Gasoline Price Reduction Act of 2004

Mr. Speaker, we have now gone about 1,000 days since the attack on this country on 9/11, and this bill is supposed to deal with our efforts to protect the homeland. I think that to evaluate how good those efforts are, we need to compare the challenges with the resources that we are applying to meet those challenges. And if we do, I think there will be no doubt that we are mistakenly trying to do this job on the cheap.

Let me give my colleagues some examples of inadequacies in this appropriations bill.

Air cargo. Air cargo is a huge threat to the safety of the flying public. If the public understood what a tiny percentage of cargo that is shipped on passenger planes is actually inspected, they would be shocked. It is a tiny percentage. We ought to do something about that. This bill prevents us from doing that.

The gentleman from Florida discussed correctly the need for more in- line explosive detection devices at airports. We wanted to try to do that in the bill; but, again, we are precluded from doing that by the budget ceiling. The chairman of the committee himself has indicated how important that is. Yet we are not going to be able to make any significant advances on that front under this bill.

If we take a look at the problem that we have with military pilots being able to communicate with commercial pilots, if you have a terrorist incident or a potential terrorist incident and a military aircraft is trying to track a civilian aircraft, it would be kind of nice if those two pilots could talk directly to each other and to the ground. But right now, we do not have the software system in place that will enable that to happen. That is a dumb omission.

We also have some problems with respect to ports.

Now, the new idea in protecting our ports is to establish inspectors at foreign ports so that they can review what goes into those cargo container boxes before they ever leave that port on their way to the United States. But we have a big problem. There are only 20 ports out of the 45 major ports that we need to cover where we have that kind of inspection activity going on; we have none going on in China, and China imports three times as much through cargo shipping as does Hong Kong, for instance.

Worse yet, the inspectors on the job in those foreign ports are assigned temporary duty for about 6 months apiece. They cannot get to know the territory; they cannot get to know the people they work with in those ports during that time. They should be long-term assignments, but we do not have the money in the bill to do that.

The northern border. The PATRIOT Act, with all of its problems, the PATRIOT Act required that we have a specific number of inspectors on the northern border. We are 2,000 short of the number that was supposedly guaranteed by the PATRIOT Act. First responders, those are the policemen, the firemen who deal with the incidents where they occur in the local community, on the ground, we have been told by the Rudman- Hart Commission that there is about $90 billion worth of need that we need to address. We have only met about 15 percent of that need.

We have fewer firefighters in this country today than we had on 9/11. Do you call that progress?

And then, we have the massive problems in the Homeland Security Agency. Of the 500 career slots in that agency, or roughly 500 career slots, 171 of them are vacant. Twenty-five percent of the slots in that agency are filled by political appointees. Is it any wonder that there is considerable chaos?

More than a year after the reorganization, that agency still does not have a phone directory. I was talking to a fellow 2 days ago who was trying to talk to the Homeland Security Agency about getting a contract, to meet a need that they were advertising; he did not even know who to call or how to find out because they do not have a phone directory.

It does not make a lot of sense.

General Zinni has made the point that when it comes to dealing with this terrorist threat that we have a lot of tactical activities going on but not very many strategic. I just think we need to face the fact this bill is not adequate.

And then, as has already been mentioned by several other Members, it has this weird feature which allows the Homeland Security Agency to give a contract that would be valued up to $10 billion to a company for the purpose of tracking who crosses our borders, they want to give that contract to a company that has already jumped our borders and decided they will locate for tax purposes in Bermuda. That means they duck their taxes, and your constituents and mine get the privilege of making up the difference.

Great deal. Great deal. That is why I would urge every Member of this House to vote against the previous question on the rule so we can offer amendments to correct these problems and to vote against the rule if we cannot bring down the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I am inserting in the Record at this point the text of the comments I made in the report accompanying the Homeland Security Appropriation bill made in order by this rule.

Additional Views of David Obey

It has been a thousand days since al Qaeda launched its

first successful attack within U.S. borders. Since that time

many changes have taken place inside our country and in the

way we deal with other nations around the world. Most of

those changes have been justified as steps that were

necessary to insure that nothing like September 11th ever

happens again. But how much progress have we really made? How

far have we come in reducing the likelihood that it will

happen again?

One thousand days has often been viewed as a period of time

for communities and even whole nations to stop and take

stock. What have we done right? What have we done wrong? What

are our largest remaining areas of vulnerability? What are

our prospects of getting hit again?

I think our efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks can

be divided into three stages. The first step was to hit al

Qaeda and hit them hard. Take the battle to them. Destroy

their leadership; their ability to communicate; their ability

to raise and transfer funds; their ability to obtain weapons

and to move members between countries and most importantly,

their capacity to organize attacks against the United States.

The second step was to understand the factors in the Arab

and Muslim worlds that feed this kind of senseless anger and

why that anger has been directed toward the United States.

Why did so many ordinary people in the Muslim world cheer on

September 11th and what does it take to reduce or at least

redirect the anger that is now so focused on us.

Thirdly, what are we doing to upgrade our defenses here at

home? What goals have we set? Do they make sense? How well

have we performed in reaching those goals?

Attack Against Al Qaeda

With respect to the first goal, I think the United States

has for the most part performed well particularly if we look

at the early stages of our effort and if we view al Qaeda as

an organization, rather than an idea or a cause. The

organization's leadership has been significantly diminished.

While a number of its most senior leaders have survived, the

best evidence indicates that they have grave difficulty

communicating with others in the organization or playing any

kind of day-to-day leadership role. Significant numbers of

lesser figures in the organization are still at large and

they are very dangerous. But they face much greater

challenges moving about the world, receiving the training

necessary to successfully execute large scale attacks and

getting the materials and support necessary to launch such

attacks.

The initial phases of our attack against al Qaeda were

highly successful. The planning and execution of the

overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was a high-water mark

in our efforts against terrorism. The initial cooperation

that we received in the wake of September 11th--from our

traditional allies in Europe and also from nations across the

globe that have at times been less than friendly to U.S.

interests was also impressive.

losing focus in afghanistan

But somehow, we lost our focus. Having destroyed the

Taliban's capability to rule Afghanistan we did not move

aggressively to insure that the government that we support in

its stead could fill the void. We did not invest anything

like the level of resources for Afghanistan that was needed

to make rapid, noticeable changes in the quality of life.

Because of that, in a large portion of the country, we did

not have the leverage to strengthen the hand of central

government, extend the rule of law, and deny terrorists safe

haven. We also did not sufficiently exert our influence to

insure that the Afghan army that we were attempting to build

was representative enough of the various ethnic and tribal

groups across the country to become a credible force for

stability and unification.

But the attack on al Qaeda began to loose steam outside of

Afghanistan as well. Talented intelligence operatives with

highly specialized knowledge of Arab culture, language and

political behavior were diverted from the listening posts and

operations centers across the Arab world where al Qaeda

activity was most likely to surface to undertake a quite

different mission. Financial resources, talented

administrators and trainers who might have helped our allies

in the Arab world improve their own military and intelligence

capabilities against indigenous terrorist organizations were

also diverted. The striking momentum that characterized the

early phases of our efforts against Al Qaeda has greatly

dissipated. The organization has lost much of its backbone,

but many of its pieces are still out there attempting to

reorganize and regenerate the segments that have been lost.

We no longer have the focus to our effort to insure that that

does not happen.

Still, you would have to say that our efforts against al

Qaeda have been a success--at least if al Qaeda is viewed

simply as an organization. The problem is that al Qaeda is as

much as idea as it is an organization and ideas are hard to

kill. Bullets can kill organizations--they sometimes only

strengthen ideas.

As General Anthony Zinni said recently in a lecture before

the Center for Strategic and International Studies, while we

may be winning the war on terrorism on a tactical level, on

the strategic level we don't appear to even have a plan.

Osama bin Laden never intended al Qaeda to be the command

structure for the jihad against the United States. The term

``al Qaeda'' means simply, ``the base.'' Bin Laden wanted to

create a network to support and encourage jihad. He wanted to

attack and overthrow the Arab governments around the world

that he viewed as corrupt and out of sync with his views on

the teachings of the Koran and he wanted to attack the

foreign power that stood behind most of those governments--

the United States. Bin Laden's challenge was to create a

blueprint that could be used for such attacks and to inspire

large numbers of disgruntled members of the Arab and Muslim

world to follow that blueprint. He wanted to create a

movement that represented more than a small army of

terrorists--a movement that could bring down moderate Arab

governments and, with the overwhelming support of Arab

peoples, drive the United States from the Middle East.

