To appropriate an additional $625,000,000 for discretionary grants for high-threat, high-density urban areas.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 4567, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 4567) making appropriations for the Department
of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2005, and for other purposes.

Pending:

Nelson (FL) Amendment No. 3607, to provide funds for the
American Red Cross.
Corzine Amendment No. 3619, to appropriate an additional
$100,000,000 to enhance the security of chemical plants.
Mikulski Amendment No. 3624, to increase the amount
appropriated for firefighter assistance grants.
Kennedy Amendment No. 3626, to require the President to
provide to Congress a copy of the Scowcroft Commission report
on improving the capabilities of the United States
intelligence community.
Dayton Amendment No. 3629, to ensure the continuation of
benefits for certain individuals providing security services
for Federal buildings.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the Senate has made progress on this
bill. We hope to continue to consider amendments during the remainder
of the session today. The leader would like us to complete action on
this bill tonight. I hope we can achieve that goal. If we can't, we can
go into the next day and try to complete action before noon on
Wednesday. But we hope we can complete action today. We urge Senators
who have amendments, suggestions for changes in the bill, to come to
the floor. We will consider those amendments and deal with them in an
orderly way. We hope we can reject most of them. There are some we can
agree to.
I see my good friend from Connecticut is on the floor and has an
amendment. I am happy to yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay the pending
amendment aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 3630

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I send an amendment on behalf of myself and
Senator Specter to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd], for himself, Mr.
Specter, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Levin, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Kennedy,
Mr. Daschle, and Mr. Schumer, proposes an amendment numbered
3630.

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

(Purpose: To increase the amount provided for fire department staffing
assistance grants; and to provide offsets)

On page 21, between lines 20 and 21, insert the following:

Fire Department Staffing Assistance Grants

For necessary expenses for programs authorized by section
34 of the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 (15
U.S.C. 2229a), to remain available until September 30, 2006,
$100,000,000: Provided, That not to exceed 5 percent of this
amount shall be available for program administration:
Provided, further, That the amount appropriated by title I
under the heading ``Office of the Under Secretary for
Management'' is hereby reduced by $70,000,000, the amount
appropriated by title IV under the heading ``Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Management and
Administration'' is hereby reduced by $20,000,000, and the
amount appropriated by title IV under the heading ``Science
and Technology Management and Administration'' is hereby
reduced by $10,000,000.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am offering this amendment dealing with
the SAFER Act. This is the No. 1 priority of the various firefighting
organizations of the United States, whether they be paid firefighters,
volunteer firefighters, fire chiefs organizations, and others. On
behalf of Senators Specter, Levin, Harkin, Kennedy, Sarbanes, Daschle,
Schumer, and myself, we offer this important amendment.
I want to take a few minutes, with the full recognition that my
friend and colleague from Mississippi wants to move matters along. I
will take as little time as I can to explain this amendment and what we
are trying to do, why I think it is a worthwhile amendment, how we pay
for it, and why I don't feel that the offset we are suggesting here in
any way would be detrimental to the Department of Homeland Security.
Our amendment will help the 33,000 fire departments across America--
paid departments, volunteer departments, and combination departments.
It will help them acquire the necessary personnel they need in order to
fight fires and respond to situations all across the country,
particularly terrorist incidents and other large-scale emergencies that
may emerge.
Just yesterday, I spent a couple of hours with the fire department of
Enfield, CT. I went out on one of the calls--a traffic accident. It
turned out not to be a serious emergency, but the first vehicles to
actually respond to the situation were the fire departments of Enfield.
That happens every single day in this country. I think one firehouse in
Enfield--one of five--has some 1,200 calls they respond to each year,
to give you an idea of the magnitude of emergencies these departments
are called upon to respond to every day of the year, all hours of the
day and night.
Mr. President, this amendment is the single most important
legislative priority of the International Association of Firefighters.
It is also strongly supported by the International Association of Fire
Chiefs and the National Volunteer Fire Council. If our colleagues
support firefighters--and I know many, if not all, do--this is an
opportunity to support bipartisan legislation that will make a huge
difference in the personnel area of a fire department.
In particular, this amendment provides $100 million for the SAFER
Act, which stands for Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency
Response. It was enacted last year with significant bipartisan support
as part of the fiscal year 2004 Department of Defense Authorization
Act. In fact, the lead sponsors at that time were Senator Warner of
Virginia, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with
Senators Sarbanes, Daschle, Snowe, Clinton, Corzine, Durbin, Johnson,
Kerry, Landrieu, Murray, Reed, and Schumer.
The House of Representatives also has championed very similar, if not
exact, legislation. It has been supported by the Chairman of the House
Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert of New York; Republican
Congressman Curt Weldon, a tremendous champion of firefighters for many

[[Page S9168]]

years; along with House minority whip Steny Hoyer, and Representative
Bill Pascrell, a strong advocate of firefighters.
The $100 million our amendment provides is fully offset by reductions
in management and administrative expenses in title I and title IV of
the underlying bill. Even with these offsets, the accounts that will be
affected will still receive an increase over last year's funding
levels.
After all, this debate is fundamentally about priorities. Senator
Specter and I strongly believe the need for additional firefighters on
our Nation's streets far outweighs the need for increased resources
devoted to administration and management in Washington, DC.
If I can, I will explain how this offset works because I know my good
friend from Mississippi will want to address this. I know that my
friend from Mississippi has a very difficult job trying to put a bill
together that is balanced. I respect him immensely for having to
wrestle with these important issues. Certainly, I would have supported
a larger 302(b) allocation for homeland security, but that is a debate
for another day.

Nevertheless, Senator Specter and I have chosen these offsets with a
great deal of care. In no instance do they cut programs below last
year's levels. They don't affect the intelligence community in any way.
If anything, our offsets will respect the increases in the underlying
bill but grant smaller increases. In addition, these offsets are from
increases to administrative and management accounts. We believe it is
more important to place new firefighters on the streets than new
managers and administrators in Washington. I will mention specifically
what we are doing.
The Office of the Undersecretary for Management in Title I, for
example, received a significant increase in this bill over last year's
level. Last year, we funded it at $130 million. This year, the Senate
bill provides an increase to $245 million for the same office. That is
an 88-percent increase over last year! If our amendment is adopted, the
Office of the Under Secretary of Management would still receive a 35-
percent increase over last year's bill.
It seems to me that if we were gutting the Office for Undersecretary
for Management and making it impossible for it to operate, others could
argue we don't have a good case. But in order to help put 75,000 new
firefighters on the street over the next seven years, I think is a fair
tradeoff.
Under title IV of the bill, the $30 million we offset only comes from
management and administrative expenses. By the way, with that cut we
are talking about, we still leave the level under title IV higher than
what is in the House-passed bill.
We don't believe these offsets we found are in any way damaging to
the underlying bill. They still allow for substantial increases in
management and administrative costs, as well as leaving title IV in the
same position it would be funded at in the House-passed legislation.
You don't have to take our word on the importance of the legislation
and the need for increasing the number of people we have in our fire
departments. The U.S. Fire Administration--not the firefighters, not
the fire chiefs, but U.S. Fire Administration--and National Fire
Protection Association found that fire departments throughout the
Nation, rural America and urban America, lack sufficient personnel to
adequately protect the public.
These concerns were echoed last year in the Council on Foreign
Relations report, authored by our former colleague Warren Rudman. The
report was entitled ``Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded,
Drastically Underprepared.'' It noted that ``only 10 percent of fire
departments in the United States have the personnel . . . to respond to
a building collapse.'' It also found that ``two-thirds of our fire
departments do not meet the consensus fire standard from minimum safe
staffing levels,'' which is at least four firefighters per truck at the
scene of an emergency.
If our colleagues are not concerned about these findings, they ought
to be concerned about the Rudman report's conclusion. It said:

If the Nation does not take immediate steps to better
identify and address the needs of emergency first responders,
the next terrorist incident could have an even more
devastating impact than the September 11 attacks.

