, 2003, once again, after the congressional elections had taken place, President Clinton had this to say in the Guardian Newspaper, published in Great Britain. He talked about those in America who were calling for action. Then he says:

On the other side, France, Germany and Russia are adamantly

opposed to the use of force or imposing any ultimatum on

Saddam as long as the inspectors are working. They believe

that, at least as long as the inspectors are there, Iraq will

not use or give away its chemical and biological stock and

therefore no matter how unhelpful Saddam is, he does not pose

a threat sufficient to justify invasion.

Here is President Clinton using a phrase that is now current in the Democratic Presidential race: ``He does not pose a threat sufficient to justify invasion.''

Then President Clinton goes on and responds to that statement by saying this:

The problem with their position is that only the threat of

force from the US and the UK got inspectors back into Iraq in

the first place. Without a credible threat of force, Saddam

will not disarm.

Then President Clinton goes on to conclude:

If we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons,

after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that

one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put

many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing

Saddam.

. . . Prime Minister Blair will have to do what he believes

to be right. I trust him to do that and hope the labor MP's

and the British people will, too.

This is President Clinton supporting Prime Minister Blair in his support of President Bush after the congressional elections of 2002 have taken place.

Are we suggesting again that President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair and the Washington Post were all part of the conspiracy to perpetuate a fraud on the American people? I don't think so.

Now, I come to my final comment that I wish to make, again, from a source not friendly to the President. Once again, it is the Washington Post. I began with them and I shall conclude with them. This is an editorial published on August 10, 2003, almost a year after the congressional elections are over. They are referring to a speech made by the former Vice President, Al Gore:

The notion--that we were all somehow bamboozled into war--

is part of Mr. Gore's larger conviction that Mr. Bush has put

one over on the nation, and not just with regard to Iraq.

That is essentially what the senior Senator from Massachusetts said, and which the former Vice President said, and the Washington Post repeats that. This is the comment they make, referring to that proposal President Bush ``put one over on the nation.''

The Washington Post says of that idea that it is:

. . . one that many Americans might find a tad insulting:

The administration has developed a highly effective

propaganda machine to embed in the public mind mythologies .

. .

Again, that is Vice President Gore's comment, and that was the gist of what the senior Senator from Massachusetts said.

Back to the Washington Post:

Thus, Mr. Gore maintains, we were all under the ``false

impression'' that Saddam Hussein was ``on the verge of

building nuclear bombs,'' that he was ``about to give the

terrorists poison gas and deadly germs,'' that he was partly

responsible for the 9/11 attacks. And because of these

``false impressions,'' the nation didn't conduct a proper

debate about the war. But there was extensive debate going

back many years; last fall and winter the nation debated

little else. Mr. Bush took his case to the United Nations.

Congress argued about and approved a resolution authorizing

war. And the approval did not come, as Mr. Gore and other

Democrats now maintain, because people were deceived into

believing that Saddam Hussein was an ``imminent'' threat who

had attacked the World Trade Center or was about to do so.

They conclude:

It would certainly be fair now to argue that the logic was

wrong. There was a cogent case to be made against the war,

and even those who supported it might now say that the

absence of any uncovered weapons of mass destruction, or the

continuing violence against Americans, gives them, in

hindsight, a different view. There's plenty to criticize in

the administration's postwar effort, too. What isn't

persuasive, or even very smart politically, is to pretend to

have been fooled by what Mr. Gore breathlessly calls the Bush

``systematic effort to manipulate facts . . .''

From these sources outside of the Republican base and outside of the administration, it is clear the senior Senator from Massachusetts has made a charge he cannot substantiate.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, the Senator is the military historian and has served as Secretary of the Navy. Could the Senator confirm my recollection that General Eisenhower once said, before the attack: The plan is everything? After the attack starts, the plan goes out the window.

Is that a correct quote? And does that apply in this situation?

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I asked unanimous consent that the exchange between the Democratic leader and myself not be charged to their time, if he would be willing to yield for a question.

My question is very simple: I ask the Democratic leader if at any time in my presentation did he find where I attacked the motives, the patriotism, or the rights of the Senator from Massachusetts? My intent was--and it is my belief that I stood up to my intent--to challenge the accuracy of the statement of the Senator from Massachusetts, never having made any reference to his motives, his patriotism, or his rights. If the Democratic leader has instances where I did that, I would appreciate it if he would point that out to me so I can make the appropriate response.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. President, the constant drumbeat in the press goes on. We find it highlighted in this week's national news magazines: a constant attack on the credibility of George W. Bush; a constant drumbeat calling him a liar, at the very least an exaggerator who did it deliberately to mislead the American people and to take us to war.

Those in the media who get involved need to be reminded just a little bit of their responsibility. It is their responsibility to react not just to the flavor of the moment, in terms of political issues, but to give us a little bit of institutional memory. Since they seem to lack that memory, I will do my best to supply it here this afternoon.

I remember as a Member of this body some intelligence lapses that occurred and decisions that were made on the basis of those lapses. Let me give you some.

I remember when the United States bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan because the intelligence said it was a place where biological weapons were being created. This was not a trivial matter. I went to the room here in the Capitol that is reserved for secret briefings. I refer to it as the secret room where secret people tell us secret things, and I had no less than the Secretary of Defense absolutely insist that the intelligence was rock solid that biological weapons were being produced at this plant in Sudan.

We now know the intelligence was wrong. The plant was not involved in the production of biological or chemical weapons. The intelligence information that led us to believe it had been was flawed, it was old, and the casualties that occurred on that occasion were civilians who needlessly lost their lives because the American intelligence was bad.

The question is: Would we have been better off if we had not destroyed that plant in the Sudan? And the answer is clearly yes. Intelligence let us down. We made the wrong decision. We killed some civilians. We would have been better off if we had not proceeded.

The second lapse of intelligence occurred during the bombing in Bosnia. I was involved in this one to a greater degree than the other. This is where the Americans bombed what they thought was a legitimate target and it turned out to be the Chinese Embassy. Furthermore, it was more than just the Chinese Embassy. It was the center of Chinese intelligence activity that covered most of that part of Europe.

I was in China on a congressional delegation not long after that occurred. One after another Chinese official kept berating me and the other members of the delegation as to why we had deliberately targeted and destroyed a key intelligence center for the Chinese.

Our answer was that this was an intelligence failure on our part; that the CIA was using an old address book, and we had not realized we were, in fact,

destroying a very sensitive Chinese installation.

I remember the response from a Chinese official as we made that explanation. He said: You Americans have the best intelligence in the world. You have been following what we have been doing in that part of the world for years. You destroyed a major intelligence asset of ours, and you claim it was a mistake? You claim your intelligence assets were so bad you did not realize we had been at that location for years?

