Floor Statements

I have an amendment but I am not seeking time on this amendment.

I thank the Senator for accepting an amendment for the managers' package that deals with making sure we have something in the criteria for the Millennium Challenge Account, assistance dealing with people with disabilities.

Basically, the amendment makes a small but significant change to the Millennium Challenge Account ensuring that one criteria used in determining a country's eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Account funds is their commitment to providing opportunities for the inclusion of people with disabilities. This account represents one of the largest increases in foreign aid spending in half a century, about $1 billion this year and an additional $4 billion within the next 3 years.

People with disabilities have been left out of our foreign assistance programs for too long. This amendment does not require they do anything new.

Since 1996, over 100 countries, including the United States, have submitted reports to the United Nations under implementation of 22 rules to equalize opportunities for people with disabilities. President Bush has implemented a new freedom initiative in this country on behalf of people with disabilities. In 2001, he charged each agency with reviewing their policies to remove barriers that promote inclusion of people with disabilities in American society. I commend and I compliment President Bush for taking this step. This amendment takes this initiative and extends it basically to our foreign assistance programs.

I have a report from the National Council on Disability, dated September 9, 2003. It is titled: ``Foreign Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil Rights Protections To Ensure Inclusion of People with Disabilities.''

In the cover letter from the chairperson of the National Council on Disability to President Bush, Mr. Lex Frieden pointed out that in 1996:

NCD recommended a series of policy changes to ``ensure the

inclusion of people with disabilities in all foreign

assistance programs. . . .

He goes on to say:

Seven years later, NCD has concluded that inclusion of

people with disabilities in U.S. foreign policy will be

achieved only when specific legislation is enacted to achieve

that purpose.

That is what we have done. We have added specific legislative language to ensure in the Millennium Challenge Account one of the criteria to be used is whether that country is trying to provide opportunities for the inclusion of persons with disabilities.

In the executive summary of this report filed by the National Council on Disability, it says:

Individuals with disabilities are subject to a broad

pattern of discrimination of segregation in almost every part

of the world. In most countries, people with disabilities and

their families are socially stigmatized, politically

materialized and economically disadvantaged. The economic

cost to society of excluding people with disabilities is

enormous. No nation in the word will achieve its full

potential for economic development when it leaves out people

with disabilities. No society will be a complete democracy

unless people with disabilities can participate in public

life. Failure to respond to the concerns of people with

disabilities ignores one of the great humanitarian and human

rights challenges of the world today.

The United States is well positioned to lead the world in

demonstrating how to build on the tremendous human potential

of people with disabilities.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) represents a

sweeping commitment on the part of the U.S. government to

abolish discrimination against people with disabilities in

all walks of life.

At present, U.S. foreign policy does not reflect the great

accomplishments of people with disabilities within the United

States. U.S. citizens with disabilities cannot serve in many

embassies abroad because these buildings are physically

inaccessible. Qualified and talented individuals may be

excluded from U.S. government service abroad based on their

medical history.

The U.S. National Council on Disability (NCD) calls on the

Executive Branch and Congress to create a new foreign policy

that ensures access by people with disabilities to the

benefits of democracy and economic development around the

world.

I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of the National Council on Disability's report be printed in the Record.

I also ask unanimous consent that the cover letter preceding that by Mr. Lex Frieden also be printed in the Record.

Again, I thank the manager and the ranking member for working out the language. This may seem like a small thing but, believe me, this is big. This is going to say--and we look at other criteria-- but we will look at a country to see what they are doing to provide for people with disabilities.

Quite frankly, this country ought to be taking the lead around the world in that area because we have a lot to talk about in what we have done in our own country since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. What we have done is shown that people with disabilities can provide economic stimulus to a country. They can provide part of that economic engine that a country needs. We have shown conclusively, no matter where you are, no matter what country, that if your policy is one of exclusion of people with disabilities, keeping them institutionalized, materialized, not fully participating in society, it costs that society more to do that than it does to include them in education, for example, transportation, employment, and cultural affairs.

My amendment was designed basically to implement what the National Council on Disability concluded when they said, ``The inclusion of people with disabilities in United States foreign policy will be achieved only when specific language is enacted to achieve that purpose.'' That is what we have done this evening with the inclusion of this amendment.

I only hope when we go to conference with the House that we can have the support of the administration. As I said, President Bush had an enlightened policy on people with disabilities when he came in in 2001. I hope the White House will take that inclusion policy of theirs and make sure we keep it in this foreign operations appropriations bill for the next year and that they will use the Millennium Challenge Account to promote and to stimulate other countries in thinking about how they can provide for the inclusion of people with disabilities.

I thank Senator McConnell, Senator Leahy, and their respective staffs for working on this issue.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Darcy Zotter, a fellow on my staff, be allowed the privilege of the floor during debate on this bill.

Madam President, I join with my colleagues here on the Senate floor today to mark the 1-year anniversary of the tragic death of our friend and beloved colleague, Paul Wellstone, and his wife Sheila.

As I look around the Chamber here in the Senate today, I see men and women of remarkable talents and ability. It is kind of a family here in the Senate. Regardless of our ideological beliefs or party preferences, we all understand what we went through to get here and how we work and what we have to do. We have our differences. We meet, we argue, and we vote. But underneath it all, the Senate is kind of a family. That is good. Like all families, we may have our squabbles, but like a family, I have a strong sense there is kind of a void in our midst. A very special Senator, a Member who played a unique role in this body, is missing. It is as though we are suffering from the phantom-limb syndrome. The phantom-limb syndrome is when a person loses a limb, and even as time goes on, sometimes it feels like it is there. When an issue of moral urgency and an issue of conscience comes to the Senate floor, I still expect to see Paul standing over there chopping the air with his hands, speaking with his own unique special passion, and urging us to do the right thing. Yes, it is like we have the phantom- limb syndrome. Once in a while, you expect to hear Paul speaking out here. He was truly the soul of the Senate.

No one wore the title of Senator better or used it less. He loved ordinary folks. Strangers would come up to him and call him Paul. I can't tell you how many times I would walk off the Senate floor and down the steps with him. We would go together back to the Hart Building or someplace. Policemen would come up. They might say Senator Harkin, but they always called him Paul. People working on the grounds called him Paul. He took that as a sign that ordinary people knew he was one of them; that he was approachable; that he cared, all of which was Paul Wellstone to the core.

Paul had so many friends in my State of Iowa. Iowans knew him personally, and many more Iowans felt they knew him personally. I often said before his death and after that he was one of my best friends in and out of the State. But in truth, Paul Wellstone was one of those rare souls who so many saw as their best friend.

He had a powerful authenticity about him that made a miner on the Iron Range know he was as important to Paul as the President of the United States. Paul never had to proclaim his decency. It shone forth in great acts of political courage and in small acts of human kindness. He never had to say he cared. He never had to proclaim his compassion. We saw these qualities in him every day in dozens of ways--from his passionate speeches here on the Senate floor, standing up for those who otherwise had no voice, to the countless people he reached out to hug and to hear and to help all across Minnesota and all across the Nation.

Thirty years later, he retraced Robert Kennedy's journey to places of hunger and hurt in the heart of America. The hard-working folks he cared about most didn't have lobbyists or influence or money. But they had Paul Wellstone, and he truly was their best friend.

Paul always had a great sense of humor and a sense of perspective. He never took himself too seriously. One of his favorite stories, which I heard him tell many times, was the story of one of his early Senate speeches which he thought was rather eloquent and passionate. You can read about it in his book, ``Conscience of a Liberal.'' Our friend, the senior Senator from South Carolina, who sits across the aisle from me, Fritz Hollings, approached him after the speech and said, ``Young man, you remind me of Hubert Humphrey.'' Paul, as he told the story, swelled up with pride and thought this was wonderful until Senator Hollings said, ``You talk too much.'' Paul would love to tell that story. He would get that big grin and his eyes would squint and he would roar with laughter. As I said, he never took himself seriously.

Paul may have talked a lot, but he meant every word. He showed us that way to lead is by following your conscience. When injustice was proposed or unfairness was advancing or selfishness was on the march, Paul would go into battle. It was OK with him if he went into battle all by himself. Paul Wellstone may have suffered from a bad back, but he had a spine of steel.

Paul was the soul of the Senate. He believed politics could truly be a noble profession, putting principle above polls. Sometimes he cast votes that even some of his friends disagreed with--on war, welfare, education. And when he did, he was the mirror in which we, his colleagues, looked at ourselves and searched our own hearts as to the correctness of our own positions.

So 1 year later, we remember this political science professor whose measure of truth was never in political theory but in the impact our decisions have on real people. We remember the community organizer, the farm organizer, who understood how to bring people together, rural and urban, environmentalists and labor, Republicans and Democrats and, as I have often said, even Minnesotans and Iowans. We remember a leader, a proud Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a liberal who constantly reminded those who are Democrats that the real center of gravity of our party, the progressive ground of our being, is everyone should have a chance to reach their full potential.

We remember a man of principle who for all his convictions also had the rarest of gifts in politics: Paul actually sometimes came to the conclusion that the other person was right. He could partner with Ted Kennedy or Pete Domenici. He could fearlessly oppose Senator Jesse Helms' views yet become Jesse Helms' friend. It was all perfectly consistent with his guiding star. The decency Paul Wellstone demanded of society was the decency he lived out in his own life.

Paul once said politics is about what we create about what we do, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine. Paul Wellstone did not just dare to imagine a better America, he helped to build one. Sure, he was willing to fight the lonely fight if he thought it was the right thing to do, but he also knew how to turn idealism into ideas and ideas into actions to improve people's lives: investing in education, expanding health care, fighting killer diseases like Parkinson's, helping homeless veterans and veterans exposed to radiation. Thanks to his hard work in the Senate, farmers have a better future. Because of what he demanded, mental illness will some day be treated equally in our health care system. Because of who he married, Sheila, and because of Sheila's passionate charge, more women and children will find safe harbor from the scourge of domestic abuse.

Paul was a hopeful man. His campaign colors were always green. I always thought that was the color of springtime. It is also the color of hope. This picture captures Paul and Sheila Wellstone, standing on that green bus with all kinds of people around him, smiling, with Sheila standing by his side, and the American flag over his head waving proudly, with a big smile on his face. That was Paul Wellstone.

He bought this bus 13 years ago and used it in his campaigns time and time again. I often said he got that bus on his journey to build a better America. But he never wanted to be on the bus by himself. He never meant it to be a solo voyage. He wanted us all on board that bus.

Although Paul is no longer with us, we all must get on that bus, the bus of hope, the bus leading to a better America, a bus that is on a journey for justice, equality, a bus that is on a journey to ensure every individual in our society, no matter the circumstances of birth, has the potential to reach his or her full potential.

As we listen to the tributes this morning, it is clear our memories of Paul Wellstone remain rich and warm. His spirit is still very much with us. He still inspires us. He still calls us to conscience. He still makes us smile when we think of his puckish humor.

Today, 1 year later, let's agree that our period of grieving has passed. The darkness has dissipated. What remains is the light Paul radiated every day in this Chamber. He was truly the finest of human nature.

