Air Cargo Security Improvement Act

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Nation's eyes have been turned to war overseas. The country's focus has been on the daily battles in Iraq. On the news almost daily there have been reports of American soldiers still dying. While the President arguably says that the mission in Iraq has been accomplished, the mission to protect our citizens here at home is far from complete.

Immediately after September 11, 2001, there was a great outcry for strengthening homeland security. Congress responded, infusing $40 billion into the war on terrorism--including efforts to better protect our citizens here at home. But since those early weeks after that clear September morning, the momentum has slowed. The pace has slackened. Homeland security initiatives are falling behind.

Just last month, former Senator Warren Rudman chaired a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations that examined investments in police, fire, and emergency medical teams. This blue ribbon panel included Nobel laureates, U.S. military leaders, former high-level government officials, and other senior experts, and was advised by former White House terrorism and cyber-security chief Richard Clarke. The results of their examination should shake this Congress from its homeland security slumber and especially it should shake the White House from its slumber and from its focus elsewhere.

The task force found that, nearly two years after 9/11, the United States is drastically underfunding local emergency responders and remains dangerously unprepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil, particularly one involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-impact conventional weapons. The panel concluded that, if the Nation does not take immediate steps to better identify and address the urgent needs of emergency responders, the next terrorist incident could be even more devastating than 9/11.

Imagine that, more devastating than September 11, 2001.

The underlying legislation before the Senate is the Fiscal Year 2004 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. It provides more than $28 billion for a variety of programs, from better border security to natural disaster response efforts. But while this is a step forward, the legislation does not accomplish enough. It does not provide the investments in protections that the Nation so desperately needs.

This fact is not the fault of Subcommittee Chairman Thad Cochran or Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens. The hand that they were dealt was poor from the start. But that does not mean that this Senate needs to settle for less than is needed.

The amendment that I have offered would add critical dollars to some of our Nation's most vulnerable entities. It is a responsible $1.75 billion approach to begin to close the enormous gaps in America's homeland security. The amendment to which I address my remarks at this time is about fulfilling our promises to the American people. After 9/ 11, Congress passed the Patriot Act. It passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act. It passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. It passed the Enhanced Border Security Act. And the President signed these with great fanfare. But when it comes to securing our homeland, the administration follows the same pattern. The President seems to be satisfied with rhetoric, which doesn't cost anything, rather than working with Congress to provide real dollars.

The amendment I offer today is intended to fulfill the promises made for securing our homeland. It would add a total of $1.75 billion for critical homeland security programs. The amendment adds: $602 million for Maritime and Land Security, including port security and transit security; $729.5 million for first responder funding for our police, fire and emergency medical personnel, including funding for high threat urban areas; $238.5 million for security improvements at U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico; it includes 100 million for air cargo security; and it includes $80 million for protections at chemical facilities.

With public warnings ringing in our ears from Secretary Ridge that another terrorist attack is inevitable, some may argue that our homeland security needs seem endless, and therefore the Congress must set limits. I agree that they are endless and that Congress must set limits. That is why this amendment focuses on the specific expanded homeland security missions that Congress has authorized since 9/11, but that the administration has yet to adequately fund. Unfortunately, the budget resolution endorsed by this White House has forced us to exclude from the bill some funding that both the Congress and the President have recognized as being real needs. This amendment focuses on those critical shortfalls. It puts the beam on those critical shortfalls. It puts the microscope right down to their level.

One of the mysteries about the President's budget is the budget for the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. TSA was created by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 and was supposed to focus on securing all modes of transportation. Yet the President's budget includes only $86 million or 2 percent of the TSA budget for maritime and land security. Yes, I said 2 percent--just 2 percent of the TSA budget for maritime and land security. The rest of the President's budget request is for aviation security and for--you guessed it--administration. What about securing our ports? What about securing our trains? What about securing our railroad tunnels, and our subways? What about buses or securing the trucks that carry hazardous materials?

In fact, the President's budget requests 2.5 times more for administering the TSA bureaucracy than he does for securing the Nation's ports, trains, trucks, and buses.

This amendment would add $602 million for maritime and land transportation funding. To his credit, Chairman Cochran provided $295 million for these programs. My amendment further enhances the good work Senator Cochran has begun.

On November 25, 2002, the same day that the President signed the Homeland Security Act, he also signed the Maritime Transportation Security Act--MTSA, putting in place significant new standards for improving the security of our 361 ports around the Nation. On July 1, the Coast Guard published regulations putting the MTSA into action.

During the Senate Appropriations Committee's homeland security hearings last year, one witness, Stephen Flynn, noted that the Nation's seaports:

. . . are the only part of an international boundary that the

federal government invests no money in terms of security. . .

. Most ports, the best you get is a chain link fence with

maybe some barbed wire.

