[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 27098-27103]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, AND SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Continued

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have on this bill that is now before the 
Senate--the Commerce-Justice appropriations bill--about eight 
amendments that Democrats have pending or wish to offer, and we have 26 
Republican amendments. Everyone should understand we are going to 
finish this bill tomorrow. It does not matter what events are going on 
around town, we are going to work and finish this bill. If it takes 
until 8 o'clock tomorrow night, fine; there will be no windows. We are 
going to work right through this. If people try to hold this up, we 
will have a bunch of votes. We will have the Sergeant at Arms 
instructed. We are going to move through this.
  I am told we want to finish appropriations bills. This is our second 
week on this bill. We are going to finish this bill tomorrow or 
sometime early Wednesday morning. We are going to continue working on 
this until it is completed or until we find there is such intransigence 
by the Republicans that they do not want us to finish this bill. I hope 
that is not the case.
  We have had on our appropriations bills some decent cooperation from 
the Republicans, for which I am appreciative, but we have other bills 
we have to do. If we finish this legislation, we will still have seven 
appropriations bills to do.
  I am aware we have had to file cloture 49 different times this year 
to defeat Republican filibusters or to turn them around, and if it is 
necessary to file the 50th, we will do that. I think that would be a 
shame to have to do that.
  We have a finite number of amendments now, and we need to try to work 
through them. What we could do, of course, here--there are more 
Democrats than Republicans--we could move to table all the Republican 
amendments. It would take a lot of time to do that. I hope we do not 
have to do that. I hope we can work through these amendments and some 
of them will be accepted and some will be voted upon.
  I want to be as reasonable as possible, but I have the Nation's 
business to be concerned about. We have to work through this. We have 
been off work now doing other things in our districts. We all worked 
hard. Now we are back to legislating. As part of that legislation is 
this bill that is before the Senate now. We are going to work on it and 
complete it. I was hopeful that with the 2:30 deadline we would come 
back with a reasonable number of amendments, but that is not, in fact, 
the case.
  We have on the Republican side a number of Senators who are offering 
multiple amendments. I know they are important, and I understand that, 
but I hope that we can, as I have said, work our way through these. We 
will one way or the other work through these, because I do not want and 
do not intend to file cloture. I intend to work until we finish this 
bill.
  I don't know how I can be more clear than that. We have to move after 
this to another appropriations bill, one that is extremely important, 
the Labor-HHS bill, an extremely important piece of legislation 
involving so many different and important issues, as the Presiding 
Officer, for example, is well aware.
  It is my understanding the distinguished junior Senator from South 
Dakota wishes to call up an amendment before I do the closing matters, 
and I am happy to wait. I ask now to return to legislative business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. What is the matter before the Senate now, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Vitter amendment is the pending question.


                           Amendment No. 3317

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for yielding to 
give me an opportunity to offer this amendment. I call up amendment No. 
3317 and ask unanimous consent that it be made pending.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3317.

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To provide, in a fiscally responsible manner, additional 
  funding for United States attorneys to prosecute violent crimes in 
                            Indian country)

       On page 70, between lines 10 and 11, insert the following:
       Sec. 217. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     Act, the amount appropriated under the heading ``united 
     states

[[Page 27099]]

     attorneys salaries and expenses'' under the heading ``Legal 
     Activities'' under this title is increased by $20,000,000, 
     which shall be used for the prosecution of crimes described 
     in section 1152 or 1153 of title 18, United States Code.
       (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the 
     amount appropriated under the heading ``payment to the legal 
     services corporation'' under the heading ``Legal Services 
     Corporation'' under title IV is reduced by $20,000,000.