In addition to Paul and Sheila, six other wonderful people died in that plane crash 1 year ago. Paul would not want us 1 year later to just remember him or to just remember him and Sheila, because as he always said, we are all

part of his family, the campaign workers, the people who flew him around. So we remember them, too: Their daughter, Marcia; Tom Lapic, who died, and was Paul's long-time trusted aide and served many years in Paul's Senate offices here in Washington and St. Paul. We remember and miss Tom today. He was also a member of our Senate family. We remember Mary McEvoy, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Minnesota, always by Sheila Wellstone's side; Will McLaughlin, 23 years old, Paul's driver. Again, Paul always reached out to bring young people into politics. We remember the two pilots, Richard Conry and Michael Guess, of that ill-fated plane.

Finally, there is one piece of Paul's legacy that is not complete, and it has been spoken of by the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Dayton, and I just heard Senator Reed speak about it, and I know Senator Lautenberg spoke about it: the issue of mental health parity. Paul worked tirelessly to overcome the barriers to mental health treatment. Specifically, he championed legislation that would require group health plans to treat mental health benefits as generously as they do surgical or medical benefits. If Paul were here this morning, he would remind us how crucially important this is to millions of Americans. He and Sheila never faltered on this issue.

I can think of no better way to honor Paul's memory and to complete his legacy than to pass the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act in this Congress. This bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly in the last Congress. It was attached to the appropriations bill in Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee. We took it to conference and the conferees would not agree to adopt it, but we were given assurances this would be addressed. Paul Wellstone was given assurances this would be addressed, that we would pass it in a form--maybe not in an appropriations bill-- but pass it in a form that would then go to the House.

The bill today is supported by an overwhelming number of Senators. Madam President, 67 Senators now are supporting this bill, Republicans and Democrats, including 18 Republicans--at least that is my count on it anyway. So with that many supporting the bill, you would think we would not have much problem getting it through. The American people want this bill desperately. They have waited too long for its passage.

According to the Surgeon General's report, mental disorders collectively account for 15 percent of the overall burden of disease from all causes, and it is even more than the burden associated with all forms of cancer in our society. And yet, how many people burdened with mental disorders cannot get the help they need because their insurance carrier does not cover it and they cannot afford it?

We all know what happens. We know what happens when people have mental problems and they are not treated--things degenerate, families break up, domestic abuse happens, people lose their lives. Sometimes people are thrown in prison for long periods of time because in the beginning they did not get mental health treatment.

I have seen some figures that indicate that close to half of the people serving long-term prison sentences today are there because they have mental disorders--depression, schizophrenia, bipolar illnesses-- which led them through a series of stages that culminated in probably some heinous crime. But in the beginning they did not get the mental health they needed.

So we have waited too long. It is critical we find an opportunity to bring up this bill and pass it before we adjourn this year.

Next week, the HELP Committee, of which I am a member, will be marking up legislation that will provide for parity in insurance coverage for recreational activities, such as riding a motorcycle or skiing. In other words, your insurance carrier has to give you the same coverage for any kind of injury that would happen to you if you were skiing or riding a motorcycle, or something like that, as if it happened purely accidentally some other way. It begs credulity that somehow we can cover that but cannot give mental health parity to people who, through no fault of their own, are suffering from mental illness in our country.

It is this Senator's intention to try to attach this bill to this piece of legislation. We have waited too long. I have been hearing all year that soon we are going to bring up this bill. We have 67 Senators on it. We have waited too long. It is the legacy of Paul Wellstone. We are going to get it passed. And yet, days go by, weeks go by, months go by, and nothing happens.

Now, I am too respectful of the Senate and of the agreements that are reached here to ask unanimous consent that we bring it up and pass it today. Some have suggested we do that in honor of Paul Wellstone, but I know that most Senators are not present. We are not voting today.

But I will say this. There will be some time before we leave this year when I intend to bring up the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act and seek a vote on it, either through committee or on the floor, and somehow try to get it into a conference with the House before the year ends.

President Bush said last spring that he supported mental health parity. So if the White House supports it and the President supports it, and we have so many Senators and Members of the House support it, what is stopping us?

I know some of the big insurance companies and others are kind of opposed to it, but all of the studies we have seen show this is cost- effective. According to SAMHSA, undertreated and untreated mental disorders are costing this Nation over $200 billion a year in lost work, crimes, and incarceration. It is a huge impact on our society, and we have to respond. That is why we have to bring up this bill and get it passed.

I can think of no better time in which to talk about it--and to state, unequivocally, we are going to have a vote on this bill this year--than on this the first anniversary of the death of our beloved colleague, Paul Wellstone, his wife, and those who were with them on that tragic day.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

Mr. President, this amendment has some history in the Senate and the House. I will try to enlighten Senators as to the background and what it is about. Hopefully, we can have support for the amendment and adopt it.

Basically, it stops the Treasury Department from moving forward with a regulation that would allow companies to convert from a traditional defined benefit pension plan to a cash balance plan in a way that would hurt older workers. We are not saying they can't promulgate a rule that wouldn't allow a company to go from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan. We are just saying, they should not do it in a way that hurts older workers. Let me talk about that a little bit and what is behind it.

I am not totally opposed to cash balance plans. Some designs can be very good. Some can be a great deal better for younger workers, for example, than an uninsured defined contribution plan. Some are not. I am not saying we should prohibit any cash balance plans from existing. However, we need to make sure employers put in place a fair and equitable manner for treating these.

I have been following this issue closely for several years. In the mid-1990s, a groundswell of companies started converting from traditional defined benefit plans to hybrid plans, including cash balance plans. A couple of years later, some older workers who were nearing retirement started looking at the effect of this conversion on their account. They were shocked to find they hadn't been accruing any benefits for years. In other words, workers who were, say, in their forties or early fifties when the company converted from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan, didn't really know how the conversion would affect them. Then after several years, these older workers looked and found out they had been working for several years and their pension had not increased one penny, even though they had been working. Yet younger workers, age 20, 25, saw their pension plans increase.

A lot of workers nearing retirement, thinking they were going to get what they had assumed was going to be their retirement and their pension, all of a sudden found out their pension had been worn away over several years. It turned out that employers were freezing the accounts in the old plan, then they established a lower opening account balance in the new plan which meant, simply, that the longer you were in the plan, the longer you were working without earning any new benefits. That became a term called ``wearaway.'' In other words, your pension benefits wore away.

Many people said: This is nothing less than age discrimination. In other words, I am working for the company. I have been there for 20 years. They switch their pension program. A younger person gets more in their pension program than I get in mine.

A new 25-year-old employee would be getting more money contributed to their pension account, while a 45-year-old who had been loyal to the company for 20 years would not get anything. I was shocked and appalled to learn about this practice, and so were thousands of loyal, hard- working Americans.

In 1999, I introduced a bill to make it illegal for corporations to wear away

the benefits of older workers during these conversions. We raised the profile of this issue. We raised it with Treasury. In September of 1999, the Treasury Department issued a moratorium on conversions from defined benefit plans to cash balance plans. The momentum against these unfair conversions was building as more and more companies changed, as more and more workers found their pensions were worn away.

In April of 2000, we in the Senate passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution without objection, stating that the wearing away of current benefits during cash balance conversions is unfair and wrong--a unanimous sense-of-the-Senate resolution in April of 2000.

Well, now we go to 2001 and 2002, and not much is happening. That moratorium stayed on, by the way, through 2000, 2001, and 2002. However, last December, Treasury issued a regulation that would turn the clock back, undo the moratorium, allow more businesses to go forward with conversions in this wrong manner--the manner that would wear away the pensions of older workers.

Very soon after that, 191 members of the House of Representatives, and 26 Senators signed a bipartisan letter to President Bush asking that we do not reopen the floodgates, that we withdraw this rule and promulgate a rule that is fair and equitable. Well, now, as you might imagine, during this period of time some of these workers who found that their pensions had been worn away went to court. In August, a district judge in East St. Louis, in the case of Cooper v. IBM--IBM was one of the larger, well-known companies that engaged in this practice-- ruled in favor of the plaintiff on her age discrimination claim.

Now, on September 9--I am talking about last month, and this case was decided in August--the House of Representatives voted 258 to 160--again bipartisan, with 65 Republicans voting for the amendment--saying that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling by the district judge in East St. Louis.

So now we are into October. I might just say that all of these have been positive steps. We had a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in 2000. We had the moratorium. Last December, the Treasury Department--I might add, if I am not mistaken, I don't think there was a Secretary of the Treasury at that time in place--issued this rule to turn the clock back, and 196 members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw this rule and have one that is fair and equitable.

In August, there was the district court ruling. On September 9, last month, the House voted 250 to 196 that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling. There have been a lot of positive steps, but this regulation is still hanging out there.

One other thing happened. Last January, Senator Durbin and I indicated that we might place a hold on the nomination of Mr. John Snow to be Secretary of the Treasury. Well, Mr. Snow was a very popular person and we didn't have anything personally against him; I want to make that clear. But we wanted to raise this issue. So Mr. Snow, a fine gentleman and outstanding business executive, someone who has gotten high accolades for his tenure in business as a business executive, met with Senator Durbin and me in my office. He said on this critical issue he would let fairness guide the regulatory process.

Mr. Snow had talked about what they had done at CSX, the company he had been CEO of, and how they had, I believe, instituted a cash balance plan, and a choice between the old plan and the new plan, which sounded fair and reasonable to me--let the worker decide what they want, which means many younger workers would probably pick the cash balance plan, and older workers might stay with a defined benefit plan. Mr. Snow said he would let fairness guide this regulatory process. That is the way we ought to go.

The fairness ought to be in working with Congress to develop this new regulation. So I think the best way to ensure that we do this is to ensure, No. 1, that Congress speaks on this issue; that Congress is involved in working with Treasury to make sure we come up with a fair and equitable rule dealing with pensions.

Secondly, I think the best way to make sure this happens, and to make sure that Congress is able to work and have a seat at the table is to adopt this amendment.

This regulation must be withdrawn. We need to work together to find a reasonable, bipartisan legislative solution to this complex problem. This is an incredibly important issue to American workers. It is very important for them to know that we stand united behind them in this struggle for fairness.

Mr. President, I spoke about this many times on the Senate floor. In terms of what distinguishes the American workplace in so many ways from others around the world, we have always valued loyalty and productivity in the American workplace--loyalty and productivity. If you are hard working and you are productive and you are loyal, U.S. companies have always valued that--at least they used to. That is one of the reasons companies have offered defined benefit pension plans. The longer you work and the more loyal you are to the company, you get a bigger pension. It makes sense.

So the longer you work someplace, the better you do your job, the more you learn about it, the more productive you are, that is what we value. We value that productivity and loyalty.

Now if companies are able to just break these promises at random, what kind of a signal does that send to U.S. workers? It tells workers they are foolish to be loyal because their employer could just change the rules of the game at any time and leave them out in the cold. It destroys the kind of work ethic that we have come to value and that I believe built this country, which distinguishes us from other countries around the world. We value fairness when it comes to workers. A deal is a deal.

I offer this analogy. Let's say I am offered a job. The employer says to me: OK, Senator Harkin, we are going to hire you and we are going to have a 5-year job here for you to do. If you stay with us for 5 years and you work for 5 years, we will give you a $50,000 bonus. I think that is a pretty good deal, so we shake hands, and I agree on that. So I worked at the company for 3 years, then my boss comes to me and says: Harkin, you know that deal we made where we said if you would work here 5 years, you would get a $50,000 bonus? Well, you have been here for 3 years and, guess what, the deal is off. Just like that, the deal is off. But I went to work for that company depending upon that.