American Image in Arab World

While bin Laden has suffered huge organizational setbacks

over the past thousand days, he has been enormously

successful in progress made toward his one strategic

objective. He has captured the attention of the Arab world

and much of the Muslim world. To a remarkable degree he has

even won their sympathies, and in some instances, their

commitment. If we wish to reverse that, we must begin to

think strategically as well as tactically. We must succeed in

our efforts to take the second step, to reshape the image of

the United States in the Arab and Muslim worlds. We must not

only strengthen the determination of our friends in the

region to resist terrorism but also encourage them to address

the underlying problems that feed it. Even for many of the

brightest and most industrious young people in many Arab

countries, hope is in short supply. While the energy

resources of the region have brought great wealth to a few, a

chance has largely been missed for many governments to use

those resources to build opportunity economies.

How we change our image in the Arab world and what policies

we should pursue to accomplish it is an issue that will spark

debate and some division in this country. That debate needs

to begin and it is the responsibility of leaders in both the

executive and legislative branches to begin it.

Upgrading Our Defenses At Home

Given how poorly we have done over the past thousand days

in stemming the anti-American passions in the Middle East, it

is even more important that we do a good job in the third

step required for a successful strategy: upgrading our

defenses here at home.

In evaluating our performance on that front, it is

important that we distinguish motion from movement. I am

afraid that in many respects we have had more activity than

we have had progress.

On September 11th, we had more than 130 agencies and

activities of the federal government engaged in some aspect

of homeland security. Those pieces of the bureaucracy were

spread across most of the Departments of the federal

government. There was no central capacity to oversee or

monitor how well they worked together. Many of these agencies

had only a fraction of the resources necessary to accomplish

the security tasks that experts in the field believed could

prevent future attacks.

So, after a thousand days, what has changed?

Homeland Security On The Cheap

Well, we are certainly spending more money. The government

is spending about $5 billion a year more just on airport

baggage and passenger screening. We have expanded the size of

the customs service and the immigration service. We have

bought new equipment in our ports to screen cargo coming into

the United States from international shipping and we have had

a significant

growth in law enforcement activities. But if you compare

the challenge we face with the resources we are using to

meet those challenges, it is clear we are trying to do

this on the cheap. We are like someone with a good paying

job who must get to work on time every day in order to

keep that job. But instead of building the most reliable

car he can find, he gets a fifteen year old model--one

that will get him there most of the time but will

eventually cost him his good paying job.

Failure in establishing our defenses against terrorism

places lives at risk. It also puts at risk our capacity as a

society to generate wealth. Although the greatest loss would

most certainly be measured in human life, penny pinching on

necessary security is foolhardy from a simple economic

perspective.

This legislation continues funding failures

Many in government, including the President and the

Attorney General, have warned that we are likely to be

attacked by terrorists on our homeland within the next nine

months. Given this information, you would think that we would

be doing everything humanly possible to improve the security

of our homeland. The legislation accompanying this report is

the prime vehicle to provide the resources to do that.

Unfortunately, it represents a stark failure to improve

protection of our citizens in any meaningful way against the

wide-ranging scope of the threat facing us today.

The fact is that we are not doing all we can to protect

Americans from another terrorist attack. The legislation

accompanying this report provides an increase of $2.8 billion

or 9.4 percent over the previous year. Yet excluding Project

Bioshield and user fees, the bill is only $1.1 billion or 5

percent above the previous year. Despite the Department's

huge security responsibilities, this is only slightly above

inflation.

This legislation provides a resource level equal to only

slightly more than inflation for our customs and border

protection and enforcement operations and for port security.

Worse, this legislation cuts funding for programs designed to

improve the response capabilities of our local police,

firefighters and emergency responders by $327 million or

seven percent from 2004.

OMB's homeland security spending analysis

OMB has prepared an analysis of homeland security spending

which is seriously flawed. Programs that were not counted as

homeland security a few years ago have now suddenly been

shifted into the homeland security category in order to

convey the impression of a greater increase in effort than

has actually taken place. Nonetheless, the OMB exercise is

instructive for getting a big picture sense of what we are

doing to address critical security issues. In total, OMB

argues that we have gone from spending $20 billion a year--or

about two tenths of one percent of GDP in fiscal 2000--to $46

billion a year, or less then four-tenths of one percent

today. That means that, even based on OMB accounting, our

increase in homeland security spending has been less than two

tenths of one percent. To provide some perspective on that

number, the share of GDP paid in federal taxes has dropped

from 20.8% to 16.4% during that same period--a decline of

4.4% or twenty two times the size of the increase in

spending to protect against terrorism.

Another perspective on the level of effort we have made

thus far is the oft-used analogy of Pearl Harbor. Pearl

Harbor led us to the creation of the concept of Gross

Domestic Product. The Roosevelt Administration believed that

it might require 50% of our total output to take on the

Germans and the Japanese simultaneously. They asked the

Commerce Department to develop a method of measuring national

output. They not only produced the concept that is now used

around the world to measure economic activity, but they were

also actually able to reach that goal of spending nearly half

of the nation's output on the war effort.

We do not need to put 50% of our output into this war or

even 5%. Whether you think that our war effort in Iraq is

associated with the war on terror or is a separate and

competing activity, expenditures related to that activity

account for more than 1% of GDP--more than twice as much as

we are spending on activities directly related to protecting

the homeland. Given that fact, it is blatantly ridiculous to

pretend that we cannot afford what we need to protect against

terrorist attacks.

Another major attack could erase a trillion or two trillion

dollars from the total valuation of the New York Stock

Exchange. It could substantially slow the pace of economic

growth for a year or more. Again, the most important

consequence of a terrorist attack is the loss of human life,

but penny pinching on homeland security makes no sense. Even

if we consider only the economics of the issue, the Institute

for the Analysis of Global Security found that the cost of

the 9/11 attack was nearly 2 trillion dollars, including the

loss in stock market wealth, lower corporate profits and

higher discount rates for economic volatility.

Now it should be noted that the Administration's FY 2005

budget attempts to make a case that in future years we can

reduce the size of federal deficits from the current record

levels and still afford additional tax cuts. In making that

case their projections for future year spending levels in

various categories of the budget are revealing. Homeland

Security spending is essentially locked into place at current

levels. In fact, what OMB is telling us is that unless the

American people or the Congress force a change in priorities,

what we have now for securing the nation is all that we are

going to get and could decline by as much as $900 million.

But the question we should be asking is: Are we really

doing enough? Are there things that we really ought to be

doing that the resource levels we have allocated to the

problem prevent us from doing?

aviation security gaps remain

One lesson from September 11th that virtually no one could

miss is the need to secure our airlines and our airways. We

have spent considerably more on this objective than on any

area of homeland security. But there are a surprising number

of resource issues still unaddressed with respect to

protecting our airways.

For example, we still do not have an effective system of

explosive detection. Put more directly, it is still much too

easy to get explosive materials onto passenger airlines.

The Transportation Security Administration has identified

equipment that could have provided us with that capability.

It's expensive, (it would have cost close to $3 billion to

install the equipment nationwide) but it would have

dramatically improved our capacity to detect explosive

materials. It also would have significantly reduced the

number of screeners required in airports around the country.

In fact, the savings in TSA personnel costs from the use of

this equipment was estimated to be large enough to offset the

entire cost of the equipment.

The Transportation Security Administration proposed to OMB

that the agency purchase much of the needed equipment when it

was preparing its plans to meet the 2002 explosive detection

requirement set in law. But OMB decided that the expense

could not be accommodated within the tight, arbitrary limits

for homeland security spending which the President and the

Director of OMB had decided to impose. Republicans in

Congress then adopted a budget resolution that did not

provide the Appropriations Committee with the latitude to

move forward with the purchase. As a result we do not have an

effective system of detecting explosive materials and that

failure is due entirely to artificial constraints on

resources and incompetent budgeting. TSA has recently

acknowledged that the more expensive machines would pay for

themselves within 3 to 5 years.