It was very clear from the questions and the tone of voice with which those questions were asked that the Chinese officials did not believe us. They did not believe we were capable of such a stupid mistake.

The only defense that could be offered, and it was offered by another member of the delegation, was it had to be a mistake because, in fact, it was so stupid. No one would have done that deliberately and damaged the relationship between the United States and the Chinese so seriously.

It was in response to that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing was stoned. I saw the windows that were broken. I saw the bullet holes that pocked the walls as people fired on the Embassy. It was a major incident.

Again, the fundamental question: Would we have been better off if we had not done it? And the answer is an unequivocal and overwhelming, yes; we would have been better off if we had not done it.

I could go on, but let me take those two examples of failed intelligence and those two questions--would we have been better off if we had not done it in the Sudan, and would we have been better off if we had not done it in Belgrade--and put them in the context of today's debate.

Let's assume for a moment--and I underscore that I do not--that the intelligence that led up to the decision to go ahead in Iraq was as faulty as the administration's critics are now claiming it was, and then ask the same fundamental question: Would the world be better off if we had not gone into Iraq? And the answer is clearly, no. The answer is clearly as Tony Blair laid it out before the joint session of Congress. He made it clear if we made a mistake, history will forgive the mistake because the consequences of it were that we freed the Iraqi people. We brought a degree of credibility and stability into that region that has not been there. We have new leverage to deal with the Israeli/Palestinian question beyond that which any American President has had.

If, in fact, we blundered into Iraq--and, once again, I underscore the fact I do not believe we did--we did a good thing. Unlike the failed intelligence that caused us to blow up a civilian production facility in the Sudan, which was a bad thing, unlike the failed intelligence that caused us to destroy the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, which was a bad thing, if there was flawed intelligence here that caused us to go into Iraq, it was still a good thing.

Let me give an example of flawed intelligence with respect to Iraq. We did not know, going into Iraq, the degree to which Saddam Hussein had committed genocide against his own people. With all of the intelligence assets we had on the ground in Iraq, we were unaware of the number and extent of the mass graves that we are still uncovering while we are there. If we are going to complain, as those in the media are doing, that the intelligence going into Iraq was flawed, they should complain just as much about the failure of intelligence to tell us the degree of his brutality. But they are not talking about that. We do not get any media reports with each new discovery of a major new mass grave. Those are dismissed in what is called the mainstream media because that might lend support to the idea that going into Iraq was the right thing to have done.

No, instead we are quibbling over words that appeared in the State of the Union that somehow triggered massive misunderstanding on the part of the American people. I would challenge anyone to go to anyone in America and ask them how many of them remember the 16 words that are being challenged. Well, maybe the American people do not remember those words but certainly the Congress does.

There is a slight problem with that because the State of the Union Message was given after the Congress had approved the President's intervention in Iraq. The vote was taken on this floor prior to the time the President made those statements. So how can anyone in this body claim that he or she was misled by the President's statement in the State of the Union when the vote was taken prior to the time that statement was made?

Once again, that is a fact that is conveniently left out of all of the media analysis. They do not tell us that Congress went to the briefings and came to its conclusion as to the rightness of the decision in Iraq before the President made that comment in the State of the Union.

I went to the briefings. There was a briefing at the Pentagon that I remember very carefully. We went over for breakfast with the Secretary of Defense and he gave us a complete briefing on the entire issue of weapons of mass destruction and where things were in Iraq. I must say I did not see any of the current critics of the President's plan present at that briefing. I remember fairly clearly who was there. I could not name all of the Senators who were there, but I could name all of the Democratic Senators who were there, and none of them is currently engaged in criticizing the President.

I remember a briefing at the White House in the Roosevelt Room with representatives of the CIA and Condoleezza Rice, where we went through the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction. Once again, I can remember the Senators who were at that briefing. It was open to all. It was not a private thing where a few Senators were requested. Any Senator who wanted could have gone to that briefing. I remember those who were there. Not one of the current critics of the President's position was there at that briefing.

So I find it a little disingenuous to have them say they were misled when they did not attend the briefings that were given.

Now let me take my colleagues to that briefing in the Roosevelt Room in the White House and summarize for them what was said there. We were told the following: Four areas of deep concern were raised, and we were told in descending order of how scary these were. The first was biological weapons. The second was Saddam Hussein's capacity to deliver those weapons. The third was chemical weapons. The fourth was nuclear weapons.

I remember that very clearly because I summarized it back to the briefers and said: Let me be sure I understand what you are saying. You are saying you are most frightened of his capacity in the biological area, slightly less frightened about his ability to deliver those weapons, slightly less frightened about his capacity in the chemical area, and least frightened about his capacity in the nuclear area? And they said, yes, Senator that is the descending order of concern.

I cite that because we are now being told in the popular press that the entire operation was sold to us because of the threat of nuclear weapons, ignoring the facts that we were given at the briefing to which they did not come.

The question was raised, Why should we be going against Saddam Hussein at this particular time? That was one of the questions at the briefing. I remember the answer very clearly. If we are just talking about weapons of mass destruction, there are a number of countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, if we went to the country that has the most outside of the United States itself, that would be Russia. Simple possession of weapons of mass destruction, the point was clearly made at the briefing, simple possession of weapons of mass destruction does not justify taking action.

A brutal dictator who oppresses his own people. Look around the world and there are plenty of brutal dictators who oppress their own people. Being a brutal dictator who oppresses his own people is not justification for the United States to go to war against you. That point was clearly made at the briefing.

Willingness to invade your neighbors. There have been regimes around the world that have attacked recently their neighbors. Clearly, the United States cannot intervene every time there is a border war or a willingness to attack your neighbors. That, alone, does not justify going against someone in a military fashion.

Using weapons of mass destruction is different from possessing them. Now we are getting kind of narrow because we do not have a great number of examples of regimes that have used weapons of mass destruction. But maybe that alone, again, does not justify going against another regime.

Put them all together--possession of weapons of mass destruction, using the weapons of mass destruction, crossing borders and invading your neighbors, and being in the hands of a brutal dictator--now we are getting a list and we are coming very close to Saddam Hussein, as the only brutal dictator with weapons of mass destruction, who qualifies for all four of those.

But there is a fifth that comes into play as a follow-on to September 11: That is financing and harboring terrorists. Let me make it clear at that briefing, no one said there was a heavy al-Qaida presence in Iraq. Once again, people in the media are attacking President Bush for saying something that, in fact, he did not say. What was said at the briefing was Iraq sponsors terrorism, Iraq funds terrorism, and there are intelligence reports of Iraq harboring members of al-Qaida who are fleeing for their lives.