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this appropriations bill, as all 
appropriations bills, comes down to a matter of priorities. We have a 
limited amount of resources and we have to figure out where to put 
those limited resources to the most effective use for the taxpayers.
  My amendment is very simple. It takes $20 million from an authorized 
program that has problems with wasteful spending and it spends that $20 
million instead to give Federal prosecutors badly needed additional 
funding to fight violent crime in Indian country. Violent crime has 
become a serious problem on reservations in South Dakota and elsewhere, 
and I am determined to put an end to it. If our tribal communities are 
to have a chance to be prosperous, they must first have strong public 
safety.
  A few weeks ago I cosponsored an amendment with Senator Dorgan to 
provide more law enforcement presence in Indian country. I strongly 
support this effort. The other part of the equation, though, is to 
ensure that those who have been arrested for violent crimes are 
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Because the Federal 
Government has a trust responsibility to the tribes, the task for 
prosecuting violent crimes in Indian country lies with our U.S. 
attorneys. However, our U.S. attorneys often cannot prosecute crimes 
because of a lack of resources. An article published last June in the 
Wall Street Journal by Gary Fields about crime in Indian country 
pointed out that Federal prosecutors often do not intervene in cases 
involving serious crimes due to the long distances involved, lack of 
resources, and the cost of hauling witnesses and defendants to Federal 
court. The same article goes on to say that in the past two decades, 
only 30 percent of tribal land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were 
prosecuted, according to Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse 
University. That compares with 56 percent for all other cases. I ask 
unanimous consent that the June 12, 2007 Wall Street Journal article 
headlined ``Tattered Justice on U.S. Indian Reservations, Criminals 
Slip Through Gaps'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. THUNE. I hasten to add that the U.S. attorney in South Dakota is 
doing a fantastic job prosecuting violent crime and white-collar crime 
on South Dakota's Indian reservations. However, I am certain he can put 
more funding to good use in his office, as could every U.S. attorney 
prosecuting violent crime in Indian country.
  The rate of violent crime in Indian country is disproportionately 
high. The Department of Justice reported that from 1992 to 2001, the 
average rate of violent crime among American Indians was 2\1/2\ times 
the national rate. According to one report in the Indian Country Today 
newspaper, Native American women are 7 times more likely to be victims 
of domestic violence than all other women are, and more than 60 percent 
of Indian women will be victims of violent assault during their 
lifetimes. According to the same report, nearly one-third of all Native 
American women will be raped. This is unacceptable.
  The FBI estimates that 40 to 50 percent of Indian country violent 
crime is now methamphetamine related. In fact, we know that meth 
traffickers and dealers target Indian country jurisdictions because 
they believe they will not be prosecuted, even if they are apprehended. 
According to Chris Chaney, the BIA Deputy Director of the Office of 
Justice Services, meth distribution on tribal lands often occurs due to 
the belief that it is easier to get away with such a crime in Indian 
country. That is why we must dramatically ramp up prosecutions of 
violent crime, of meth-related violent crime in Indian country.
  I offer my amendment today to help provide more resources to U.S. 
attorneys in Indian country to prosecute more crimes referred to them. 
Specifically, my amendment would provide an additional $20 million to 
U.S. attorneys that can only be spent to prosecute crimes under the 
Major Crimes Act of 1885 and the Indian country Crimes Act of 1834. The 
amount will be paid for by subtracting $20 million from the amount 
appropriated under this bill to the Legal Services Corporation.
  This bill provides $390 million to the Legal Services Corporation, a 
program that has not been reauthorized since 1980. This is a 12-percent 
increase over the amount appropriated to the LSC in fiscal year 2007, 
and a 30-percent increase above the administration's recommendation. 
This substantial increase comes at a time when the Legal Services 
Corporation has faced serious questions about its management and 
expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
  In August, the GAO published a report entitled ``Legal Services 
Corporation: Governance and Accountability Practices Need to be 
Modernized and Strengthened.'' In the report, the GAO noted that a 
dozen officers and employees of the Legal Services Corporation had 
received compensation in excess of the statutory compensation 
limitation. According to the GAO, an outside legal counsel issued an 
opinion last May concluding that the Legal Services Corporation had not 
complied with the statutory limitation on the rate of compensation. The 
GAO agreed with that conclusion and went on to state that without a 
properly designed and implemented process for overseeing compensation, 
the Legal Services Corporation remains at risk of not complying with 
related laws and regulations and engaging in imprudent management 
practices.
  The GAO also noted in the report that:

       In recent years, LSC management has engaged in practices 
     that may have been prevented through effective implementation 
     of strong ethics policies.

  These practices are reported by the LSC's inspector general. The 
inspector general found that food costs at meetings exceeded per diem 
allotments by 200 percent and that LSC used funds to pay travel 
expenses for its president for business related to her positions with 
outside organizations. The inspector general also found that LSC hired 
acting special counsels from grant recipient organizations, causing 
potential conflicts of interest, and could not complete an 
investigation into this practice because of the failure to provide 
documentation required by Federal law and LSC grant agreements. The GAO 
concluded that:

       Without the presence of a strong ethics committee providing 
     effective oversight in the development, implementation, 
     updating, and training for the code of ethics, the LSC is at 
     increased risk of fraud or other ethical misconduct.