Following September 11th there was broad recognition of the

fact that we needed to restart the sky marshals program and

insure that there were enough marshals on domestic and

international passenger flights so that potential highjackers

would always have to think twice about the likelihood that a

sky marshal might be present on a targeted flight.

Now the exact number of marshals that the President and the

Congress agreed were necessary has remained classified. But

few people realize that we are no longer operating at that

level. No one has come forward with convincing arguments that

the level was too high or that adequate safety can be assured

at a lower level. We have simply once again allowed arbitrary

budget limits, applied to one small portion of the budget, to

drive a decision that may unnecessarily put a great many

Americans at risk. Under the President's budget submission

for Fiscal 2005, we will have 20% fewer sky marshals than the

President and the Congress agreed that we needed just two

years ago. That is in spite of the fact that there has been a

significant increase during that period in the number of

domestic and international flights and in the number of

passenger miles flown.

We have had--and continue to have--serious communications

problems between military pilots who have the ultimate

responsibility to insure that commercial aircraft are not

used to crash into buildings (and the commercial aircraft and

the FAA system that controls them). Quite simply, military

and commercial flight systems cannot easily and quickly talk

to one another and the potential that leaves for

miscalculation and mistakes it horrific.

Despite the fact that this problem could be solved for

relatively little money, the military felt the commercial

system should foot the problem and the FAA and the airlines

felt it should be addressed in the military budget. OMB

decided the cheapest solution was not to decide.

Finally, last fall, I decided for them. The $10 million

that was needed was earmarked in the Defense Appropriation

bill. I suppose that's a good ending to the story, except

that the delay in funding means that the system will not be

operative until 2006. That gives you one more thing to think

about when you board a plane. It also provides more than a

little insight into how decisions about homeland security are

being sorted out within the executive branch.

rail vulnerabilities

These examples of inaction with respect to airway security

are serious, but they do not begin to compare with the nearly

total abdication of our responsibility to assure the safety

of rail transportation. As the recent attacks in Spain have

demonstrated, our enemy is not wedded to attacks on any

single transportation mode. He will watch and wait until he

finds a vulnerability that can be exploited.

Rail is vulnerable in two ways. One is from attacks against

our freight rail system that handles a huge portion of the

materials,

products and chemicals that allow our economy to function.

The second is from attacks (like those in Spain) against the

roughly 13 million Americans who use passenger rail systems

each day.

Luckily, the Department of Transportation and other

agencies in the executive branch began a process of sharing

classified threat information with the nation's rail freight

carriers in the late 1990s. The plans developed as a result

of that process are in place and provide a foundation for

significant security upgrades. But the plans are dependent

upon the federal government meeting certain obligations it

accepted during the planning process. Under those plans

federal security forces are specifically required to monitor

tracks and facilities. Not only have we failed to do that but

we have not even designated the agency or department that

will supply the forces or establish a means of training them.

As disquieting as the lack of progress in securing our

heavy freight and passenger rail systems may be, the security

efforts on behalf of transit systems is even worse.

lack of progress in transit security

The White House has failed to mediate the dispute between

the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation over

who is actually in charge of transit security. A General

Accounting Agency report recommending a resolution of the

issue has been rejected by both departments. The impasse

continues despite the fact that it is halting any significant

progress in securing the systems and despite the fact that

transit systems have been the most frequent worldwide targets

of terrorist attacks.

Neither Department is willing to spend even a small

fraction of the security related costs most experts feel is

necessary. Department of Transportation security funding for

transit systems totals $37 million in the current year and

the Department of Homeland Security has allocated only $115

million over the past two years. This legislation contains

only $111 million for rail and transit security needs. In

contrast, the transit industry estimates that $6 billion

is needed for security training, radio communications

systems, security cameras and limiting access to sensitive

facilities.

What is the Department of Homeland Security's answer to

these unmet needs?

They testified this spring that more funds are not

necessary until they have had a better opportunity to define

the problem. Now, that is an orderly approach, which we

should applaud as long as the Department can guarantee al

Qaeda's cooperation with their schedule. My concern is that

the Department is likely to get some help they have not asked

for in developing a definition of the transit security

problem.

The Department has clearly become aware of how vulnerable

they are to criticism about their lack of serious attention

to transit issues. Only two weeks ago, in a classic move to

cover their bureaucratic backsides, they issued a directive

to transit systems ordering them to take a series of actions

that the Department's own data collection system indicates

have already been completed by the vast majority of transit

authorities across the country.

cargo container vulnerabilities

Since September 11 the vulnerability that has most troubled

many experts has been maritime cargo and the exposure of our

ports to a nuclear, chemical or biological attack from a

weapon placed in a shipping container. As the president of

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, has pointed out,

such an event could cause death and destruction on a scale

far beyond the attacks launched on September 11. It could

virtually shut down our global trading system for an extended

period of time. The economic consequences would be almost

incalculable. Terms like ``economic downturn'' or

``recession'' would not begin to describe the aftermath.

The Bush Administration has spent billions looking for new

technologies with the capacity to knock a nuclear warhead out

of the sky if it were launched in the nose cone of an

intercontinental ballistic missile. It has invested heavily

in the development of other technologies that are intended to

serve that purpose but probably cannot. But they seem

unresponsive to the fact that a rogue or a terrorist

organization can simply place such a weapon in a shipping

container and explode it upon arrival in New York Harbor or

in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans or Boston. A ship

can bring into this country a far less complicated weapon

than one which could be placed on an ICBM. It can be massive

in size and its does not need to even be thermonuclear in

order to cause massive numbers of casualties, destruction and

economic chaos.

So what have we done to protect ourselves? Protecting our

ports is not unlike protecting our airports. We need to have

multiple security perimeters. The first should be overseas.

That requires a whole new approach to cargo inspection. It

requires that our inspectors leave the United States,

establish cooperative relationships with port security

officials in countries around the world that ship to the

United States. It requires that they establish a system of

certification and best practices with major exporters

around the world.

This is not a Democratic proposal. This is roughly the

proposal that George Bush's own appointed head of the Customs

Service, Bob Bonner, took to the White House in months

immediately following September 11th. It is the proposal that

the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, headed by former

Senators Rudman and Hart had endorsed. It is the proposal

that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has written editorials to

support.

But the White House waited until last year to request the

first dime for this effort. Whatever presence the United

States has had in foreign ports over the past one thousand

days has been entirely as a result of Congressional increases

to homeland security spending--increases that were opposed by

the White House, increases that the White House threatened at

various stages in the legislative process to veto, and

increases which on one occasion the White House did veto.

Last year, the White House reversed themselves and finally

requested a portion of the funds that were needed for

container security. Their position changed from, ``we can't

afford it'' to ``we needed to wait.'' That is a turnaround

and I suppose we should welcome it. But the $126 million that

the president has proposed for FY2005, and is contained in

this legislation, will not adequately fund the program. It

will not even allow us to fully staff the 45 foreign ports

where DHS had planned to inspect all manifest documents. It

will not permit our current foreign inspection programs to

become permanent. We are currently in only 17 ports. We

currently have no container security presence in China, the

biggest U.S. trading partner in terms of cargo containers.

The number of cargo containers arriving to the U.S. from

China is more than three times those arriving from Hong Kong.

More troubling than the mere question of resources is the

lack of political or bureaucratic clout behind this critical

initiative. If having inspection agents working with foreign

customs officials is to be a truly effective means of

understanding what is in foreign ships before they leave for

U.S. ports, it requires developing long term relationships

between our agents and those who control the foreign ports we

wish to monitor.

This involves a new level of training and expertise for our

customs agents. It involves establishing continuity in the

relationship we have with host governments in terms of what

we expect to get and what incentives we can provide to those

who cooperate. Nothing could be more destructive to this

effort than to rotate in and out of foreign ports agents with

only a few months of experience based on a deliberate system

of staffing through temporary assignment. But that is

precisely what we have done. In the few foreign ports where

we do have a presence, that presence is a U.S. customs

officer detailed there on a six-month temporary duty

assignment. Those agents don't even know what the problems

were between the U.S. and the host government when the

program was initiated. They are certainly not people that

officials of the host government would want to invest much

time in getting to know--they will be gone before there is

any pay off from developing a relationship.

port vulnerabilities

If the overseas effort to identify the contents of cargo

containers is the outer perimeter for protecting our ports,

the ability of the Coast Guard to interdict, board and

inspect U.S. bound shipping at sea is the next perimeter. Yet

the Coast Guard's capacity to perform that function has also

been restrained by lack of resources. The Administration

frequently states that the Coast Guard is now boarding all

vessels that are deemed to be ``high interest.'' That means

80% of all other vessels are not boarded.