That is what happens to a lot of people. They depend upon the kind of pension program the company has. That is one of the things, when companies recruit workers out of college or vocational schools, people look at what kind of pension program they have. Well, if after a certain amount of time they say, sorry, it is off, you don't get any of this, what does that say about loyalty and productivity?

I don't think that is the way we want to treat workers in this country where the employer holds all the cards and can change the deal anytime they want.

Again, I didn't have any stake--but, Harkin, you didn't contribute anything to that bonus. We said if you worked here 5 years, we would give you a $50,000 bonus, but we paid you the salary we agreed upon, did we not?

Yes.

You didn't put anything into that $50,000 bonus; that is something we were going to give you. Now we reneged on it. You don't have anything to gripe about.

Wait a minute. I have given 3 years to this company. I worked hard. I was productive because I wanted to get that bonus for 5 years, so it is not true to say I didn't put anything into the bonus.

This is like saying you didn't put anything into the pension plan. This is something the company offered you. Oh, yes, you did. You may have put in 20 or 25 years of loyal, hard work and diligence. If you had known 20 years ago they were going to pull the rug out from underneath you, would you have stayed with that company or would you maybe have gone someplace else?

Again, I hope people disabuse themselves of the idea that somehow a pension is just what the company offers you and you don't have any stake in it. You have a big stake in it. It is what they promised you when you went to work there, and you went to work there relying upon that promise.

I am not saying they can't change their pension programs. Times change, conditions change, the workforce changes. I understand all that. New kinds of pension programs come on the market dealing with existing circumstances or what the future might be. That is fine, just as long as, No. 1, they treat workers fairly, and No. 2, that a deal is a deal. It seems to me if you work for a company for 20 years and they want to switch their pension plan, but you made a deal on one and you want to stick with that one, they ought to at least let you continue to work and retire under that plan. If you want to switch, it ought to be up to the worker.

That is what this amendment is all about. It is simply about saying to the Treasury Department they can't issue this proposed rule they have come up with which, as I said, last month the House voted 258 to 160 to say no to and which earlier this year 191 Members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw the rule.

That is what this amendment does. It simply says: Withdraw this rule; work with Congress. Let's have something that is fair and equitable for our workers.

Again, I urge my colleagues to join in support of this amendment in fairness to American workers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the AARP dated October 23, 2003, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill for accepting this amendment. Again, this amendment is going to send a strong signal that both bodies want to work with the Treasury Department to establish a fair and equitable rule on pensions. I thank the managers.

Mr. President, I rise today to support my friends from Maryland and Louisiana, who have offered an important amendment to get rid of unfair rules that disadvantage Federal Workers. I want to talk about one group of Federal Workers in particular--those with mental disabilities who are at risk of losing their jobs if these outsourcing rules are allowed to stand. I joined both of my colleagues from Maryland in sending a letter to Mr. Bolten, the Director of OMB, and to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, expressing our outrage about workers at one workplace in Maryland, and urging them to adopt a government-wide policy protecting these workers and others like them from losing their jobs.

Senator Mikulski has spoken about employees with mental disabilities working at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, mentioned in a Washington Post article earlier this month. These 22 workers in the hospital kitchen are providing dependable and reliable service in very hard-to-fill positions. In return, the Navy provided them with a steady paycheck and the ability to lead independent, productive lives. This relationship is mutually beneficial, but it is being jeopardized by outsourcing. And these workers could lose much more than their jobs. They could lose their independence. That is what is at stake for these workers.

As the author of the ADA and longstanding advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, I am shocked that the administration would consider outsourcing these jobs and reversing decades of Federal policy protecting people with disabilities from discrimination and ensuring that the Federal Government serve as a model employer.

These workers have been hired under a longstanding program that encourages the employment of individuals with mental disabilities. The program has operated under presidents from both parties and has been well implemented. No one has ever thought to attack it, until now. In 2000, the government employed 1,734 workers with mental retardation, about \1/10\ of 1 percent of the 1.8 million Federal workers. If this outsourcing is allowed to continue, that number could shrink dramatically.

Our Senate report on committee-passage of the ADA in 1989 noted this sad truth ``According to a recent Louis Harris poll not working is perhaps definition of what it means to be disabled in America.'' Thirty-two percent of people with disabilities are working full or part time compared to 81 percent of people who don't have a disability. The administration ought to be doing more to increase the number of workers with disabilities, not outsourcing the jobs of the few who are employed.

I am proud to support the amendment of the Senators from Maryland and Louisiana.

Mr. President, I am pleased to congratulate Catherine Bertini, former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, for her selection as recipient of the 2003 World Food Prize, presented in a ceremony in Des Moines, IA on October 16.

Ms. Bertini has worked long and hard and with innovation and creativity to rid the world of the scourge of hunger. For her efforts this recognition is richly deserved. As the leader of the World Food Program between 1992 and 2002, Ms. Bertini directed programs responsible for addressing hunger around the world, providing assistance to an estimated 700 million people during that period. Because of her dedication and leadership, millions are alive today whose need for assistance would otherwise have been ignored.

Catherine Bertini is the twenty-first recipient of the World Food Prize, and the second civil servant so honored. During her tenure at the World Food Program, or WFP, Ms. Bertini reorganized the agency and improved its logistical capacity, while focusing attention on delivering food aid through women in the developing world, and thereby nourishing women and girls

both in nutrition and education. As she wrote in the Des Moines Register, ``The key to ending hunger may lie in a little girl's hands. In her left, she holds a bowl of rice; in her right, her school books.'' I strongly support these goals, and share Ms. Bertini's desire to fund fully for fiscal 2004 the McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which we included in the 2002 farm bill.

Even as we celebrate her achievements, Catherine Bertini is focused on the challenges that lie ahead. She may have left her position at the WFP, but her long-time work to defeat global hunger and poverty continues. Only a few months after her departure from the WFP, she was asked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to work for him in New York, as Under Secretary General for Management. Prior to her selection as WFP Executive Director, Ms. Bertini served as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Consumer Services in the first Bush Administration.

Ms. Bertini exemplifies the best ideals of public service and reminds us that our fundamental work is not to leave the world as we found it, but as we know it should be--free of deprivation, devoid of want and with equal opportunity for all regardless of who they are or where they are. For her efforts, I salute Ms. Bertini and her dedication to the cause of helping the needy around the world.

The World Food Prize was established in 1986 to provide international recognition for individuals who have made vital contributions to ``improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food throughout the world.'' The World Food Prize embodies the vision of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, an Iowa native who received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his development of dwarf wheat. Through the adoption of dwarf wheat varieties in the 1960's, developing countries doubled their wheat yields in what became known as the Green Revolution. Dr. Borlaug's achievements and devotion to eliminating world hunger exemplify the ideals honored by the World Food Prize.

Within a few years after the World Food Prize was created, it lost critical sponsorship and its future was in serious doubt. In short, the Prize badly needed a committed benefactor. Iowa businessman and philanthropist John Ruan stepped forward to provide critical funding and to establish a headquarters for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, IA. Under Mr. Ruan's stewardship, and with the leadership of its president, Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn, the Prize now rests on a solid foundation. The annual awarding of the Prize serves as the anchor to a two-day international symposium and many other activities in support of defeating world famine and hunger.

It is a sobering reality that the world is still plagued with staggering levels of hunger and poverty. The World Food Prize heightens awareness of that reality, but it also inspires hope by recognizing that progress has been made and that much more can be done. Dr. Borlaug and Ms. Bertini, along with previous World Food Prize laureates, serve as examples to inspire and motivate us all to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to ending global hunger and poverty as rapidly as possible.

Mr. President, more than 83 days have passed since the Central Intelligence Agency filed a report and inquiry to the FBI in July regarding a leak by senior administration officials of an undercover CIA agent. This investigation was originally stymied by foot-dragging and delay and has continued to be stymied by foot- dragging and delay.

It took at least 53 days for the Justice Department to officially launch an investigation. It took 4 days after that for Justice to officially notify the White House about the investigation and tell them to preserve any and all materials related to it.

More recently, the investigation has been stymied by kind of a ``don't ask, don't tell'' approach by the President and by the appearance of a conflict of interest by the Attorney General. Attorney General Ashcroft, a good friend of the Bush administration and its senior advisers, a very partisan Republican for most of his life, is still overseeing the investigation. In fact, one of his top aides said yesterday that Ashcroft has been regularly briefed on key details in the investigation, including the identities of those being questioned by the FBI.

Talk about a chilling effect. President Bush has joked and made light about it.

I would like to bring to the attention of Senators an article by Knight Ridder, published in the newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday. The headline was ``CIA Leak May Have Caused More Damage. Work of Others Using Front Company Name May Be at Risk.'' This revealed why this leak is no laughing matter; it is a deadly serious matter of national security. This is what the article said:

Training agents . . . costs millions of dollars and

requires the time-consuming establishment of elaborate

fictions, called ``legends,'' including in this case the

creation of a CIA front company that helped lend plausibility

to her trips overseas. . . . Compounding the damage, the

front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates . . .

apparently was also used by other CIA officers whose works

could now be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, former

CIA chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis. . . .

Now, [Valerie] Plame's career as a covert operations officer

in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she

dealt with--on business or not--may be in danger . . . and

Plame's exposure may make it harder for American spies to

persuade foreigners to share important secrets with them,

U.S. intelligence officials said.

Other former CIA officials agree--including Larry Johnson, a former classmate of Plame's and former CIA and State Department official. He predicted that when the internal damage assessment is finished:

. . . at the end of the day, the [harm] will be huge and

some people potentially may have lost their lives.

Another former CIA officer, Jim Marcinkowski said:

This is not just another leak. This is a unprecedented

exposing of an agent's identity.

So, again, this is no laughing matter. The President should not treat it as such.

Here are some quotes from some in his own administration. Attorney General Ashcroft said:

Leaks of classified information do substantial damage to

the security interests of the nation.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld earlier this year, March--February of this year:

I think leaks are disgraceful, they are unprofessional,

they are dangerous. They put people's lives at risk.

Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, in June:

The President does have very deep concerns about anything

that would be inappropriately leaked that could in any way

endanger America's ability to gather intelligence

information.

From his own administration, people say how bad it is to have these kinds of leaks to endanger national security.

Let me give a quick recap of the timeline. It started with the President's deception in his State of the Union Address in January. In his remarks, Mr. Bush stated Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. A few months later, in July, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's op-ed appears in the New York Times, questioning the President's assertion.

Then in order to discredit Wilson and ``seek revenge'' on Wilson, senior administration officials leaked to the press the identity of Wilson's wife and the fact she was a CIA operative, thereby undercutting our national security and clearly violating Federal law.

This happened in early July. Let's see what happened since.

On July 24, Senator Schumer calls on the FBI Director to open a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative based on that column.

In late July, the FBI notified Senator Schumer that they had done an inquiry into the CIA.

Then it appears nothing happened for 2 months.

On September 23, the Attorney General says he and CIA Director Tenet sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation.

On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.