On Saturday our Nation commemorated the third anniversary of that
tragic day three years ago. No American citizen will ever forget--no
citizen in the world, for that matter, could ever forget--the heroism
of the firefighters who were among the first on the scene that day and
who charged the stairs, while everybody else was running out of these
buildings.
Those 343 members of the New York Fire Department made the ultimate
sacrifice that day in their efforts to save thousands of lives trapped
in the World Trade Center.
After September 11, of course, we realized that firefighters face new
and profound challenges. No longer do they just fight fires, promote
safety, and inspect fire code violations. Firefighters still have those
traditional responsibilities, but they are now called upon to do far
more. They are now asked to respond to the threat of biological,
chemical, and even nuclear terrorism. In other words, they are asked to
confront what once seemed unthinkable on American soil. It is,
therefore, not an exaggeration to say that the Nation's firefighters
are now literally on the front lines of the war on terror, protecting
our Nation from the very clear and present danger of future terrorist
attacks.
In the past, the Congress has come to the aid of America's
firefighters. We have provided substantial funds for the FIRE Act Grant
Program, which I also authored with my good friend Senator DeWine of
Ohio. FIRE Act grants have enabled fire departments, large and small,
paid and volunteer, to purchase the necessary equipment and train
firefighters. That assistance allows them to do a better job. In
Enfield, CT, yesterday, I saw exactly the kind of equipment that can be
purchased with a fire grant proposal. It has made a huge difference to
that one department in a relatively small community in my home State of
Connecticut.
While training and equipment are extremely important, they are
meaningless, obviously, without the personnel needed to take advantage
of it. After all, what good is a new breathing apparatus if there is no
firefighter to use it? What good is new protective clothing if there is
no firefighter to wear it? What good are new firetrucks if there are no
firefighters to drive them? What good are new portable radios if there
are no firefighters to communicate with each other?
We cannot lose sight of the human side of this important issue. It
takes significant manpower to rush into burning houses and buildings,
to save the life of a child, deliver emergency medical services and
respond to an incident involving a chemical or biological agent. It is,
therefore, this shortfall in firefighter staffing that this bipartisan,
fully offset amendment that I am offering with Senator Specter and
others addresses.
The manpower situation was not always this dire. Yet over the past
two decades the number of firefighters as a percentage of the U.S.
workforce has declined considerably. I am going to put up a chart that
lays out exactly what has happened. This chart will give us a clear
understanding of the problems that exist.
Only 11 percent of fire departments can handle, with local personnel,
a building collapse with 50 occupants or more in it. That means 89
percent of our departments cannot respond to that. Only 13 percent of
fire departments can handle a hazardous material incident with chemical
or biological agents and 10 injuries. Again, 87 percent cannot respond
to this in an adequate way. Forty percent of fire department personnel
involved in hazardous material response lack formal training in these
duties, and 60 to 75 percent of fire departments do not have enough
fire stations to achieve widely used response time guidelines. That
gives some idea just in a brief synopsis of how serious the problems
are across our country as far as the lack of personnel.
In 1983, for example, there was 1 firefighter for every 212 of our
citizens. In the year 2000, there was only 1 firefighter for every 260
Americans. To put it another way, the number of firefighters has
declined by almost 20 percent, nearly one-fifth, over the last two

[[Page S9169]]

decades. In fact, we have fewer firefighters per capita than nurses and
police officers.
The amendment I am offering with our colleagues, if it is approved
today, will hopefully begin to reverse this disquieting trend. In fact,
the fire chief at Enfield, CT, told me that when he joined the
department, there was a waiting list in order to get on the fire
department. Today they are out every single day seeking to find people
who will make this a career choice. In fact, they are understaffed at
that particular station house.

As to our volunteer departments across the country, particularly in
rural America, the days when people would be able to serve in a
volunteer fire department and work in the town they lived in is
diminishing. More and more people are choosing to live in rural
environments and work someplace else, and they are unable to be
volunteer firefighters in the home communities. Thus, the number of
hired personnel becomes more important. In rural and urban America, the
problem is the same.
These numbers I have just cited have recently been exacerbated by the
fact that many firefighters have been called to active duty in the
National Guard or Army Reserves. According to a recent survey, the
smallest fire departments are disproportionately affected by the call-
up of military personnel, and I note the presence of the Presiding
Officer who comes from the State of Wyoming, where again a lot of small
rural communities have been disproportionately affected by the call-ups
and are feeling it in a very significant way. We are told that these
departments are the least able to absorb the loss of trained staff and
will stand to benefit from assistance made available under this
amendment.
Finally, making matters worse for the fire services are the budget
crises that State and local governments are enduring. This amendment is
not suggesting that this ought to be a permanent program where we
assume the responsibility of paying for the personnel at local fire
departments across America; it is saying that the U.S. Government ought
to be a better partner. Just as we have been doing with the COPS
program, we can be so doing with our fire departments--not at the same
level, not even close to the same level--but being a better partner to
help get this on the right track again. Then hopefully, as our economy
improves, our State and local governments will take over the
responsibility.
Over the next 5 or 6 years, stretching this out, not trying to do it
in 1 year, we can make a real difference in putting some people on the
ground who can make a difference and save lives in this country.
Across our Nation today, firefighter staffing is being cut, and fire
stations are being closed because of State and local budget shortfalls.
These events are occurring at the same time that threats to our Nation
by terrorism are placing unprecedented demands on the Nation's fire
services.
I need not remind our colleagues this morning that we are currently
spending billions of America's tax dollars to reconstruct Iraq. Some of
those very funds are being spent to hire and train Iraqi firefighters
and build fire stations in that nation. If we can find the resources to
hire firefighters and renovate fire stations in Iraq, I do not think it
is outrageous at all to suggest that we might find some resources to
make a difference in hiring some people to protect our own communities
in this great Nation of ours.
Again, I want to emphasize that our amendment is fully paid for, with
reductions in management and administrative expenditures, by allowing
for an increase of 35 percent in those areas, reducing the increase
from 88 to 35 percent, and still by allowing under title 4 the amount
for administrative and management expenditures at levels above those
included in the House-passed bill.
It also has the endorsement of every major firefighter organization
in this country. This is their No. 1 bill. This is their No. 1
priority. If we are going to go back home and talk about the importance
of homeland security and doing a better job, standing up for these men
and women who put their lives on the line every single day for our
country, then it seems to me the very least we can do is see to it that
they have the necessary personnel to do the job, and that is what we
are asking for with this amendment.
America's firefighters are always the first ones in and the last ones
out. They risk their own lives to save the lives of others. They stare
danger in the face every single day because they know they have a duty
to fulfill. On the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, where
343 firefighters lost their lives doing just that, first ones in and
last out, I believe there is no better way for us to commemorate
September 11 and recognize the contribution of those individuals than
to respond to the very organizations who represented them, who have
asked us to do a bit better under this bill to see to it that our
firefighters have the necessary personnel they need in order to do
their job.
I thought I had already done this, but if not, I ask unanimous
consent that Senator Clinton of New York be added as a cosponsor of
this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. At the conclusion of these remarks, I ask unanimous consent
that the letter of full endorsement of the Dodd-Specter amendment by
Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association
of Fire Fighters, be printed in the Record. I have mentioned already
where the fire chiefs are on this issue. I also ask unanimous consent
that the letter from Chief Robert DiPoli, who is the president of the
International Association of Fire Chiefs, of full endorsement of this
legislation as well be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibits 1 and 2.)
This is their priority. This is their opportunity. I need not waste a
lot more time talking about this. I am sure my colleagues understand
its importance. I hope on one of these amendments, a bipartisan
amendment, our colleagues would see fit to be supportive of this
amendment.
I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