Observing, tracking and controlling ships as they approach

and enter into American waters is the next perimeter in

securing our ports. Systems have been developed that are very

similar to the systems by which air traffic control directs

airplanes entering into U.S. airspace and approaching U.S.

airports. These systems, however, are available in only nine

ports, leaving 45 major ports without such a system. Again,

this is penny wise and pound foolish. It is also a bad

decision in terms of long-term cost effectiveness. More

automated systems permit more rapid detection of ships that

are not following control directives; they can be operated by

fewer people and are long-term cost savers.

And, inside our ports, there are numerous critical issues.

One is preventing unauthorized persons from having access to

ships, containers or post storage areas. A second is

protecting hazardous chemicals and materials from attack. The

Coast Guard estimated that the 185 commercial seaports in the

United States would need about $7 billion to assess

vulnerabilities and take necessary action to correct those

vulnerabilities. These port authorities do not, in most

instances, have the revenue raising authority to pay any

significant portion of these costs. This year was the first

time the Administration requested any money whatsoever for

this purpose, and it only requested $46 million. The Congress

has been able to appropriate only $587 million or less than

10% of the money needed to do the job. This legislation

includes an additional $125 million for port security, which

will keep us on the slow-moving path to addressing all of our

port vulnerabilities.

securing our land borders

Another major priority has been securing our land borders--

in particular, the 3000 mile U.S. border with Canada or 5000

miles if we include Alaska. Despite our continuing strong

economic and political ties to Canada, the situation of the

two nations with respect to potential terrorist attacks is

quite different. Canada's smaller role in world affairs and

the image of Canada in the eyes of

the international community make it a much less likely target

of attack than the U.S. At the same time, Canada's vast

geography and relatively small population have led to far

more lenient immigration policies than those in place in the

United States.

As a result there will continue to be significant

differences between the two countries on how external

security concerns are managed. That means that the question

of how to control our border and the movement of people and

cargo across that border is suddenly a matter of much greater

concern.

Recognizing that concern, the Congress included language in

the Patriot Act calling for the tripling of the number of

border agents and inspectors on the Canadian border above the

levels we maintain on September 11th. As of October 2003, we

were still more than 2000 people short of this goal. In

addition, there was a clear need for significant additional

equipment on the Canadian border to insure that those new

people would be efficiently put to work: equipment like air

stations, radiation monitors, and surveillance equipment.

To date we have fewer than 4000 agents and inspectors on

the border. In other words, about one third of the positions

promised in the Patriot Act are still unfilled. The FY 2005

budget promises no increases from current levels. And the

President' out-year budget projection provides a strong

indication that personnel strength at the border will

actually decline rather than increase over the next five

years. With respect to equipment, we have provided the first

air station (again one not requested by the Administration)

and some radiation monitors, but have made no critical

investments in things such as surveillance equipment.

preparing those who respond to terrorist attacks

The events of September 11th made clear that the brave men

and women serving in the police, fire and emergency medical

units in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, District of Columbia

and Maryland needed a significant amount of additional

equipment and training to more effectively respond to the

types of attacks that occurred on that day. It was also

apparent that first responder units across the nation did not

have most of the equipment they would need to deal with a

nuclear, chemical or biological attack.

The needs of local first responders were spelled out in

considerable detail in the Rudman-Hart reports. But the

federal government has already allowed most of the burden to

fall on local governments. Since the capacity of those local

governments to support such investments in the tough economic

times is limited, progress in equipping first responders has

been minimal.

Of the $98 billion in first responder needs identified by

the Rudman-Hart report, the Feds have provided less than

$14.5 billion, or 15%. As a result only 13% of fire

departments can effectively respond to a hazmat incident. An

estimated 57,000 firefighter's lack the personal protective

clothing needed in a chem-bio attack. An estimated \1/3\ of

firefighters per shift are not equipped with self-contained

breathing apparatus and nearly half of the available units

are 10 years old. Only half of all emergency responders on

shift have portable radios. And we still have massive needs

for interoperable communications equipment. On site emergency

personnel working for different agencies need to be able to

talk to each other. We will probably never know how many

victims in the World Trade Centers could have been saved if

they had known that they needed to evacuate the buildings. We

know that was a communication problem of disastrous

proportions.

This legislation cuts funding for programs designed to

improve the response capabilities of our local police,

firefighters and emergency responders by $327 million or

seven percent from 2004. These professionals are put on the

front line risking their lives every day. They are especially

put at risk when terrorists attack our homeland, as we saw

from the number who died at the World Trade Center. These

professionals need to be prepared for the various types of

attacks we may face and they are not fully prepared today.

It is disgraceful that this legislation provides less

funding in this area, not more.

These are only a few examples of where corners have been

cut in establishing the line of defense here at home.

inadequate homeland security leadership

But there is more to the story than simply talking about

resources. In many instances, we have not had the leadership

necessary to organize available resources in effective ways.

Prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland

Security, the White House identified 133 separate agencies

and activities within the federal government that played a

role with respect to homeland security. The creation of a

Department was the Administration's answer as to how to

better manage and coordinate those disparate activities. The

problem, however, is that only 22 of those 133 activities

became part of the new department. A total of 111 agencies

and activities, including the FBI, the CIA, the Defense

Department and many other key components of the overall

effort remained on the outside.

But for whatever reason, the effort to have centralized

control and coordination of all of those activities within

the White House was diminished. When Tom Ridge went to DHS

his replacement within the White House was not given the same

clout to knock heads together and insure that Departments and

agencies are working together toward a common mission. Too

frequently, we have had 112 units of government headed off on

their own with no central coordination, as Attorney General

Ashcroft's press conference and the reaction within the

administration to that press conference last week so clearly

demonstrated.

And even within the new department there have been serious

problems. In its first year of operation, DHS has

disappointed even those with low expectations. Bureaucratic

snarls have been so intense that on its first anniversary the

Department still did not have a working phone directory. My

staff has been asking for one for more than six months and

has yet to receive it. It has also been reported that when

callers phone the Department's hotline number, it just rings

and rings. Members of Congress from the President's own party

have expressed grave concerns about the inability of the

Department to respond to requests for information in any kind

of a reasonable time frame.

One possible cause of the rampant chaos at the department

has been the injection of a huge number of political

appointees. Since the creation of the Department more than

one quarter of all personnel who have been hired for

departmental operations have been political appointees. These

individuals often appear more fixated on positioning

themselves politically than on the nuts and bolts security

problems, which the Department must address. We have seen a

huge number of press releases promoting the Departments

efforts but we have few concrete efforts worthy of such self-

promotion. We, for instance, still do not have regulations

regarding the licensing and registration of hazardous

material truckers nor do we the detailed guidance for

flight and cabin crew training to prepare for potential

threat conditions which was mandated by the Aviation and

Transportation Security Act more than two years ago.

Typically, political appointees remain in their appointed

positions for less than 24 months. At that point, they are

off to some other part of the administration or headed back

into the private sector. That means building true long-term

competency within any Department is heavily dependent on

recruiting a committed professional career staff. But the 114

political appointees now swarming the halls at DHS have--if

anything--impeded that process. Of the 500 career positions

needed to run the department, 171 remain vacant. One of the

most critical positions in any Department is that of Budget

Director. In only 14 months DHS has had three budget

directors.

Ironically, this legislation provides funding that is

sixty-two percent higher than this year for Departmental

Operations. Even though we were told that formation of the

Department of Homeland Security would not cost us a dime, it

now appears that the Administration has realized that this

was not true: $65 million is provided in this legislation for

the Department's headquarters and $70 million is provided for

the ``security-critical'' new personnel system. I do not

question the need for this funding. But I do think that it is

instructive that these are higher priorities for the

Administration and the Committee majority than are protecting

our border, ports, transit, and aviation system.