Interestingly, it took 4 days after that ``official'' launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation. Gonzalez then asked for an extra day before the Justice Department gave the White House the official notice, which means all documents and records must be preserved.

A recent letter was sent to the President from Senators Daschle, Schumer, Levin, and Biden which also expresses concern about this break from regular procedure.

They wrote:

Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said

that the first step in such an investigation would be to

ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet

the Justice Department waited four days before making a

formal request for documents.

Interestingly, the letter goes on:

When the Justice Department finally asked the White House

to order employees to preserve documents, White House Counsel

Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting

the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for

a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom

we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant

departure from standard practice.

That is what has been happening--departure from standard practice.

I am also troubled that the White House Counsel's Office is serving as

``gatekeeper'' for all the documents the Justice Department has requested from the White House. Mr. Gonzales' office said he would not rule out seeking to withhold documents under a claim of executive privilege or national security.

What kind of a zoo is this outfit?

Mr. Gonzales says he can withhold these documents from this investigation on the basis of national security.

Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. Now we are going to have an invocation of protecting national security to protect who leaked it, I guess.

I believe this matter could have been resolved very quickly. President Bush could have called his senior staff members into the Oval Office and asked them one by one if they were involved. He could have them sign a document stating they were not involved in this leak. He could have each of them sign a release to any reporter to release anything they have ever said to a reporter thereby exempting the reporters.

There has been coverup after coverup after coverup on this CIA leak, and it is not going to go away. People of America will demand that we get to the bottom of it.

Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Madam President, today I am offering an amendment, a bill I introduced earlier this year, S. 480, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2003, on behalf of myself and Senator Grassley. The 1996 Telecom Act requires that all television broadcasts were to be captioned by 2006. This was a much-needed reform that has helped millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to be able to take full advantage of television programming. As of today, it is estimated that

3,000 captioners will be needed to fulfill this requirement, and that number continues to increase as more and more broadband stations come online. Unfortunately, the United States only has 300 captioners. If our country expects to have media fully captioned by 2006, something must be done.

This is an issue that I feel very strongly about because my late brother Frank was deaf. I know personally that access to culture, news, and other media was important to him and to others in achieving a better quality of life. More than 28 million Americans, or 8 percent of the population, are considered deaf or hard of hearing and many require captioning services to participate in mainstream activities. In 1990, I authored legislation that required all television sets to be equipped with a computer chip to decode closed captioning. This bill completes the promise of that technology, affording deaf and hard of hearing Americans the same equality and access that captioning provides.

Though we do not necessarily think about it, the morning of September 11 was a perfect example of the need for captioners. Holli Miller of Ankeny, IA, was captioning for Fox News. She was supposed to do her three and a half hour shift ending at 8 a.m. but, as we all know, disaster struck. Despite the fact that she had already worked most of her shift and had two small children to care for, Holli Miller stayed right where she was and for nearly 5 more hours continued to caption. Without even the ability to take bathroom breaks, Holli Miller made sure that deaf and hard of hearing people got the same news the rest of us got on September 11. I want to personally say thank you to Holli Miller and all the many captioners and other people across the country that made sure all Americans were alert and informed on that tragic day.

But let me emphasize that the deaf and hard of hearing population is only one of a number of groups that will benefit from this legislation. The audience for captioning also includes individuals seeking to acquire or improve literacy skills, including approximately 27 million functionally illiterate adults, 3 to 4 million immigrants learning English as a second language, and 18 million children learning to read in grades kindergarten through 3. In addition, I see people using closed captioning to stay informed everywhere--from the gym to the airport. Captioning helps people educate themselves and helps all of us stay informed and entertained when audio isn't the most appropriate medium.

Madam President, although we have two years to go until the deadline given by the 1996 Telecom Act, our Nation is facing a serious shortage of captioners. Over the past five years, student enrollment in programs that train court reporters to become realtime writers has decreased significantly, causing such programs to close on many campuses. Yet, the need for these skills continues to rise. That is why I thank the chairman and ranking member for giving me this opportunity to present this vital amendment, and, hopefully, it can be accepted.

To reiterate, in 1990 I authored a bill, that became legislation, that required that all television sets that have a size 13-inch screen or larger have incorporated into that set a chip that would automatically decode for closed captioning. That went into effect in 1996, and all television sets now have a chip in them. If you have a remote, you can punch it and closed captions will come up.

Then in 1996, Congress passed legislation that said that, by the year 2006, we would have a policy that all television programming would be real-time captioned. Right now if you watch the Senate in debate, you will see real-time captioning coming across the screen. You see that on news programs and sports programs. So it is engaging.

But we wanted real-time captioners so that deaf and hard-of-hearing people around the country could watch television in a real-time setting and have real-time captioning. So again, we said that by 2006 we wanted to have this done. Real-time captioning is a highly trained skill that people have to have, and it is estimated that it is going to take about 3,000 captioners nationwide to do this.

Madam President, right now there are only about 300 captioners nationally. We only have 2 years to go before the congressionally mandated deadline of meeting this requirement. So, earlier this year, I introduced a bill, S. 480, along with 40 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle, providing for competitive grants. These grants would go to authorize entities, accredited by their State education agencies, that could then use these grants to fund programs to get scholarships for recruitment, training, and job placement to get this pipeline filled as soon as possible with these real-time captioners over the next couple of years.

That is the amendment I have sent to the desk. As I said, it has broad support. It is basically in the Commerce Committee jurisdiction. I know with the press of time, it wasn't acted on this year. I thought this might be an appropriate place to put it. I think it will be widely supported by everybody.

I thank the ranking member and others for their positive reception of this amendment on this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the cosponsors of the amendment.

Yes, if I can have a couple minutes.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. President, are we under time constraints on this measure?

Will the Chair please state for the Senator what the situation is right now in terms of this conference report?

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to talk about this pending measure. First and foremost, I applaud the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, for her unwavering leadership and commitment in protecting a woman's right to privacy and to choose. No one has fought harder and longer, both in the House and in the Senate and in all of their public life, to protect a woman's right to choose than Senator Boxer of California.

Senator Boxer has my highest esteem for all the work she has done to make sure that the women of this country are not controlled by ideology, by one religious belief, or by the actions of a male- dominated Senate and House of Representatives and, I might add, now a male-dominated Supreme Court.

We are going to vote this afternoon on this so-called late-term abortion bill. I have serious questions about whether it will pass constitutional muster. I don't believe it will. So what we are doing is really a political exercise. This is what I call something to go out and get the vote for, by exciting passions, arousing fears, and by trying to state in overblown terms what this is all about.

The bottom line and what it really comes down to is whether or not the health of the mother is a constitutionally protected right of women in this country.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court said similar State legislation was not constitutional because it lacked a health exception. It was not constitutional because there was no protection for the health of the mother. So what does the Senate and the House do? Pass legislation that still lacks the health exception. That is why it is unconstitutional.

I am also very disappointed that the conferees stripped from the bill my sense-of-the-Senate resolution about a woman's right to privacy. I had offered, as I had before, a simple statement that it was the sense of the Senate that we supported the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and it should not be overturned. It passed 52 to 46. It was attached to this late-term abortion bill which also passed the Senate. The Senator from California said the conference took less than 5 minutes to drop my resolution, without discussion.

Roe v. Wade is the moderate, mainstream policy American women have come to rely on, and it took the conferees less than 5 minutes, without discussion, to drop it. What that says to me is very startling. Congress has turned its back on America's women--their right to privacy, their right to choose. America's women are now second-class citizens.

Let me again give a brief review of what I am talking about. On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, a challenge to a Texas statute that made it a crime to perform an abortion unless a woman's life was at stake. That was the Texas law. The case had been filed by Jane Roe, an unmarried woman who wanted to safely and legally end her pregnancy. Siding with Roe, the Court struck down the Texas law. In its ruling, the Court recognized for the first time the constitutional right to privacy ``is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.''

It also set some rules. The Court recognized the right to privacy is not absolute and that a State has a valid interest in safeguarding maternal health, maintaining medical standards, and protecting potential life. A State's interest in ``potential life'' is not compelling, the Court said, until viability, the point in pregnancy at which there is a reasonable possibility for the sustained survival of the fetus outside of the womb.

A State may but is not required to prohibit abortion after viability, except when it is necessary to protect a woman's life or health.

That is what my resolution was all about, to say we agree that Roe v. Wade was an appropriate decision and should not be overturned.

Before the 1973 landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade, it is estimated that each year 1.2 million women resorted to illegal abortions, despite the known hazards of frightening trips to dangerous locations in strange parts of town, of whiskey as an anesthetic, of ``doctors'' who were often marginal or unlicensed practitioners, sometimes alcoholic, sometimes sexually abusive, unsanitary conditions, incompetent treatment, infection, hemorrhages, disfiguration, and death. By invalidating laws that forced women to resort to back-alley abortions, Roe was directly responsible for saving women's lives.

It is estimated as many as 5,000 women died yearly from illegal abortions before Roe. Only 10 pieces of legislation were introduced in either the House or the Senate before the Roe decision, but in the 30 years since the ruling more than 1,000 separate legislative proposals have been introduced. The majority of these bills have sought to restrict a woman's right to choose.

Unfortunately, what is often lost in the rhetoric and in some of those proposals is the real significance of the Roe decision. The Roe decision recognized the right of women to make their own decisions about their own reproductive health.

The decision whether to bear a child is profoundly private and life altering. As the Roe Court understood, without the right to make autonomous decisions about pregnancy, a woman could not participate freely and equally in society. Roe not only established a woman's reproductive freedom, it was also central to women's continued progress toward full and equal participation in American life.

In the 30 years since Roe, the variety and level of women's achievements have reached a higher level. As the Supreme Court observed in 1992:

The ability of women to participate equally in the economic

and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their

ability to control their reproductive lives.

As I have often said, the freedom to choose on the part of women is no more negotiable than the freedom to speak or the freedom to worship in our Constitution.

I do not believe any abortion is desirable. I do not think anybody does. I have struggled with this issue all my adult life as a father. However, I do not believe it is appropriate to insist my personal views be the law of the land and that I impose those on anyone else. So I urge my colleagues to vote against the final bill, first because it is unconstitutional, but also because by dropping the resolution we adopted saying Roe v. Wade should continue to be the law of the land, it sends the wrong message to American women. What it says is they are not equal to men. They cannot make decisions for themselves. We men will make those decisions for them. They do not have the same protections under the Constitution in this bill. Somehow they are second-class citizens.

I say to the women of this country, as I have said before on the floor, they must be concerned about this.

We passed the resolution on Roe v. Wade 52 to 46. Well, that was a win, I guess one might say, for upholding the belief that Roe v. Wade continue to be the law of the land, but 46 Senators basically voted to say Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned, that it should not be the law of the land, that we need to go back in time to prohibit all abortions, regardless.

I say to those who may think this is just one particular procedure that we are somehow prohibiting here--and again I want to point out, as the Senator from California so eloquently pointed out time after time, this is the first time in the history of this Senate that Senators have decided against a medical procedure, the only time we have somehow put on the cloak of knowing better than doctors, professionals, and women that somehow we politicians know better.

