Mr. HUGHES. Let me just say, generally, before I recognize the ranking Republican today, Mr. Shaw of Florida, that even though there were a number of provisions in the comprehensive crime control bill that we pointed to with great pride, I don't think anything has the potential for such far-reaching impact as does the forfeiture provisions, and we are very proud of that work product. That was the product of our work in the 97th and 98th Congresses. My colleague, Clay Shaw, was very helpful in developing that legislation, as was Larry Smith.

Senator Pepper, who we are happy to have with us today was also extremely supportive of that particular provision in the Crime Control Act of 1984, as was our colleague Ed Feighan. During the development of these provisions, Hal Sawyer of Michigan was the ranking Republican of the subcommittee. Hal Sawyer who took Jerry Ford's seat from Grand Rapids, MI, worked with me in actually forging what was, we thought, probably one of the strongest forfeiture bills that we would constitutionally provide for law enforcement agencies.

During our hearing on this measure we addressed a number of concerns that we will discuss today, including the suggestion that we set aside a portion of those funds for drug rehabilitation. It was my belief and the belief of the ranking Republican Hal Sawyer at that time that we should not divert the funds except for law enforcement missions, because we were having great difficulty getting sufficient funds for law enforcement operations, and we did not want to see those revolving funds actually diluted by having the funds diverted in other areas. However, I can tell you that this Member has an open mind on that issue. We want to take some testimony on that.

The nagging issue dealing with forfeiture of attorneys' fees which is another concern today does disturb me, I must say. It was never envisioned that we would trample upon the sixth amendment rights of individuals to counsel, and we are interested in hearing testimony insofar as how the Department of Justice and others interprete these provisions.

The Chair at this time recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Shaw.

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, along with Larry Smith, and Congressman Pepper, would like to also welcome you and this subcommittee to south Florida. I particularly want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the quick and expeditious way in which you answered my request for the hearing. About 1 month ago, Senator Chiles came here to Miami, went up the Miami River, looked at the situation as it existed, and looked at the large inventory of seized vessels. I think he focused a light on the problem that needs to be looked at by this subcommittee; 2 years ago, in October 1983-this same subcommittee, under your leadership, came down here to Fort Lauderdale. We looked at the large inventory of seized aircraft at the Executive Airport in Fort Lauderdale. We went up the Miami River and saw the deplorable conditions that existed there. We went back to Washington, and after a little bit of study, we found, as we had detected here at these hearings in Miami, that the problem was really with the Federal law, that there were a

great deal of changes that had to be made in the forfeiture provisions of Federal law.

We thought we had corrected that problem, and perhaps we have, but we still see a large inventory of vessels, many of them seized before the new law, not governed by that particular law, and still with us here today. We still have a problem. I think that in order for us to give the American people the effective government that they need, that it is important that this committee come back and take another look at this particular item.

I also want to thank the Coast Guard, the DEA, and all of the officials here in the south Florida area for the tremendous help that they have given the subcommittee, and also recognize the extremely difficult job that they have. The rest of the country doesn't realize the tremendous problem that we have here in south Florida with the drug trafficking, and they don't particularly realize the importance of these Federal agencies and the tremendous job that they are doing.

Mr. Chairman, you, Larry Smith, Mr. Pepper, and I are working together to try to get the funding of the Coast Guard back up where it should be. A specific privileged motion was passed by the House at the end of last week that was offered by Congressman Young of St. Petersburg, FL, to insist upon the funding level that we had put in the bill instead of decreasing it to where the Senate would have us do so. I think this was a very important statement that the House made and I think it certainly shows that we in the House do recognize the tremendous job that the Coast Guard is doing.