Instead, this $135 million could have been used to purchase

and install hundreds of additional radiation portal monitors

at our borders and ports. The Committee majority admits that

it is, and I quote this report, ``aware of a need for over

1,000 more'' radiation portal monitors than are funded by the

Committee.

Instead, this $135 million could have been used to inspect

a much greater percentage of air cargo for explosives than we

do today. While the Committee report calls for a doubling of

the screening for explosives of cargo carried on passenger

airplanes, this ``doubling'' still leaves a large percentage

of such cargo at risk.

Instead, this $135 million could have been used to secure

additional critical infrastructure, like chemical facilities,

transit systems and ports. The Committee majority agreed with

the Administration's plan to have only thirty-five percent of

protective actions that it recommends actually implemented

for ``first tier priority critical infrastructure

components''. What this means is that sixty-five percent of

the actions the Department recommends to protect the public

will not be implemented next year.

The Administration and the Committee majority seem to be

very patient when it comes to protecting our citizens on our

homeland. Unlike them, I remain unconvinced that terrorists

will wait a decade for their next attack.

congress should not abdicate its role

About a year and a half ago I spoke to a group of reporters

at the National Press Club about where the country stood at

that time in protecting itself against terrorist attacks. I

feel that the coverage of that event was fair and I think we

exposed some problems that, as a result of that coverage,

have been fixed. But I also think that the press and the

public have a presumption that this is such a complex issue

that we simply have to trust the President and his advisors

in the Executive Branch to do what is right. I think many of

my colleagues in Congress have felt the same way. While I

understand people's tendency to leave this complex calculus

to the ``experts,'' I think this town is currently awash in

new information about the decision making process within this

administration which indicates that is a bad idea!

First of all, that is not the approach to decision making

that the Constitution requires of us. It is our job to

second-guess. When so much is at stake, the Congress, the

press and the public have the clearest possible obligation to

insure that the decision making within the Executive Branch

is measured, deliberate, based on the best available

information, and consistent with the quality of judgment

befitting the seriousness of the risks to which we are

exposed. Had that happened in the wake of 9/11 or even a year

and a half ago there are many points in this statement that I

might have been able to leave out.

One problem in all of this, frankly, is that it was hard

for the press and the public to believe much of what I

reported a year and a half ago. While the facts presented in

that statement were well documented they presented a picture

of executive branch decision-making that was wholly

inconsistent with what the nation or the press corps wanted

to believe. It was hard to accept the idea that in this

moment of great national crisis we did not have systematic

methods of screening information, examining policy choices,

debating the pluses and minuses of each alternative, and

making strategic choices based on an exhaustive effort to

find the best possible alternative. But in recent months we

have learned time and time again that this was not the nature

of decision-making within this administration.

Ron Suskind, using the exhaustive notes and papers of

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, tells of an extraordinary

decision making process in which information is collected on

the basis of decisions that preceded them. Richard Clarke

describes a process both before and after 9/11 that was quite

similar. So does Bob Woodward.

My own experience with the President himself, demonstrates

that this President has listened as infrequently to those in

the Congress who know something about homeland security as he

did to our allies or the career American military before

rushing into Iraq.

But any one who has been listening these last few months is

pretty well aware of the fact that we were not vigilant and

were not picking up on clear information of elevated threat

levels prior to 9/11. We did not respond in the summer of

2001 to that threat in the same manner that we responded 18

months earlier when similar threat information triggered a

massive response to the millennium threat. We did not have an

orderly or honest process to measure the pluses and minuses

of invading Iraq. People at the highest levels silenced,

dissent and criticism and irreversible actions were taken

based on flawed information.

We based our plans for security and reconstruction of Iraq

on intelligence from a single organization outside of this

government which both the State Department and the CIA said

was unreliable. Unfortunately, that is all spilt milk. Even

if we understand those mistakes, we can't go back and try it

again.

What I am talking about today is not spilt milk. We can

correct these policy mistakes and we can possibly correct

them in a time frame that will prevent the next attack. It

all depends on whether we are ready to get real.

Now, I am not optimistic by nature. Perhaps it is merely my

nature that leads me to believe that the cauldron that is

today boiling in Southwest Asia, North Africa and the Middle

East will likely spill over once more onto the shores of

North America. If we are not ready, I do not want to look

myself in the mirror for the rest of my life and wonder why I

didn't ask tougher questions or insist on more responsible

and responsive policies. I think the overall performance of

our government to date in the area of homeland security

merits a greater sense of skepticism and urgency on the part

of the press and the general public as well.

We lived in a more dangerous world prior to September 11th

than most Americans realized. Our efforts to making the world

safer have met with mixed results and the numbers of persons

who wish us harm and will go to great lengths to inflict harm

have grown steadily during the past thousand days. Clearly

some of our efforts have done little more than fed the flames

of discontent and hatred.

That places even greater pressure on our last lines of

defense, protecting our borders, our transportation systems

and our capacity to respond to terrorist acts in this country

if, God forbid, they are again committed. But as the facts I

have today outlined well document, those efforts remain under

funded and poorly managed. The President proposed that we

have 20% fewer sky marshals than we had a little more than a

year ago. We have hired only two-thirds the people that the

Patriot Act mandated for protecting our Northern Border. We

have invested one-tenth what is needed to protect our ports.

We have only just begun to take the steps needed to protect

our rail and transit systems. Our first responders have only

a fraction of the tools they need. And worse still, the

agencies that have been entrusted with the responsibilities

are still wallowing in bureaucratic chaos.

As we saw last week the Justice Department and the Homeland

Security Department are still in the business of surprising

each other. Simply hoping that these problems will somehow

work out is not unlike the wishful thinking that many engaged

in as they prepared to invade Iraq. Misinformation and bad

planning can lead to excruciatingly painful results. The time

to reexamine our security, our security budgets and our whole

thinking in this area is now. The Congress must act to put a

stop to this mindless, non-information based approach to

policy and national strategy. It is as likely to prove

catastrophic in the defense of our homeland as it has been in

installing democracy in Iraq.

Congress may control nothing more than the purse strings--

but that is enough. The Congress has all the power it needs

to reopen this discussion, insure that assumptions are well

founded, the information is the best available, the

management is sound and the resources are adequate. What it

will take to significantly improve the systems that protect

this nation is small in the relative scheme of things--a few

tenths of a percent of GDP may be no more than we are now

spending on Iraqi reconstruction and one-twentieth of what

we have handed out in tax breaks. Given the stakes, we

cannot afford to do less.

amendment offered in committee to provide $3 billion more

That is why I offered an amendment in Committee to provide

$3 billion to fix some of the most critical security holes.

Our homeland security agencies could do more with this

additional funding--

They could put more radiation and surveillance monitors at

our borders and ports;

They could increase surveillance on our transit systems;

They could increase surveillance by local police of

critical infrastructure facilities;

They could improve the ability of our police and

firefighters to communicate with each other and be suited

properly;

They could inspect additional containers coming into the

United States;

They could put more air marshals on flights;

They could increase our stockpile of antibiotics;

They could increase air patrols of our borders; and

They could fix some holes in our current aviation security

screening system.

This $3 billion, however, would have only been available to

do this if the President agreed. It is disappointing and

shortsighted that the Committee voted along party lines not

even to give him that choice.

The Chairman of the Committee said during markup that he

would probably support my amendment if he had additional

budget allocation. The budget allocations are severely

restricted because the Administration has decided that tax

cuts and the costs of a war should go hand-in-hand. This

squeezes spending on virtually everything else.

We need to stop being penny-wise and pound-foolish. We need

to push the Department of Homeland Security to make needed

security investment now, so that we can be protected

tomorrow. If we do not make those investments until tomorrow,

our protection may come too late.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, much is being said about how tight fiscal restraints are this year. We know that is so, but it is not an excuse for our current budget constraints. Just a few years ago, the Federal Government had a budget surplus of $3 trillion. Today, the government is facing historic deficits upward of $7 trillion. Bad fiscal policy has hamstrung the Federal Government's abilities to invest the sums necessary to protect the Nation from terrorism. The tight budget numbers are the result of tax giveaways to people who least need it, the people that the ``Oracle of Omaha,'' Warren Buffett, has said owe the most to the country and pay far too little.