Let me repeat that. The Appropriations Committee of the Senate conducted hearings last week, anent homeland security. And we heard testimony from mayors, Governors, and from seven Department heads--I am talking about Departments in the President's Cabinet--and from FEMA as well. And one of these witnesses was Stephen Flynn. Here is what he said about the Nation's seaports. He said:

[They] are the only part of an international boundary that

the federal government invests no money in terms of security.

. . . Most ports, [he said] the best you get is a chain link

fence with maybe some barbed wire.

Comforting? Is that comforting?

Consider that U.S. ports receive 16,000 cargo containers per day and more than 6 million containers per year. Consider the fact that U.S. ports are home to oil refineries and chemical plants that process noxious, volatile chemicals. Consider the additional fact that there are 68 nuclear powerplants located along U.S. waterways and that the average shipping container measures 8 feet by 40 feet and can hold 60,000 pounds. Consider, further, that a ship or tanker transporting cargo can hold more explosives and dangerous materials than could ever be smuggled in an airplane or a truck crossing a land border.

Yet despite the clear danger, the best port protection the American people

have is a chain link fence? It is unfathomable--unfathomable--why we have not insisted this amendment be signed into law months ago.

This amendment would make sure that more than a chain link fence is protecting the Nation's ports. Not too much to ask, is it?

The Coast Guard has estimated that it will cost the ports $5.4 billion during the next decade to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act standards, including $1.1 billion this year; and yet the President did not request one thin dime--can you believe it, not one dime--for port security. The amendment that I will offer, which is at the desk, would increase port security grant funding from the $150 million contained in the bill by $460 million, thus providing a total of $610 million for this program.

The Commandant of the Coast Guard testified before the House authorizing committee on June 3, 2003, about the implementation of the MTSA legislation. Here is what he said:

The regulatory impact on the maritime industry will be

significant, and the time line for implementing the new

robust maritime security requirements is exceptionally short.

However, the administration, while aggressively supporting Federal security funding for the aviation industry, has failed in four straight spending requests to include a single penny--not one red cent--for port security grants even though 95 percent of all non- North American U.S. trade enters our 361 ports around the Nation. This is serious.

During our Homeland Security Subcommittee hearings this spring, I asked Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson why there was no money requested in the President's budget for port security grants and Mr. Hutchinson testified that he believed it was the responsibility of the port industry--the responsibility of the port industry. Yet the port industry's first priority is moving goods through ports as quickly as possible because that increases profits. There must be incentives if we are to realistically expect the ports to improve security.

This year, the Transportation Security Administration received over $1 billion of applications from the ports for the limited funding that was approved by Congress last year. There clearly is a demand from the ports, for help to harden physical security to reduce the Nation's well documented seaport vulnerabilities. These are vulnerabilities that are well documented.

The amendment also addresses other important homeland security needs authorized by the Maritime Transportation Security Act--and yet again not funded.

The Maritime Transportation Security Act requires that vessel and port facility owners prepare and submit security plans to the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of deterring a transportation security incident. The Coast Guard serves as the lead agency to develop a National Maritime Transportation Security Plan and review all security plans prepared by vessel or facility owners or operators.

To meet requirements set in the MTSA, vessel and facility owners must submit security plans to the Coast Guard for review and approval by the end of calendar year 2003. But, once again, the administration provided no funding to the Coast Guard for this effort or for tracking compliance with the plans in its fiscal year 2004 budget request.

In recent testimony, Coast Guard Commandant ADM Thomas H. Collins acknowledged that the Coast Guard still needs an additional $70 million and 150 full-time employees by this fall to review and approve more than 10,000 security plans by vessel and facility owners. My amendment provides the money.

My amendment also provides $57 million for public transit grants. According to a Mineta Transportation Institute study, one-third of terrorist attacks worldwide have been on transportation systems, and transit systems are the mode most commonly attacked. According to the study, nine surface transportation systems were the target of more than 195 terrorist attacks from 1997 through the year 2000.

The approximately 6,000 transit agencies in the United States provide more than 9 billion trips each year representing 43 billion passenger miles, and yet the administration has provided minimal funding for transit security.

The General Accounting Office, the GAO, recently reported that:

Insufficient funding is the most significant challenge in

making transit systems as safe and secure as possible.

Mr. President, at just 8 of the 10 transit agencies surveyed, the General Accounting Office identified the need for security improvements estimated at $700 million. The General Accounting Office also found that:

TSA has yet to exert full responsibility for the security

of any transportation mode other than aviation.

The chemical attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 is a sobering reminder of how a terrorist attack on one transit system can affect human lives, the economy, and confidence in our transit systems. How many times do we have to witness attacks on transit systems in other countries before we secure our transit systems?

This amendment would provide $57 million in direct grants to the Transportation Security Administration to help with that shortfall.