The statement was never made that there was a major al-Qaida headquarters in Iraq. The statement was simply made that terrorists run through Iraq. A number of terrorist organizations, in addition to al- Qaida, have been represented in Iraq. Iraq funds terrorism throughout the region.

Here are five different criteria, any one of which might not be enough to justify moving against a foreign government. Indeed, two or even three gathered together might still not justify moving against a foreign government. But the statement was made clearly, when you put all five together and ask yourself where in the world do you find all five at the same time, the answer is in one place and one place only: That place is Iraq.

That was the intelligence briefing I attended. That was the intelligence information I heard when I made up my mind to be in support of the President and this operation. As I said before, I do not remember--indeed, I am sure that most of the President's congressional critics--indeed, all of--the President's congressional critics in this Chamber--were not there. They did not hear the briefings.

For them to come forward now and say the President misled them, when they did not go, is disingenuous. I do not feel misled. I do not feel uninformed. I do not feel the intelligence was bad. Insufficient? Of course. Intelligence is always insufficient. But that does not mean it was deliberately manipulated; that does not mean it was planted; that does not mean anyone did anything but the very best he or she could do in good faith.

The fundamental question I posed earlier still stands. Even if you accuse the President of doing all of what his critics are saying he did, was it bad to have gone into Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein? Until critics either in the Congress or the media will come forward and say, we used bad intelligence to make the bad decision and the world would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power, they cannot, in my view, sustain their criticism. They cannot fault this President unless they are willing to say in this instance what we can say in the two other instances I have described.

Intelligence was flawed in the Sudan. Would the world be better off if we had not destroyed that plant? Yes. The intelligence was flawed in Belgrade. Would we be better off if we had not destroyed the Chinese Embassy? The answer is yes. If the intelligence was flawed in Iraq, the same question still applies: Would we be better off if we had not toppled Saddam Hussein? Until someone is willing to answer that question yes, I am not willing to give credence to their complaints about this President and this White House.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity today to pay tribute to a very distinguished servant of the legislative branch of Congress. In May 2003, Dr. John Hardt ends his official service with the Congressional Research Service after 32 years as a valuable resource to Congress in the field of international economics and foreign affairs. In many ways, Dr. Hardt's retirement symbolizes the ending of an era for the Congress; he is the only remaining CRS senior specialist now providing Congress with research and analysis in the field of foreign affairs. He has been a great asset to the Congress and to CRS throughout his long career in public service.

Dr. Hardt received both his PhD in economics and a certificate from the Russian Institute from Columbia University. Prior to joining the Congressional Research Service, he had already had the kind of illustrious career that serves as a lifetime achievement for many others. He served his country with distinction during World War II, receiving ribbons and battle stars for both the European and Asiatic Theaters of operations as well as the Philippines Liberation Ribbon. He has been an educator--specializing in economics, Soviet studies, and Sino-Soviet studies--at the University of Washington, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, the George Washington University, the Foreign Service Institute, and American military service schools. He has served in the American private sector specializing in Soviet electric power and nuclear energy economics for the CEIR Corporation in Washington, DC, and as Director of the Strategic Studies Department at the Research Analysis Corporation in McLean, VA, where he specialized in Soviet comparative Communist and Japanese studies. He is a widely published author, with hundreds of research papers, journal articles, technical memoranda, and book chapters to his credit.

Dr. Hardt joined the Congressional Research Service as the senior specialist in Soviet economics in November of 1971. It is work for CRS--and for us,the Members of this body--that I want to honor today. For the past three decades, Dr. Hardt has served Members of Congress, their staff and committees with his considerable expertise in soviet and post-soviet and Eastern Europe economics, the economy of the People's Republic of China, East-West commercial relations, and comparative international economic analysis. He has advised, among others, both the Senate and House Commerce Committees on East-West trade; the Senate and House Banking Committees on the Export-Import Bank and other U.S. Government financing programs; and the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees on U.S. trade policy. He frequently has traveled with congressional committee delegations, serving as a technical adviser on visits to the former Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden, and then preparing committee reports for these trips. On many occasions, Dr. Hardt has been called on to advise directly Members of Congress and congressional staff on Russian Federation debt reduction and its relationship to nonproliferation concerns, and has provided support to the Russian Leadership Program, especially those events and activities that involved Members of Congress. The extent of his national and international contacts is breathtaking, and includes senior members of foreign governments and leading multinational businesses.

His most lasting legacy for Congress may well be his service as both editor and coordinator of a long series of Joint Economic Committee compendia on the economies of the PRC, Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe. The Congress can take pride in these important, well known, and highly respected JEC studies, to which Dr. Hardt devoted so much of his talent and energies. The more than 70 volumes of this work include; China Under the Four Modernizations, 1982; China's Economy Looks Toward the Year 2000, 1986; The Former Soviet Union in Transition, 1993; East- Central European Economies in transition, 1994; and Russia's Uncertain Economic Future, 2001. The series includes hundreds of analytical papers on various aspects of issues pertinent to Congress and to U.S. policy, all written by internationally recognized government, academic, and private sector experts, and all coordinated and edited by Dr. Hardt. This work was not only a valuable source of analysis to the Congress but also to the policy making and academic communities at large. For many years, these volumes were the most comprehensive sources of economic data and analyses on the economies of the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe.

Let me make one final point to illustrate the loss that we, as Members of Congress, sustain with Dr.. Hardt's retirement. That point concerns one of the great strengths that CRS offers to Congress, and which Dr. Hardt's tenure and contributions at CRS epitomize perfectly: institutional member. Of the 535 Members of the 108th Congress, only 11 were Members of the 92nd Congress when Dr. Hardt first assumed his official congressional duties. Most of the countries that he has specialized in have undergone astounding transformation during his working life--some, indeed, no longer exist. The membership of this deliberative body in which we serve has turned over many times. Committees have come and gone. But through it all, John Hardt has been a constant fixture, a strand of continuity in an environment of continual change--part of the collective institutional memory of CRS which is of such value to our work in Congress. We wish Dr. Hardt well in the new ventures on which he will be embarking. He will be greatly missed by us all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Appropriations Committee staff members and intern be granted the privilege of the floor for the consideration of the fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security appropriations bill and any votes that may occur in relation thereto: Les Spivey, Rachelle Schroeder, Carol Cribbs, James Hayes, Josh Manley, and Elizabeth Ferriday Mansel.

Mr. President, I echo the comments of the senior Senator from Delaware and recognize his expertise as a former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and assure him that I took the same message he did, that Tony Blair is trying to remind us all of that which we instinctively know: the importance of friends.