  I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of the LSC Office 
of Inspector General ``Report on Certain Fiscal Practices at the Legal 
Services Corporation,'' dated September 25, 2006 be printed in the 
Record at the end of my remarks. Also, I commend to my colleagues a GAO 
report entitled ``Legal Services Corporation Governance and 
Accountability Practices Need to be Modernized and Strengthened,'' 
dated August of 2007.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2).
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I do not believe an organization that has 
received such stinging criticism from the GAO about management 
practices and its handling of taxpayer dollars should be receiving such 
a substantial increase in funding that is reflected in the underlying 
bill. My amendment simply reduces a $40 million increase to a $20 
million increase for the Legal Services Corporation for fiscal year 
2008. That is, the Legal Services Corporation would still receive an 
increase under my amendment, just not nearly as substantial as 
originally reflected in the underlying bill.
  As I said earlier, we must begin to choose priorities. Should we 
provide

[[Page 27100]]

more badly needed funding to fight violent crime in Indian country or 
should we reward an organization that is engaged in wasteful spending 
of taxpayer dollars by providing a massive increase over the 
President's recommendation of $300 million, and a massive increase even 
compared to the amount of funding it received in the last fiscal year 
of $348 million?
  I urge the Senate to join me in voting for more funding to help 
reduce violent crime in Indian country and to address what is a very 
desperate need across Indian reservations in South Dakota, and to do it 
in a way that is consistent, I believe, with what the priorities in 
this underlying bill ought to be, by paying for it with a $20 million 
increase, actually, that is going to be allocated this year to the 
Legal Services Corporation. In my judgment, in my view, that makes 
sense. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and my amendment 
would take us down that road, coupled with the agreement that was 
earlier reached on the Dorgan amendment, to provide more of a law 
enforcement presence on Indian reservations. So I hope we can 
accomplish both of those objectives through the appropriations process 
this year, and it starts right here with adopting this amendment.
  I urge my colleagues to do that. I again thank the distinguished 
majority leader for his patience in yielding me time to speak to this 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

                               Exhibit 1

             [From the Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2007]

        On U.S. Indian Reservations, Criminals Slip Through Gaps

                            (By Gary Fields)