The amendment also would add $15 million to the $10 million already provided in the bill for intercity bus grants. A study conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute, ``Protecting Public Surface Transportation against Terrorism and Serious Crime,'' found that during the period 1997 through 2000, 54 percent of the worldwide attacks on surface transportation systems were against buses or bus terminals.

Almost 800 million people ride over-the-road buses annually, more than the airlines and Amtrak combined. Intercity buses serve approximately 5,000 communities daily, compared to roughly 500 each for the airlines and Amtrak. Intercity buses serve those who truly need public transportation--rural residents who have no other public transportation alternatives and urban residents who must rely on affordable public transportation.

Given the important role that intercity buses play in the Nation's transportation system and their susceptibility to terrorist attacks, they must be protected.

One of the most glaring funding deficiencies identified in the recent Rudman report is the poor support for first responders. The Rudman report estimated that America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs in the next 5 years, if current funding levels are maintained. But the legislation before the Senate does not even maintain that current funding level.

While the underlying bill provides first responder funding at a level that is $303 million above the President's request, it is $434 million below the level that the Congress approved for the current fiscal year.

In the nearly 2 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, States and cities have worked to better protect the Nation. They have undertaken critical assessments of vulnerabilities. They have provided specialized training to police officers, firemen, and emergency medical teams. They have attempted to close as many gaps as possible to prevent another terrorist attack. But unfortunately, for many communities, they have had to act without the support of the Federal Government.

A March 2003 analysis by the U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that cities are spending an additional $70 million per week on personnel costs alone, to keep up with security requirements. Mayors and governors have contacted almost every Member of this Congress, if not all, practically begging for additional funds to help defray the huge expenses for homeland security. Their requests come at a time when cities, counties, and states are in the worst financial shape in decades. Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn stated earlier this year that ``We've dug deep into our own pockets. Now we really need the help of the Federal Government.'' This is taken from the Los Angeles Times of February 23. They have come hat in hand for help, and we ought not turn our backs on them.

My amendment adds $500 million to the budget of the Office of Domestic Preparedness for first responders. Specifically, it provides $250 million for

State grants, and $250 million for high threat urban areas, bringing the total for high-threat urban areas to $1 billion. This amendment provides funds to meet the immediate and growing needs that State and local first responders have for funds for equipment, training, homeland security exercises, and planning.

The needs are great.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Fire Protection Association, only 13 percent of fire departments have the equipment and training to handle an incident involving chemical or biological agents.

Forty percent of fire department personnel involved in hazardous material response lack formal training in those duties.

Only 10 percent of fire departments in the United States have the personnel and equipment to respond to a building collapse.

Funds would be used to purchase: Personal protective equipment for first responders--chemical resistant gloves, boots, and undergarments; interoperable communications equipment, portable radios, satellite phones, batteries; detection equipment--equipment, to monitor, detect, sample, identify and quantify chemical, biological, radiological/ nuclear and explosive agents; medical supplies and pharmaceuticals; and, training costs and paying overtime costs associated with attendance at training for emergency responders, emergency managers, and public officials.

My amendment also provides $79.5 million for grants for interoperable communications equipment. This bill currently includes no funds specifically for interoperable communications equipment. This amendment proposes to add $79.5 million, the same amount that was provided in fiscal year 2003.

The initial $79.5 million was a small step in starting the process of integrating and coordinating communications equipment between and among first responders firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel--a deficiency uncovered during the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Only one-fourth of all fire departments can communicate with all of their rescue partners. The Council on Foreign Relations' June, 2003 study on homeland security needs estimated that the need for interoperable communications equipment funding was $6.8 billion over the next 5 years.

The amendment also provides an additional $150 million for fire grants. The Senate bill includes $750 million for assistance to firefighter grants, roughly the same amount as last year. This amendment would add $150 million for fire grants, which would bring the total to $900 million, the level authorized. Our fire departments need this money.

On average, fire departments across the country have only enough radios to equip half the firefighters on a shift, and breathing apparatuses for only one third.

In the 3 years this program has been in existence, it has become one of the best run programs in the Federal Government. This Senate should fund this program at the authorized level. Our frontline defenders deserve no less.

In October of 2001, the President signed the Patriot Act which called for tripling the number of border patrol agents and Customs and immigration inspectors on the northern border. In May of 2002, the President signed the Enhanced Border Security Act, which authorized significant new investments in border patrol agents and facilities. The goals with regard to Customs inspectors and border facilities cannot be met with the limited funding that was made available for this bill.

The amendment I have offered adds $100 million for improvements to our border ports-of-entry. There are 197 ports-of-entry on our Nation's land borders. Of those, 128 out of 197 are stretched across our 5,525 mile long border with Canada.

The remaining sites are along our highly-trafficked border with Mexico.

