[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 16, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5015-S5016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BIDEN (for himself, Mr. Hatch, and Mr. Allen):
  S. 899. A bill to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets 
Act of 1968 to increase the amount paid to families of public safety 
officers killed in the line of duty; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Frances 
Collender Public Safety Officers' Benefit Improvement Act of the year 
2001.
  At around 6 a.m. on February 6 of this year, Corporal Frances 
Collender of the Delaware State Police pulled her cruiser behind a van 
that had been disabled by an accident on Route 1 in Odessa, DE. 
Tragically, Corporal Collender was struck and killed by another driver 
just as she was assisting the disabled motorist. There was a little bit 
of snow on the ground.
  Corporal Collender was not only a beloved mother and daughter, she 
was also beloved by her entire troop and by the State Police. This was 
a woman who, after having started another career, went back and decided 
to become a public safety officer and joined the elite of the Delaware 
State Police. She was sort of the mother figure of these folks who were 
a lot younger than she. She was a leader. She was a corporal, but in 
many ways she was the captain. She was the one to whom everybody 
looked.
  Everything and anything that was good that was being sponsored by 
police organizations in our State--she was not atypical in that sense--
she was involved in. She was always one who not only refused to shirk 
her duty but took on additional responsibilities.
  She did not have to respond to this call. She was about to get off, 
but she responded--it was typical of her--to keep someone else from 
having to come out. She was ``nearby,'' so she responded. And she has 
passed away. She volunteered, as she always did, and, in doing so, 
maybe saved somebody else's life but lost her own.
  This week, with thousands of law enforcement officers, survivors, and 
family members gathered in the Nation's Capital for National Police 
Week, we listened to the President of the United States, as we have 
other Presidents. We listened as the rollcall was called of all fallen 
officers nationwide in the calendar year 2000. Until you attend an 
event such as this, as I am sure my colleagues have, it doesn't--how 
can I say this?--it doesn't sink in, just how incredible these officers 
are, just what incredible chances they take for us, and just how many 
lose their life in doing so.
  Corporal Collender had two beautiful daughters, one of whom has 
become my buddy. She is 17 years old; she is smart; she is beautiful; 
she is engaged. She lives with her grandmom and grandpop who, if you 
knew them--especially grandmom--you would understand, without knowing 
Corporal Collender, that she is everything I said she is.
  It seems to me we have to do more than pay our respects once a year 
to these families for the sacrifices they have made on our behalf. I 
was involved with a group, years ago, that decided although it is 
technically not a Federal responsibility, we should provide a death 
benefit to fallen and slain officers. What I am suggesting today is 
that a death benefit is not sufficient. It was set years ago. Although 
it has increased with inflation, it is below what I think is a 
realistic need of the average first responder's salary.
  This will cover first responders including firefighters. If you think 
about it, there are very few people in law enforcement--none goes into 
it because they think they are going to make a lot of money, and very 
few in law enforcement come from families who have trusts or endowments 
or inheritances that are left. They are working-class people, almost 
all these days college educated. But they make a decision because of 
their sense of duty, their sense of honor, and their sense of just 
wanting to take on difficult tasks. When they die, their families are 
left in a very difficult circumstance.

  I need not tell anyone in here that a $150,000 death benefit--which 
is what the original death benefit is up to now because of inflation--
is insufficient. It is not going to pay even for the college costs of 
one of Corporal Collender's daughters, if she goes to a private 
institution, by the time they get there. It will not even pay for the 
college costs of her younger daughter if she goes to my alma mater, the 
State University of Delaware.
  So I think it is time, particularly in this period of incredible 
surplus we are talking about, when we can decide that the inheritance 
tax should be eliminated for billionaires, when we decide we are going 
to give hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks to people who 
make over a million bucks and up, that we ought to be able to, for the 
relative handful, thank God--we are talking hundreds now, not talking 
thousands--we ought to be able to raise the death benefit for those who 
give their lives to make us safer.
  Since 1972 with the shooting of a New York deputy sheriff, over 
15,000 public safety officers have been killed in the line of duty; 30 
officers from my State. Thirty from my little State have paid the 
ultimate price, with Corporal Collender being the most recent loss. 
This past Sunday, 313 names were added to the National Law Enforcement 
Officers Memorial. Yesterday, as I said, families paid tribute to those 
fallen officers by laying a wreath at the National Peace Officers 
Memorial Service. I was there. The President paid tribute to Corporal 
Collender and her family and to the families of all officers who were 
lost.
  There are too many--there are too many--line-of-duty deaths each 
year, and for too long our response to their families just hasn't been 
enough.
  The Justice Department runs the Public Safety Officers' Benefits 
program, an initiative begun 25 years ago to make one-time payments to 
assist public safety officers and their families when they become 
disabled, or lose their lives, in the line of duty.
  For the first 12 years of its existence the Public Safety Officers' 
Benefits Program issued $50,000 payments to qualifying officers and 
their families.
  In 1988, we recognized this figure was inadequate both to express the 
gratitude of a grateful nation and to try to put these families on 
sound financial footing. So 13 years ago we raised the payment to 
$100,000 and indexed it for inflation. This year the program began at 
$151,000.
  Last year, 181 claims were paid, and the Public Safety Offices' 
Benefits program has successfully helped disabled officers, their 
families, and the families of those officers killed in the line of duty 
put their lives back together.
  It is time to take another look at the Public Safety Officers' 
Benefits program. Recently, the other body approved legislation that 
would increase to $250,000 the maximum death benefits for families of 
military personnel killed in the line of duty. We should do the same 
thing for the families of slain