International Association

of Fire Fighters,

Washington, DC, September 9, 2004.
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: On behalf of our nation's more than 265,000
professional fire fighters, I am writing to urge your support
for the Dodd-Specter amendment to the Homeland Security
Appropriation (HR 4567) to provide $100 million for a fire
fighter staffing initiative. The amendment is fully offset,
and enjoys bipartisan support.
As you know, Congress last year enacted the SAFER Fire
Fighters Act to address the critical staffing shortage in
both career and volunteer fire departments nationwide. While
other federal programs, such as the FIRE Act, have provided
funding for fire fighter training and equipment, no federal
assistance is currently being provided to ensure that fire
departments have adequate personnel to take advantage of
these resources.
Studies conducted by FEMA, the Council on Foreign
Relations, and other organizations have consistently found
that fire departments throughout the nation lack sufficient
personnel to adequately protect the public. The SAFER Fire
Fighters Act addresses this need by providing temporary
matching funds to enable fire departments to hire additional
fire fighters, and providing grants for the recruitment and
retention of volunteer fire fighters.
Thank you for your consideration, and your continued
support of America's fire fighters. If you have any questions
about this issue, please feel free to contact Barry Kasinitz,
IAFF Director of Governmental Affairs, at 202-824-1581.
Sincerely,
Harold A. Schaitberger,
General President.
____

Exhibit 2

International Association

of Fire Chiefs,

Fairfax, VA, September 13, 2004.
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: On behalf of the nation's fire chiefs, I urge
you to vote for the Dodd-Specter Amendment to the homeland
security appropriations bill. This amendment would fund the
Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response
Firefighters Act of 2004 (the ``SAFER Act'') at $100 million
in Fiscal Year 2004 (FY05).
Established in 1873, the International Association of Fire
Chiefs (IAFC) is a powerful network of more than 12,000 chief
fire and emergency officers. Our members lead fire
departments in responding to structural and wildland fires,
hazardous materials incidents (including chemical,
biological, radiological, and nuclear events), technical
rescues (including swiftwater rescues, confined-space

[[Page S9170]]

rescues, and auto extrication, among others), and emergency
medical situations.
The SAFER Act would go along way toward ensuring the safety
of the public--and firefighters--during each of these
emergency events. Large numbers of fire departments respond
with an inadequate number of personnel. National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1710 requires that, at
a minimum, four members of a fire or emergency medical
services company respond to an event. Often, however, more
personnel are needed. In initiating a complete attack on a
structural fire, for example, four firefighters are needed to
meet OSHA's ``Two In/Two Out'' rule of having two
firefighters inside the building and two outside, in case
those inside need to be rescued. An incident commander is
also required, along with a firefighter operating the water
pump and one person ventilating the building.
Congress authorized the SAFER Act to grant federal funds to
local communities to hire more firefighters. Grants would be
awarded on the basis of need through a competitive, peer-
reviewed process modeled after the highly successful
Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, which assists fire
departments in funding much-needed equipment and training.
The grants would be for a four-year period and must not
exceed a total of $100,000 per firefighter. They require
communities to match the grant (at 10, 20, 50 and 70 percent
in years one through four of the grant, respectively, to
phase down local government dependence on the federal
government). Recipients would be required to retain new hires
for at least one year following the conclusion of federal
funding.
Because volunteer firefighters are such an important part
of America's fire service, SAFER contains a specific
provision to make sure that 10 percent of the appropriated
funds are used for departments with majority volunteer or all
volunteer personnel. In addition, at least 10 percent of the
total appropriated funds must be used to recruit and retain
volunteer firefighters.
Please vote for the Dodd-Specter Amendment to fund SAFER in
FY05.
Sincerely,
Chief, Robert A. DiPoli,
President.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, we appreciate very much the offering of
the amendment by the Senator from Connecticut. We oppose the amendment,
and I have some very persuasive comments I am going to make on that
subject. But before I proceed to do so, the Senator from New York has
indicated an interest in offering an amendment and describing it to the
Senate. I am happy to withhold my discussion of the Dodd amendment.
I ask unanimous consent, if the Senator has no objection, to set
aside his amendment temporarily so the Senator from New York can offer
her amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the courtesy of
my friend and colleague. I know, though, that the Senator from
Connecticut is still on the floor. Perhaps he would want to hear the
immediate response from the chairman of the Homeland Security
Appropriations Subcommittee. So given that, if it is appropriate, I ask
unanimous consent I be permitted to follow Senator Cochran, upon the
conclusion of his response to Senator Dodd.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the bill we presented to the committee--
and the committee approved it and referred it to the Senate for its
consideration--has been very carefully crafted, analyzing the needs of
the Department. We conducted a lot of hearings. We have been in
consultation with the administration, the officials at the Department
who are administering these programs, trying to make sure that, across
the board, we are utilizing the funds that are available to us to get
the maximum amount of benefit, in the most efficient way possible, to
identify the critical and emergency needs we have, and to try to
address those in a way that helps guarantee the safety and security of
our homeland.
This is an important and very challenging task for the Senate. We
appreciate the fact there are going to be differences of opinion and
there are going to be suggestions made to increase this account or that
account, reducing the funding for another, and that is what the Senator
has proposed: that we add money for firefighter grants; that we take
away money from other accounts in the bill, administration accounts. It
is an easy vote to add money for a popular program. That is the easiest
thing that we can do as a Representative or a Senator.
I am not suggesting the amendment is offered just because it calls
for an easy vote, because this amendment suggests not only adding money
for a popular program, but it also offsets by cutting funds for some
that may not be as popular or as well known or understood as well as
the firefighter program.
We all know firefighters. We know what they do. We know how
heroically they performed on 9/11, and how much we depend on them every
day. So we want to be sure they are well funded, that they have the
training they need and the equipment they need, so we want to be
generous.