Most facilities along the U.S.-Canada border were constructed either as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps program during the Great Depression or in the period between 1950 and 1965. These older facilities are having an increasingly difficult time meeting the energy and power requirements of today's technology.

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, traffic both in people and goods has more than doubled since the last major border infrastructure effort was launched during the Reagan administration.

Trade with Canada has doubled in the last decade, while trade with Mexico has tripled during the same time frame. However, the facilities through which trade must flow have not been expanded or enhanced to keep pace with this traffic.

A Congressionally mandated study called the ``Ports of Entry Infrastructure Assessment Study,'' completed over a year prior to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, identified a growing backlog of infrastructure needs at our Nation's border crossings. It specifically identified 822 infrastructure requirements with an estimated gross cost of $784 million. That report was completed 3 years ago last month--but Congress has yet to seriously begin to address this growing problem.

Consistent with the Enhanced Border Security Act and legislation introduced in this body by a bipartisan group of Senators, this amendment provides $100 million for the new Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to begin addressing this backlog. The funds provided in this amendment could be used to replace the trailer--yes, the trailer--that serves as a border port-of-entry in Easton, ME, or to complete construction of the San Diego fence along the border with Mexico which was authorized by Congress in 1997.

My amendment would also add $138.5 million to hire additional border protection staff to meet the levels authorized in the USA PATRIOT Act.

While funding in the Committee bill will allow the Bureau for Customs and Border Protection, CBP, to succeed in meeting the Congressionally mandated staffing goal for the Border Patrol by the end of this fiscal year, the remaining components of this newly created bureau fall far short of meeting the authorized target.

The PATRIOT Act authorizes a total of 4,845 legacy Customs, Immigration and Agriculture inspection personnel along the northern border by the end of fiscal year 2004. According to the CBP, it will fall far short of that goal. It estimates that it will only have 3,387 inspection personnel at the many port-of-entry and other facilities that stretch across the 5,525 mile northern border with Canada. This is 1,458 personnel short of the authorized and required level.

My amendment would provide the $138.5 million estimated to complete the hiring initiative called for in the PATRIOT Act. The funds would be used to hire an additional 1,458 inspectors to: enhance our ability to conduct inspections of people and goods entering our country to ensure that the people entering the country are authorized to do so; to ensure that the products in the containers are indeed what they are claimed to be and that no dangerous foods, meats, or other products are brought into the country.

Another key area of focus is air cargo security. Most Americans would be stunned to learn that, under the President's budget proposal, each airline passenger will be screened before boarding a plane. Each passenger's baggage will be screened before being loaded on a plane. But commercial cargo on that same plane is left unchecked.

The amendment would add $100 million to the Transportation Security Administration's budget. The additional funds proposed in this amendment would accomplish some key immediate objectives while at the same time laying the ground work for a more comprehensive, multi-year plan. Of this amount, $70 million would be provided to immediately strengthen and expand a number of ongoing TSA activities while the remaining $30 million would be used to increase research, development and testing of screening technologies and other systems.

The $70 million would be used for the following purposes:

To immediately deploy personnel to the Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center to develop rules for targeting suspicious packages on passenger aircraft and, as resources are provided, all-cargo aircraft; to provide $20 million for approximately 125 inspectors to be devoted to cargo screening. These personnel would be trained to inspect cargo operations, but in keeping with TSA's Aviation Operations strategy to cross-train its personnel, they would be trained for additional duties in future fiscal years; to provide $15 million to advance

by one-year the TSA plan to expand canine screening teams for limited cargo screening. These activities would be co-located at airports currently using TSA canine for screening of U.S. mail, and would work as a complement to EDS screening at smaller locations; to provide $25 million to fully deploy the ``known shipper'' and profiling programs for cargo being carried on passenger aircraft; to provide $5 million to update the risk and vulnerability assessments for cargo operations; to provide $5 million to launch immediately a pilot program to use explosive detection system, EDS, machines at select locations to screen cargo.

The additional $30 million would be added to the currently budgeted $30 million in TSA's research and development account for air cargo activities, doubling the total amount available for research and development within the air cargo pilot program.

Finally, my amendment provides $80 million to begin addressing the issue of physical security at chemical facilities.

Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has called the lack of security at U.S. chemical plants a ``ticking time-bomb.'' The General Accounting Office has reported that chemical plants remain vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency, the GAO noted that 123 chemical facilities across the country, if attacked, could inflict serious damage and expose millions of people to toxic chemicals and gases.

There are 3,000 chemical facilities in 49 States that, if attacked, could affect more than 10,000 people each.

The General Accounting Office found that the Federal Government has not comprehensively assessed the chemical industry's vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, nor has the Federal Government adequately addressed our nuclear vulnerabilities.