Aside from that, if my colleagues think this is all this is about, they are sadly mistaken. That is not what this is about. I say to the women of America, this is step one. I say especially to young women, who sort of take it for granted--I mean, Roe v. Wade was 30 years ago, ancient history in the United States of America--especially young women who believe, as they have grown up, having this freedom to choose, having the right to control their own reproductive health, if they think this is something that inures to them because they were born in America, they have another think coming. There are people who do not want them to have that right. There are people in this Senate who want to turn the clock back and say women have no right to make any decision on their reproductive health. But, then again, isn't that what we had in Texas before Roe v. Wade? That is what this country was like before that.

The Supreme Court said no, there is something else that has to do with the health of a woman, too, and a woman's right to control her own body and a woman's right to privacy.

Again, I see where this is going with 46 votes in the Senate. Just think, a couple of votes here or there in the next election, you can kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye, because that is what will happen. And with one or two Justices on the Supreme Court who feel this way, that will be the end of Roe v. Wade. That will be the end for women who think they have the right to control their own reproductive health in this country--to make their own decisions. That is where this is headed.

I know Senators, many Senators have personal feelings about that. Fine. There are Senators who believe very deeply that Roe v. Wade should not be the law of the land, who believe it never should have been decided that way, who believe that women should not have a right over their reproductive health. There are people who believe that.

Fine, if they want to believe that for themselves, that's their belief structure. But in this pluralistic society in which we live, in which we respect each other's rights but do not try to impose our own personal religious or moral beliefs on others, the Supreme Court really did, in fact, reach a logical and I think fair and balanced approach.

Yet there are those who want to strip that away--that no matter what--a woman does not have the right to make her own decisions and the right to privacy. And what does that mean? Well, it will mean we're going back to the back alley.

This, really, to me is more than just an issue about some narrow procedure, I say to my friend from California. This is about whether or not the women of this country are going to be treated as equals with men or as second-class citizens. I ask the Senator from California, rhetorically, what other times has the Senate said there are certain medical procedures which applied to men that cannot be conducted? What is next? Is there something else coming down the pike we don't know about? I don't think it will affect men but it will affect women. It is a holdover from mediaeval times, a holdover from the days in which women did not have the right to participate fully in society. That is what this is about more than anything else.

I thank the Senator from California for her courage, for her wisdom, for her judgment, and for being so stalwart, making sure we know what this battle is about. I think we see the writing on the wall here. It is going to pass. It is going to pass. If the Supreme Court adheres to its previous decisions, it will throw it out because there is no exception for the health of the mother. I guess then there will be a political issue to whip up emotions around the countryside.

I wish we could take emotions out of this and just talk about it on the basis of what women want. I will close on this. I have often asked, think to yourself, what would happen if we had 100 women sitting here? I mean a cross section of America, liberal, conservative, moderate, different religions, different ethnic backgrounds--just a good cross section of women in America. Do you really think, down deep in your heart, this would be passed before the Senate? No way. No way would this ever pass. Or, if you had a majority of the women in the House of Representatives? Absolutely not.

Women do make up more than half of our society. I forget, how many women Senators do we have now?

There are 14 out of 100. So women are drastically underrepresented in the body. They are underrepresented on the Supreme Court.

Women have made great strides. Fourteen is more than there were when I came here--there were only one or two at the time I came here. They are making strides.

What this says is we are going to turn the clock back. I don't want to turn the clock back and neither does the Senator from California. We have to make sure women in America have their constitutional right to privacy, just like men. That is what this is really about.

I thank the Senator. I am proud to be on her side.

I retain the remainder of our time. I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill for accepting my amendment, directing that $13 million of the relief and reconstruction funds in the bill may be used to facilitate inter-ethnic and inter-religious dialog, conflict resolution activities, support rule-of-law programs and train Iraqi leaders in democratic principles. In my view, the United States Institute of Peace is uniquely qualified to undertake these activities.

We have been debating the President's request for $87 billion in supplemental funds for Iraq and Afghanistan. At times, it has seemed that we in the Senate agree on very little. But there is one goal that I believe every Senator strongly endorses: We all want to bring our American troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as possible.

Without so much as batting an eye, we appropriate billions for war, billions for weapons, and billions for post-war reconstruction. Meanwhile, it seems that we overlook one key activity--conflict resolution and peacemaking. Conflict resolution and peacemaking must be addressed specifically and not simply as a by-product or hoped for outcome of rebuilding roads and repairing infrastructure.

The U.S. Government has one agency that can help to reduce conflict, build democratic institutions, and even assist in the drafting of the new Iraqi constitution--all prerequisites to bringing our troops home sooner rather than later. I am talking about the United States Institute of Peace. This institute has a proven track record of accomplishing those prerequisites which I just mentioned.

I am going to take a few minutes to explain the origins of the United States Institute of Peace because I am concerned that very few Americans know about this institute and its remarkable work.

Throughout our long history, America has been proud of its strong, well-led military. And this outstanding military leadership is no accident. It is possible because we maintain prestigious, world-class military academies which train some of the best and brightest minds in America in the art and science of war.

But Americans also have a long history as a peace-loving people. Time and again, we have brokered peace between warring nations, and we have intervened to head off potential conflicts. The Institute of Peace draws on this proud tradition, and today makes a vital intellectual investment in the art and science of peacemaking.

Today's Institute of Peace is the fruit of a dream and vision that goes back to our Nation's Founders. Benjamin Banneker, often called ``the first black American man of science,'' and physician Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, noted and lamented the Constitution's failure to establish a Department of Peace to balance the Department of War. In their correspondence with Thomas Jefferson in 1792, Banneker and Rush envisioned a ``Peace Office'' which would be on an equal footing with the Department of War and would be charged with promoting and preserving perpetual peace in the United States.

George Washington also supported the establishment of a Peace Office. And his support was not just casual. He believed that such an office should be an essential pillar of the new Nation. When he died in 1799, Washington's last will and testament bequeathed in perpetuity 50 acres in Potomac County to be used ``toward the endowment of a university--under the auspices of the general Government.'' This bequest was intended to make possible the proper ``Peace Establishment'' that President Washington had written about as early as 1783.

More recently, in a 1980 report by the Matsunaga Commission strongly recommended the establishment of the United States Academy of Peace. In the course of more than 70 meetings and hearings all across the United States, Senator Matsunaga of Hawaii and other Senators surveyed the full range of threats to world peace, and explored ways to counter those threats.

After much thoughtful debate a compromise was reached and the United States Institute of Peace Act was passed and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. A board was installed and the Institute's first meeting was held in February 1986. Since that time, the Institute has done remarkable work in such disparate nations as Afghanistan and Korea, Bosnia and the Philippines.

Today, at the direction of Congress, the Institute actively pursues six interrelated activities:

Expanding society's knowledge about the changing nature and conduct of international relations and the management of international conflict;

Supporting policymakers in the legislative and executive branches;

Facilitating the resolution of international disputes;

Training international affairs professionals from the United States and abroad in conflict prevention, management, and resolution techniques;

Strengthening the education of emerging generations of young people in the United States and in foreign zones of conflict;

Increasing public understanding about the nature of international conflicts, as well as approaches to their prevention, management, and resolution.

I also want to stress that in accord with the agency's enabling legislation, the Institute of Peace does not advocate specific policies, nor does it take policy positions.

In recent years, the Institute has pursued several special initiatives that I believe are particularly noteworthy and germane to our debate on the Iraq supplemental bill.

I especially want to highlight the Institute's work in Bosnia. After the Dayton Accords of 1995, the Institute activated the Bosnian Inter- religious Council, which now provides a model for reconciliation among Bosnia's Muslim, Catholic, Serb and Jewish communities. The Institute worked on the ground in both Bosnia and Washington addressing contentious issues such as rule of law, peace agreements, political restructuring, and the role of religion in conflict.

I would also cite the Institute's Special Initiative on the Muslim World, which addresses a broad range of political, social, cultural, and religious issues--many of which are acutely relevant in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

At the same time, the Institute's Religion and Peacemaking Initiative is doing excellent work enhancing the capacity of faith communities to be forces for peace.

In another example of the Institute's work with a Muslim community, in May 2003 the administration asked the Institute of Peace to play a facilitating role in peace talks between the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. A team from the Institute visited the Philippines in August. And in meetings I conducted just 2 days ago, I learned that significant progress is being made.

In Afghanistan the institute, through its role of law program, has participated in efforts to reconstruct the judicial system. USIP was the originator of the concept to establish a judicial commission. The institute is also working on the integration of new judicial system with traditional Afghani legal practice.

The Institute stands alone among U.S. agencies in these efforts to work with the international Muslim community. Based on the Institute's brilliant work in other Muslim countries, I believe that it can play an especially constructive role in Iraq. In particular, it will take a lead role in building up Iraq's civil society, and in nurturing Iraq's fledgling democratic institutions.

With adequate funding, the Institute wants to go to Iraq to facilitate inter-ethnic and inter-religious dialogue among community, political and civic-society leaders. One of the biggest threats to our reconstruction effort in Iraq is the possibility that full-fledged fighting could break out between religious and ethnic communities. The Institute can play a vital role in preventing this. The Institute also will work to establish the rule of law by supporting the constitution- writing process and designing a framework for bringing to justice leaders of the former dictatorial regime. So, exactly as envisioned by our Nation's founders, the United States Institute of Peace is playing a vital role in restoring and strengthening peace around the world--and now, in particular, in Iraq. As I said, this is the key to bringing our troops home soon, with their mission truly accomplished.

I am pleased that we have allocated $13 million for conflict resolution and peacemaking in Iraq. In order to adequately fund the Institute's work in Iraq the Institute needs only one hundredth of one percent of the President's total request. Surely this is not too high a price to pay for ``making peace.''

Time and again in recent years--including in Iraq--our Nation has shown that it is brilliant at winning wars. But time and again, we have had difficulty winning the peace. As we continue to increase funding for the Department of Defense by tens of billions of dollars each year, we must also be generous in our support and funding for this all- important agency, the United States Institute of Peace.

Mr. President, the pending amendment offered by the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, Senator Kennedy, myself, and others, I believe is key as to whether this bill includes any real measure of accountability to Congress and, thus, to the American people for this country's policy in Iraq.

This is essentially similar to an amendment I had offered during the committee markup. We had an excellent substantive debate in the committee, and we are having I hope again today a debate on accountability of this administration.

I thank Senator Byrd for his tremendous leadership on this issue. I thank the chairman of our full committee, Senator Stevens, for permitting us again--I know at some point he will want to move to table, but I thank him for allowing us to have this time to have our say and make our points about why we feel so strongly that this amendment should be adopted.

The amendment allows funding for our military needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amendment we are debating allows $10.1 billion for Iraqi relief and reconstruction over the next 6 months, until April of 2004; $5.1 billion of that is set aside for police and military training in Iraq and about $5 billion would be for reconstruction aid. I note the $5 billion is the amount of reconstruction aid the World Bank believes Iraq can absorb over the next full year, let alone in just 6 months.

Further taxpayer funding for Iraq beyond that $10.1 billion would be contingent on important accountability to Congress and the American public. In order to receive Iraqi relief reconstruction funding beyond the $10.1 billion, the President would have to certify to Congress that the U.N. has adopted a new resolution authorizing a multinational military force in Iraq under U.S. command. The President would also have to certify that he has a concrete plan for stabilization and democracy in Iraq, with fixed timetables and cost estimates, and the President would have to submit a report to Congress detailing the international support for our efforts in Iraq, both in terms of money and troops, as well as a report indicating troop levels and duration for our involvement in Iraq. In other words, what is our exit strategy?