[[Page S5016]]

public safety officers, including firefighters.
  So today I am introducing the Frances Collender Public Safety 
Officers' Benefits Improvement Act, legislation that will increase the 
payment under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program from 
$100,000 to $250,000. Payments will continue to be indexed for 
inflation. We have not adjusted the payment under this program for 
almost 15 years, and the families of those who have paid the ultimate 
price deserve some more help than they are getting.
  I have raised this issue with my good friend and chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch. He has indicated he may very well 
want to join as an original cosponsor of the bill. I have not been able 
to get in touch with him this morning, so I have not added his name. 
The reason I am introducing the bill now is because the afternoon will 
get so busy and I may not have an opportunity to speak to the 
introduction of this legislation. If my friend from Utah decides to 
join me on this bill, as I hope he will, I am prepared to rename this 
act in the name of both Frances Collender and a slain Utah police 
officer that my friend from Utah would like to add to this legislation. 
I would be happy to do that if he decides and wishes to join me.
  During Police Week, while the Collenders and other heroic families of 
public safety officers are in Washington to pay tribute, let's show our 
gratitude as well, beyond our sympathy. Washington can pay tribute. 
They can pay tribute by us voting and agreeing to increase this death 
benefit. It is the least Congress can do to express our gratitude to 
the peace officers for all they have done. If we cannot afford it now, 
we can never afford it. I do not see how we can afford not to do this 
for the public safety officers of this Nation.
  I thank the Chair. I thank the family of Frances Collender for their 
bravery because it is sometimes much harder to be in the waiting room 
than the operating room. Sometimes it is much harder to be at the grave 
site than being the one buried, I suspect. They have shown great class. 
They have shown great resolve. And the one thing all of us who deal 
with law enforcement and firefighters know, they never forget their 
own. Although those two beautiful young girls of Frances Collender do 
not have their mother, they have inherited, for as long as they live, 
the entire police force of the State of Delaware, who, for real--it is 
not hyperbole--will be there for them, whether they ever knew their 
mother or not, until the day they die. It is part of the tradition, it 
is part of the honor, and it is part of our responsibility as well.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BIDEN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. I say to the Senator from Delaware, the people of Nevada 
and people all over the country should be grateful to the Senator from 
Delaware, as they are any time they realize there are fewer slain 
police officers as a result of the work done by the Senator from 
Delaware in giving us the COPS Program, putting tens of thousands of 
new police officers all over America on the streets, so there are fewer 
slain police officers, so there is less crime.
  I, of course, did not know Frances Collender. The Senator, from 
Delaware as usual, is very articulate in explaining the importance of 
this woman to the State of Delaware. But as important as she is to the 
State of Delaware, the Senator from Delaware is important to the 
country for the work he has done. In Nevada, it has made a difference. 
Having additional police officers on the street has been a big benefit. 
We have less crime in Nevada and around the country. Statistics, by any 
way you look at them, have proven that.
  So on behalf of the people in Nevada, and on behalf of the people of 
this country, I extend our appreciation to the Senator from Delaware 
for his undying efforts to make sure we have more police officers on 
the streets. Without the Senator from Delaware, it would not have 
happened.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. As usual, he is 
generous and gracious. He is, as everyone on both sides knows, one of 
the most gracious men who serves in this body. He is a gentleman with a 
backbone like a ramrod. I take his comments to heart because I believe 
he means them. It means a lot to me that he does.
  There are few things I have done in my 28-year career in the Senate 
that I believe has been more worthwhile, and that I am more proud of, 
than working with the law enforcement agencies of this country, getting 
them from 500,000 to over 600,000 in local law enforcement agencies.
  I appreciate the sentiments expressed by my friend. I add, he was 
there every step of the way, voting for it, adding amendments, pushing 
it. I know he will be with me as we try to, quite frankly, prevent the 
President of the United States from eliminating that program. I am sure 
the President cares deeply about the safety of law enforcement officers 
in the country. I hope we can get his attention, to convince him that 
cutting the COPS Program in this upcoming budget is a mistake. I think 
once he focuses on that, we have a shot of doing that.
  But, again, I thank my friend from Nevada. He is a real gentleman and 
a good friend. And I thank the Presiding Officer for listening. One of 
the things--I should not say this--I like best about the present 
occupant of the chair is, whenever I stand to speak in this Chamber--I 
am sure he does it for everybody--he looks and listens and acts as if 
he is paying attention, and it makes a big difference. He is not 
signing his mail. I know I am not supposed to say that, but I am going 
to say it anyway because I appreciate his courtesy, speaking of a 
gentleman.
  I thank you all and yield the floor.
                                 ______