The Homeland Security Department is responsible for carrying out comprehensive assessments of the vulnerabilities of the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States. The President's National Strategy for Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets identifies chemical plants as part of the Nation's critical infrastructure. We are talking about chemical plants.

Unfortunately, this administration has paid lipservice to the issue by saying that the Homeland Security Department will take the lead in managing vulnerability assessments of U.S. chemical facilities, but--b- u-t--no funding is identified in this budget to do just that.

When I asked Secretary Ridge who was responsible to secure these facilities, he testified that he thought that securing chemical facilities was the responsibility of the chemical industry. Frankly, I do not believe our communities would be satisfied to wait for the administration to wake up to this danger.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that it will cost $80 million to conduct vulnerability assessments for chemical plants. This amendment I have offered would provide those resources.

Protecting this Nation's communities is not easy. Protecting this Nations communities is not cheap. And protecting this Nation's communities cannot wait. After 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, the Maritime Transportation Security Act, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act and the President signed all of these with great fanfare. But the President has done little to fulfill the promise of those laws. Now the Senate has before it the funding legislation that will either fulfill the promise of those acts or continue to leave the Nation vulnerable.

We will hear the same old mantra in opposition to this amendment that money cannot possibly solve the problems facing homeland security. I agree that money cannot solve all of our problems but if we fail to invest sufficient funds, if we fail in the effort to protect our people as best we can, we will never even begin to address them. The gaps in our protections and preparations will continue to grow. We all know these caps exist. And, to be sure, if we know where those gaps are, so do the terrorists know where those gaps are. The American people believe that we here in Washington are taking care of the problem. We must make every effort to close those gaps.

In just a few weeks, America will pause to remember the second anniversary of the moments when the airplanes struck the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field. We again will remember the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, the firefighters, the police officers, the ambulance drivers. We will remember all of those who lost their lives in those tragic moments. And we should remember those who saved our lives when they sent that plane into the Pennsylvania fields. But as we remember the lives of all these, we owe them more than high-sounding rhetoric. We owe them our best judgment. We owe them rational, responsible action. We owe them a legacy that may truly save lives and prevent another terrorist attack from happening.

I urge all Members to be mindful of their solemn duty to ``provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity'' as we debate this important legislation.

I have gone to considerable lengths to speak concerning my amendment. I urge Senators to support the amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that certain Senators have their names added as cosponsors: Senators Lieberman, Cantwell, and Stabenow.

And I welcome the cosponsorship of other Senators--all Senators for that matter. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Senator Cochran has said there is no end to the list of homeland security needs. He is absolutely correct on that. We could list these security needs from now until Kingdom come. Additional needs can be found. So he is correct. But that does not mean the amendment I have offered is excessive. It does not mean the amendment is excessive. It is targeted to specific activities that Congress has approved.

As I said in the beginning, I named several pieces of legislation that have been approved and signed into law by the President, some of them with great fanfare. So Congress has approved these acts, and the President has signed them into law.

The chairman is correct in stating the progress we have made in hiring Border Patrol agents and inspectors. But that leaves us nearly 1,500 inspectors short of the goal established in the PATRIOT Act. The President signed that law.

Are we serious or are we not serious about meeting the goals set forth in these acts? My amendment would provide the resources to meet the goals that have been set forth in the acts by Congress, the acts that have been signed by the President.

It has also been noted that the bill already includes $150 million for port security grants. But the Coast Guard has estimated that it will cost $1.1 billion in just the first year for the ports to implement the security plan that the Coast Guard issued on July 1, pursuant to the Maritime Transportation Security Act.

Who signed that act? The President signed it. Who issued the regulations? The Coast Guard. Are they serious or not about port security? Is the President serious? The amendment would result in less than $1 billion of total funding. This is less than the Coast Guard's $1.1 billion estimate.

Our distinguished chairman has said he tried to include a base level of funding for grants to equip and train our police, fire, and medical personnel. And I compliment the chairman. He has done a masterful job in writing the provisions in the bill we have before us, a masterful job in distributing the limited amounts that have been provided to the chairman and to the committee for distribution. He has sought to exercise good judgment. He has done so--with the limitations.

The problem is, we do not have enough funds to appropriately allocate to meet the needs of the country. But I do not believe that establishing a base level of funding is enough. When a nonpartisan organization such as the Council on Foreign Relations estimates a $98 billion shortfall over the next 5 years, I simply cannot understand why the committee funding level is enough. It is $434 million below the level available in fiscal year 2003.

With regard to funding chemical facilities security, the chairman notes there is significant funding in the bill for securing critical infrastructure. Yet, nearly 2 years after 9/11, we have no details-- none--from the administration describing how these funds would be used. Secretary Ridge testified to the subcommittee that he believes that securing chemical facilities is the responsibility of the chemical industry.