Finally, and most important, this amendment would say there must be an additional vote taken by Congress before we spend any more money.

Again, I have listened to our ranking member, my good friend from West Virginia, many times in this Chamber talk about the Founding Fathers and how smart they were and how they wanted to balance the powers in this country so we did not have a dictator or king or someone who could run amok with the public treasury. That is why the clause in the Constitution that gives us control over the purse strings is so important.

The intention of the Founding Fathers, at least as far as I have come to understand and read in my history books, is they did not mean to give us the purse strings so we could open it up and dump money into the White House. They wanted us to be accountable to the American people for every dime that was spent; that we had to keep a tight pull on those purse strings, parcel that money out in a deliberative manner so that no President--Democrat, Republican, Independent, or whatever-- would be given a blank check with the taxpayers' dollars.

This amendment is in keeping with the best traditions and intentions of our Founding Fathers and keeping our faith with the Constitution of the United States in being diligent at controlling the purse strings of taxpayers' dollars.

I just cannot explain why the administration is so stubborn in resisting even this most commonsense accountability. They are insisting on a blank check. Again, even the World Bank says we cannot spend any more money than that $5 billion in a year. Yet they want $21 billion. When people like me and the Senator from West Virginia and others raise questions about accountability, the administration, in effect, is saying: Trust me. That is exactly the line we heard before the war in Iraq.

I admit publicly--it is on the record--one year ago I voted for the Iraq war resolution because I opted to trust the President. I opted to give him the benefit of the doubt. In the lead-up to the war, the President's approach boiled down to two words: Trust me. Trust me that Saddam is in cahoots with al-Qaida because we have that information, he said.

Trust me that Iraq has vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.

Trust me, said the President, that postwar reconstruction will be self-financing because Iraq has fabulous oil wells.

Trust me, said the President, that we have a serious plan to manage postwar Iraq.

And today the administration dares to say one more time: Trust me that this $20 billion for reconstruction is absolutely necessary, and that if you will only give us a blank check, we will spend it wisely.

There was a story on the front section of the business section of today's New York Times which illustrates how this vast amount of money--if not diligently looked at, if we don't keep a tight rein on those purse strings--can boil down to what in World War I and World War II was called war profiteering.

The business section of the New York Times this morning showed that Halliburton, for example, was making over 66 cents a gallon on fuel that it was selling to the United States government for use in Iraq, and we were paying them for it. We are paying them these profits. It showed how much Halliburton was spending, up to $1.70 a gallon for fuel when they could have gotten the same fuel in the region for basically 66 cents less a gallon. Where is that money going? We don't know.

That is the problem with all of this money floating around: Trust me, the administration says. As the old saying goes, there is no education in the second kick of a mule. Quite frankly, I admit publicly I have been kicked repeatedly by this administration's mule saying, Trust me.

A few years ago, the administration pushed through this No Child Left Behind bill for education. The President said: Trust me, we will come up with the resources to make sure it works. Now we have the mandates but we do not have the resources.

Trust me, they said, that we will have the evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, the means to deliver them, that he had connections with al- Qaida. We now know none of this is true.

I am basically here today saying, Not this time around; I am not willing to give a blank check; I insist on a measure of basic accountability.

I recall President Reagan's policy with regard to arms control. Remember what he said? He said, Trust but verify, and that is exactly the purpose of this amendment. It allows $10.1 billion for Iraqi reconstruction through the end of March 2004. Further funding would be contingent on two things: The President must certify to Congress that the U.N. has adopted a new resolution authorizing a multinational military force in Iraq under United States command; and, two, the President must certify that he has a coherent plan for the reconstruction of Iraq, including a significant commitment of financial assistance from other nations. In short, trust but verify, no blank check.

The administration will be on notice that additional money for Iraq reconstruction will not be automatic. The President first must come forward with a coherent plan to internationalize the occupation of Iraq, to stabilize and democratize Iraq, and then bring our troops home as soon as possible.

Everyone is talking about ``supporting our troops,'' and certainly we want to do everything we can to support our troops. At issue is, how do we best support the troops?

The Stars and Stripes, the newspaper all of us relied upon during our tenure in the military, has just released a poll showing that one-half of the troops surveyed say their unit's morale is low in Iraq. Almost 50 percent say it is very unlikely or not likely that they will reenlist when their term is up. According

to Stars and Stripes, a key reason for this dissatisfaction is:

Uncertainty about when they will be returning home.

Let me be clear, nothing will be better in terms of support for our troops than to compel this administration at long last to internationalize the reconstruction efforts in Iraq, to internationalize the military involvement in Iraq. As the distinguished Senator from West Virginia has said many times, it is time to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out. That, along with a clear and credible exit strategy from Iraq, is how we best support our troops, who are risking their lives every day, separated from their friends and their families, many of them not continuing with their education, not knowing when they are going to come home, performing duties for which really they were not trained.

The Byrd amendment is the amendment that supports our troops, and that is why it should be adopted.

I yield the floor.

Amendments Nos. 1832, 1853, 1865, and 1866

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senate's passage of the amendment Senator Clinton and I proposed today that requires the General Accounting Office to report to the Congress in 6 and 10 months about the contracting and subcontracting process in Iraq. I appreciate Chairman Stevens' support.

The GAO would study the effectiveness and efficiency of those contracts, particularly looking at profit and things like administrative overhead as the contracts turn into subcontracts and subsubcontracts.

It calls for the GAO to make recommendations on how to improve the process. I believe we must do a lot of work to improve how we are doing things before the Congress gets the next large request for funds for Iraqi reconstruction.

I would like to insert into the Record at the end of my remarks a letter of support for the amendment from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

I fear that there is a lot of very poor performance and clear waste going around for the grants already let. I fear we may be seeing some of the worst taxpayer wastes in decades. That is saying an awful lot.

I would note that there are press report that U.S. AID only has 14 employees in Iraq overseeing $3 billion in contracts. That is maladministration.

The first Iraqi military battalion has just been trained under a $49 million contract to Vennel, a subsidiary of Northrup Grumman. The work got subcontracted to something called MPRI. The interesting thing is that first battalion was not detailed to work in areas where there are difficulties in Iraq. Instead of taking a load off of American troops, they have been assigned to the desert to defend against Iran. It smells like nobody trusts the quality of that work and we are hiding the result.

It looks like Halliburton is charging the U.S. $1.62 for gasoline that can be bought and transported to Iraq for about 96 cents. Price gouging would be a kind way of saying it.

The budget documents indicated that $50,000 is being budgeted for the creation of 8,000 new prison cells. I fear contracts will be issued at that level when the real cost of construction in Iraq is far, far less. Given the cost of construction, it makes one wonder why the price is so high. It is, I believe more than it would cost to build such facilities in the United States, where labor costs are far higher.

There is a plan for an $800 million Iraqi police training facility. I am told there is likely to be a $26 million per month ``management fee'' associated with this project.

We need to understand what the reality is on expenditures like these. We need to have real examination of what is going on and make sure that the structure is in place that U.S. taxpayers' money is well used and not wasted.

I ask unanimous consent that the following letter be printed in the Record.

I wonder if the Senator will yield for a question.

First, I thank the Senator from New York for his very early and very eloquent statements on this issue, going clear back to July. It was the Senator from New York who first started alerting this body and the American people as to this disclosure by the Bush administration of an undercover CIA agent's name and the ramifications it had. So we owe the Senator from New York a great deal of gratitude for his leadership on this issue because it is a matter of very grave national security importance.

I have been listening to the Senator from New York talk about the need for a special counsel and why it is so important for the Attorney General to recuse himself from this. But I ask this of the Senator from New York. It seems to me one of the ways we might really get to the bottom of this in a hurry would be if those who leaked the information to the journalists were to release the journalists from any obligation to hide the sources.

I ask the Senator, would it not be possible for the President of the United States to call in all of his senior staff, have them sit down at a desk and sign a piece of paper releasing Mr. Novak and any other journalists from protection of his or her name as a possible source of the leak? Couldn't the President just have all of the senior White House people, senior administration people sign such a thing? Then wouldn't that release the duty or obligation of the journalists to protect their sources? And wouldn't that get to the bottom of it in a hurry? I ask the Senator from New York.

I say to the Senator from New York, it seems to me if the

President really wants to get to the bottom of this--and I don't really know that he does want to get to the bottom of this--I say to the Senator from New York, it seems odd the President has been so nonchalant about it, actually joking about it with foreign reporters.

Let's say, if I were a senior administration official working for the President, and the President called me in and said: ``Tom, I want you to sign this thing; it just says, `I, Tom Harkin, hereby release any and all journalists from any obligation they may have to me to protect my name as any possible source of a leak of this information regarding Valerie Plame,''' and he'd ask me to sign it, it seems to me if I had nothing to hide, I would sign it. If I had something to hide, I might not want to sign it. Then the President would know.

You are obviously right, you don't want to force anyone, but obviously they work for the President.

I ask the Senator from New York, doesn't it strike you as odd that the President, who has spoken so forcefully about leaks and national security, has been so nonchalant about this? Doesn't it strike the Senator as odd?

I thank the Senator for his response.

I have one last inquiry I would like to make and have the Senator address. A lot has been focused on the individual, Valerie Plame--whom I never met, of course. But a lot has been focused on her as sort of an isolated incident, just one person, and that is it.

It has occurred to this Senator, as the Senator from New York has so plainly stated, there are more than just the uniformed soldiers in Iraq fighting the war on terrorism. It is all of our undercover agents, our CIA, our information-gathering apparatus around the world to give us forewarning of what is going to happen, to get access to that vital information that we need in this fight against global terrorism.

Can the Senator address himself to the kind of chilling effect such a disclosure might have on operatives of ours in the CIA, around the globe today, who may be out there? They are getting their sources of information. But what if they think at some point in the future they could be outed, their name could be spread out there? What about, not only them personally, but what about all their contacts? Now their contacts are thinking: My gosh, if they are outed, I am outed and my life is at risk.

Could the Senator address himself to the broader kind of effects this might have on our fight on global terrorism?

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Does the Senator believe that such a disclosure could have a chilling effect on operatives of ours in the field today and who in the future may be out there risking their very lives gathering information that we need on the war on terrorism? Does the Senator believe this could have a chilling effect?

Will the Senator yield for one last question?

The question is, Has the investigation been tainted so far? One instance which comes to this Senator's mind is when the Department of Justice announced an official investigation but they waited for days to notify the White House. I ask the Senator: Is this not an indication that the investigation has already been tainted by the Justice Department?

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for the time. I join with him and others in thanking our leaders for bringing this

bill forward. I congratulate Senator Gregg, chairman of our committee, Senator Kennedy, ranking member on our side, Senator Snowe, and all the other Senators they have mentioned, who have worked so hard to get us to this point. Again, I thank the leadership for the vote today.