       Cherokee, N.C.--Jon Nathaniel Crowe, an American Indian, 
     had a long-documented history of fighting with police 
     officers and assaulting women. But the tribal court for the 
     Eastern Band of the Cherokee, under whose jurisdiction he 
     lives, couldn't sentence him to more than one year for any 
     charge. Not when he left telephone messages threatening to 
     kill an ex-girlfriend, not when he poured kerosene into his 
     wife's mouth, not when he hit her with an ax handle.
       ``We put him away twice for a year, that's all we could 
     do,'' says James Kilbourne, prosecutor for the tribe. ``Then 
     he got out and committed the same crime again.''
       Indian tribes are officially sovereign nations within the 
     U.S., responsible for running services such as schools and 
     courts. But a tangle of federal laws and judicial precedents 
     has undermined much of their legal authority. As a result, 
     seeking justice on Indian reservations is an uneven affair.
       Tribes operate their own court systems, with their own 
     judges and prosecutors. Sharply limited in their sentencing 
     powers, they are permitted to mete out maximum jail time of 
     only 12 months for any crime, no matter how severe. The law 
     also forbids tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians, even 
     those living on tribal land.
       Federal prosecutors can intervene in serious cases, but 
     often don't, citing the long distances involved, lack of 
     resources and the cost of hauling witnesses and defendants to 
     federal court. In the past two decades, only 30% of tribal-
     land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were prosecuted, 
     according to Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse 
     University. That compares with 56% for all other cases. The 
     result: Many criminals go unpunished, or minimally so. And 
     their victims remain largely invisible to the court system.
       The justice gap is particularly acute in domestic-violence 
     cases. American Indians annually experience seven sexual 
     assaults per 1,000 residents, compared with three per 1,000 
     among African-Americans and two per 1,000 among whites, says 
     the Justice Department. The acts are often committed by non-
     Indians living on tribal land whom tribal officials cannot 
     touch. Local prosecutors say members of Indian communities 
     have such low expectations about securing a prosecution that 
     they often don't bother filing a report.
       ``Where else do you ask: How bad is the crime, what color 
     are the victims and what color are the defendants?'' asks Mr. 
     Kilbourne, who has prosecuted cases on Cherokee lands since 
     2001. ``We would not allow this anywhere else except Indian 
     country.''
       The lack of prosecutorial discretion is one of many ways in 
     which Indian justice has been split off from mainstream 
     American due process. For example, some defendants appearing 
     before Indian courts lack legal counsel, because federal law 
     doesn't require tribes to provide them with a public 
     defender. Although some tribes have them, others can't afford 
     to offer their members legal assistance. It's not unusual for 
     defendants to represent themselves.
       The Indian Civil Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1968, 
     limited to six months the sentences tribes could hand down on 
     any charge. At the time, tribal courts were seeing only minor 
     infractions. Congress increased the maximum prison sentence 
     to one-year in 1986, wrongly assuming that the Indian courts 
     would continue to handle only misdemeanor-level crimes. 
     Tribal offenses, meanwhile, escalated in both number and 
     severity, with rape, murder and kidnapping among the cases.
       The Supreme Court weighed in on another level, with its 
     1978 Oliphant decision ruling that tribes couldn't try non-
     Indian defendants in tribal courts--even if they had 
     committed a crime against a tribe member on the tribe's land. 
     In its ruling, the court held that it was assumed from the 
     earliest treaties that the tribes did not have jurisdiction 
     over non-Indians.
       ``If you go to Canada and rob someone, you will be tried by 
     Canadian authorities. That's sovereignty,'' says University 
     of Michigan law professor and tribal criminal-justice expert 
     Gavin Clarkson. ``My position is that tribes should have 
     criminal jurisdiction over anybody who commits a crime in 
     their territory. The Supreme Court screwed it all up and 
     Congress has never fixed it.''
       Jeff Davis, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Michigan who 
     handles tribal-land cases, acknowledges that his hands are 
     often tied. Mr. Davis is also a member of North Dakota's 
     Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. ``I've been in the U.S. 
     Attorney's office for 12 years, and both presidents I have 
     served under have made violent crime in Indian country a 
     priority. But because of the jurisdictional issue and 
     questions over who has authority and who gets to prosecute, 
     it is a difficult situation.''
       Often cases don't rise to the level of felony Federal 
     crimes unless the victim has suffered a severe injury. 
     Federal prosecutors have limited resources and focus almost 
     exclusively on the most serious cases. Compounding that is 
     the fact that domestic-abuse cases are difficult to prove, 
     especially if the lone witness recants.
       ``It requires stitches, almost a dead body,'' says Mr. 
     Davis. ``It is a high standard to meet.''
       For some non-Indians, tribal lands are virtual havens. 
     Chane Coomes, a 43-year-old white man, grew up on the Pine 
     Ridge Reservation in South Dakota--home to the Oglala Lakota, 
     near the site of the infamous 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. 
     Marked by a small obelisk, the mass grave is a symbol of 
     unpunished violence, literally buried in the soil of the 
     tribe. The 2000 census documented Shannon County, which 
     encompasses the remote and desolate reservation, as the 
     second-poorest county in the U.S., with an annual per-capita 
     income of $6,286 at the time. Only Buffalo County, SD, was 
     poorer.
       According to local authorities, Mr. Coomes used his home on 
     the reservation as a sanctuary, knowing he would be free from 
     the attentions of tribal prosecutors.
       Tribal Police Chief James Twiss says Mr. Coomes was 
     suspected of dealing in small amounts of methamphetamine for 
     years. Tribal police also thought he might be trafficking in 
     stolen goods.
       In 1998, Mr. Coomes assaulted a tribal elder, Woodrow 
     Respects Nothing, a 74-year-old decorated World War II and 
     Korean War veteran. Because it couldn't prosecute, the tribe 
     ordered Mr. Coomes off its land. But attempts to remove him 
     were unenforceable.
       ``All I could do was to escort him off the reservation,'' 
     says tribal police officer Eugenio White Hawk, who did that 
     several times, the last when he spotted the banned man 
     hauling horses in a trailer. ``He kept coming back. After a 
     while I just left him alone and let it go. It was just a 
     waste of time.''
       Mr. Coomes remained in his Shannon County home until 2006 
     when he was accused of beating his estranged wife in nearby 
     Nebraska and threatening to kill her, according to Dawes 
     County District Attorney Vance Haug. The crime was committed 
     off the reservation, and the subsequent investigation gave 
     state authorities official jurisdiction.
       After raiding his home, they found stolen equipment as well 
     as 30 grams of methamphetamine and $13,000 hidden in the 
     bathroom, along with syringes.
       Mr. Coomes is now in the Fall River County Jail charged 
     with possession of stolen property, grand theft and 
     unauthorized possession of a controlled substance. He also 
     faces separate charges, of assault and ``terroristic 
     threats'' related to his wife, in Dawes County, NE. If 
     convicted on the latter charges, he faces up to six years in 
     prison, Mr. Haug said. Mr. Coomes's attorney declined to 
     comment.
       The jurisdictional quagmire also has implications for 
     Indian members on the other side of the tribal border. Gene 
     New Holy, an ambulance driver on Pine Ridge, had been 
     arrested by the tribe more than a dozen times for various 
     drunk-driving offenses, for which he received only two 
     convictions totaling about a month in a tribal jail. In state 
     court, four convictions would have led to a maximum sentence 
     of five years.
       Lance Russell, the state prosecutor for Shannon County and 
     neighboring Fall River County, had never heard of Mr. New 
     Holy until Feb. 11, 2001, when Mr. New Holy got drunk at a 
     Fall River County bar. According to court documents, he 
     nearly hit one car on