I do not believe we should continue to wait for the administration to get its act together. We should not allow the budget resolution to artificially limit our ability to address known vulnerabilities in this country. Our citizens do not know about budget resolutions. Our citizens do not know about 302(b) allocations. But they do know they feel vulnerable to terrorist attacks that Secretary Ridge has said are inevitable.

Mr. President, the full committee conducted careful and extensive hearings last year. We had seven Department heads here before the committee. The committee membership was there. The committee hearings were well attended. Senator Stevens and I carefully selected witnesses to appear before those hearings. There were Governors who appeared. There were mayors who appeared. There were members of county commissions who appeared. First responders appeared. Firemen, policemen, health personnel appeared at those hearings. And we have gone over those hearings carefully. The staff has gone over those hearings and painstakingly gleaned from the rich testimony that was submitted by these public officials and public servants. Based on those and subsequent hearings, we decided that these are needs that ought to be addressed. And so I have tried to address these needs in the amendment.

As I say, the amendment adds $1.75 billion. That would fund 42 hours of the Defense Department expenditures. The Defense Department will be spending $1 billion a day on the military--$1 billion a day. They are spending a billion dollars a week in Iraq. Why can't we spend $1.75 billion on the protection of our own people, and our industries here, the protection of our own infrastructure; $1.75 billion to defend the American people, to defend our infrastructure, to defend our ports, to meet the needs of our ports, $1.75 billion? We spend a $1 billion every 24 hours on our defense budget. Yet when it comes to defending this country, defending its infrastructure, then we say it is too much.

I hope Senators will support the motion to waive the point of order. As I close my remarks at this point, I thank the distinguished chairman for his characteristic courtesy and also for his proficiency, his professional handling of this bill and the hearings. He attended the hearings, started them on time, and asked incisive questions. He is always fair to those on the minority side. I have nothing but praise for him. And I thank the cosponsors of the amendment. I must state again, however, that I feel the need for adding appropriations as I am attempting to do here.

A stitch in time saves nine. There is no question in my mind but that we are underfunding the homeland security needs. The Senator has done the best he could with the limited amount of moneys, but there is no good reason why we can't add moneys to this bill. We have to overcome the point of order, of course. There is a 60-vote point of order. That is difficult. But Senators may come to rejoice in having voted for this amendment. Who knows?

I see the distinguished Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I want to thank the very distinguished Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, on the ringing defense of the provisions that are set forth in the amendment that I and several other Senators are cosponsoring. I do not think any Senator could come to this floor with better credentials than those of the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton. She represents the State and the city that was the hardest hit by the terrorist attacks on 9/11. There is only one other State and one other jurisdiction that suffered, but she has made an extraordinary plea coming from the experiences that she has suffered as a result of 9/11.

I was chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, and she came to my office not once, not twice, not three times but many times in support of the appropriations that the Senate was considering and that the Senate finally enacted. She had a great impact on me as we sat and talked and as I listened to her recount the problems of her city, the problems of New York City and of New York State that resulted from those attacks.

So I thank her for her support of the amendment and say that no one in the Senate could have made a finer statement in support, and no one in the Senate would better understand the needs the American people have as we try to prepare against any future terrorist attacks. I thank her and her staff for the excellent effort they have put into this matter.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Let me express my appreciation to the Senator for his support of the amendment; more than that, for his steadfast support of the appropriations as we have dealt with this problem time and again on the floor.

The Senator, as is Senator Clinton, is a member of the Armed Services Committee, and his support for this amendment tells a lot. Here is the support of two Senators on the Armed Services Committee. They have been on there quite a while. They have seniority.

The Senator from Rhode Island is an outstanding member of the committee. I deeply appreciate his support of this amendment. I appreciate his patriotism and his eloquence and support of preparing this country against such attacks as it was subjected to on September 11, 2001.

Mr. President, I realize this is not debatable. I shall shortly move to waive the point of order, which will be debatable, not that I intend to take long in debating it. But if the Chair will indulge me momentarily, I want to thank Senator Dodd for his very forceful and cogent and persuasive statement in support of the amendment. He is extremely eloquent. He intends to follow up this statement after a little while with an amendment of his own. But I thank him profusely, without being profuse, for an excellent, excellent statement. I believe his perspicacity will be rewarded in time. I believe it will be. I know the American people are better off for having him in the Senate and for the support he has given to this amendment. I hope the Senate will prevail in support of the statement of the Senator from Connecticut.

Now, Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, will the Senator withhold?

Mr. President, while Senator Nelson is coming to the floor, let me just remind my colleagues that I offered an amendment last January to add $5 billion to the omnibus appropriations bill for 2003 for homeland security programs such as port security, nuclear security, airport security, and first responders. The White House labeled the amendment as extraneous spending and the amendment was defeated.