That is why I point out at the outset that Senator Frist and Senator
Byrd, the former chairman of the full committee, the ranking Democrat
on this subcommittee, and I joined in offering an amendment early in
the consideration of this bill to increase firefighter assistance to
$750 million. The bill now contains the level of funding that was
included in last year's appropriations act for these purposes.
If you look at the history of funding of these programs, the
firefighter assistance grants alone have received over $2.1 billion in
funding since fiscal year 2002.
This does not reflect the resources that have been made available for
fire departments through the basic State grant program or from State
and local government support. They have, after all, the initial
responsibility for these activities.
The amendment suggests offsets that we cannot afford to take. We are
going to put at risk the Department of Homeland Security's initiatives
in many areas if these offsets are approved in this amendment. For
example, the suggestion of the Senator from Connecticut would reduce
the Under Secretary for Management by $70 million, the Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate's account by $20
million, and the Science and Technology Directorate's account by $10
million.
Buffer zone protection plans for critical infrastructure cannot be
completed if the offset, cutting funds for the Infrastructure
Protection Directorate, is approved. If the amendment is adopted,
funding the Homeland Security Operations Center, which serves as the
nerve center for sharing information across all levels of Government
and the private sector, will be decimated.
In addition, the Homeland Security Information Network will not be
able to provide threat information to State and local government
entities as they are expected to do without the funds that are cut out
of the bill by the Dodd amendment.
The management administration account, which is in the Science and
Technology Directorate, provides the front line workers of the
Directorate the funds for grants to university-based research
facilities where many of the new technologies are being developed and
designed, to more fully protect the safety and security of our
homeland.
An immediate freeze is called for in all Federal hiring. The cut
would decrease management administration accounts below last year's
level, significantly and adversely affecting the number of employees in
the Science and Technology Directorate.
The cut in funding could require a layoff of workers due to the
reconfiguration and prioritization that is called for at that
Directorate.
I am hopeful the Senate will carefully review the effect of this
amendment, the damage that it would do to programs that are already
underway that have to do with threat vulnerability programs that we
cannot afford to abandon at this point. We want to work with the
firefighter programs and make sure the grant programs are continued.
They are generously funded in this bill, as I have pointed out, and
they have been. We will continue to defend them, and we will work in
conference to try to accommodate some of the concerns the Senator has
mentioned in his excellent remarks.
For these and other reasons which I may state before we actually get
to a vote on this amendment, I urge the Senate to vote against and
reject the amendment proposed by Senator Dodd.
Mr. DODD. If I may briefly respond, let me thank my colleague again.
As I

[[Page S9171]]

said at the outset, he has a difficult job. Everyone has different
ideas. I understand he has to balance all these.
If I may respectfully challenge what he said on the offsets, because
this is a critical question and obviously we have to pay for these
initiatives. We took money from two different titles in this bill,
Title I and Title IV.
In Title I, which is where the bulk of the money would come from for
the amendment, it would still leave an increase in the account of 35-
percent over last year. The offset reduces it from an 88 percent
increase that is in the underlying legislation.
I should mention at the outset, and I don't want to confuse our
colleagues, that there are two separate proposals. One is the FIRE Act
grant initiative, which the committee has been very supportive of, and
I appreciate that. The bill has funding for $700 million for the FIRE
Act grant program, which provides assistance for training and
equipment. This amendment, however, is about personnel, which is a
different issue. Our argument is that you can get a grant for new
equipment, but it is meaningless if you don't have the personnel to do
the job. That is why the SAFER bill is a top priority for the fire
organizations.
Second, when it comes to the Title IV offsets, you still leave the
administrative and management dollars at a level higher than what is in
the House-passed bill.
So it is not bare-bones budgeting at all in this area. In those three
categories, we are leaving more money than was in last year's budget,
and at least as much as in the House-passed bill in either case.
We did it very carefully with the full knowledge that you don't want
to be robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the expression goes, or cut into
other critical areas. So by reducing across the board in these
management areas, bringing them down to levels that still are above
what they were previously, we think we have come up with a very
balanced approach that deals with a very serious problem, and that is
the 20-percent decline in the number of personnel that is affecting
paid and volunteer departments across the country. It is a glaring
problem that even the U.S. Fire Administration, aside from what
firefighters and fire chiefs are saying, believes is absolutely
critical.
Again, I thank my colleague from Mississippi for allowing me to bring
up the amendment by having a unanimous consent to set aside pending
amendments. If need be, Senator Specter may also want to share some
comments before we finally vote on the matter. Would that be
permissible?
I understand that at a later time another Senator wants to talk on
this before we actually vote. Would that be permissible?
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I think we
have an opportunity for Senators to discuss these amendments out of
order, if they would like. I don't think there would be any objection
made to that.
Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, knowing that the Senator from New York
wishes to offer an amendment, I am not going to talk long. But I want
to make one observation. We ought not to be getting into the business
in the Senate of deciding for States and localities how they spend this
grant money or how they spend the SAFER Act money. We need to have the
flexibility to make those decisions with State and local governments.
If we start telling a fire department they have to buy equipment with
this amount of money, that they have to train people with this other
amount of money, they have to equip trucks and vehicles with this
amount, this amount is for that or the other, we are making a big
mistake.
We are not the managers of these departments. We are not in the
position to make the best decisions about how to efficiently use funds
from Washington that will help our communities be safer and improve the
quality of service provided by firefighters, law enforcement personnel,
emergency management workers, or the rest. That is why the grant
programs are broad and general. The States develop the plans for using
the funds available to them from the Department of Homeland Security in
many of these areas. It is the States and localities we ought to depend
on to make the best decisions.
If we did what the Senator from Connecticut is suggesting we do, we
would get into the business of making these departments allocate funds
for one category or one specific activity or the other, and that is a
big mistake. Adopting this amendment flies right in the face of the
administrative policies that this Department is trying to develop and
implement, and it is working to make our communities safer because we
are leaving the decisions to those who are in the best position to know
what is needed in their communities.

Do the firefighters need training in a certain area or another? I
don't know the answer to that, if it applies to a fire department in my
State. But the chief may know. He ought to know. He is in a better
position to make the recommendations to the State officials as to what
their needs are.
These people are applying for these funds. They are having to set out
how they propose to use them. At other levels of administration, the
decision is made to assign priorities and which ones have a higher
priority than another.
That ought not to be made on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is a
mistake to get into the details as suggested by this amendment and take
money away from activities that are ongoing, that are planned for this
year, and then cut the funding for it. That is just going to make it
more and more difficult to have a coherent, balanced approach to
homeland security.
We hope the Senate will reject the amendment of the Senator from
Connecticut.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment be laid aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 3631

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New York [Mrs. Clinton] proposes an
amendment numbered 3631.