It is good for the Nation that overall funding for the Department of Homeland Security has increased. However, the increase is not enough. The cost of securing the Nation is high, but throwing dollars at the threat is not the solution. We must spend homeland security funds wisely, and all homeland security activities must be coordinated within the department itself and with State and local governments.

But well into its second year, the department is still underachieving. Several years into our own war on terrorism, the department has not developed a comprehensive threat vulnerability assessment. How can we protect the people of this country when we act blindly without this basic information necessary to develop and implement a comprehensive homeland security plan?

Recent reports have shown that airports are not any safer despite the creation of Transportation Security Administration. There is no coordination of homeland security functions along the southern or along the northern border.

I represent the second busiest gateway between the United States and Canada, and the need to increase the resources along the over 4,000- mile border between the U.S. and Canada is great. For years, little attention was paid to our northern border. But if we are to maintain the $1 billion a day trade between the United States and

Canada while maintaining U.S. safety and security, we have to provide the resources to do it. We must create a northern border coordinator to ensure our dollars are invested prudently and that Federal, State and local authorities are working together.

I am extremely troubled by the $300 million cut to funding for our first-responders, the people on the ground valiantly protecting our communities with too few resources and lots of overtime. How can we justify cutting funding for police officers, firefighters and EMTs, who are the first people on the scene to respond to a terrorist attack? Money has been awarded to States and localities, but the process is so cumbersome and lengthy that local governments have difficulty actually spending the first-responder grant money.

It is also imperative that we take threat, vulnerability, and strategic importance into account when we allocate the first-responder dollars. High threat areas with high population densities certainly deserve attention and dollars. Areas of strategic importance need and deserve Federal assistance. And, as I mentioned, the border crossings at Buffalo and Niagara Falls are the second busiest portals between the United States and Canada. This entry port is tactically important to the security of the United States. Terrorists could use this entrance to gain access to the country or use the bridges as a means to slip weapons into the country. Western New York's strategic position and role are vital to national safety. Such areas need the resources to secure the northern border without disrupting the important commerce between the United States and Canada.

Mr. Speaker, another issue that greatly bothers me, and is an insult to every taxpayer in this country, are the corporate expatriates, American companies that incorporate abroad in order to skip out on their tax obligations to this country. These corporations earn millions of dollars from the Federal Government. According to the General Accounting Office, corporate expatriates cost this country an estimated $5 billion in lost tax dollars, and yet they continue to receive $2.7 billion in government contracts. That is a disgrace.

Accenture, the scion of Arthur Andersen of infamous Enron fame, recently received a $10 billion contract to build a foreign traveler tracking system known as US-VISIT. During committee consideration of the homeland security appropriations, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) offered an amendment to ensure that companies incorporated outside the United States for tax purposes could not enter into contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. It makes sense. The DeLauro-Berry amendment would void the Accenture contract by barring any contracts with corporate expatriates before, on or after the date of enactment.

H. Res. 675 protects the first part of the DeLauro-Berry amendment, which will probably disappear in conference, but it specifically refuses to protect the second provision in the amendment that would invalidate the $10 billion contract with Accenture.

Bloomberg News reported that Accenture posted increases in American earnings from $247.3 billion in 2002 to $566.9 billion in 2003, doubled in one year, while the company reduced its tax liability to $143 million from $382 million. During that same time period, Federal procurement records show that in 2002 Accenture benefited from Federal contracts worth $450 million, of which $250 million were related to military or homeland security functions, another disgrace.

At this time, when unemployment levels have remained consistent since December 2003, it is important that we as public servants and as agents of the Federal Government do everything we can to keep jobs in this country. We should not reward companies that incorporate outside the United States in order to avoid Federal taxes.

Think of the advantage it gives them in bidding against American companies. Expatriate corporations like Accenture have a huge structural advantage over companies that stay in America, employ Americans and pay their fair share of taxes. It is our duty to support the American companies. Giving the largest contract yet awarded by the Department of Homeland Security to an expatriate company contradicts the principles and ideals that I was sent here to uphold.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

(Mr. OBEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman have any further speakers?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

Mr. Speaker, when the previous question is called I will ask for a no vote. It seems that hardly a day goes by that we do not turn on television and hear some new report on a terrorist plot around the world. Some of the most recent reports have indicated terrorists may be planning attacks in the United States this summer. Just the other day authorities arrested a man in Ohio allegedly planning to blow up a shopping mall.

With news like this it is little wonder that the security of our Nation weighs heavily on the minds of our constituents. Unfortunately, the bill before us today does not provide an adequate level of funding to give our communities the resources that they need to keep America and its people safe. Excluding Project BioShield, the Homeland Security appropriations bill barely keeps up with inflation, and it even cuts funding for programs to help our police, firefighters and emergency personnel 7 percent.

How do we expect to keep our Nation secure when we are cutting funding for the very people tasked with keeping our constituents safe.

It does not have to be this way, Mr. Speaker. Last night at the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) brought forth a very important and responsible amendment that would have provided an additional $3 billion to the Department of Homeland Security in a contingent emergency reserve. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) pointed out in his testimony, this money could be used to increase the number of air marshals on planes or to address the problems in our current aviation security screening system.

It could provide for more radiation and surveillance monitors at our borders and ports and allow for increased inspection of shipping containers coming into the country. It could be used to increase surveillance in our transit systems and to improve communications between police, firefighters and other first responders.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we will not get a chance to vote on more money for security at our borders or on our transit systems or for our first responders because the amendment by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) was defeated on a straight party line vote.

So today, Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote no on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will make in order the amendment of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). This fund represents a tiny fraction of the money that has gone towards rebuilding Iraq. I do not think it is asking too much to make sure that our own Nation is fully protected and that emergency monies are available should they be needed.

In the 2 years since the creation of the Homeland Security Department, we have found a number of areas that need more resources. The monies contained in the contingency fund could provide a much- needed shot in the arm for these programs and services that may have vulnerabilities. Mr. Speaker, this should not be a partisan issue. The safety of our Nation and its citizens is of utmost importance to all of us in this House.

Today this Congress can put aside partisanship and act to protect America's homeland by giving the Department of Homeland Security the additional resources provided in the Obey amendment to meet our most urgent security concerns.

I am confident that all Americans and all Members of this House support that sentiment. So I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to vote no on the previous question.

Let me emphasize that a no vote will not stop the House from taking up the Homeland Security appropriations bill. It will not prevent other amendments from being offered under this rule. However, a yes vote will prevent the House from considering this badly-needed amendment to create an emergency contingency fund for homeland security and preserve that department's ability to more fully protect Americans against terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote no on the previous question and yield the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I express my serious concern with several pieces of so-called energy legislation that the House of Representatives is considering this week. This package of bills includes a comprehensive energy bill that differs both from the failed conference report on H.R. 6 and from the Senate energy bill that was introduced on February 12, 2004, and placed directly on the calendar.

These bills are not the product of hearings or of bipartisan consensus between the House and the Senate. The comprehensive energy bill the House is considering is nearly identical to the energy bill conference report we have already defeated. The other bills are equally troubling. They trample States rights and they enact significant new taxpayer subsidies. Most importantly, they are not the right energy policy for America.

I have for many months now said that we should try to reach consensus on targeted pieces of energy legislation. We could pass legislation on issues such as the increased production of renewable motor fuels. We could enact fiscally responsible extensions of needed energy tax provisions, such as the wind energy tax credit. National electricity reliability standards are another area in which Senator Cantwell, Senator Feingold and I believe there could be agreement and we could pass a bill. I also believe there are a number of energy efficiency measures that could garner broad support.

But, there should be no agreement on the poor environmental policy that is contained in these bills. The Senate should reject them if they are passed and sent over for consideration.

The omnibus bill the House passed yesterday, H.R. 4503, is identical to the failed conference report on H.R. 6, except for the inclusion of two coal-related provisions that are in the pending Senate bill, S. 2095.

As with the energy bill conference report, nearly a hundred sections of the bill are in the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We were not consulted on any of these sections, the House has made no effort to fix these provisions, and I have repeatedly raised concerns about them on the Senate floor.

