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“``MADD AT GM'' CAMPAIGN” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Senate section on pages S2232-S2234 on March 8, 2005.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
``MADD AT GM'' CAMPAIGN
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I come to the Senate this afternoon in disbelief and sadness and a little anger. I am angry, sad, at the blatant disregard for common sense in a new ad campaign being promoted by a prominent trade association.
The American Beverage Licensees, or ABL, has launched a campaign entitled ``MADD at GM''--MADD referencing Mothers Against Driving Drunk, with the aim of stopping the charitable donations General Motors gives to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
ABL claims that MADD has a ``neoprohibitionist agenda.'' Yes, the neoprohibitionist agenda is what they claim.
They claim that MADD ``wants to criminalize social drinking by preventing designated drivers from drinking before they get behind the wheel.'' Apparently in their world, designated drivers ought to be able to have a few drinks before getting on the road. In most people's world, that defies all common sense.
In honor of MADD's 20th anniversary in 2000, General Motors made a commitment to contribute $2.5 million over 5 years to MADD to combat underage drinking, for underage drinking prevention, and drunk driving victim assistance, a very laudable goal. I applaud General Motors for doing this. But what has happened is, with General Motors' funding commitment now expired, ABL has seen this as the perfect opportunity to attack General Motors. They are attacking a noble cause, and their attack makes no sense.
ABL's smear campaign against General Motors and MADD has taken many forms--an Internet Web site, print advertisements, TV ads during NASCAR events, and through promotional materials distributed at bars, restaurants, and other ABL member locations throughout the country. I have brought two of these ads with me to the Senate floor this afternoon. Let me show the first ad.
This first advertisement plays off the well-known board game Monopoly. It explicitly states that by purchasing a General Motors car, any American is funding his or her own arrest. How absurd. It suggests that because General Motors supports MADD and MADD is against drinking and driving that somehow General Motors is to blame if you get arrested for being over the legal drinking limit. But last time I checked, in this country we arrest people who have broken the law. And in this case that is drinking too much before you get behind the wheel.
Let me show the second ad, just as outrageous. This advertisement, again from the MADD at GM campaign, contradicts common sense as much as the first one did. As you can see here, the man in the ad is posing for his mug shot. But instead of holding his arrest number, he is holding a sign stating that his arrest was sponsored by General Motors. That is what it says.
General Motors didn't get this man arrested. Drinking and driving did. The ad further states that General Motors supports the arrest of social drinkers through its charitable donations to MADD. But that isn't the case at all. The simple fact is that if you drink too much and you get in a car and drive, you break the law. It doesn't matter if you label it as social drinking or not; what is wrong is wrong.
This ad says that ``MADD spends millions provided by GM to fund their roadblock promotion campaign. They're using your money to arrest you.''
That roadblock campaign is a program I strongly support and I know many Members of the Senate support as well. It is also a program that the Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement Campaign bill that Senator Lautenberg and I are introducing today would help fund.
Let me show a third ad. This ad, however, is from MADD. In it you can see a note from LT Carl McDonald about his daughter Carlie. It reads:
This is my precious little girl, Carlie. I always told her,
``I will love you as long as there are stars in the sky.'' She would always smile, look up at me and say, ``I love you more than there are stars in the universe.'' These words are now inscribed on her tombstone. At the tender age of five she was killed by a drunk driver--her mother. If you think it can't happen to you--think again. Please don't drink and drive.
This was an ad brought to us by MADD.
The ad has more teeth in it than the other two ads combined. We all know the truth; that is, drinking and driving is deadly. MADD is doing all it can do to help save lives and get drunk drivers off the road.
I think what is so alarming and irritating and makes us all so mad is this campaign that is targeted against MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, an organization that has done so much good in this country in all 50 States.
I first came in contact with MADD when I was a State senator back in the early 1980s. We had a little boy, a 7-year-old boy by the name of Justin Beason, who was tragically killed by a drunken driver in my home county. As a result, I introduced a bill in our State legislature, a tough drunk-driving bill. I can truthfully say it was through the support of MADD and MADD's members who went to the legislature, lobbied the legislature, testified in front of the State legislature, wrote letters--if it wasn't for MADD, that bill would not have become law.
It is an organization that reminds us every day of the horrible tragedies and about people like Carlie--little children who lose their lives on highways every week because of drivers who were drinking. This organization has been so viciously attacked by this trade organization. It is an organization made up of many parents who have lost children, and many times husbands who have lost wives, and wives who have lost husbands--all to drunk drivers. It is a good organization. It is an organization we should all support. It is an organization of which we should all be proud. Anyone who attacks it, I just don't understand.