[[Page 27101]]

     a main highway, forced two others into a ditch and sideswiped 
     a third that had pulled off the road as Mr. New Holy 
     approached it in the wrong lane.
       The last car he hit contained three tribe members--cousins 
     Bart Mardinian, Anthony Mousseau and Russell Merrival--all of 
     whom died. The accident was less than a mile off the 
     reservation, enough to give Mr. Russell and the state 
     jurisdiction in the case. Mr. New Holy is serving 45 years in 
     state prison for three counts of vehicular homicide--much 
     longer than the 12 months per count he would have served 
     under tribal law. His attorney didn't return a call seeking 
     comment.
       ``The holes in the system are more practical than legal, 
     and the victims of crime pay the price,'' says Larry Long 
     III, the South Dakota attorney general. ``The crooks and the 
     knotheads win.''
       The Eastern Band of Cherokee, located in the Smoky 
     Mountains of North Carolina, is one of the most efficiently 
     run tribes in the country. Its ancestors hid in these 
     mountains while Cherokee east of the Mississippi River were 
     forcibly moved to present-day Oklahoma, a migration known as 
     the ``Trail of Tears.'' Today the tribe is spread across five 
     counties and is economically well off: It takes in more than 
     $200 million annually from the Harrah's Cherokee Casino & 
     Hotel, which it owns, and has a robust tourist industry. 
     About half of the tribe's gambling spoils go to pay for 
     infrastructure and government services.
       Its court, which is housed in a prefabricated building, 
     looks like any other in the U.S., except the judges wear 
     bright, red robes. The offices, while cramped, are modern and 
     computerized, and are a little over one hour's drive from the 
     federal prosecutor's office in Asheville. Tribal authorities 
     meet regularly with federal prosecutors for training. The 
     tribe's top jurist is a former federal prosecutor who has 
     regular contact with his successors.
       Yet even here, the justice system works erratically. In 
     2005, tribal police received a tip that James Hornbuckle, 46, 
     an Oklahoma Cherokee who had moved to the reservation, was 
     dealing marijuana. Officers built a case for weeks. They 
     raided the business and then Mr. Hornbuckle's home, where 
     they found 10 kilograms of marijuana, packaged in small 
     bricks. By tribe standards, it was a big haul, and 
     authorities approached the U.S. Attorney's office.
       Gretchen Shappert, U.S. Attorney for the Western District 
     of North Carolina, says federal sentencing guidelines for 
     marijuana are so lenient, that ``we'd need 50 kilograms in a 
     typical federal case'' to pursue it. The feds rejected the 
     case.
       If the state court had jurisdiction to prosecute the crime, 
     Mr. Hornbuckle might have received a three-year term. 
     Instead, he pleaded guilty to the marijuana charge and was 
     sentenced to one year in tribal court. Recently the tribal 
     council voted to permanently ban him from the reservation, 
     with backing from the feds. Messages left for Mr. 
     Hornbuckle's attorney weren't returned.
       Mr. Crowe's name is all too familiar on the reservation. 
     Tribal Police Chief Benjamin Reed has known him since he was 
     a juvenile. ``What I remember is his domestic-violence 
     incidents. He just wouldn't stop,'' Mr. Reed says.
       Crystal Hicks, who dated Mr. Crowe before his marriage, 
     says the tribal member was verbally abusive. She says she 
     left him after she had a miscarriage, when he berated her for 
     not giving him a ride to a motorcycle gathering. ``He said I 
     was using the miscarriage as an excuse,'' says Ms. Hicks, 27 
     years old.
       After that, in several telephone messages saved by Ms. 
     Hicks and her family, Mr. Crowe threatened to kill them and 
     bury Ms. Hicks in her backyard. He was jailed by the tribe 
     and ordered to stay away from the Hicks family.
       ``One year,'' says Ms. Hicks. ``He even told me he was fine 
     in jail. He got fed three times a day, had a place to sleep 
     and he wasn't going to be there long.''
       After he married, the violence escalated, says Police Chief 
     Reed. During one incident he drove to the home Mr. Crowe 
     shared with his wife, Vicki. ``He had threatened her, and dug 
     a grave, and said no one would ever find her. We believed 
     him,'' Mr. Reed said. ``Just look at some of the stuff he'd 
     done. That girl was constantly coming down here, her face 
     swollen up.'' At one point, he choked his wife, poured 
     kerosene into her mouth and threatened to light it, police 
     reports say. Mr. Crowe's attorney didn't return calls seeking 
     comment.
       None of these acts led to more than one year in jail, a 
     sentence he has been given twice since 2001. His criminal 
     file at the tribal court building fills a dozen manila 
     folders. There are reports of trespassing and assault 
     convictions, telephone harassment, threats and weapons 
     assaults--one for an incident when he hit his wife with an ax 
     handle, breaking her wrist. His latest arrest, in September, 
     came about a week after he finished his most recent sentence, 
     when he came home and beat his now-estranged wife--again.
       After seven years, his crimes finally triggered federal 
     involvement, although almost by accident. Federal prosecutors 
     from around the country met at Cherokee earlier this year to 
     discuss crime on tribal land. One federal official mentioned 
     to Mr. Kilbourne, the tribal prosecutor, a new statute that 
     allows federal intervention where defendants have at least 
     two domestic-violence convictions, regardless of the crime's 
     seriousness.
       Mr. Kilbourne, who was preparing for a new trial against 
     Mr. Crowe the following week, quickly turned the case over. 
     Mr. Crowe pleaded guilty to assault last Friday and is 
     awaiting sentencing.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