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

(Purpose: To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to allocate
formula-based grants to State and local governments based on an
assessment of threats and vulnerabilities and other factors that the
Secretary considers appropriate, in accordance with the recommendation
of the 9/11 Commission)

On page 19, line 21, insert ``, which shall be allocated
based on factors such as threat, vulnerability, population,
population density, the presence of critical infrastructure,
and other factors that the Secretary considers appropriate,''
after ``grants''.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I again appreciate the courtesy of our
chairman and colleague, the Senator from Mississippi. I also applaud
him for taking on a heavy responsibility with respect to Homeland
Security appropriations. I am going to be offering two amendments that
I believe are necessary.
This first amendment is intended to do what every expert who has
looked at homeland security has recommended and advised us to do.
Most recently, the 9/11 Commission reached the very same conclusion;
that is, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should
allocate formula-based State and local homeland security grants on the
basis of threats and vulnerabilities and other factors that the
Secretary deems appropriate.
There are two major categories of grant money going from Washington
out to the States and localities with respect to homeland security. One
is called the State Homeland Security Grant Program. The other is the
Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Grant Program.
As the Commission stated:

We understand the contention that every State and city
needs to have some minimum

[[Page S9172]]

infrastructure for emergency response. But Federal homeland
security assistance should not remain a program for general
revenue sharing. It should supplement State and local
resources based on the risks or vulnerability that merit
additional support. Congress should not use this money as a
pork barrel.

The Commission, as we know, made a number of recommendations, some of
which are being considered in other bills. We will have reports from
some of the committees working on intelligence reform and the like. But
this is a recommendation that we can and should act on now while we are
debating and considering Homeland Security funding.
Specifically, my amendment does not affect the State minimum in the
bill. I would underscore that, because I know there are legitimate
concerns on the part of my colleagues which I share.
I represent a very diverse State. We have a lot of rural areas. We
have a lot of open space up in particularly the northern part of the
State and the western part of the State. I know very well that every
State has legitimate needs. My bill does not affect the State
minimum. It states that the grant funds above the State minimum should
be allocated based on factors such as threat, vulnerability,
population, population density, the presence of critical
infrastructure, and other factors that the Secretary considers
appropriate.

In crafting this amendment, only the factors mentioned by the 9/11
Commission were included, no more and no less.
As my colleagues know, the 9/11 Commission recommended that an
advisory committee be established to advise the Secretary on any
additional factors that the Secretary of Homeland Security should
consider, such as benchmarks for evaluating community homeland security
needs. As the Commission stated in its report, ``the benchmarks will be
imperfect and subjective, and they will continually evolve. But hard
choices must be made. Those who would allocate money on a different
basis should then defend their view of the national interest.
Not only did the 9/11 Commission recommend that such changes be made
in how Federal homeland security funds are allocated, but so did the
other commissions that we quote in the Senate all the time, commissions
such as the Homeland Security Independent Task Force of the Council on
Foreign Relations, chaired by former Senator Warren Rudman. In fact,
every homeland security expert I have talked to has said that the way
the administration has chosen to allocate funding beyond the PATRIOT
Act minimum--in other words, the State minimum that everybody will
get--to allocate the additional funding beyond the minimum, on a per
capita basis, simply makes no sense other than--I grant this--political
sense. In this area of homeland security, we must, as the 9/11
Commission urged us to do, leave our politics at the door.
This should be a debate about what is in the best interests of our
entire country, every region, and particularly on the basis of those
threats and vulnerabilities that place certain parts of our country at
greater risk than others.
I am concerned because in the Senate report accompanying the bill
that is now before the Senate, there is language that says Secretary
Ridge must allocate funds beyond the all-State so-called PATRIOT
minimum on a per capita basis. In other words, we are not even leaving
it to chance. We are not even leaving it to the discretion of the
Secretary. In the report language of this bill, we are directing, or
certainly strongly urging, the Secretary to allocate that funding on a
per capita basis. That is literally the antithesis of the September 11
report, the Rudman task force. It is also the antithesis of what we
have heard time and time again from Secretary Ridge and even from
President Bush and homeland security experts.
The Rudman task force unequivocally made clear that for the sake of
homeland defense we must employ a better formula. Certainly, they
reached the same conclusion as the 9/11 Commission. I am a little
concerned we have report language in our Senate bill that goes so
contrary to what everyone has said needs to be done.
We have talked many times about the need for a better formula, and we
should continue to talk about it until we actually do something. But it
is discouraging to talk and not act and, in fact, to continue to go in
a different direction.
It is important when we make the decisions about this that we
recognize--I am not just talking about New York or Washington, although
they were specifically mentioned in the 9/11 Commission--there are
other parts of our country that have critical infrastructure. For
example, in southern Louisiana, we have a major port. We have offshore
petroleum platforms. We have part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
river road crossing, facilities pumping natural gas.

Considering that complex critical infrastructure, I imagine the
Secretary of Homeland Security might very well determine the State of
Louisiana should get some extra threat-based funding in order to deal
with what is a very real danger.
We have communities such as Lancaster County, PA. We think of that as
the home of the Amish and beautiful rolling countryside, but it also
has two nuclear powerplants within the borders of that county. There
are only five counties in the entire country that are in that position.
Again, I argue that should be taken into account.
None of this could be taken into account, however, if we follow the
House bill or we follow the report language of the Senate bill and see
where the Secretary is being directed to continue to distribute this
money on a per capita basis.
In closing, with respect to this amendment, it is simply long past
time that we conclude that we must do something on a threat basis, and
in order to do that, we need to give direction to the Secretary. He and
I have had many conversations about this. He has expressed to me on
many occasions his desire to provide threat-based funding, but his
belief is that his hands are tied, because we continue to send the
message to him and to the entire country we are going to distribute
this money on a per capita basis.
I ask that the pending amendment be laid aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 3632

Mrs. CLINTON. I send this amendment to the desk and ask for its
immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New York [Mrs. Clinton], for herself and
Mr. Schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 3632.

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

(Purpose: To appropriate an additional $625,000,000 for discretionary
grants for high-threat, high-density urban areas)

On page 39, between lines 5 and 6, insert the following:
Sec. 515. (a) It is the sense of the Senate that in
allocating Urban Area Security Initiative funds to high-
threat, high-density urban areas, the Secretary of Homeland
Security should ensure that urban areas that face the
greatest threat receive Urban Area Security Initiative
resources commensurate with that threat.
(b) The amount appropriated to the Office of State and
Local Government Coordination and Preparedness for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2005, for discretionary grants for
use in high-threat, high-density urban areas under title III
of this Act is increased by $625,000,000.