I took great pleasure in the fact that he cited America's history in establishing friends and, indeed, spoke a little bit against his own history when he talked about empires that sought for land or territory or power but that the Americans seek only to export liberty to those places where it has not yet taken hold. And that is the cause around which the entire world must repair.

I would add one other thought to the thoughts that have been made. I agree with the Senator from California that was the best explanation she has ever heard in a speech. And I must add, not only is it the best one that I have ever heard, that includes speeches I have given, which, for a politician, is a tough thing to have to admit.

I was struck by his comment that I think should resonate throughout the current debate, and that is the debate over Iraq, the motivations for going into Iraq, the prelude that built up to the decision in Iraq; that is, when he said, as best I can recall: If we were wrong, all we have done is free a people from a horrible tyrant and brought freedom to millions, and history will forgive us that error. But if we were right, history would not forgive us for hesitating, if we had done so.

I think while he was not injecting himself into the debate here in America at the time, that summary is the best I have heard of the way we should be conducting our examination of the decision to go forward in Iraq. If, in fact, the decision was built on some flawed assumptions, the results of the decision are still worth it.

But if the assumptions turn out not to have been flawed and we discover, in fact, that things were as we had anticipated, I agree with the Prime Minister that history would treat us very badly if we had walked away from that.

Madam President, I enjoyed hearing my colleague from South Carolina tell his stories about Strom Thurmond. I rise to join the tribute to the memory of Strom Thurmond that is, very appropriately, the day after his death.

Most of the time when someone dies, we gather in great sorrow and we mourn his passing and we think about what might have been. In Strom's case, there is no reason to think about what might have been. He did it all. There was nothing left undone. There was nothing left to accomplish.

This should not be a time of mourning or sorrow but a time of celebration. So I rise to celebrate the life of Strom Thurmond. The best way to do that, I think, is to tell Strom Thurmond stories. All of us are full of Strom Thurmond stories.

I remember D-Day, when the big celebration occurred on the anniversary of D-Day and Strom Thurmond was not there. Arlen Specter, who was there, greeted him in the Senate and said: Strom, it was a marvelous, marvelous celebration, and you should have been there. And his response was: I was there when it counted. It put us in our place.

My father had the experience of working with Strom Thurmond. My father was elected in 1950, and, as has been noted, Strom Thurmond was elected in 1954. They became instant friends, not just political friends. There were occasions when they disagreed politically, but they became personal friends.

When Strom married, my mother--old enough to be Strom's wife's mother--kind of took Nancy under her wing and they became friends. The Thurmonds and the Bennetts remained close for a long, long time, to the point when my children started getting married, my parents said: You have to send Strom Thurmond an announcement. And we did and thought we had taken care of our social obligation. Then we

get a phone call from Strom Thurmond's office: We got this announcement, and we don't mean to be prying, but who are you? Well, we are the children of Wallace Bennett. There was a pause. Then the person on the end of the line said: And who's Wallace Bennett?

But Strom knew who Wallace Bennett was, and when I came to the Senate, Strom greeted me very warmly and called me Wallace. It took a little while for him to figure out that I was not my father. And that was a compliment to me because I was very proud of my father and the service he performed in the Senate, and I took the opportunity to touch base with Strom.

From that, I thought: This man in his nineties is not all that sharp. He confuses me. He does not have all of this as straight as he might. Then I had a couple of experiences that set me straight. We had an issue with the State of Utah that was all wrapped up in the Armed Services Committee. It was quite a complicated issue. Someone said to me: Explain that to John Warner because John Warner is second ranking to Strom and is handling all of the detailed kind of things. You go talk to John Warner. He said: You will be talking to somebody who I know can handle the problem.

So I went to Senator Warner and I started outlining the details of this situation to him. He cut me off. He said: You are going to have to talk to the chairman.

I, having had this image of this old man, thought, I don't really want to have to talk to the chairman. And, as delicately as I could, I said to John: Can't we work this through and kind of handle it? He said no. He said: That is a serious enough issue, I don't dare handle that. You are going to have to talk to the chairman.

Just then, Senator Thurmond walked through the doors. So, gathering up my courage as a freshman Senator, I walked over to him and said: Senator Thurmond, I would like to visit with you about--and I no sooner got the title of the issue out of my mouth, than he said: It's all taken care of. And he kept walking. I followed him along, sure that he had not understood what I was talking about. This was a complicated kind of issue, and he had oversimplified it and assumed that it had been taken care of.

So I started to intrude again with some of the details. He was very respectful and wasn't patronizing. But he said: I know; I understand; all taken care of.

Well, thus dismissed, I went back to my staff and said: I think we have a problem here. Senator Warner won't handle it, and he insists that Senator Thurmond has to handle it, and Senator Thurmond just said it has all been taken care of.

We contacted the Armed Services Committee staff, and they said: Oh, yes, that has all been dealt with. Senator Thurmond stepped in, he understood the issue, he made his decisions, he took care of it, and it is all taken care of.

So I decided, well, I had better not underestimate this man, in spite of his age.

Then I had the experience while I was on the campaign plane with Senator Dole in the 1996 election when we were flying around the eastern States on the day of the South Carolina primaries. The word came in that Senator Dole was winning the South Carolina primary. We had some exit polls that looked pretty good. We decided to change our itinerary and fly to South Carolina so that Senator Dole could be there to receive the plaudits and applause and the excitement of winning the South Carolina primary. So we did. Of course, this had been a long day. We didn't leave South Carolina to come back to Washington on the campaign plane until after the returns were in and all of the celebrations had been held.

Senator Dole, very appropriately, went up into the front part of the plane to take a nap as we were flying back. Senator Thurmond had hitched a ride back to Washington on the campaign plane. That left Senator Thurmond and me and one or two others sitting around the table just behind the front part of the plane chatting.

It was now midnight, way past my bedtime, and here we were having political discussions on a campaign plane in the middle of the Presidential campaign--the kind of thing that political junkies like me love to do. It was a great discussion. But the interesting thing about it was that Strom Thurmond not only understood the discussion and participated in the discussion, but he led the discussion. He was instructing us about political lore. He was telling tales out of his past, which is what old people often do. But he was also analyzing things for the future and had a firm hand on everything. I thought I was talking to a man at least 20 and maybe 30 years younger than his chronological age. I understood: OK, this man still has all of his faculties, mental as well as physical.

We landed at Dulles Airport well after 1 o'clock in the morning. Everybody was dragging except Strom, who strode off to his car in fine style. I remember what he said on that occasion about how you live a long time. He said you eat right, you exercise regularly, and you keep a positive outlook. He did all of those things, although I am not quite sure about the eating right part because there were times when I caught Strom eating some things that I am not sure a dietician would recommend.