Here are some statistics to think about: 69 percent of our youth died in alcohol-related fatalities in the year 2000 involved young drinking drivers. Of the 42,000 people killed in all of the traffic accidents in 2003, 40 percent--well over one-third--were due to alcohol. Further, since MADD's founding in 1980, drunk-driving deaths have dramatically decreased from 26,179 in 1982 to 17,013 in the year 2003. Clearly, MADD and other anti-drunk-driving campaigns are having an impact. We have begun to change the culture in this country. In part, we have corporations such as General Motors to thank having helped MADD in their cause. While deaths due to drunk driving have decreased in large part through the great work of MADD, the job is certainly not finished. As long as people are put into danger because someone got behind the wheel after drinking alcohol, we have work to do. General Motors and MADD are not criminalizing social drinkers, they are working together to simply save lives.
Today, I am introducing six transportation safety bills. I introduced them last year and am doing so again because I want to see them get passed and signed into law and see lives saved. They are commonsense bills that will, in fact, save lives. I think all of us care about keeping our roads safe. That is also why I again commend MADD and General Motors. I also commend the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its efforts to keep drunk drivers off the road and its prosafety agenda. They are all doing what is right and what needs to be done to protect our children and our families when they get into a car and get on the road.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before my colleague goes, I want to once again say to my good friend from Ohio how much I appreciate his leadership. I am a principal cosponsor with my colleague on this very important bill dealing with underage drinking. We have wonderful sponsors in the House as well, in a bipartisan way, to try to make a difference.
The Senator has laid out very categorically what the facts are, which is that this is a massive problem in this country, and a growing one, unfortunately, with the age of people who are becoming regular users of alcohol dropping all the time. While certainly parents have to do more at the local level, more efforts need to be made. We also think it is incumbent upon us at a national level to be supportive of those efforts, to help provide resources and guidance to try to reverse this trend.
I didn't want my friend to leave the floor without expressing to him my deep sense of gratitude--not only on this issue but on countless other issues affecting families and children. Mike DeWine of Ohio has been as good a champion as this body has seen in a long time on these issues. There are very few issues that have given me as much pleasure to work on as issues with children. On behalf of all of us in this country--he represents Ohio well, but in this regard he is making a difference all across the country. On their behalf, I thank him.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for the very kind remarks. Senator Dodd has been a real partner on so many issues affecting children. He and I have worked together. Whenever we want to find someone to advocate for children, Chris Dodd is there. My colleague is always a great champion for children.
On the issue of drinking and driving, underage drinking and highway safety, Senator Dodd has been a true champion. I thank my colleague for coming to the floor. Again, I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I join my colleague from Ohio, Senator DeWine, and call attention to an unseemly lobbying effort to discredit one of our Nation's most revered public safety organizations, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, and one of our Nation's largest automakers, General Motors.
Each year, General Motors donates money to MADD to support its campaign against drunk driving. In response to this, the alcohol special interest lobby is spending $10 million to finance a lobbying campaign--or as some might call it, a smear campaign.
This campaign is aimed at scaring and intimidating corporate donors like GM so they will stop giving money to safety organizations like MADD. Apparently the alcohol lobby thinks it is bad for its business to crack down on drunk driving, which kills 17,000 Americans each year and injures over 500,000.
Ten million dollars is not an insignificant amount of money. After all, the Federal Government only spends $30 million each year on public law enforcement campaigns to educate people on drunk driving awareness and prevention.
What a shame. Imagine if the alcohol lobby would spend $10 million to educate people and prevent drunk driving, instead of bullying GM. Many of the customers they lose each year to drunk driving crashes could probably be saved, along with thousands of innocent Americans. That sounds like a much better investment than financing a smear campaign that will cost lives.
I am one of the most ardent opponents of drunk driving in the Senate, and I see the results of the good work we do here to help save the lives of our constituents from the scourge of drunk driving. Over the years, I have battled against the alcohol lobby to pass effective laws to reduce drunk driving.
In 1986 I authored legislation and worked with Senator Elizabeth Dole, who was Secretary of the Department of Transportation at the time, to raise the minimum drinking age from 18 to 21. President Reagan signed my bill into law, and MADD officials were there with us. In 2000 Senator DeWine and I teamed up to get a bill passed establishing .08 blood alcohol concentration level as the nationwide threshold for drunk driving.
These are the kind of smart, common-sense initiatives that MADD supports. And these are the kind of initiatives that save lives. Combined, these two measures are estimated to save some 1,500 lives a year.
Federal public awareness campaigns against drunk driving are also having a tangible impact. We need to step up these program, which is why Senator DeWine and I will soon introduce a bill to increase funding for this effort. What we don't need is a $10 million misinformation program from the alcohol industry.
Drunk driving is no joke. It kills and maims thousands of people in American each year, and costs $9 billion in additional health care and other costs. MADD is trying to stanch the flow of blood on our highways, and they are doing a good job of it. GM, to its credit, supports MADD. They deserve our encouragement, and they deserve for us to stand up against this vicious smear campaign.
I intend to work with Senator DeWine to let Americans know the truth about the alcohol lobby's smear campaign, to counter the alcohol lobby's lies with the truth, and to fight for legislation that reduces drunk driving and saves lives across our country.
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