I was present sort of at the gestation period and finally the birth of the mapping and sequencing of the human genome. What a magnificent step forward this was in terms of our understanding of the underlying basis for many of our diseases and illnesses. This feat of sequencing and mapping of the 3.1 billion base pairs of the human genome, sometimes called ``the book of life,'' opens up a world of possibilities for preventing and curing disease. New genetic tests take the concept of early detection and treatment of disease to levels that were previously only imagined but are now scientifically possible. Discoveries have been made about the genetic basis of many diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and asthma. Tests are already available for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, and several other diseases.

But while the potential medical and health benefits of this new technology seem limitless, they cannot be pursued without caution and safeguards against abuse, such as discrimination by health insurers or employers. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, before us now, addresses these possible abuses. It establishes protections against discrimination based upon genetic information both in health insurance and employment. It is a gigantic step forward, as Senator Kennedy said, in making sure people are not discriminated against simply because of what their genes are.

While this bill doesn't include everything I believe it should have included, it is a significant step forward for the American people and for our health care system. Under this bill, individuals will finally be protected from discrimination by health insurers or employers based on genetic makeup. Everybody will have the peace of mind to seek answers to questions about themselves without fear of losing their health insurance or their job.

I commend those leaders who have brought this forward and yield back whatever time I may have remaining.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Call for Appointment of Special Counsel

Mr. President, I take the floor again today, as I said I would do every day, until this matter is resolved, until the individual or individuals who leaked the name of a CIA undercover agent to the press are identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

So I take the floor again today to again recap what has gone on, and also to ask the President to become more fully engaged in finding out who did this.

As I said earlier this week on the floor, President Bush can resolve this matter, literally in an hour, by calling his senior staff members in the Oval Office and asking them one by one if they were involved. It would be very simple. Call them in and ask them: Were you involved in this, yes or no?

Bear in mind, the Washington Post story on Sunday--this is when it all came out in the open--reported a senior administration official revealed two other ``senior White House officials'' had leaked the undercover CIA agent's identity to six reporters before the so-called Novak column ran in July. So again, a whistleblower in the White House revealed--and this is according to the Washington Post--a senior administration official. In the Post on September 28, last Sunday, they quoted the senior official who said:

Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge, the

senior official said of the alleged leak.

It was purely and simply for revenge against Mr. Wilson, obviously. So we know now a whistleblower in the White House, a senior administration official--we don't know who--revealed two other senior White House officials had leaked the undercover CIA agent's identity to six reporters prior to the Novak column running in July 14. Someone was pretty busy in the White House calling six reporters. And the senior administration official said it was ``purely and simply for revenge.''

Why doesn't Mr. Bush simply call them into the Oval Office and ask them one by one: Were you involved in these leaks? We know at least three of these senior administration officials know the full story. We know now at least three senior administration officials know the full story. The odds are many more know the story as well, that there was some talk around the White House back in July about doing this. I find it hard to believe some low-ranking individual called six reporters without having this cleared at the highest echelons in the Bush administration. Obviously, we know there are three. There may be more.

Mr. Bush could resolve this matter literally by lunchtime if he were to call the senior officials in the Oval Office, lay down the law, and get some answers.

I was driving in to work this morning and I heard on the radio that the President is flying to Wisconsin this morning for yet another fundraiser. People have their priorities, I guess. I think our priority should be getting to the bottom of this as soon as possible and finding out who made these leaks, not flying off for yet another fundraiser in Wisconsin.

Again, instead of a serious, straightforward approach, the President now is trying to make light of the matter. He was joking and laughing about it yesterday with some foreign journalists.

I refer to a story that appeared in the Washington Post this morning, Friday, October 3. Headline: ``Justice to Begin Leak Interviews Within Days.'' I will have more to say about that. I will quote directly from the article in the paper this morning:

As pressure built on his aides,

--regarding finding who leaked this information--

Bush joked about the matter. During a roundtable discussion

with reporters for African news organizations, he was asked

about three reporters in Kenya who were detained this week in

what some journalists saw as an effort to intimidate them

into revealing sources. The detention drew a condemnation

from the International Federation of Journalists which

complained that the government has been harassing and

brutalizing journalists.

"I'm against leaks,'' Bush said, to laughter. ``I would

suggest all governments get to the bottom of every leak of

classified information.'' Turning to the reporter who asked

the question, Martin Mbugua of the Daily Nation, Kenya's

largest daily newspaper, Bush said ``By the way, if you know

anything, Martin, would you please bring it forward and help

solve the problem.''

I guess I find this remarkable, a matter as serious as this, disclosing the identity of an undercover agent in the midst of our war on terrorism, where we have to rely upon good intelligence, we have to rely upon the security of these individuals, and to let them know that at no time, now or in the future, will they be outed, which could do serious harm not only to them but to their sources and to others. Rather than approaching this in that serious manner, the President is joking about the matter as if this is ha-ha, some kind of a lighthearted little diversion from his fundraising activities.

I will say this: This is not a laughing matter. The President may take it lightly, but I don't believe our intelligence agencies, nor do I believe those of us here in the Congress will take it lightly either. And neither do the American people take it lightly.

This is a deadly serious matter of national security. The President of the United States should make it his personal business to resolve it as soon as possible. In fact, I would suggest the President should publicly commend the individual who told the Washington Post last Sunday about the leak, promise to protect that whistleblower's job, give that person a certificate of merit

for being truthful and honest and helping to expose those who may have leaked this information, rather than joking about it with foreign journalists and asking them if they know anything about it, would they please help him out.

I understand from today's news reports that the Justice Department has set a deadline for White House documents related to the matter. That is great. But I still don't understand why it has taken at least 2 months for them to request this information since exposing the identity of an undercover CIA agent is a violation of Federal law punishable with up to 10 years in prison. Also I believe it goes further than just releasing classified information.

This is an issue, as I said, about compromising the safety of our undercover agents and the investigative efforts to prevent future threats to the United States. Again, let me just go back to this timeline.

On July 6, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's op ed appears in the New York Times, questioning President Bush's assertion that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On July 14, Robert Novak publishes a column saying ``senior administration officials'' have identified Wilson's wife as ``an agency operative of weapons of mass destruction.''

On July 24, Senator Schumer calls on the FBI director to open a criminal investigation based on that call.

In late July, the FBI notified Senator Schumer they sent an ``inquiry'' to the CIA.

Then it appears that nothing happens for 2 months.

On September 23, the Attorney General says he and CIA Director Tenet sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation.

So in July the FBI says they sent an inquiry to the CIA. In September the Attorney General says they sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation. On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.

But interestingly, it took 4 days after that official launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation and to tell them to preserve documents, phone logs, et cetera.

Today, October 3, according to the newspaper, we understand the Attorney General wants to quickly move the investigation along. Again, I don't understand why it took President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft so long to get moving on this investigation, when they appeared to move so quickly in wanting to question our congressional Intelligence Committees last year for allegedly leaking ``classified information.'' In fact, the FBI was coming down, as Senator Durbin said on the floor, asking them to take lie detector tests. But now we don't seem to be moving very rapidly in trying to get to the bottom of this real--not alleged, but real--leak of classified information.

I have other concerns as well, and that has to do with the clear conflict of interest Mr. Ashcroft has with this administration.

I refer to this chart. There was a story in the newspaper about the close connections Mr. Ashcroft has had with senior White House officials. This chart kinds of shows it. We have Attorney General Ashcroft, then Mr. Karl Rove, senior assistant to the President, who was a paid consultant for Ashcroft for Governor in 1984. Mr. Rove was a paid consultant for Ashcroft for Governor in 1988. Mr. Rove was a paid consultant for Ashcroft for the Senate in 1994. Today, he is political director and senior advisor to President Bush.

Then there is Jack Oliver. He was campaign manager for Mr. Ashcroft in 1994. Mr. Oliver was deputy chief of staff in Senator Ashcroft's office in the Senate. Mr. Oliver now is a deputy finance chair for the Bush-Cheney reelection team for 2004. Now we understand that, with these connections, these people so high up in the administration, such as the Attorney General--President Bush is his boss. The Attorney General says he can do the investigation. Give me a break. That is why we need a special counsel. That is why the American people see this as an inherent conflict of interest, with all of these people so closely tied together. That is why we need an appointed special counsel.

Some argue this is purely politics, that we are blowing this incident out of proportion. Well, what makes this so serious is this administration released its classified information for revenge to punish those who told the truth at the risk of national security and the safety of others.

I have been hearing all of these spins coming out of the White House about Mr. Wilson and politics, and so I was looking at this and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I looked at this and I saw the spin coming out of the White House and the Republican Party. Here is Mr. Gillespie, RNC chair:

The fact is that Ambassador Wilson is not only a, you

know--a former foreign service officer, former ambassador, he

is himself a partisan Democrat who is a contributor and

supporter of Senator Kerry's Presidential campaign.

That is Ed Gillespie, RNC chair, on September 30.

Then, here is the former RNC communication director, Cliff May. He said:

Wilson is no disinterested career diplomat--he's a pro-

Saudi, leftist partisan with an ax to grind. And too many in

the media are helping him and allies grind it.

What are the facts. The fact is we found out Mr. Wilson has given money to the Presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry. But he also contributed money to George Bush during the 2000 election. GOP Representative Ed Royce, a Republican from California, received $1,000 from Wilson between 2000 and 2001. I don't know Mr. Wilson; I never met him in my life, but it looks as though he is one of those independents who gives to both sides depending on who he thinks is best qualified. The fact is former President Bush--the first President Bush--praised Wilson for his courageous leadership when he was Ambassador in Baghdad in 1990. He praised him for his courageous leadership, saying:

What you are doing day in and day out under the most trying

conditions is truly inspiring. Keep fighting the good fight.

You and your stalwart colleagues are always in our thoughts

and prayers.

Yet spokesmen for the Republican Party want to make Mr. Wilson some leftist partisan with an ax to grind. No, don't get to the bottom of it, you see. Don't find out who leaked it. Attack Mr. Wilson's character. Have we seen this before? We sure have.

So, again, this is no laughing matter. Quite frankly, I just don't understand the President joking lightheartedly about this, but he did. The President needs to take it seriously. The American people take it seriously; we take it seriously. He can take care of it very quickly, as I said, by calling in those senior advisors and asking them, one by one, if they have knowledge of this. Mr. Ashcroft can hardly investigate his own boss, with all of the connections he has. He can hardly be asked to investigate.

That is why under ``recusals'' in the Department of Justice Resource Manual it says:

If a conflict of interest exists because a United States

Attorney has a personal interest in the outcome of the matter

or because he/she has or had a professional relationship with

parties or counsel. . . . Where there is the appearance of a

conflict of interest, the United States Attorney should

consider a recusal.

I can think of no better example of an appearance of a conflict of interest, nor where the U.S. Attorney has had a professional relationship with parties or counsel. They should recuse themselves. That is what the Attorney General should do, and he should appoint a special counsel to proceed further to investigate this matter to find out who leaked it.

I will close with this. As I said yesterday, it is not just the person or two persons who leaked this to six reporters; how did these individuals get that classified information? Who gave that to them? Did it come from the NSC? Is that now politicized? Did it come from the CIA? Did someone in the White House request this kind of classified information in order to put it out?