         [From the Office of Inspector General, Sept. 25, 2006]

  Report on Certain Fiscal Practices at the Legal Services Corporation


                           EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

       In response to a Congressional request, the Office of 
     Inspector General (OIG) initiated a review of allegations 
     concerning fiscal practices, conflicts of interest, and 
     general mismanagement at the Legal Services Corporation 
     (LSC). This report presents our findings with respect to 
     certain LSC fiscal practices, including allegations of fiscal 
     abuse and wasteful spending. Other matters identified for 
     review will be addressed in subsequent reports.
       With respect to many of the allegations, our review found 
     spending practices that may appear excessive and 
     inappropriate to LSC's status as a federally-funded non-
     profit corporation, particularly in light of its mission in 
     distributing taxpayer dollars to fund legal services for the 
     poor. We also found a number of transactions which did not 
     follow LSC's own policies and a number which would be 
     impermissible under the rules governing federal agency 
     spending. While generally those rules are not directly 
     applicable to LSC, they provide a familiar reference point 
     for Congressional overseers and the public. Our principal 
     findings and recommendations are summarized below:
       We found the cost of food at Board of Directors meetings 
     appeared excessive in some instances and should be reduced. 
     In nine of the eleven Board meetings that we were able to 
     examine, we found that the total cost of food was equivalent 
     to more than 200 percent of the applicable per diem food 
     allowance.
       We found lunch costs at the January 2006 Board meeting to 
     be more than $70 per person, afternoon snack breaks costing 
     as much as $27 per person, and a total hotel food cost 
     (breakfast, lunch, and snacks) of $8,726 for the entire two-
     day meeting. We also found the contracting process for Board 
     meetings was not in compliance with LSC's own policies. LSC 
     did not generally follow its competitive contracting 
     practices in selecting a hotel venue for Board meetings or 
     properly document the selection process or the justification 
     for the selection. Finally, we found LSC could save thousands 
     of dollars by holding its local, Washington, D.C., board 
     meetings at its headquarters rather than at a hotel.
       We found that the LSC Chairman's authorization to allow the 
     LSC president to travel to or from any of her homes in 
     connection with official travel was contrary to the terms of 
     the General Services Administration (GSA) travel contract and 
     LSC's obligations as a mandatory user thereunder. We also 
     found that the LSC president's use of a foreign air carrier 
     violated GSA's regulations implementing the Fly America Act, 
     which LSC is contractually bound to follow. Further, we 
     question the use of LSC funds to pay expenses associated with 
     the LSC president's continued service in various capacities 
     with outside organizations with which she was involved prior 
     to her selection as LSC president.
       We found that LSC officials traveled first or business 
     class in three instances. In one instance in 2005, the LSC 
     Chairman traveled first class round trip from Atlanta, 
     Georgia, to Washington, D.C. The first class ticket was less 
     than a government ticket on the same flights. In a second 
     instance in 2005, the LSC president traveled one-way first 
     class to an international legal aid conference in Ireland at 
     an additional cost to LSC. Instead of using the government 
     fare initially booked, the president was ticketed full fare 
     coach, allowing her to secure an immediate first class 
     upgrade as a frequent flyer member, which would not be 
     available immediately with a government ticket. Finally, an 
     LSC vice president traveled business class round trip to 
     Melbourne, Australia, to attend the 2001 International Legal 
     Aid Conference. As the trip was well in excess of 14 hours, 
     it appears that business class would have been authorized for 
     this trip under the Federal Travel Regulation.
       We estimate that LSC spent over $100,000 on coffee, holiday 
     parties and picnics, working lunches, and business 
     entertainment, going back as far as August 2000. These 
     expenditures did not violate LSC policy. While LSC is 
     generally not subject to Federal spending practices, these 
     expenditures would be impermissible under those practices and 
     we question whether many of them were reasonable and 
     necessary, and whether they were appropriate for LSC.
       We found LSC has spent over $1 million in the past 10 years 
     in settlement agreements with departing employees.
       We concluded that some of the allegations were unfounded, 
     or could not be substantiated. Specifically:

[[Page 27102]]

       We found no evidence of excessive or undisclosed bonuses or 
     of other confidential or indirect payments by LSC to the LSC 
     president. We found no evidence of any ``secret deal'' 
     between the LSC president and the LSC Board of Directors.
       We did find, however, that the LSC president has been 
     receiving a ``Locality Pay'' supplement at a rate that is 1 
     percent of salary greater than that received by any other LSC 
     employee, all of whom work in Washington, D.C. (The Inspector 
     General also received locality pay with a 1 percent 
     differential for the first four months of his employment. 
     This ended December 2004.) We questioned the propriety of 
     such a payment. Locality pay rates by their nature are 
     geographically based; under the Federal system there would be 
     no variation for an individual payee within a given area.
       We did not find unreasonable LSC's justification for 
     holding a board meeting in Puerto Rico. LSC stated that it 
     was appropriate to visit the largest LSC grantee and meet 
     with various judicial officials and members of the bar who 
     are involved in promoting the delivery of legal services to 
     low-income individuals in Puerto Rico.
       We did not find widespread first-class travel and found 
     only one instance of questionable first-class travel.
       We did not find LSC spending practices violated any laws. 
     However, we did find that LSC is not adhering to its 
     contractual obligations under the GSA City Pair Contract, as 
     well as instances where it is not following its own controls 
     and procedures regarding spending, contracting, and travel.
       Our overall recommendations to the LSC Board and LSC 
     management include the following:
       Undertake a comprehensive review to bring LSC's spending 
     policies and practices, particularly in the areas of travel, 
     meals, meetings, and entertainment, in line with those 
     applicable to Federal agencies, and require that the board 
     review and approve any deviation from Federal practice.
       Review the overall cost of LSC board meetings to determine 
     whether there are ways to reduce costs. Also, require that 
     LSC's competitive requirements are followed in contracting 
     for board meeting locations.
       Provide training and education for LSC staff to ensure that 
     all LSC policies are followed, particularly in the areas of 
     contracting and the Federal Travel Regulation related to the 
     GSA City Pair Contract.
       Review LSC employment policies and practices to determine 
     if there are opportunities to reduce its potential liability, 
     and review its settlement policies and practices to determine 
     whether costs can be reduced and whether they are in the best 
     interest of the corporation and appropriate expenditures of 
     public funds.
       LSC Response: The LSC Board and management responded 
     positively to a draft copy of this report. They have agreed 
     to implement substantially all of the report's 
     recommendations. In some cases, they have already taken steps 
     to do so, as noted in the specific recommendations within the 
     report.