The time came for him to run for reelection. I couldn't believe at 94 he was going to run for reelection. Ninety-four is the time you retire. Being a skeptic, I had a hard time believing the people of South Carolina would vote for a 94-year-old man. So I sidled up to one of his top staffers as we were getting ready for that campaign. I said: Can Strom Thurmond really win one more time in South Carolina? Is this going to be close? He said: No, it is not going to be close at all. Strom is going to win going away.

By the way, I remembered when the Republicans had taken control of the Senate in 1994 and we were having our discussions about platforms. One of the issues that was raised by one of the freshman Senators newly elected was term limits and how we needed to be for term limits. We were debating back and forth. Strom was sitting there not talking. Suddenly, he spoke up, and he said: I am for term limits. We all kind of giggled a little. He said: But if they are not enacted, I am going to run again.

Here he was running again--94 years old. And I was being told by his staff that Strom would win overwhelmingly. I said: Look, we all love him. We all love the history. But 94 years old? He said: Let me tell you a story.

This is my favorite Strom Thurmond story.

He said: I was Strom's AA, and I got a phone call from a woman in South Carolina who said to me: I need the Senator's help. Here is the situation. My fiance and I got married just before he shipped out in the Navy for a 6-month cruise in the Mediterranean. We knew we would not like the separation, but we decided, for a variety of reasons, that we should get married now rather than wait until after he got back. He has just called me and said he has been given leave. He has 2 weeks of leave right now in the middle of this 6-month tour, except that he cannot leave the theater in case something should arise that would require him to be back on the ship within 24 hours. He has to stay in or around the Mediterranean area where his ship is. So he said catch an airplane, come over here, we can have a 2-week honeymoon in the Mediterranean and I can still be available for the military situation, if it should arise.

She said: I went down to get my passport and I was told it takes 2 weeks to get a passport. By the time I get a passport to fly over to be with my husband, his leave will be up and he will have to get back on the ship. Can the Senator help me get a passport any faster than 2 weeks?

Well, said the staffer, I will find out. He called the woman in South Carolina who was handling passports and introduced himself and said: I am calling on behalf of Senator Thurmond to see what we can do about getting this woman's passport a little faster. The passport lady said: It takes 2 weeks. Well, Senator Thurmond would really be grateful. She said: I don't care what Senator Thurmond wants. It takes 2 weeks. I don't care who you are, and I don't care who he is. Passports take 2 weeks.

Well, he said, I have to tell you that under these circumstances, I am now going to have to call Senator Thurmond. When there is a situation I can't

handle myself, I have to involve him. Those are my instructions. She said: Call him. Tell him anything you want. He can call me. I don't care. Passports take 2 weeks.

So he said: Well, I am not threatening you. I am just telling you. I have to call Senator Thurmond.

So he hung up talking to the passport lady, and he picked up the phone and called Senator Thurmond. Now, it seems Senator Thurmond was in Germany, and it was in the middle of the night in Germany, but his instructions were that he was to call Senator Thurmond in any such situation. So he woke Senator Thurmond up, in the middle of the night in Germany, and started to explain this situation.

He did not get half way through the explanation I have given here when Senator Thurmond said: What is her name?

He said: Well, her name is--and he started to describe the wife of the marine who was sent out with the Navy.

Senator Thurmond said: No, no, not her name, the passport lady's name.

So he gave Senator Thurmond the passport lady's name.

Senator Thurmond said: Thank you very much--and hung up.

Ten minutes later the staffer said: I got a phone call from the passport lady. She exploded over the phone and said: He called George Shultz. The Secretary of State now knows my name.

Senator Thurmond called George Shultz and he said: George, you've been a marine. This is their honeymoon. Can't you get this lady to give the woman a passport?

She got her passport. She got to the Mediterranean. She had her honeymoon.

The staffer said to me: Senator, South Carolina is full of stories like that. South Carolina is full of people like that. Strom Thurmond will win, big time. No matter how old he is, no matter what his situation, that is the kind of service Strom Thurmond has rendered as a Senator.

One of our colleagues was in the Senate doctor's office, as we go in there from time to time, and he noticed Strom coming out of the doctor's office with a very worried look on his face. We were all very concerned about Strom and his health in his later years. So the colleague said to the doctor: What's the matter with Strom?

The doctor said, appropriately: I cannot discuss the medical condition of one patient with another patient, so I can't say anything to you. He said: However, I don't think it would be violating medical ethics to tell you that Strom is a little worried about the fact that he can no longer do one-arm pushups.

This was a man of legend. Eat right, exercise, keep a positive attitude, always be available for your constituents, even when it is the middle of the night in Germany, and never worry about who you may call or upset as long as you are working on behalf of a constituent. This was Strom Thurmond.

We have all kinds of stories. These are my favorite ones. I offer them as part of the celebration of an extraordinary life, a life fully lived, of someone about whom we need not say: Well, we worry about what might have been. In his case, there was nothing left over that might have been because he did it all.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the duration of today's session, S. 1 be available for debate only, with the time until 6 o'clock today equally divided as under the previous order.

I say to the Senator, my understanding is the same as his, but I am not in any position to make a commitment.

That is correct.

Mr. President, we are debating the substance of the bill that came from the Finance Committee with respect to a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. We all recognize that providing a prescription drug benefit for Medicare is long overdue, something that has been needed badly for a long period of time. I am heartened by the bipartisan nature of the vote that came out of the Finance Committee.

I am reminded of an occasion when I first came to the Senate and we began debating health care. I fell in step with the then-chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Moynihan from New York. Senator Moynihan is one whom I met when I was first serving in the Nixon administration and he was serving as the domestic counselor to President Nixon. I felt close to him from then on.

As we walked through the door into the Chamber, I said to him: Pat, do you think we are finally going to get some health care reform this year?

And he said: Yes, I do. In the Nixon administration the President wanted it and the Democrats in the Congress said no. Later on--I believe he referred to the Carter administration--the President wanted it and Republicans in the Congress said no.

He said: This time, the President wants it and the Congress wants it and I think we are going to get it done.

He turned out not to have been right in that instance, perhaps one of the few times in his life when his reading of the political tea leaves was incorrect because we fell into wrangling. It was on some issues that were worth wrangling over, I do not want to suggest they were not, but that prevented us from focusing on the core question of whether our health care circumstance in this country needed to be improved.

Fortunately, we have now focused on the overall question of should we or should we not have a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. At least coming out of the committee, we have a strong bipartisan consensus that we should. The reason we should is very clear, if you look at the way we practice medicine.