Mrs. CLINTON. In addition to my first amendment, which would provide
the Secretary with the discretion to distribute money above the State
minimum, above the so-called PATRIOT Act minimum on the basis of
threat, Senator Schumer and I offer this amendment to provide an
additional $625 million for high-threat urban areas. This is a separate
category of funding in homeland security in addition to the other two I
mentioned.
In this category, we know that the Secretary does have discretion,
but what we have found is that over the last several years the
discretion that he has felt obligated to exercise has meant less money
going to more places as opposed to concentrating money on a threat
analysis so we could really take care of the needs of particular areas
and then move on down to take care of the needs of others.
Last week, when Secretary Ridge spoke at the National Press Club, he
said:

[[Page S9173]]

I would tell you that we assess the level of terrorist
threat outside of Washington and New York, which will always
be at the top of the list. I mean, that's just a fact of
life. . . . I'm not telling you anything [new]. It's not
news.
New York City, for obvious reasons--the impact on the
economy and al-Qaida has always talked about the disruption
or the undermining of our national economy. It's not just the
iconic nature of New York City. A lot of the stock exchanges,
the financial services community drives not only our national
economy but the international economy.
And Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, will always be
targets.

The 9/11 Commission and all the commissions before it, President
Bush, and Secretary Ridge have all acknowledged the acute homeland
security needs of high-threat urban areas, especially New York and
Washington.
I was delighted the recent Republican convention in New York went so
well. Everyone seemed to have a great time in the greatest city in the
world. The amount of work, the extraordinary expense of making it run
so smoothly, was defrayed to some extent by Federal assistance, but to
a large measure it reflected the ongoing investment that the people of
the city of New York and the State of New York made in ensuring that we
are always on high alert because, in fact, in New York City we are
always on high alert.
Yet despite that, last year, the Department of Homeland Security
allocated only $47 million to the New York City area under the high-
threat program. They admit that was insufficient. Everyone who looked
at it knows it is insufficient.

Our mayor has come forth with a very scrubbed list of immediate needs
that is in the area of about $600 million just for New York City. That
is why I am offering this amendment along with my colleague. I
recognize Secretary Ridge has the authority to allocate high-threat
resources in the way he deems appropriate. But, unfortunately, there is
not enough money in the pot for him to do the job he knows needs to be
done. So my amendment expresses the sense of the Senate that in
allocating resources under the Urban Area Security Initiative, the
Secretary should allocate commensurate with the threat these areas
face.
Now, $47 million, which was the allocation last year to New York
City, is a lot of money. But it pales in comparison to the $200 million
the New York City Police Department alone spends on counterterrorism
activities and the $1 billion in New York City's specific homeland
security needs.
My guess is many of our guests at the Republican Convention enjoyed
the city in part because the police presence was so pervasive and the
reputation of our firefighters so well deserved for courage and bravery
that it was not a matter you needed to think much about. You could get
out and enjoy the city and go back and forth to hotels and go out for
meals and maybe even go to the theater. I was thrilled by that. I am
always very happy when people come to New York City.
But the very bottom line is, we are not getting adequate funding to
be as prepared as we need to be. And other high-threat areas are also
in the same position. I hope we are able to recognize these two
amendments are real, commonsense amendments. They are aimed at making
sure the money gets where it is most needed and at increasing the money
that is specifically addressing high-threat urban areas. Because,
unfortunately, we are playing a little bit of a shell game here. We are
cutting money for first responders, which is why I strongly support the
amendment from my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut.
We are expecting those firefighters and police officers and emergency
responders and emergency room doctors and nurses and others to be ready
when we need them. Hopefully, we will not need them, but they better be
ready if we do need them. Yet we are cutting money for first
responders. The omnibus Byrd amendment that we failed to pass in the
Senate last week tried to address that. It is unfortunate we are taking
money away with one hand while we are giving it back with the other.
But what we are giving back does not make up for either what was lost
or what is needed.
I hope we can address the continuing emergency needs when it comes to
our first responders. There is nothing more important--I am told this
all the time--than funding specifically for interoperable
communications systems. Unfortunately, there is no money in this bill
to help our first responders do that. This is something we have talked
about now for 3 years. Our police and firefighters could not talk to
each other in New York. This is a problem that happens all over the
country. Yet we do not seem to address it.
Again, the 9/11 Commission came forward with a good recommendation:

[H]igh-risk urban areas such as New York City
and Washington, D.C., should establish single corps units
to ensure communications connectivity between and among
civilian authorities, local first responders, and the
National Guard. Federal funding of such units should be
given high priority by Congress.

I hope we will do that before we finish this bill. I hope we can
recognize that in most parts of our country that face these risks--
whether it is a tourist attraction such as Las Vegas or a large
melting-pot city as Los Angeles or, of course, other cities of similar
size and population density--having interoperable communications among
and between first responders is essential to being able to deal with
both threat and reality.
We are on the lookout for potential terrorist activities and we need
to be able to hope that all of our various law enforcement and
firefighting responders and others are preventers as well as responders
and are well equipped to do that. We can do the right thing by
increasing the amount in the high-threat urban areas. If we put in the
$625 million Senator Schumer and I are recommending in this amendment,
we would bring the total appropriated amount to $1.5 billion. This is
the amount I have been arguing for and fighting for in legislation I
introduced back in January of this year. It is also in line with
President Bush, according to his proposed fiscal year 2005 budget. In
that budget, he called for $1,446,000,000 specifically for high-threat
urban areas.
So again, everybody seems to be in sync except our Congress. I do not
understand that. I find it bewildering that we have the administration
proposing this amount of money, we have every expert proposing this
amount of money, but when it comes to action on the floor of the Senate
and the House, somehow we do not do it. I hope my colleagues will
support both of my amendments. I hope they will go along with the 9/11
Commission report which has won broad bipartisan support. It is,
apparently, the fastest selling paperback in the country. A lot of
Americans are reading it, digesting it. It is not only a debate among
experts and policy wonks and security gurus.
There is now a debate that is happening out in America. And it is a
life-or-death debate. It goes to the heart of whether we are serious
about homeland security, whether we are going to put our dollars where
our words have been, whether we are going to get the results we need so
we can feel confident we have done everything we know to do.
So I ask my colleagues for support of the two amendments I have
offered today and, in keeping with the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, to do so in a broad bipartisan way that sends a signal to
not only our Nation but to any who wish us ill anywhere in the world
that we are vigilant, we are prepared, we are doing all we humanly know
to do to prevent and deter attacks and respond effectively should one
occur.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.

Amendment No. 3631

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am sure Senators are aware that the
Governmental Affairs Committee of the Senate has jurisdiction over the
legislative authority, the law, creating the Department of Homeland
Security. In that, legislation grant programs are described, allocation
formulas are contained, that give guidance to the distribution of
Federal funds to States and localities for various programs.
The Senator from New York is suggesting, by her first amendment, that
the appropriations bill that is before the Senate should be amended to
change the way the grants are being given to States and localities. The
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee has already addressed this issue.
Hearings have been held. A review and consideration of various changes
in the allocation process have all been reviewed. And the committee has
acted.