Last, I want to compliment the people of Dade County on this beautiful chamber that they have here; 2 years ago this subcommittee met across the street. This is the first opportunity that I have had to see a truly high-technology commission chamber room. It is probably the finest in the country, and I think most importantly it gives all of the news media a chance to really see without any interruption or any obstruction of the government activity here in Dade County, and the public meetings, so I would like to compliment Metro on the very fine new chamber.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I first of all would like to thank you for scheduling these hearings. Both Mr. Shaw and myself had requested that you come back, as we were here about 14 years ago, to make sure that whatever we were working on was in fact being implemented, and implemented correctly. I think the change in the law was a good change. I think that a lot of it is working, but there are some problems. You can still go up the Miami River and see some problems, go out to the airports and see some problems, and I think it may be a question of implementation. It also may be a question of time or whatever.

Before the meeting, I was discussing with some of the gentlemen who are here today the value of the program. I understand that in the last few weeks we have taken, between cash and other assets, about $12 million in for the forfeiture fund. I think the people of

this State and this country ought to be aware that that money is drug money, money that would have otherwise been used by drug traffickers and drug users, and we are now going to use it against them.

That is the significant part of what we ere attempting to do by virtue of passing this law, and that is use the money that we seize and the assets we seize to fight the problem and use drug traffickers' money against them.

I am very grateful that that is beginning to happen in a significant way. I would very much like to commend not only yourself, Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Feighan, but all of the members of the Crime Subcommittee. Senator Pepper has been in the forefront for many years in trying to rid this area of the problem of drugs. I would also like to compliment the people of this area who have rallied significantly behind all of the State and local efforts as well as our efforts at the Federal level to begin to address these problems.

This has been a major problem for us in this area for a long time, and as a Congressman who has represented this area both at this level and in the statehouse prior to this in both Dade and Broward Counties, we, all of us in this area, have worked on it for a very long time, and anything we can do to make a significant dent in the problem is something that we are going to get behind and push forward very hard.

So I want to thank you very much again on behalf of all of the people of this area who are doing what you have done, being so concerned about the problem, and I am looking forward to hearing all the people on the panel today, including those that want us to review some what are in fact significant problems in the implementation of the law which we never envisioned, and also to review again whether or not some of the money which in fact is seized and goes into the forfeiture fund shouldn't in fact be used for the excellent purpose of drug rehabilitation.

I think that is one of the things that in this country, frankly, we have yet to really begin a major, nationwide program on, from the top level of this country. I am constantly critical of the White House Office on Drug Abuse Policy. We don't see any new programs coming out of that.

Maybe we can use this fund to be the catalyst or the stimulus to get some programs developed nationwide, not only to stop drugs as they come into the United States, like Customs, DEA, and Coast Guard do, but also once they get here and, unfortunately, get into the bodies of our young people, to see whether or not we can turn that around and develop programs to not only educate them but to rehabilitate them.

I want to thank you again for these hearings. I think that they are going to be very good, very useful, and that all of the people that are up there listening and watching I think will find them very informative.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me say how pleased I am to be here with my colleagues, particularly those from south Florida, to conduct this hearing, and review some of the provisions of what I think many of us in the

Congress feel was extremely important criminal justice legislation of our last session, and I compliment the chairman for scheduling this hearing and the hearing of 2 years ago, which was primarily responsive to the concerns of our colleagues from south Florida, who on many occasions constantly are reminding members of not just the Judiciary Committee, but of the Congress generally of the importance of focusing our Federal effort at the narcotics problem that exists in south Florida.

Also I think that this hearing today is an indication by our Judiciary Committee, and in that sense by the Congress, of our continuing concern at providing the tools that are necessary to our Federal agencies, the policy that is necessary for them to meet their responsibilities, and to meet the goals, the very high goals that they have set for themselves in dealing with the drug problem. I appreciate the opportunity to hear from the witnesses today. I think we have an exceptionally good set of panels to hear from, and I appreciate their presence here this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you.

We are also pleased this morning to have joining us here on the dais a gentleman who is known as Mr. Modernity, I will say, not Mr. Senior Citizen, who is so well respected in the Congress, and for years in his own right developed quite a reputation as a crimefighter. I can recall him years ago, before I ever came to Congress when I was just a young prosecutor back in Cape May County, NJ, reading about the great work that Claude Pepper was doing in the anticrime area.