                               background

       LSC is a private, non-profit corporation established by 
     Congress in 1974 to help provide equal access to the system 
     of justice in our nation to those who otherwise would be 
     unable to afford adequate legal counsel by making financial 
     support available to provide high quality civil legal 
     assistance. In establishing LSC, Congress explicitly 
     recognized ``providing legal assistance to those who face an 
     economic barrier to adequate legal counsel will serve best 
     the ends of justice, assist in improving opportunities for 
     low-income persons,'' and that the availability of legal 
     assistance ``has reaffirmed faith in our government of 
     laws.'' LSC has said, ``The goal of providing equal access to 
     justice for those who cannot afford to pay an attorney 
     remains the reason for LSC's existence and the benchmark for 
     its efforts.''
       LSC's statutory mission is to provide ``financial support 
     for legal assistance in non-criminal proceedings or matters 
     to persons financially unable to afford legal assistance.'' 
     Pursuant to its mission, LSC funds 138 non-profit legal aid 
     organizations across the United States and its territories to 
     address the most basic and critical civil legal needs of the 
     poor. Controlling statutes require that LSC choose grantees 
     to provide such legal assistance to the poor through a 
     process of competitive bidding, and also require LSC to 
     ensure grantee compliance with applicable laws and 
     implementing regulations and guidelines, and to ensure the 
     maintenance of high quality service. LSC is required to 
     ensure that grant dollars are provided so as to make the most 
     economical and effective use of its taxpayer-provided 
     resources in the delivery of legal assistance to eligible 
     persons.
       LSC is wholly funded through taxpayer dollars; its 2006 
     annual appropriation was $326.6 million, including $12.7 
     million to support LSC headquarters operations (not including 
     the OIG). Given its mission as the principal provider of 
     federal funds for legal assistance to the poor and its status 
     as a quasi-federal agency, it is reasonable to expect that 
     LSC management should conform to the highest standards with 
     respect to fiscal responsibility and accountability. Indeed, 
     LSC, ``[a]s a matter of principle, [is] committed to being a 
     careful and frugal steward of taxpayer funds [and declares 
     that it has] strict policies in place to ensure LSC funds are 
     spent wisely and appropriately.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, before my friend leaves the floor, one of 
the areas we need to get to--and I want to do it before we leave on 
November 16--is Indian health, which is something that is long overdue. 
If we talk about people who need health care, everybody would stand in 
line as second in need to the Indians around this country. We have a 
bill, and the Finance Committee is in the process of getting money to 
get it done. It is not everything we need, but it is starting something 
that is long overdue.
  I say to my friend, who has the most needy reservation--Pine Ridge--
in the country that we need to have the time to get rid of some of 
these appropriations bills so we can do something about Indian health. 
I have made a commitment that we are going to do that some way before 
we leave this legislative year. We have to do that piece of 
legislation. I know my friend from South Dakota understands the need in 
Indian Country for health care. As I said, it is great that we want to 
take care of the children's health initiative, which is important 
because we have 50 million people with no health insurance. All those 
problems are really in the shadows of how badly it is needed in Indian 
Country.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I filed an amendment with Senator 
Graham as a cosponsor which may provide up to $2 million, within the 
Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs account, for the Sex 
Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and 
Tracking, SMART, Office. The funding will be used to help hire 
additional staff and cover expenses for the office. The SMART Office 
was created by the Adam Walsh Act to help States change their sex 
offender registry statutes to come into compliance with the law. 
Currently, the SMART office is only funded through various 
discretionary accounts, so it is critical that we ensure they have 
enough staff and resources to help enforce this important law to 
protect our communities.
  Mr. President, today I filed an amendment with Senator Kennedy as a 
cosponsor which would authorize the Director of the Federal Prison 
System to carry out a pilot program to assist the children of female 
prisoners. The pilot program can be developed at any Federal 
correctional facility that houses women in the United States. 
Specifically, the amendment gives the Director of the Federal prison 
system discretion to make expenditures to institute a pilot program for 
nonviolent female offenders and their children up to age 36 months to 
allow the children to be housed, fed, and cared for in Federal, or 
federally contracted, correctional facilities housing women, in 
programs specifically designed to benefit mother and child.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to thank my colleagues 
Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby for their first-class work on the 
Fiscal Year 2008 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies 
Appropriations bill. They have written legislation that strengthens 
communities against crime and terrorism, provides important research 
dollars for science and technology, and protects jobs here in the 
United States against unlawful trade practices.
  Unfortunately, we know from Federal crime statistics that violent 
crime is on the rise in the United States. To combat this increase, we 
must make a commitment to boost Federal support for State and local law 
enforcement. This bill contains $2.66 billion for community police 
departments, $26 million to hire an additional 100 FBI agents to fight 
violent crime, and $5 million for the FBI to create a task force on 
gang violence. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, we have 
asked our local law enforcement officials to assume yet another role in 
protecting citizens, namely homeland security. I believe that the 
Federal Government must step in and provide a share of the resources to 
community policing for their efforts.
  I also commend my colleagues for the impressive funding package they

[[Page 27103]]

have devised for science and technology. This year, along with Senator 
Bond, I helped lead the charge in the Senate for an increase in the 
National Science Foundation's budget. This bill includes over $6.5 
billion for the NSF, with a substantial $850 million for educational 
programs to develop the next generation of leaders in science, 
technology, and math. The future of innovation rests upon our ability 
to recruit more talented students who want to pursue careers in science 
and engineering. Looking at the challenges the United States faces in 
maintaining global economic leadership, a comparatively small 
investment now in the National Science Foundation will provide 
exponential benefits for years to come.
  Finally, I commend the adoption of Senator Mikulski and Senator 
Shelby's amendment to add $1 billion to NASA's budget for this upcoming 
fiscal year. Along with several other Senators, I was a proud co-
sponsor of this amendment, and I laud its adoption by unanimous 
consent. The additional funding will enable NASA to revive its basic 
science programs, such as its earth science and aeronautics research 
initiatives. Global warming is a reality, and NASA's capabilities make 
it uniquely positioned to provide the world's scientific community with 
vital data about changes in Earth's atmosphere and the subsequent 
impact on climate. Furthermore, we must remember that there are two 
``As'' in NASA, and forgetting the ``Aeronautics'' component of the 
agency's mission would be a grave mistake. Once again, I congratulate 
my colleagues on a well formulated piece of legislation, and I urge the 
President to sign this bill into law.

                          ____________________