The waiver of liability for MTBE producers is included in the House's bill. The Senate has repeatedly rejected this provision.

The House bill unravels the ozone designation process in the Clean Air Act by delaying compliance with the national health-based air quality ozone standards until the air in the dirtiest city is cleaned up. The House insists on this leftover from the failed energy bill conference report, though changing cities' ozone compliance deadlines under the Clean Air Act doesn't increase our Nation's energy supplies.

This bill also provides unprecedented relief for a single region of the country from application of the entire Clean Air Act, without a hearing.

The House continues to insist that oil and gas exploration and production activities be exempted from the Clean Water Act stormwater program.

The Clean Water Act requires permits for stormwater discharges associated with construction activity. The amendment changes the act to provide a special exemption for oil and gas construction activities from stormwater pollution control requirements.

The scope of the provision is extremely broad. Stormwater runoff typically contains pollutants such as oil and grease, chemicals, nutrients, metals, bacteria, and particulates.

I have told colleagues this before, but EPA estimates that this change would exempt at least 30,000 small oil and gas sites from clean water requirements. In addition, every construction site in the oil and gas industry larger than 5 acres would be exempt as well.

The large sites have held permits for 10 years or more. That is a terrible rollback of current law. I want Senators to imagine trying to explain to constituents why an oil drilling site that had to comply with the Clean Water Act for 10 years suddenly no longer needs to do so.

The House is scheduled to act today on another bill, H.R. 4517, called the United States Refinery Revitalization Act of 2004. It gives the Department of Energy a lead role in environmental permitting decisions for refineries in a newly designated ``refinery revitalization'' zone. The Energy Department would get the ability to issue permits and make ``federal authorization decisions'' under our major environmental laws including: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and our national solid and hazardous waste laws, among others.

The Energy Department would get to make environmental regulatory decisions and set compliance deadlines. This is a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house. Moreover, if a permit is denied , there would only be an appeal to the DOE Secretary and then judicial review in the D.C. Circuit Court. The EPA, which normally makes these decisions, has no role at all.

In an effort to assure Members, there is a savings clause in the bill that is supposed to protect environmental laws. The bill includes language that contradicts the savings clause provisions. It states that if the best available pollution control technology is used at a facility then that facility is in compliance with all environmental permitting requirements. In addition, the role of states is not clear, particularly those with more stringent standards.

While this bill proposes to increase our domestic refining capacity, it will not do so. In fact, it is drafted in a way that will likely reduce our supplies of gasoline and heating oil.

The bill is supposed to restart idled refineries. It defines ``idle refineries'' as those that have shut down after June 1, 2004. Let me say that again for my colleagues, idle refineries are refineries that shut down after June 1, 2004. These are not refineries that have been mothballed and shut down for many years. These so-called idle refineries could be operating now and then shut down after enactment of the bill in order to game the system. The refineries would seek regulatory relief under a newer, inexperienced regulatory agency, and drive prices even higher by further constraining production. This is a tragic outcome, and certainly not one that expands our Nation's refining capacity.

The House passed another bill yesterday, H.R. 4513, that exempts Federal agencies planning renewable energy projects from the National Environmental Policy Act. Federal agencies would no longer have to identify alternative project locations when they site a renewable energy project. They also would no longer have to examine alternatives to the project other than the actions they propose to take, or the option of doing nothing at all. Like the

refinery bill, this bill has bad consequences. While the bill seeks to speed up renewable energy projects, it is really a way to trample over Federal environmental laws or State and local requirements. For example, a city's objections to a windmill or solar panels proposed for the top of a downtown federal building may not have to be resolved or alternatives considered, even if there are local scenic concerns or conflicts with zoning ordinances. In a regular NEPA process, discussion could resolve those concerns and produce a project that meets both Federal and local needs. We should be reaching agreement over the development of renewable energy, not creating conflicts.

Also today, the House will take up H.R. 4545, the Gasoline Price Reduction Act of 2004, a bill that proposes to increase gasoline supplies by capping the number of so-called boutique fuel blends. This bill is not likely to have a beneficial effect in terms of reducing gasoline prices or increasing supplies, and appears designed to significantly worsen air quality. It allows EPA open-ended authority to waive cleaner-burning gasoline or diesel requirements indefinitely based on an undefined ``significant fuel supply disruption.'' In addition, EPA's determination appears not to be judicially reviewable, since the EPA Administrator need only deem a waiver ``necessary.'' Further there is no obligation to mitigate or make up for the excess air pollution that may occur over the waiver period.

This bill also would bar any increase in the number of existing fuels and fuel additives. This would apply to any State-adopted ultra-low sulfur diesel, biodiesel or cleaner-burning gasoline programs, even though these programs do not affect gasoline prices or supply, and regardless of the fact that they may be needed to meet new, health- based air quality standards for ozone or fine particulate pollution.

There are too many serious problems with these bills. The American people do not want us to act at the expense of environmental quality. We should be passing the pieces of the energy bill where we can reach agreement to do so, like those issues I outlined.

We should not be rushing to pass legislation with such serious consequences. These are aggressive, overreaching bills, and are deeply flawed. I will oppose them, and other Senators should as well.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First, perhaps not in the dramatic fashion of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), but I do want to point out that this is probably the finest title I have seen to a bill in a very long time, the Gasoline Price Reduction Act. That is a marvelous title. If it did not have any text, I would vote for it. If we changed the text so it actually reduced gasoline prices, I would vote for it, and so would my colleagues on this side; but that is not the case.

Let me begin with a couple of responses to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan). He said this legislation is not different from the current waiver authority of the EPA. We disagree entirely. It is true there are occasions when EPA has not enforced what would otherwise be violations of the Clean Air Act, but that is enforcement discretion. What this legislation does is it puts into legislation language unlimited waiver authority for the EPA administrator.

Let me go through a couple of other points here. Part of the problem with this bill is process. This bill was never considered by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I got onto the Committee on Energy and Commerce so we could deal with these important types of energy and environmental issues, but here we did not even bother. This was simply brought to the floor by the leadership. We have no testimony from the Bush administration indicating we need this bill. We have no testimony from industry to explain how this bill would address our ever- increasing demand for fuel. We have seen no research from the Energy Information Administration estimating the effect of this bill on fuel prices. We have no studies by the EPA quantifying the human health impact of this Clean Air Act repeal; and that is what it is, a repeal of critical portions of the Clean Air Act.

The Washington Post today had a telling comment. Here is the quote from The Post today: ``Some are calling this Congress' answer to high gasoline prices. But if this is the answer, maybe it is time to ask whether Congress even understands the question. The Gasoline Price Reduction Act would give the EPA administrator permission to waive the Clean Air Act for unlimited periods of time at its own discretion in the case of a gasoline supply disruption.''

Once again, the majority thinks that the Clean Air Act costs too much, but the Clean Air Act is not the problem. We agree that a gasoline supply disruption such as a refinery or pipeline shutting down unexpectedly can cause significant shortage of needed fuels. As a result, the EPA already may issue short-term waivers for some fuels under current regulations, not these, but some fuels. The administrator can and has used this regulatory authority in an appropriate manner, and that is why it has not been challenged.

This authority, this legislation, gives the administrator broad authority to issue waivers that undermine the Clean Air Act. The bill does not define ``significant fuel supply disruption,'' but it allows the administrator to define the term.

Furthermore, here is a reading from the bill: ``Such waiver shall remain in effect for such period as the administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, deems necessary by reason of such fuel supply disruption.''

There is no limit on the length of the waivers; therefore, the administrator has free rein to waive cleaner burning gasoline or diesel requirements in the Clean Air Act anywhere at any time. This bill would make enforcement of the Clean Air Act optional. That is what it does. It makes enforcement of the Clean Air Act optional.

Now it also does cap the number of boutique fuels that may be approved to the number that currently exist. Frankly, there are about 43 or 45 different blends and we agree, we agree that that number should be capped at around that number because there are too many blends, and it does make it difficult for refineries to meet demand in different States at different times. But this is not the way to go. This language that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) referred to has never been reviewed in a hearing. There is no way to know whether the provision will have the intended effect.