So what happened? Ten weeks later, the White House requested a $4.4 billion supplemental. And a month later, Congress approved $5.1 billion of supplemental homeland security funding. So the White House was a day late and several hundred million dollars short. All the White House accomplished was the delay of critical homeland security investments for 3 months.

That was a repeat of the same old tune we heard from the White House at the time Senator Stevens and I wrote a letter to the White House and to Secretary Ridge urging that there be more money for homeland security. Secretary Ridge responded with a letter to Senator Stevens and to me saying that the White House believed that our amendment was extraneous for the moment and that the White House would be submitting its own request in due time.

So it seems that whenever we have attempted to offer legislation to protect our own country, to protect the people of the country, to protect the infrastructure of the country, to protect the industries of the country from attack, the administration always says it does not need these moneys and that in due time it will submit its own request. And so that seems to be the record today.

Today we are debating an amendment to add just $1.75 billion for homeland security. And the majority, speaking for the administration, says the amendment is too large. Mr. President, history has a way of repeating itself. The Senate should approve this amendment today. The Senate should not wait for the White House to recognize real homeland security vulnerabilities. Delay does not make the Nation more secure.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson, and I thank the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for their excellent statements. I thank them for supporting the amendment. I hope the

Senate will vote to waive the point of order.

I agree this is important and timely funding for one of the many needs facing our Nation as we deal with terrorist threats.

Yes, I understand this project is in development in Nevada. I encourage the Department to consider using a portion of the $13 million appropriated for hazardous materials tracking to help initiate the development of this project.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3706 on behalf of Senator Shelby, Senator Roberts, Senator Bond, Senator Wyden, Senator Bayh, Senator Feinstein, and myself.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is one of two amendments which I intend to offer to strengthen the position of the national intelligence director. At the outset, I join many others in complimenting the chairwoman, Senator Collins, and the ranking member, Senator Lieberman, for their leadership and their outstanding work in presenting the bill which is now on the floor.

This measure is a long time in coming for decision by the Congress. In my view, had there been a strong national intelligence director in existence prior to September 11, 2001, the attack on 9/11 might well have been prevented. There were many indicators present. Had they all been put together, I think there is a good chance we could have avoided the calamity of that day.

There is a famous FBI report from Phoenix about this suspicious character who wanted to learn how to fly an airplane but who was not interested in takeoffs or landings. That information never got to the appropriate authority in headquarters at the FBI. There were two al- Qaida suspects in Kuala Lumpur known to the Central Intelligence Agency, information not communicated to the INS, to Immigration, so that those two al-Qaida agents came into the United States and were among the 19 hijackers who perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11.

There was an extensive investigation conducted by the Minneapolis office of the FBI, the famous 13-page, single-spaced memorandum by special agent Coleen Rowley about Zacarias Moussaoui. Had those leads been followed, had there been an application for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act using the right standard--the FBI used the wrong standard--that would have produced a great deal of information which could have, in combination with other information, been pieced together to have warned us of the impending attack.

There is the information from NSA, where there was the tip that something was going to happen on 9/11 which was either not translated or not communicated to the Intelligence Committee.

There had been the information about Murad, an al-Qaida operative back in 1996, and his plans to fly an airplane into the CIA.

Those are only some of the threats. In combination and along with others, had we had all the information together, had we known what could have been pieced together, I think the likelihood is present that 9/11 could have been prevented.

During my tenure as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee during the 104th Congress, the Intelligence Committee reported a bill, S. 1718, which sought to lodge effective power in the Director of Central Intelligence. That position theoretically was in charge of all the intelligence community but, because of lack of authority, lack of budget control, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was never able to carry out the role of being the unifier, the real leader of the intelligence community.

In section 707 of that bill, it provided for:

Enhancement of authority of Director of Central

Intelligence to manage, budget, personnel, and activities of

the intelligence community.

On a cross referral, by the time it got to the Armed Services Committee, the substance was taken out. There was a big turf battle and the effort to lodge authority in the Director of CIA to do effective direction and management of the Central Intelligence Agency went to naught.

Thirty days after 9/11, Senator Lieberman and I introduced legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. That was on October 11 of 2001. When special agent Coleen Rowley testified before the Judiciary Committee in June of 2002, there was finally impetus to get support from the administration to move ahead with a Department of Homeland Security, and when the matter was debated on the floor of the Senate, the effort was made to vest authority in the Secretary of Homeland Security to direct other intelligence agencies. It seemed to us that when we were creating a new department, Homeland Security, this was an opportune time to pick up the strands of what had been attempted by S. 1718 back in 1996, and by many others.

It wasn't my idea alone. The Scowcroft Commission had come up with similar recommendations. Others had called for real power and real authority in a national director. It seemed to us that that was the time, with the new Department of Homeland Security, to give this effective power to the newly created Secretary of Homeland Security.