Medicare was adopted in the 1960s, and it was patterned after the best Blue Cross-Blue Shield fee-for-service indemnity plan written in the 1960s. Now it seems that plan has been frozen in time for 40 years. Unfortunately, it has not had the regulatory flexibility necessary to deal with the changes in the way medicine is practiced. It has required Congress to step in and make those changes. As Congress has done so, Congress has demonstrated that it is slow and it can be bogged down in political challenges that prevent changes being made.

By contrast, if you go to FEHBP, the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, under which we and other Federal employees are covered, you find a degree of regulatory flexibility that allows the people who administer the plan the capacity to move and change quickly as the medical situation changes. Congress is not required to debate these changes and, therefore, hang them up on political considerations. That is one of the reasons why the FEHBP has been more effective in providing health care services to those who are parties to it. Clearly, we in Congress need to finally catch up to the reality that the Medicare system is outmoded and structured upon a program that desperately needs to be updated.

Back in the 1960s, the primary concern people had with their health care was the cost of going to the hospital. You went to the hospital for almost every major circumstance. Now we find through research funded by Government, through research funded by the drug companies, and products that have emerged from that research, that many of the sicknesses you used to go to the hospital for and stayed for 3 or 4 days can be taken care of by taking a pill. Yet Medicare says if you go to the hospital and run up a bill of however many tens of thousands of dollars to stay that many days, we will pay for it. But if you take the pill that makes the hospital visit unnecessary, we will not. That clearly doesn't make sense. There is the need for the benefit of prescription drugs, and the Medicare system needs to catch up to that circumstance.

The bill that emerged from the Finance Committee encourages competition between plans. It provides us a first glimpse of breaking the lockstep mentality Medicare has had since the 1960s. It gives us an opportunity to experiment with some competition injected into the system. One of the interesting aspects coming out of this debate is the difference in expectations on the part of those who are supporting it. There are those on the left who are supporting this, saying this is just the beginning, and if we get this established, we can see a massive increase of governmental programs to bring prescription drugs to seniors. There are those on the right who are supporting it who are saying this has the degree of competition in it that will bring market forces into Medicare in such a way that we will see a massive increase in the amount of competition and the amount of market influence on holding down costs.

For both sides, this is a great leap of faith. Neither one knows whether the other is right. Neither one knows exactly what will happen. I suppose 5 years from now when the Congress gathers we can look back and say, Yes, we were right injecting a sense of competition into the bill. It has produced tremendous benefits, brought costs down, and made things more efficient. Or we might see people look at us saying, Yes, we were right passing the bill. It did bring about a major new expansion of Federal support for prescription drugs. We will have to wait and see.

But the necessity of getting a drug benefit for Medicare is driving the leap of faith on both sides. It is bringing us together in a way we haven't seen in this debate in the past.

Obviously, I am one who believes competition creates market efficiencies, and that the experiment will work in the direction of getting more competition and more efficiency rather than in the direction of getting more government involved. It is a leap of faith for me.

I share the concern of what can happen to the cost. We know Federal programs never cost what they are projected to cost. They always cost substantially more, particularly entitlement programs. For me and others who hold that view to embrace this bill and say we are willing to take this leap of faith is indeed, I think, a fairly significant step.

But I come back to the point I made at the beginning. We cannot continue to sustain a Medicare Program that does not recognize the role prescription drugs now play in the way medicine is practiced. Even though it is a huge risk to move in the direction this bill represents, it is not as great a risk as allowing the status quo to remain and proceed any further. Medicare needs to be brought up to date. This is by no means the amount of bringing up to date I would support or that I have called for here on the floor. But it is a final recognition of the fact that Medicare is outdated, that changes need to be made, and for that reason I will take the step.

I commend members of the Finance Committee on both sides of the aisle for the careful and thoughtful way they have approached this challenge. I commend them for crafting a bill that, as I say, holds out some hope for everybody in the spectrum. But I hope they will continue to address this question with as open a mind as possible and with the firm understanding that however sacred the word Medicare is in our political lexicon, the details of the program should not be sacred but should be brought up to date at every possible opportunity to conform with the reality of the world in which we live.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 10:00 a.m., to hear testimony on the ``Implementation of U.S. Bilateral Free Trade Agreements with Singapore and Chile.''

committee on foreign relations

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing on ``Treaties Related to Aviation and the Environment.''

committee on governmental affairs

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 10:00 a.m., to hold a business meeting to consider pending Committee business.

Agenda

Legislation: S. 481, the Kurtz Bill; S. 589, Homeland Security Workforce Act; S. 610, NASA Workforce Flexibility Act of 2003; S. 678, Postmasters Equity Act of 2003; S. 908, United States Consensus Council; S. 910, Non-Homeland Security Mission Performance Act of 2003; S. 926, Federal Employee Student Loan Assistance Act; S. 1166, National Security Personnel System Act; and S. 1245, Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act.

Post Office Naming Bills: S. 508, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1830 South Lake Drive in Lexington, South Carolina, as the ``Floyd Spence Post Office Building''; S. 708, a bill to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 7401 West 100th Place in Bridgeview, Illinois, as the ``Michael J. Healy Post Office Building''; S. 867, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 710 Wicks Lane in Billings, Montana, as the ``Ronald Reagan Post Office Building''; S. 1145, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 120 Baldwin Avenue in Paia, Maui, Hawaii, as the ``Patsy Takemoto Mink Post Office Building''; S. 1207, a bill to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 120 East Ritchie Avenue in Marceline, Missouri, as the ``Walt Disney Post Office Building''; H.R. 825, an act to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 7401 West 100th Place in Bridgeview, Illinois, as the ``Michael J. Healy Post Office Building''; H.R. 917, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1830 South

Lake Drive in Lexington, South Carolina, as the ``Floyd Spence Post Office Building''; H.R. 925, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1859 South Ashland Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, as the ``Cesar Chavez Post Office''; H.R. 981, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 141 Erie Street in Linesville, Pennsylvania, as the ``James R. Merry Post Office''; H.R. 985, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 111 West Washington Street in Bowling Green, Ohio, as the ``Delbert L. Latta Post Office Building''; H.R. 1055, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1901 West Evans Street in Florence, South Carolina, as the ``Dr. Roswell N. Beck Post Office Building''; H.R. 1368, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 7554 Pacific Avenue in Stockton, California, as the ``Norman D. Shumway Post Office Building''; H.R. 1465, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4832 East Highway 27 in Iron Station, North Carolina, as the ``General Charles Gabriel Post Office''; H.R. 1596, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2318 Woodson Road in St. Louis, Missouri, as the ``Timothy Michael Gaffney Post Office Building''; H.R. 1609, an act to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 201 West Boston Street in Brookfield, Missouri, as the ``Admiral Donald Davis Post Office Building''; H.R. 1740, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1502 East Kiest Boulevard in Dallas, Texas, as the ``Dr. Caesar A.W. Clark, Sr. Post Office Building''; and H.R. 2030, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 120 Baldwin Avenue in Paia, Maui, Hawaii, as the ``Patsy Takemoto Mink Post Office Building.''

