Leahy chairs the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and also sits on its Defense, Interior, VA-HUD, Commerce-Justice-State, and Transportation subcommittees.

Leahy has been the leading U.S. officeholder in the international campaign against the production, export and use of anti-personnel landmines. In 1992, Leahy wrote the first law by any government to ban the export of these weapons. He led efforts in Congress to aid mine victims by creating a special fund in the foreign aid budget. The Leahy War Victims Fund provides up to $12 million a year. He was instrumental in establishing programs to support humanitarian demining, and played a key role in pushing for an international treaty banning anti-personnel mines.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, Leahy headed the Senate's negotiations on the 2001 anti-terrorism bill, the USA PATRIOT Act.  He added checks and balances to the bill to protect civil liberties, as well as provisions he authored to triple staffing along the US-Canada border, to authorize domestic preparedness grants to states, and to facilitate the hiring of new FBI translators.

Leahy is the chief sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act, which would address the growing crisis in the administration of capital punishment. Leahy's death penalty reform package would reduce the risks that innocent people are executed by providing for post-conviction DNA testing and access to competent legal counsel.

Sometimes referred to as the "cyber senator," Leahy has been actively involved in legislation associated with the Internet. Leahy was one of the first members of Congress to go online and in 1995 he was the second senator to post a homepage. His Web site has been consistently lauded as one of the Senate’s best and a leading Internet magazine called Leahy the most "Net-friendly" member of Congress.  The Congressional Management Foundation in 2002 awarded Leahy with the Congress Online Gold Mouse Award for producing one of the top 15 Web sites on Capitol Hill.

Leahy has crusaded for the protection of privacy rights, copyright protections and freedom of speech on the Internet. The senator is also a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus. In 1999 he was awarded the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award "for outstanding contributions in support of press freedom and the people’s right to know" -- only the second time since 1954 that it has gone to a government leader.

Leahy chairs the Senate Democratic Task Force on Privacy, formed in January 2000, to protect the privacy of Americans' medical and financial records and other personal information.  Leahy held Congress’s first hearing in 1994 on privacy concerns relating to electronic medical records.

Always ranked among the top environmental legislators by the nation's foremost conservation organizations, Leahy successfully opposed attempts to allow oil and gas exploration in wildlife refuges in the United States, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Vermont. Leahy has also helped secure more than $38 million in federal funds to clean up Lake Champlain and has spearheaded Congressional efforts to expose the dangers of mercury pollution. Leahy, in January 2001, became a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents.

The Senator has led bipartisan efforts to streamline the Department of Agriculture, highlighting duplication in the field office structure and government waste in USDA programs. The 1994 Leahy-Lugar bill reorganized the U.S. Department of Agriculture by closing 1100 offices and saving more than $2 billion. Leahy also led the successful effort to extend the Conservation Reserve Program, which assists farmers in meeting environmental objectives without reducing income. Leahy's Farms for the Future program, now the Farmland Protection Program -- which was created in the 1990 Farm Bill -- has helped preserve more than 260 Vermont farms. He played a crucial role in enactment and implementation of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact. Leahy is also the author of the first organic farming standards, which were finalized in December 2000.

Senator Leahy has been married to Marcelle Pomerleau Leahy for 37 years. They have a daughter, two sons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson. Senator and Mrs. Leahy live on a tree farm in Vermont.

Updated: Jan. 2002
Contact: David Carle