[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5172-S5173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ADVANCING THE AGENDA

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, first, I express my support for the 
remarks just made by the majority leader with regard to the position of 
the Senate on a bipartisan basis regarding the tragedy involving 
prisoner abuse. I hope the limited debate that was devoted to the 
resolution last night will not be seen by anyone as minimizing our 
strong feelings and the unanimity with which we wanted to express those 
feelings through that resolution.
  I appreciate the effort made by many of our colleagues who 
participated in the drafting of the resolution, and I am grateful for 
the strong show of support expressed through the resolution last night.
  We condemn these acts. We apologize to the world community for the 
involvement of the United States in the humiliation and the 
extraordinary violation of human rights that we have witnessed with the 
photographs themselves. We also wanted to say again that we recognize 
this is the exception to U.S. military deportment, not the rule, and 
that the vast majority of military men and women have served admirably, 
served their country and the cause, have advanced the goal, and have 
deserved our commendation and thanks. I think it is critical that we 
keep that in balance. I hope that as we continue to conduct oversight 
properly, we maintain not only the interest in holding those at the 
lower ends of the military echelon accountable, but I would hope we 
would not allow anyone to use those directly involved, whose pictures 
are shown, as the scapegoats for everything else that happened. I still 
have yet to see the degree of accountability up and down the chain of 
command that I would think would go without question.

  We will have a lot more to say about accountability, responsibility, 
and those in the higher echelons of Government and the military who 
themselves ought to be asked to account for their actions and their 
decisions. In that regard, I would hope we could continue to press for 
even more oversight as the Armed Services Committee is doing today. 
Someone proposed a select committee, a bipartisan, bicameral select 
committee to allow for a more thorough investigation in a collective 
way, rather than have the scores, I guess, of subcommittees and full 
committees on both sides of the Congress reviewing this material.
  Perhaps one committee, which could be formed with the exclusive 
purpose of reviewing the facts and coming to some conclusion, may be of 
value. I am not proposing it today. I noted that others have made this 
suggestion, and I think it merits our consideration.
  I know the majority leader also talked about nominations. Last week, 
we confirmed I believe it was 19 ambassadorial nominations and a number 
of other executive appointments. We will continue to work with our 
Republican colleagues, but as many have heard me say on countless 
occasions, this has to be reciprocal. We cannot be confirming 
nominations and dealing with the judicial appointments and all of the 
other things expected of us if the Democratic nominees continue to 
languish on the calendar and in the administration itself. We have over 
a dozen Democratic nominees who have not yet been given even vetting, 
much less the actual official nomination.
  We will continue to work with our Republican colleagues and with the 
administration, but we have to be given the confidence that there will 
be reciprocity and some degree of appreciation for the need to move all 
nominees, regardless of political affiliation or of position.
  There are two other issues I wish to talk about briefly. First of 
all, I wish to thank Judge Becker, who has been involved now for many 
months in helping the Senate find a resolution to the complicated, 
controversial, and complex array of challenges we face with regard to 
asbestos.
  After the vote on asbestos a few weeks ago, Senator Frist and I asked 
Judge Becker if he would be willing to engage in mediation to see if we 
can move forward on a number of the outstanding questions.
  Judge Becker worked tirelessly for the last couple of weeks and met 
with Senator Frist and me almost on a daily basis to provide us with 
his progress reports. We focused on claims values, projections, and the 
overall amount of the fund. Unfortunately, we were not able to move 
nearly as far as many of us would have hoped on the issue of claims 
values. Some movement I think was made but little on projections. 
Perhaps the greatest movement was made on the overall amount. Business 
came up a little bit, from 114, with a $10 billion contingency, to 116, 
with a $12 billion contingency. Labor came down from 154 to 134, with a 
$15 billion contingency.
  I am deeply troubled by the insurance industry. The insurance 
industry again issued a statement in the form of a letter that said 
they will not support a legislative response to asbestos. Their 
intransigence was a major problem in bringing any kind of resolution to 
this matter.

  I am not giving up. I am pleased that Senator Frist has agreed to 
meet again this week to ensure that our discussions and perhaps our 
negotiations can continue as well. This is too important an issue 
simply to say we failed. We need to keep the pressure on. We need to 
find a way with which to resolve these three outstanding issues in 
particular: the overall funding level, the issue of claims values and 
appropriating the necessary values to circumstances, and then certainly 
our projections, how many people will definitely be affected, and how 
can we then come to some conclusion about the other outstanding 
questions involving existing cases as well as what happens if the fund 
runs out and is sunset.

[[Page S5173]]

  Finally, let me just say later on today we will have a vote in 
relation to the FSC bill. It is a cloture vote. I urge my colleagues to 
support cloture today. This has been a long and unnecessarily 
complicated struggle. All we have wanted from the beginning was an 
opportunity to vote on a number of key amendments. We have had the vote 
now on overtime. We have had the vote on outsourcing. We intend to have 
a vote today on unemployment compensation and a number of other issues 
we felt were very important in the overall context of the creation of 
good jobs.
  We are not finished. There will be other amendments offered to other 
vehicles, but, in large measure, because we held our position on 
cloture, we are now at a point where we have been able to protect our 
Members and offer the amendments we thought were most important. We 
will certainly work with our Republican friends to bring the debate to 
a close, deal with a number of still germane amendments that have to be 
addressed on FSC before we move on to other important legislative 
matters, including IDEA.
  We hope to complete our work on FSC today; if not today, certainly 
tomorrow. We will then move on to other matters.
  I yield the floor.

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