We conclude on our side of the aisle this bill is about politics, not sound legislation. The title is wonderful; the text undermines the Clean Air Act in fundamental ways; and the Clean Air Act is simply too important to our citizens to allow this important piece of legislation to pass.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I certainly hope the voters are paying attention as well, because we do have a policy. We do have a plan. We presented it. Part of it was in the motion to recommit where we made a proposal dealing with the SPR. This debate is a good example of why this is not a can-do Congress, this is a can't-do Congress, because this legislation is not that difficult. If we had had hearings, if it had been worked out on a bipartisan basis in the committee, it would come to the floor and pass overwhelmingly, because what we are really arguing about is whether or not the waiver that is given to the EPA Administrator in this legislation should be unlimited as it is in this legislation or whether it should be time limited. That is the core of the debate that we are having right now, and the fact that this bill has been brought to the floor with no limit on the waiver authority of the EPA Administrator, no consultation with us, no hearings, that is what has led to our opposition.

Let me run through a few things. The majority speakers have been saying we have got a problem with the number of boutique fuels. So do we. We think we need to contain the number of boutique fuels that are out there. It is reasonable to work that out. We do not object to doing that. But we do have a policy and it is real clear. Let me tell you what should be in this legislation if we were going to actually reduce gasoline prices and not just have legislation with a title that says we should reduce gasoline prices.

We need legislation that would hold refineries accountable for market manipulation and market concentration. We need legislation that would at least deal with the question of how to think about and how to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when gas prices are so high. We need action by this administration that would create stability in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions. We certainly do not have that now. We need to help families increase the efficiency of their homes and thereby reduce oil use. There is nothing of that in this legislation. This legislation does not require or create incentives to increase fuel efficiency in our vehicle fleet, which is at its lowest level since 1980. That issue has been brought up in front of the Committee on Energy and Commerce time and again to increase and improve CAFE standards and save fuel and it has been voted down.

This legislation does not invest in hybrid and hydrogen technology. I drive a hybrid vehicle. I get 45 miles to the gallon. I tell all my constituents, next time you buy a vehicle make sure that you pay attention to how efficient it is in terms of fuel. This legislation does not extend the tax breaks for the purchase of high efficiency vehicles. It does not end the tax breaks for Hummers and large SUVs. It does not reduce heavy truck idling. It does not improve air traffic management.

What we have got is what we said at the beginning. We have got a title. We have one of the best titles for legislation ever to come before this Congress, at least this year. We just do not have the text to go with it.

Just a couple of additional points. There was talk about we have held hearings. The truth is there have not been any hearings on this legislation. Sure we have had hearings on energy issues but not on this waiver authority put forth in here. There was one other comment I wanted to respond to. This legislation, one speaker said, is so small, it is so short that it cannot possibly repeal the Clean Air Act. All you need to do is to give the EPA Administrator the authority, the simple authority to waive, on a broad base, parts of the Clean Air Act and you have made enforcement of the Clean Air Act optional. It does not take much to undermine the Clean Air Act. It does not take much to do that in a way that risks the health of our population. That is what this legislation does. That is why we believe it should be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

That was a very interesting speech. I do not think the speech really applied to the bill we have on the floor, though. I would first mention that this waiver authority is nothing different than the current waiver authority the EPA has. Last year when we had a pipeline break in Arizona when they could not get a lot of gasoline, the EPA waived certain parts of the Clean Air Act so they could get gas supplies to meet the demand that was occurring because they had a huge supply shock.

Now, I would like to set this issue up in the following way. What this bill does is recognize the fact that we can have cheap gas and clean gas in America. The goal here is to improve the Clean Air Act, make it function better and make our gas more affordable while maintaining every ounce of environmental standards that we already have on the books. This bill will help make it easier to meet the Clean Air Act, but let me put this issue in perspective.

When we started the Clean Air Act, we had a good idea. The idea in the Clean Air Act at the time was if your area has dirty air, you need to clean it up. One of the things you need to do is burn cleaner gasoline through your cars. A very good idea. The problem is when they wrote this law, they did not think of the fact that if they allow cities, counties, States to select their own kinds of gasoline, that they would cause this huge problem we have today. Here is the problem.

Please, Madam Speaker, look at this chart. What this chart shows is the map of America. It looks like a piece of modern art. It shows all of the different blends of gasoline that are required to occur in the summer in America. There are 16 different base blends of gasoline which translate today into 45 different fuels in America.

However, we have a pipeline and refinery infrastructure system in America that has not been upgraded since the 1970s. No new refineries have been built since 1976, and when we built that system we had one kind of gasoline flowing through America. Now because of the Clean Air Act, a very good law, but one that does not take into account this problem, when we go from winter-blend gasoline, which is basically conventional gas, to summer-blend gasoline, we move from one kind of gas to 45 different blends of gasoline required around America.

When we have our refinery capacity running at 96 percent, any little hiccup in supply, any little refinery fire that has happened all across America, a problem with the pipeline breaking like in St. Louis or Arizona, we have huge supply shortages and giant price spikes. What is more is all of these different blends of gasoline, we can have four different blends by going from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to St. Louis,

Missouri. In Green Bay, they may have conventional gas; in Kenosha, they may have reformulated gas. Springfield, Illinois, may have a low RVP conventional gas. East St. Louis may have 7.0 RVP. Across the river in West St. Louis, they may have 7.2 RVP.

The problem is these gas lines are not fungible, even though in Detroit and Chicago and Milwaukee and St. Louis and Kansas City and Minneapolis we have the same environmental requirements. They are out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. They have the same requirements with respect to the fuel standards they have to achieve, but they all have different blends of gasoline, proprietary blends of gasoline.

What we want to do is bring common sense to this system. What this legislation does is it simply says we are going to have now a preferred list of fuels that people can choose from, local governments can choose from when they select their new gasoline blends to come into compliance with the Clean Air Act. We are capping the amount of boutique fuels so we do not proliferate more blends, but especially now when we go to the new 8-hour ozone requirement and we now recognize the fact that we have 42 areas of America, as we see on this chart, which have 45 different fuel blends, we are adding 82 new areas of America this year that are going to be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act because of the new 8-hour ozone standard.

As we add these new 82 areas, do we want to have that many more different kinds of fuel in America? No, we simply want to bring some common sense to the system so that when all these new areas of America have to come into compliance with the Clean Air Act, we want to give them guidance so they can pick from a list of preferred clean blends of fuel that are compliant with the Clean Air Act that are standard blends of fuel so we can standardize not only the kinds of fuels we use in America, but stabilize our supply of gasoline in America.

Why does that matter? Because gas is priced like any other commodity. It is priced based upon its supply. If we can stabilize the supply of gas, we can stabilize the price of gasoline and bring down the price of gasoline.

What the intent of this legislation is to do is to make sure in the short term if we have huge supply problems, a refinery fire or a pipeline break, we have the authority to meet those supply problems; but in the medium term and long term, make sure we standardize our blends of gasoline so we can comply with the Clean Air Act and have inexpensive, affordable, clean-burning gasoline.

What I believe this bill will actually achieve at the end of the day will be less expensive and more clean gas around America, even in areas that do not have to have clean gasoline. I think this is going to help us clean up our air, and it is going to help us have affordable gasoline.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond.

Madam Speaker, this is the same kind of waiver authority they already have under law. This is included in the Bush administration energy plan. This was in the Bush administration energy policy recommendations to solidify and consolidate boutique fuels. We have had numerous studies on this issue. A very comprehensive study was done on this issue by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001, which recommended doing exactly this. We had another study by the National Association of Convenience Stores recommending doing exactly this. Plus, we have already had multiple sources of testimony from gasoline marketers, from gasoline wholesalers, all talking about the need to consolidate the fuel blends. So this has been done based upon studies; this is a policy endorsed by the Bush administration. This is a policy talked about, vetted, and had hearings on for 3 years now.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green), a cosponsor of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. This does not give any extra waiver authority to the EPA that it does not already have.

This bill does not do a lot of the things he mentioned. It does very few things. What the intent of this bill is, is to have a preapproved list of fuels by the EPA for areas to choose from that

are clean fuels so that we consolidate the fuel blends we have in America. That is it. And then study and make sure we are doing it right. And if the study says there is another way to do it better, we will do that. That would be the fourth study we would have on this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the majority whip and cosponsor of this legislation, for the purpose of closing.