Nominations: Michael J. Garcia to be Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; C. Steward Verdery, Jr. to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security; Susanne Marshall to be Chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board; Neil McPhie to be a Member of the Merit Systems Protection Board; Terrence A. Duffy to be a Member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board; Peter Eide to be General Counsel for the Federal Labor Relations Authority; Albert Casey to be a Governor for the United States Postal Service; and James C. Miller, III to be a Governor for the United States Postal Service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``The Dark Side of a Bright Idea: Could Personal and National Security Risks Compromise the Potential of Peer-to-Peer Fine-Sharing Networks?'' on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 2:00 p.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Tentative Witness List

Panel I: The Honorable Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator, [D-CA]; The Honorable Tom M. Davis, III, U.S. Representative, [D-VA, 11th District], Chairman, House Committee on Government Reform.

Panel II: Nathaniel S. Good, Graduate Student, School of Information Science, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA; Aaron Krekelberg, Lead Web Developer, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Randy Saaf, MediaDefender, Inc., Los Angeles, CA; Alan Morris, Executive Vice President, Sharman Networks, Ltd., London, England; Chris Murray, Esq., Legislative Counsel, Consumers Union, Washington,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on Senate Resolution 151, requiring public disclosure of notices of objections, holds, to proceedings to motions or measures in the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, for a hearing to consider the nominations of Mr. Alan G. Lance, Sr., and Mr. Lawrence B. Hagel, to be Judges, U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans' Claims. The hearing will take place in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 2:30 p.m. to hold an open confirmation hearing on Frank Libutti to be Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet on June 17, 2003, from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. in Dirksen 628 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Product Liability be authorized to meet on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, from 2:30 pm on Reauthorization of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water be authorized to meet on Tuesday, June 17 at 9:30 am to conduct a hearing to receive testimony on S. 525, the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act at 2003, a bill to reauthorize the nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act. The hearing will take place in SD 406, Hearing Room.

Mr. President, today I am introducing The Independent Living Improvement Act of 2003, a bill to provide a more equitable allotment of funds to States for Centers for Independent Living.

Centers for Independent Living, CILs, are non-profit organizations that assist people with significant disabilities who want to live more independently. CILs are primarily staffed by people with disabilities who act as role models, mentors, and counselors to other individuals with disabilities. Each center not only offers fundamental services such as information referral, and independent living skills training, it also tailors its services to the particular needs of its community. The ultimate goal of these centers is to help individuals become more independent and decrease the need for institutional care.

Currently, funds authorized for CILs under Title VII, Part C of the Rehabilitation Act are essentially allocated to States on the basis of their share of the total population. States with small populations are guaranteed the larger of $450,000 or \1/3\ of 1 percent of the funds available for the fiscal year in which the allocation is made, with a guaranteed minimum at the fiscal 1992 funding level for each State.

While the Federal appropriation to CILs has increased over the last five years, the growing disparity between funding for small States and larger States is problematic. The proposed formula change would amend the current funding formula for CILs to provide for more equitable distribution of future funds to each state. Fifty percent of any increase in CILs appropriated fund would be allocated according to population, as is currently done, and the remaining fifty percent would be divided equally among all States. The formula would only be applicable to any future increases in funding. This more equitable sharing of funds ensures that each State's CILs will receive additional funding each time there is an increase in funding and programs will be developed for people with disabilities regardless of where they live in the country.

This bill is supported by the National Council on Independent Living. I believe this a reasonable approach to solving this problem and look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing The Independent Living Improvement Act of 2003, a bill to provide a more equitable allotment of funds to States for Centers for Independent Living.

Centers for Independent Living, CILs, are non-profit organizations that assist people with significant disabilities who want to live more independently. CILs are primarily staffed by people with disabilities who act as role models, mentors, and counselors to other individuals with disabilities. Each center not only offers fundamental services such as information referral, and independent living skills training, it also tailors its services to the particular needs of its community. The ultimate goal of these centers is to help individuals become more independent and decrease the need for institutional care.

Currently, funds authorized for CILs under Title VII, Part C of the Rehabilitation Act are essentially allocated to States on the basis of their share of the total population. States with small populations are guaranteed the larger of $450,000 or \1/3\ of 1 percent of the funds available for the fiscal year in which the allocation is made, with a guaranteed minimum at the fiscal 1992 funding level for each State.

While the Federal appropriation to CILs has increased over the last five years, the growing disparity between funding for small States and larger States is problematic. The proposed formula change would amend the current funding formula for CILs to provide for more equitable distribution of future funds to each state. Fifty percent of any increase in CILs appropriated fund would be allocated according to population, as is currently done, and the remaining fifty percent would be divided equally among all States. The formula would only be applicable to any future increases in funding. This more equitable sharing of funds ensures that each State's CILs will receive additional funding each time there is an increase in funding and programs will be developed for people with disabilities regardless of where they live in the country.

This bill is supported by the National Council on Independent Living. I believe this a reasonable approach to solving this problem and look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill which will bring to a close the Federal acquisition of an important piece of privately held land, located within the federally designated desert tortoise reserve in Washington County, UT.

As some of my colleagues are aware, this is not the first time legislation has been introduced in an attempt to resolve this issue. In July of 2000, I introduced S. 2873, which was referred to and reported favorably by the Senate committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In addition, similar legislation was twice approved by the other body, both in the 106th and 107th Congresses. Nevertheless, we have been unable to bring this issue to resolution in the full Senate. For nearly a decade, the private property addressed by this bill has been under Federal control during which time the Federal Government has been enjoying the benefits of the private property without compensating the landowner. It is my hope that the time has come to finally resolve this issue.

In March of 1991, the desert tortoise was listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Government and environmental researchers determined that the land immediately north of St. George, UT, was prime desert tortoise habitat. Consequently, in February 1996, nearly five years after the listing, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, USFWS, issued Washington County a section 10 permit under the Endangered Species Act which paved the way for the adoption of a habitat conservation plan, HCP, and an implementation agreement. Under the plan and agreement, the Bureau of Land Management, BLM, committed to acquire all private lands in the designated habitat area for the formation of the Red Cliffs Reserve for the protection of the dessert tortoise.