[[Page S9174]]

They have reported out of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee S.
1245. That is a Senate bill called the Homeland Security Grant
Enhancement Act. The act, as reported by the committee, will modify the
formula for distributing domestic preparedness grants.
If the Senate wants to take action as suggested by the Senator from
New York, it can adopt that bill or amend it as may be suggested by the
Senator from New York. That is the appropriate vehicle for revising
first responder grant funding, not this appropriations bill. We are
bound by the law. We are funding the programs authorized by the law. We
are giving funds according to the priorities of that law. Every time we
have an annual appropriations bill, we cannot change the way those
formulas are written. That would be bad policy, bad practice, and it
should not be followed in this instance on this issue.
Every State in the Nation is entitled to a base level of Federal
support for homeland security needs. A State's size or population does
not necessarily reflect the level of danger to a State's population or
to a city's population. Each State has the responsibility to make
decisions that are designed to protect the property and the lives of
its citizens, and they must allocate State resources--and local
resources may be allocated as well--to train, equip, and maintain
qualified first responders for those purposes.
I believe the committee has done a very good job of analyzing and
recognizing the needs of our larger and most threatened cities. In the
fiscal year 2003 appropriations and the wartime supplemental, $850
million was set aside for high-threat urban discretionary grants. In
fiscal year 2004, in the appropriations bill, a further $725 million
was set aside for these high-threat urban areas. The bill now before
the Senate contains $875 million dedicated to high-threat urban
discretionary grants. Taken together, this is over $2.4 billion just
for the urban areas of our country. This is on top of the basic grant
each State receives.
The Department of Homeland Security has developed a model using
classified information to allocate resources to major urban areas based
on a combination of current threat estimates, critical assets within
the urban area, as well as population density. The formula uses a
combination of these factors to produce proportional resource
allocations. Of the high-threat urban grant funding for fiscal year
2004, over $79 million has gone to communities in New York State. Since
the inception of the Urban Area Security Initiative, over $316 million
has been made available to cities in New York. These funds are in
addition to the dollars that were received by the State of New York
through the basic State grants.
In fiscal year 2004, more than $141 million in discretionary high-
threat funding has been allocated to communities in California. Since
the inception of the Urban Area Security Initiative, more than $247
million has been made available to the State of California. So the
needs of our urban areas and the States with high population centers
are already being addressed. But so, too, are those in other States of
our great Nation.
We should not come in on this bill today with this amendment and
change the formula for the basic State grant program. That debate
should occur when the Senate considers the Governmental Affairs
Committee bill, S. 1245, which is now on the calendar of the Senate.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the first amendment of the Senator
from New York.
The second amendment the Senator has offered deals with Urban Area
Security Initiative funding and suggests to the Senate that the amount
available in the bill should be increased. In this bill, as in last
year's appropriation, we have continued to provide funds specifically
for the largest metropolitan areas that face the most risk. The Urban
Area Security Initiative grant fund is distributed at the discretion of
the Secretary of Homeland Security. I have mentioned that. It is based
on current threat information and other factors. With the resources
available, the bill makes the best use of these limited resources.
Let me make that point again. These are limited resources. This
committee has been allocated a certain amount of money, around $32
billion, to provide funding for this next fiscal year for activities
under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security and other
agencies that are funded in this bill. With those limitations, choices
have to be made. It would be good to be able to increase funding for
all of the programs in this bill. They are all worthwhile programs or
they would not be in the bill. They are all important activities. But
at some point the committee has to make a decision. It has to say: This
is the amount that is allocated for this next fiscal year for this
particular account or program.

This bill includes $875 million for the Urban Area Security
Initiative. Since fiscal year 2003, including the amount provided here,
over $2.4 billion will have been made available for the Urban Area
Security Initiative. The Senator's amendment would add an additional
$625 million, almost doubling the Urban Area Security Initiative, to
this grant program.
Because of the reasons I have cited, at the appropriate time, I will
suggest that a point of order should lie against this amendment.
Next let me read another provision of the committee report which I
think will explain why it is important for us to reject this amendment:

The Committee is concerned with the administration of the
funds available to assist the communities most in danger in
the United States. The continued expansion of the cities
eligible for this funding has the impact of diluting the
resources that have been made available, shortchanging those
communities with the most serious quantifiable threat. The
Committee believes the Department achieved a more optimal use
of the funds in fiscal year 2003. Further, the Committee
believes the Department's practice over the past two fiscal
years, to allocate the full amount appropriated for the
program at one time near the beginning of the year, leaves
the Department with little ability to respond to new or
updated intelligence or recent terrorist threats.
Consequently, the Committee recommends that at least 10
percent of the funds appropriated for the program be reserved
to meet any needs over the course of the fiscal year
warranted by more current threat information and
intelligence. Any reserve funds remaining at the beginning of
the last quarter of the fiscal year shall be released to
fiscal year 2005 grant recipients as determined by the
Secretary.

It is my hope that the Senate will reject both of the amendments
offered by the Senator from New York.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from New York.

Amendment No. 3632

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment
introduced by my colleague and friend, Senator Clinton, and me. It
doesn't take money away from anybody else. It simply increases the
amount of money to the high-needs areas. There are lots of ways to skin
this cat. It is clear that the areas most under threat, cities such as
New York City, the No. 1 target, as we know, of the terrorists, need
far more help than we get. I think there has been a general outcry by
the 9/11 Commission and many others that it is so unfair to give, say,
the State of Wyoming more on a per-capita basis than New York City gets
in terms of terror. I don't doubt the need Wyoming has for dollars. But
if Wyoming has the need for dollars, certainly New York has a greater
need for dollars.
What we have done with this amendment, which is one way to do it, is
to simply increase the high-needs area. It does not touch the general
formula but, rather, goes to high needs.
Let me share a little history about this high-needs area. As you may
know, when we first were setting up this formula, I spent a lot of time
negotiating with the White House as to how we would allocate money.
Then the point person for the White House was the Secretary of OMB,
Mitch Daniels. We came to the conclusion that obviously every State
needed some money. And knowing how the House and Senate work, we
weren't going to get a formula which would send money to the 5 or 10
largest cities or the 5 or 10 largest focal points. So we negotiated
the formula in two parts.
The first was the general formula, and there was a specific need for
every State and taking care of those States. Now, the remainder of that
formula, which we are not discussing now, was supposed to be allocated
by discretion by the administration. They basically punted the ball and
did that on a per capita basis.