That is why I said yesterday, and I repeat again today, there is a cancer growing on this administration, and the best way to get rid of a cancer is to excise it. The best way to excise it is for the President himself to get involved, for the Attorney General to recuse himself, appoint a special counsel, and let's get to the bottom of this, not in a matter of weeks or months but in the next few days.

Nothing less will suffice for those brave men and women working all over the globe to get the intelligence and the information we need to fight global terrorism and to reassure them that this will never happen again.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on October 19, Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be officially beatified in Rome. I say ``officially,'' because in the eyes of so many people around the world, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, she is already recognized as an extraordinary saint. She is, without question, one of the most beloved individuals of our time.

Why is this? By all means, her accomplishments are well known and respected. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity and oversaw the organization's amazing growth. By the time of her death, the order had grown to include more than 5,000 sisters, brothers, and volunteers, operating some 500 centers around the world. Even here in Washington, DC, we witness Missionaries of Charity on the streets of this city, tending to the homeless and feeding the hungry.

But there is another reason why this woman is so beloved. It is because we live in a world of such extraordinary material abundance, a world that prizes youth and health. And yet here was a woman who willingly and lovingly embraced poverty, and devoted her life to the old, the sick, and the dying. And more than that, she inspired thousands of people all across the world to join her in that mission.

I remember hearing about a journalist who visited one of Mother Teresa's hospices in Calcutta. He watched as one of the sisters bathed and dressed the terrible wounds of a leper who was near death. The journalist said to the sister, ``You know, I wouldn't do that for all the money in the world.'' To which the sister answered, ``Neither would

Mr. President, the Senate is in morning business?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, many of my colleagues and I have been urging the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to review and investigate the leak that revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have responded by saying that we are blowing things out of proportion, that our motives are political. I have to disagree. This is a serious issue, and it is not just those on my side of the aisle who have concerns about the obvious conflict of interest for the Justice Department to investigate this matter on its own.

I am referring to the Washington Post-ABC poll that was released. The poll found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe a special type of prosecutor should be named to investigate allegations that the Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent. The survey found that 81 percent of Americans considered the matter serious, while 72 percent thought it was likely that someone in the White House leaked the agent's name. It's clear the people of this country want a full, fair and independent investigation.

I would also like to take a minute to respond to comments from my colleague from Minnesota that were made earlier Wednesday. I believe he may have been misinformed. I wanted to make sure my colleague from Minnesota was clear on the difference between an independent counsel and a special counsel. Yesterday I had again stated the need for the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel to investigate this leak regarding an undercover CIA agent. We all know that a Federal law was broken--that is clear--a law that provides for stiff penalties, imprisonment, and fines. It is a Federal crime, under the Intelligence Identities and Protection Act of 1982 to intentionally disclose information identifying a covert agent to anyone not authorized to receive this classified information.

Columnist Robert Novak printed that information. We need to know who the senior administration official or officials were that gave him that information. But we also need to find out who gave that information to the administration officials.

Let me be clear about this. There is a cancer spreading in this administration. Most have focused only on who it was who gave the name of the undercover agent to Mr. Novak, the columnist. Clearly that is illegal. But there is another question behind that. How did that individual or individuals get access to this classified information about this undercover agent? Who gave that individual this information? Did it come from the National Security Council? Did it come from the State Department? Did it come from the CIA itself? Did someone in the White House request this dossier on Mr. Wilson and his wife? Or was it voluntarily given to them by someone in the CIA or the National Security Council or somewhere else? This is an even deeper question because it goes to what they wanted this information for. Why would individuals high in the administration want the information about who was

an undercover agent and who was not, unless they had the intention of using that information to intimidate Mr. Wilson, to put a chilling effect on those who might want to disagree with this administration's position on Iraq.

That, I believe, is another concern we have--the chilling effect. The greatest weapon we have in our fight against international terrorism is not a ballistic missile, it is not this missile defense shield that people want to build over this country, it is not our laser-guided bombs; the best weapon we have against international terrorism is the intelligence and information we get from agents in the field around the globe, working with our friends and allies and others, so that we can get to the terrorists in their incubation, before they are able to carry out their dastardly deeds, break up their cells, break up their lines of communication. It is the intelligence and information that we need to win this battle against terrorism.

If, however, one of our agents in the field and all that agent's contacts now think that at some time this administration, or an administration in the future, can ``out'' them, release their name, then that puts kind of a damper on whether or not they are going to get information. That could put people's lives in jeopardy, put them at risk in the future.

For example, the woman who was outed, Valerie Plame, had in fact traveled overseas as an undercover agent. I assume now people will be looking at whom she contacted, whom she talked to, who were her sources of information. This is not, as I said the other day, some little real estate deal out in Arkansas. This is not just some President philandering with some White House aide. This has to do with the security of our country.

According to the Washington Post, a senior administration official told the Post that before Novak's column appeared, two top White House officials called at least six journalists and disclosed the identity of the CIA agent. Now the Justice Department is investigating.

So let's get this straight. The Attorney General, appointed by the President, is investigating the President's office. As I said yesterday, and I say again this morning, if an investigation ever cried out for a special counsel, this is it. Again, I point to an article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times today, which said: Attorney General is closely linked to inquiry figures. Rove was a consultant. Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover CIA agent. Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political advisor, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri--twice for Governor and for United States Senator in the 1980s and 1990s. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff.

Does anyone really believe that this Attorney General can, with a straight face, say they are going to investigate these people when they work for them and they have close ties? As I said, a special counsel is needed desperately.

In response yesterday morning, when I called for this, my colleague from Minnesota accused some of my colleagues and me of ``rank political hypocrisy'' when it comes to calling for a special counsel. He said this, and I quote from the Record today:

I'm a slight student of history. I believe in 1999 there

was an effort in this body, led by Senator Collins from

Maine, a bipartisan effort to put in place a provision to

allow for a special prosecutor. And it was blocked. It was

stopped by the very same folks today that are talking about

needs for a special prosecutor. I think, and I am going to be

very blunt here, what we are hearing is a little rank

political hypocrisy when it comes to calls for a special

prosecutor.

That is in the Congressional Record today from Senator Coleman of Minnesota. I think Senator Coleman needs to brush up on his history. In 1999, the independent counsel law expired. Republicans were in charge of the Senate and they chose not to reauthorize it. This law allows the Attorney General to recommend an independent counsel, to lead an investigation, and a three-judge panel chooses that counsel. That independent counsel was accountable to no one. It had its own staff, budget, and missions. The investigations could go on indefinitely.

My main problem with the Office of Independent Counsel was that the investigations could go on forever, with a bottomless budget that taxpayers had to pay. The Collins alternative was a step in the right direction, which limited the time on these investigations. But the Republican leadership never scheduled a vote--never scheduled a vote.

By the way, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr opposed renewing that law. Regardless, appointing an independent counsel or prosecutor is not what I have been talking about. I don't believe I've ever mentioned appointing an independent counsel. I have said the Attorney General should appoint a special counsel. There is a big difference. The Attorney General alone can appoint an outside special counsel if he believes there is an inherent conflict of interest or if he deems it is in the public interest for a special counsel to be appointed. The special counsel reports to the Attorney General, who pays the counsel's salary and the salary of his or her staff.

The key to the special counsel is this. At the end of the investigation, the Attorney General must report to Congress all instances where he blocked the special counsel from taking an action, such as subpoenaing documents or putting a witness before a grand jury. That is the kind of balance we need in this kind of situation, when the administration is obligated to investigate itself.

So I think the Senator from Minnesota not only needs to brush up on his history but also definitions. It was an entirely different issue in 1999. The law had expired. The Republican majority did not move to reauthorize it and to even call for a vote to reauthorize the independent counsel law. Quite frankly, I am one of those who don't believe in these independent counsels because they go on forever and they are accountable to no one. They can investigate whatever they want. That is not what I am calling for.

What I am calling for is the Attorney General to use the authority he has under the law to appoint a special counsel, someone of prominence, someone of integrity, someone who would assure the American people the investigation will be done fairly, objectively, and thoroughly, and let the chips fall where they may. It would not go on forever. The Attorney General decides the salary and the pay and how much staff. But the key is this: The special counsel would have, under the auspices of the Attorney General, the ability to subpoena witnesses, to subpoena documents and records, to take a person before a grand jury. The Attorney General could say no and stop it, but at least we would know that. The people of America would know whether or not the Attorney General stopped the special counsel from getting certain documents or referring a witness to a grand jury. Therein lies the check and balance that is so important to making sure we have an open and transparent system of Government.

It is time we have a special counsel.

I am honored to yield to my friend from Nevada.

I know the person would be subject to criminal penalties. I am not certain I know the definition of a ``traitor,'' but I think it would be closely akin to that. I don't want to make a statement. I don't know the absolute definition of ``traitor,'' I say to my friend. Obviously, it would be subject to penalties. We have Aldrich Ames right now spending his life in prison without parole because he divulged the name of operatives, undercover agents, whose associates and others were killed in the former Soviet Union, and Aldrich Ames today is where he ought to be: in prison for life without parole.

The same applies here, it would seem to me, I say to my friend from Nevada, that this is a case where not only someone in the CIA but anyone in a position who has access to this classified information would be subject to this. Again, I say to my friend from Nevada, since he is on the floor, I really think many of the people who are inquiring about this are stopping short because they are only focusing on who gave the information to Mr. Novak. There is a deeper and I think even more profound question to be asked: How did those individuals in the administration get that classified information? How did they come by that information to know this Valerie Plame was an undercover agent? That raises very serious questions.

I accept that definition. I say to my friend, my feelings and my senses are that someone with this kind of information who leaked it I think has violated the law and betrayed the government and the citizens of the United States.

I think the Senator from Nevada has it exactly right. That is true, they would be considered the same. I thank the Senator for asking the question because it does clarify a point.

If I can take off from what the Senator from Nevada just asked me-- and it is a good point, it should be made--what would happen in the administration if someone in the CIA had leaked this kind of information about an undercover agent. What would happen? I will tell you what would happen. They would have that person locked up in jail before nightfall, and they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. My friend from Nevada raises a good question: What is the difference between that and someone in the White House or administration doing the same thing?

Again, it is time for a special counsel. As the New York Times said this morning on the front page, both Mr. Rove and Mr. Oliver have close connections with Mr. Ashcroft. I don't know whether they are involved in this or not, but they are both very high in the administration. There are too many close ties between Attorney General Ashcroft and people high in this administration for the people of this country to be assured that we are going to have a fair, independent, full, and thorough investigation. Let the chips fall where they may and prosecute--yes, prosecute--the people responsible for leaking this information.

Mr. President, I intend to take the floor of the Senate every day to talk about this issue. We cannot allow this to be swept under the rug. We cannot allow a coverup to go on day after day. This is a President elected by the people, a servant of the people. And I don't think it is enough for any President to say: We will let the Attorney General investigate. The buck stops on the President's desk. I can only say if an allegation had been made about someone on my staff doing something like that, I would call them in, and I would have them sign a notarized legal document right there: I, so and so, had nothing to do with any leak and know no information about it whatsoever. Sign it.

That is what the President can do, and we can have this information out about who called Mr. Novak, who called these other reporters. We would know it before the sun went down today. That is why this coverup cannot continue to go on. The American people deserve better than this, and they are going to get it. We are going to find out who put our country at risk, who committed these treasonous activities.

I yield the floor.