One of the private land owners within the reserve is Environmental Land Technology, Limited, ELT, which had begun acquiring lands from the State of Utah in 1981 for purposes of residential and recreational development several years prior to the listing of the species. Moreover, in the years preceding the listing of the desert tortoise and the adoption of the habitat conservation plan, ELT completed appraisals, cost estimates, engineering studies, site plans, surveys, utility layouts, and right-of-way negotiations. They staked out golf courses, and obtained water rights for the development of this land. Prior to the adoption of the HCP, it was not clear which lands the Federal and local governments would set aside for the desert tortoise, although it was assumed that there were sufficient surrounding Federal lands to provide adequate habitat. However, when the HCP was adopted in 1996, the decision was made to include ELT's lands within the boundaries of the reserve primarily because of the high concentrations of tortoises. The tortoises on ELT land also appeared to be one of, if not the only population without an upper respiratory disease that afflicted all of the other populations. As a consequence of the inclusion of the ELT lands, the development efforts were halted.

With assurances from the Federal Government that the acquisition of the ELT development lands was a high priority, the owner negotiated with, and entered into, an assembled land exchange agreement with the BLM in anticipation of intrastate land exchanges. The private land owner then began a costly process of identifying comparable federal lands within the state that would be suitable for an exchange for his lands in Washington County. Over the last seven years, BLM and the private land owners, including ELT, have completed several exchanges, and the Federal Government has acquired, through those exchanges or direct purchases, nearly all of the private property located within the reserve, except for approximately 1,516 acres of the ELT development land. However, with the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in September 1996, and the subsequent land exchanges between the state of Utah and the Federal Government to consolidate federal lands within that monument, there are no longer sufficient comparable federal lands within Utah to complete the originally contemplated intrastate exchanges for the remainder of the ELT land.

Faced with this problem, and in light of the high priority the Department of the Interior has placed on acquiring these lands, BLM officials recommended that the ELT lands be acquired by direct purchase: During the FY 2000 budget process, BLM proposed that $30 million be set aside to begin acquiring the remaining lands in Washington County. Unfortunately, because this project involves endangered species habitat and the USFWS is responsible for administering activities under the Endangered Species Act, the Office of Management and Budget shifted the $30 million from the BLM budget request to the USFWS's Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund budget request. Ultimately, however, none of those funds were made available for BLM acquisitions within the Federal section of the reserve. Instead, the funds in that account were made available on a matching basis for the use of individual states to acquire wildlife habitat. The result of this bureaucratic fumbling has resulted in extreme financial hardship for ELT.

The lands within the Red Cliffs Reserve are ELT's main asset. The establishment of the Washington County HCP has effectively taken this property and prevented ELT from developing or otherwise disposing of the property. ELT has been brought to the brink of financial ruin as it has exhausted its resources in an effort to hold the property while awaiting the compensation to which it is entitled. ELT has had to sell its remaining assets, and the private land owner has also had to sell assets, including his home, to simply hold the property. This has become a financial crisis for the landowner. It is simply wrong for the Federal Government to expect the landowner to continue to bear the cost of the government's efforts to provide habitat for an endangered species. That is the responsibility of the Federal Government. Moreover, while the landowner is bearing these costs, he continues to pay taxes on the property. This situation is made more egregious by the failure of the Department of the Interior to request any acquisition funding for FY 2004, even though this acquisition has been designated a high priority by the agency. Over the past several years, ELT has pursued all possible avenues to complete the acquisition of these lands. The private land owner has spent millions of dollars pursuing both intrastate and interstate land exchanges and has worked cooperatively with the Department of the Interior. Unfortunately, all of these efforts have thus far been fruitless.

The bill that I am introducing today will finally bring this acquisition to a close. In my view, a legislative taking should be an action of last resort. But, if ever a case warranted legislative condemnation, this is it. This bill will transfer all right, title, and interest in the ELT development property within the Red Cliffs Reserve, including an additional 34 acres of landlocked real property owned by ELT adjacent to the land within the reserve, to the federal government. It provides an initial payment to ELT to pay off existing debts accrued in holding the property, and provides 90 days during which ELT and the Department of the Interior can attempt to reach a negotiated settlement on the remaining value of the property. I am aware that one of the difficulties in solving this issue is the high value of the lands to be acquired. Due to the absence of comparable lands within the state for exchange, the legislation also authorizes an interstate land exchange as a means of acquiring the property. In the absence of a negotiated amount, the Secretary of the Interior will be required to bring an action in the Federal District Court for the District of Utah to determine a value for the land. Payment for the land, whether negotiated or determined by the court, will be made from the permanent judgment appropriation or any other appropriate account, or, at the option of the land owner, the Secretary of the Interior will credit a surplus property account, established and maintained by the General Services Administration, which the land owner can then use to bid on surplus government property.

Unfortunately, when this bill has been introduced in the past, there has been occasional misunderstanding regarding the inclusion of the bill's reference to section 309(f) of Public Law 104-333, which requires all Federal appraisals and acquisitions of land within Washington County to be conducted ``without regard'' to the presence of an endangered species. This references does not create a new appraisal standard but rather restates the existing standard for all Federal land acquisition in Washington County, UT. Since its enactment, and without exception, the Department of the Interior has applied this standard to all its acquisitions in the county. This language was originally adopted to allay concerns that local landowners would not receive fair compensation for their property which was being acquired for government purposes. Some have supposed the inclusion of this language would constitute preferential treatment. To the contrary, the absence of this language would unfairly treat this landowner differently than every other landowner in the reserve whose land has thus far been acquired by the Federal Government. Moreover, its omission at this point would likely lead the Justice Department to argue that Congress did not intend for this statutory standard to apply.

The bill includes language to allow, as part of the legislative taking, for the landowner to recover reasonable costs, interest, and damages. It is important to understand that while Federal acquisitions should be completed on the basis of fair market value, when the Federal Government makes the commitment to acquire private land, the landowner should not have to be driven into financial ruin while waiting upon the federal government to discharge its obligation. While the Federal Government has never disputed its obligation to acquire the property, it has had the benefit of the private land for all these years without having to pay for it. The private landowner should not have to bear the costs of this Federal foot-dragging.

This legislation is consistent with the high priority the Department of the Interior has repeatedly placed on this land acquisition, and is a necessary final step towards an equitable resolution. The time for pursuing other options has long since expired and it is unfortunate that it requires legislation action. Without commenting on the Endangered Species Act itself, it would seem that if it is the government's objective to provide habitat for the benefit of an endangered species, then the government ought to bear the costs, rather than forcing them upon the landowner. It is also time to address this issue so that the Federal agencies may be single minded in their efforts to recover the desert tortoise which remains the aim of the creation of the reserve. It is time to right this wrong and get on with the efforts to recover the species and I encourage my colleagues to support the timely enactment of this important legislation.

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