[[Page S9175]]

I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. COCHRAN. I will not object. I have a unanimous consent request to
make.
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield to the Senator for that purpose.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:20
today, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Mikulski
amendment No. 3624, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior
to the vote; provided further that there be 2 minutes equally divided
for debate prior to the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Schumer has asked for 5 minutes and
I have no objection to that. The other Senator from New York may wish
additional time.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I have no objection.
Mr. REID. The Senator from New York wishes 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we had the high-needs formula, which
really didn't do justice to the areas that had the highest needs. We
came up with this high-needs formula.
Frankly, the first year it worked quite well and quite fairly. The
bottom line is that, of the high-needs allocation the first year, which
I believe was $700 million, New York City, the city that has been the
focus of both terrorist attacks, received $225 million. While still on
a per capita basis, we were not getting what we thought was a fair
share, it certainly came a lot closer.
But what has happened is two things. First, on the high-needs
formula, other localities came in and asked for money. They said they
are a high-needs area. The number of cities last year that were under
the high-needs rubric expanded. The first year it was a handful, the
next year it was 30, and last year it was 50. So now lots of localities
are competing for this high-needs money. That is fine. I am not one to
begrudge that. I think we are not doing enough on homeland security,
and this is one place we should be spending more dollars.
We are not trying to take away money from the high-needs area. I
remind my colleagues that the amendment we are offering will apply to a
larger number of cities than first proposed. But the bottom line is
very simple; that is, once the high-needs funding was spread among many
cities, the cities of the greatest need, such as New York and
Washington, did not get the dollars they needed. Over the last 3 years,
the amount of money that New York City has received has shrunk and
shrunk and shrunk. The bottom line is very simple: We are not getting
what we need.
Let me talk about some of the needs in New York City. I live in
Brooklyn, a proud Brooklynite. We have the Brooklyn Bridge, which
crosses from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Every time I cross that bridge--
usually by car and once in a while on a bicycle--there are two police
officers at each end of the bridge. That bridge is guarded 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, as it must be. We picked up somebody in Ohio a few
years ago who was intent on trying to destroy that bridge. Well, that
is 20 police officers, because it is five shifts of four people.
Multiply that by the number of bridges and tunnels comparable to the
Brooklyn Bridge in New York and that shows you the magnitude of what we
are doing.
It is the same thing with our firefighters and our emergency
responders and our hospitals. All of them have had to do so much more
because our city is at the epicenter more, quite frankly, than a
hospital, police department, or a firefighting department in a middle-
sized city in the middle of America, which doesn't have to do quite
what we do. My guess is that bridges in Omaha, or Wichita, or
Albuquerque are not guarded by two police officers at either end for 24
hours a day, 7 days a week; nor should they be. But they have to be in
New York.
We will do everything we can to prevent another 9/11. Yet as we have
gone further along, the amount of money New York City has been given
has decreased. I know there are other cities that have needs. I worked
hard to see that Buffalo was included in this formula, with $10
million. A few other cities in upstate New York have problems.
So there are only two ways to go about solving this problem. One is
to rob Peter to pay Paul, to reallocate the funds that are there. That
is not this amendment. We don't touch that. The other is to increase
the high-needs funding, so the cities that are under the greatest
threat and the greatest danger can at least be reimbursed in greater
part. Certainly, we won't be made whole for the homeland security
efforts that we must undertake.
We heard a few months ago, when we picked up the new intelligence,
what the areas were they were focusing on: Washington, DC, and the New
York City metropolitan area; five buildings, two in DC, two in
Manhattan, and one in northern New Jersey. Again, we can bring home the
need to focus that should be here. Yet we are not doing it.
Let me tell you, if you think we don't have the money, we are going
to spend $416 billion on defense this year. We are only spending $33
billion on homeland security in toto. We are spending less than $2
billion on helping our first responders, on helping our localities that
have worked so hard and so well to defend us from terrorism. It would
seem to me that any fair allocation of dollars would be giving New York
City more money, giving some of the other cities more money.
Let me go over the numbers. Last year, New York's share of high-needs
areas dropped to 9 percent. We didn't receive 9 percent of the attacks.
Thus far--and I hope there are no more anywhere in America--we received
100 percent of the two terrorist attacks that have occurred.
Our city, as I say, is struggling. We have needs like everybody else.
We have a great police department, a great fire department, a great EMT
department, and great hospitals. But they cannot do it alone. So it is
my hope that our colleagues will rise to the occasion.
This money, as I say, will not just benefit New York but other cities
of high needs throughout the country. Let's stop underfunding this very
needed program. Let's stop saying let the other guy do it. In a time of
terrorism, we need leadership. This amendment represents leadership,
and I hope we can get the sufficient number of our colleagues on both
sides of the aisle to support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to respond to some of the points
made by the chairman of the subcommittee. I start by saying that as I
understand the underlying legislation from the House, there is no
language, either legislative or report, that addresses how the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should distribute the
funding above the small State minimum.
The language that my amendment is addressing specifically appears in
the report to the Senate bill. So I want everyone to understand that I
agree every State should receive a minimum level of funding. I think
that is not only politically necessary, it is appropriate and fair.
Based on the calculation of that funding, about 38 percent of all of
the homeland security funding in the two biggest grant categories for
the State homeland security grants and the terrorism prevention grants
will go across the board on a per capita basis to all the States. So
everybody will get a per capita basis that they can then use to meet
their homeland security needs.
Now, the remaining 62 percent of the money is what my formula
amendment is addressing. At the very least, the Senate should not be,
in report language, recommending that the Department of Homeland
Security also distribute the funding on a per capita basis. That runs
absolutely counter to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The
9/11 Commission said do away with small State minimums, do away with
any kind of per capita funding, begin to distribute this money on the
basis of risk and threat. Yet we get a committee recommendation from
our Senate committee which basically recommends that the funds that are
used consistent with each State's homeland security strategy are to be
allocated on a per capita basis.

[[Page S9176]]

So it is not only that we are failing to change the formula to comply
with the 9/11 Commission, we are directing the Department of Homeland
Security not to comply with the 9/11 Commission.
I am not saying take the money away from all the States and direct it
where it is most needed. I am not going the full place that the 9/11
Commission has set out for us. I am recognizing the political reality
and the fairness of allocating money to every State. At the very least,
let us not direct the Department of Homeland Security to distribute the
money above the small State minimum on a per capita basis. So I hope we
could remove that language, and my formula amendment would do that.
Secondly, we cannot wait for the Governmental Affairs Committee to
come forward with their authorization. I stood on this floor months ago
and said we needed to change the risk and threat analysis in order to
distribute the money more effectively. The very effective chairwoman of
that committee came down to the floor and said: We are working on a
change of formula. Work with us. Let us get the authorization changed.
We have been waiting for that bill ever since. There is no
authorization. The only opportunity we have to begin to try to focus
our efforts on homeland security to address the kind of threats that we
face is in this appropriations. In fact, the door has been opened
because in this appropriations bill coming from the House, they talk
about a PATRIOT Act minimum, and then the Senate committee goes one
step forward and says above that minimum do not direct it any other way
except per capita.
So I understand very well that everybody has to look out for his or
her own State, but on this matter we have to put the money where the
threat is, and the threat is in places such as New York and Washington.
Every committee, every commission that has looked at this has come to
the same conclusion.
So I look forward to working with the chairman to make it possible to
distribute the money on a threat-based analysis as opposed to directing
the Department to distribute the money above the small State minimum,
62 percent of the money, also on a per capita basis.
I yield the floor.

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