Senator, we are just delighted to have you with us this morning. Anytime you have a crime-related issue on the floor, you can count on Claude Pepper being in the forefront fighting to make sure that we have strong law enforcement initiatives. Welcome. We are glad to have you with us this morning. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. PEPPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am particularly grateful for the privilege of being here for a while with you and your distinguished committee. On behalf of Dante Fascell, and Bill Lehman, and the other Members of our south Florida group, Larry Smith, and Clay Shaw, I want to welcome you and your committee here in the warmest way for this hearing.

I know what it means for you to be looking into this grievious problem that so gravely threatens our future. I thought, Mr. Chairman, that perhaps if you, and your colleagues, and maybe those in the audience thought you saw sort of a sour, sad look on the face of Larry Smith it is due to the fact that he had a fundraiser Saturday night in Hollywood and he only had a 1,000 people there at $200 apiece. It shows the sort of people we have here.

I am particularly pleased to see Mr. Feighan here. It is rather singular that I am meeting here in our county commission room, because the first time I saw him in his great city of Cleveland, he was a county commissioner. He was running for the House, and I was out there as a Democrat giving some words in his behalf as best I could. I found out what a wonderful record he had made as county commissioner, which assured his election to the Congress, and, of course, his reelection as long as he chooses to run. We are

delighted to have him here. He follows in the footsteps of a distinguished predecessor of his family of the House of Representatives as well.

Mr. Chairman, you were very gracious to refer to the time when I was for 4 years chairman of the Select Committee on Crime. I can say that I can appreciate the responsibilities that you have discharged, and I can appreciate the excellence of your leadership in this field. You have really opened up this whole sorry sort of trouble in our country to the glare and the spotlight of congressional and public opinion, and you have concentrated congressional and public interest into a determination to do something effective to protect the people of our country against this terrible danger.

Obviously we have got to try to keep it out, and we must not reduce the size of those agencies involved in that interdiction, or their strength, if we are going to do an effective job, and of course we have got to try to diminish the market. Every day I think about all those, many of them young people, that have got to go out and rob several places or commit several burglaries to get the money to buy the drugs that they will buy every day, so we have got to keep it out as much as we can, try to protect those people against themselves, cure those that we can, as best we can, and the like.

I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the privilege of being with you.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Senator.

Before we introduce our first panel, I want to thank the county for providing this beautiful facility. I have never seen anything like it. Our colleagues Clay Shaw and Larry Smith alluded to this tremendous facility, and it has all of what modern technology can provide. We thank the county for permitting us to use this room today for our own hearing.

I also want to thank my colleagues, because we have the nucleus today of the committee that put together probably much of the Comprehensive Crime Control bill. I was just trying to count the number of bills that this committee reported out in the 97th and 98th Congress, and it was about 22 bills. Most of the major provisions that went into the Comprehensive Crime Control Act came out of this subcommittee. My colleagues Clay Shaw and Larry Smith and Ed Feighan were the nucleus of the team that actually put much of that together and saved much of it in conference, so I want to thank them for their support of what I think is an important work product, a valuable work product.

I also just want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues from Florida, when they say that it is important to maintain the funding level of the various agencies involving law enforcement. I can't imagine the Coast Guard, for instance, taking a cut of $230 million that is being proposed on the Senate side. I serve on the Coast Guard Subcommittee and chaired it for a while during the time that we had a vacancy in the position of chairman. I couldn't take that chairmanship because we are limited to one chairmanship, but I am the ranking Democrat on the Coast Guard Subcommittee, and if the Coast Guard were to take anywhere near a $230 million cut, it would be devastating. We would have to decommission a number of high-endurance and medium-endurance cutters around the country. We would lose anywhere between 6,000 and 8,000 billets, and

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