Our efforts, again, were unsuccessful because of the turf battles, because of the interests of the CIA and the Department of Intelligence, DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense and the FBI, and the

other agencies to protect their own turf.

In October of 2002, the House of Representatives passed a bill and went home leaving the Senate with the alternative of either taking the bill or letting the matter go over until the next year. I was prepared at that time to offer the amendment to give the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to direct some real power. After talking to Secretary Ridge, talking with the Vice President, and talking with the President, rather than have no bill at all, it was decided to proceed and let the matter stand without having that kind of authority for the Secretary of Homeland Security.

There the matter languished until the families of the victims of September 11 became a powerful advocacy group, which led to the creation of the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission report was filed in July of this year. There was very substantial momentum finally to create a national intelligence director with some real authority to really manage the entire community.

Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, and I have produced a bill as had been recommended by the 9/11 Commission and then the Governmental Affairs Committee proceeded to have hearings, came back after the recess in late July, had hearings in August, marked up the bill, and passed it out of committee last week. So it is now on the floor in a context where there is considerable public pressure created by the 9/11 Commission report and what the families of the victims have done. And the momentum is present.

There has been very substantial opposition to moving at this time. There are those who say this legislation is precipitous, that it ought not to be passed on the eve of an election, that we have more of an eye on 11/2, the election date, than we have on 9/11.

I reject those contentions. This issue has been under study for decades, and personally on my behalf since I spent 8 years on the Intelligence Committee and chaired the committee during the 104th Congress.

The 9/11 Commission unanimously and emphatically has called for the creation of a national intelligence director. It is my view that is a proposition whose time has come.

When I offered the amendment in committee, which was rejected although we received five votes in the committee, there was very intense lobbying coming, as I understand it--you can never present competent evidence which would stand up in court but a lot of lobbying from the protectors of their turf.

My amendment to create the strength of the national intelligence director was deferred until this day. It is my hope and expectation that from this bill we will have a national intelligence director if it is the one proposed by amendment or if it is the one which is in the bill which has been reported by the committee.

It is my conclusion after very substantial study and after very substantial thought and after very substantial consideration that we need a very strong national intelligence director. We need an independent national intelligence director who will stand up to the executive branch, who will stand up to the Congress, who will tell the Congress exactly what is needed by way of resources, and who will have the stature and strength to get that job done.

There is an enormous controversy about the resolution to authorize the use of force which Congress passed and the President acted on--a lot of concern about the adequacy of the intelligence which led to that judgment, the 77 votes in this body joined by a majority of Democrats as well as Republicans. But there is no doubt that however one views the resolution for use of force, it would have been highly desirable to have better intelligence.

The amendment which is embodied in amendment No. 3706 would give substantial additional authority to the national intelligence director than is contained in the committee bill. It would put the CIA under the national intelligence director. The national intelligence director would have the authority to manage and oversee the intelligence community, including the CIA, the NSA, the National Security Agency, the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, the NGA, the National Geospacial Agency, and national collection from the Defense Intelligence Agency leaving tactical intelligence within the Department of Defense as it is now.

Valid considerations have been raised that tactical intelligence ought to be left in the Department of Defense so the Department of Defense can carry out its functions. My amendment would leave that important facet with the Department of Defense.

The national intelligence director under the committee bill has budget authority over the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After a great deal of thought, this amendment No. 3706 does not include the FBI under the supervision, direction, and control of the national intelligence director as the other agencies enumerated would have the national intelligence director with the authority to supervise, direct, and control which, in my judgment, would give the national intelligence director the authority to manage and oversee the national intelligence community in an effective way.

The essence of my bill was circulated to the Governmental Affairs Committee with a letter dated August 3 of this year. I put the bill into the Congressional Record on September 7. I introduced the bill on September 15 under the caption of S. 2081. The amendment embodied in No. 3706 is somewhat different, as I have described it.

We are dealing here with agencies where there are inbred cultures of concealment. It is very difficult to get information, even as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

My experience has shown it was very difficult for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to know fully and adequately what has happened within his own agency. One of the matters which I referred to during the committee hearings was information which was disseminated by the CIA Chief of Reports and Requirements in the Soviet East European Division of the Central Intelligence Agency. This was a man who was in the CIA from 1950 until 1991. He had information which was tainted by the Soviet Union--information where the individual conceded that he knew the intelligence came from Soviet-controlled sources and that he disseminated that information at the highest levels of government without disclosing that fact to the individuals whom he transmitted the information that it came from controlled or tainted sources.

That information was transmitted, including transmission on January 13 of 1993. So it went to President George Herbert Walker Bush and it went to President-elect Bill Clinton.

When I took his testimony and expressed shock at what he had done, the individual confidently responded that he had acted entirely properly because disclosure of the controlled source that the information was tainted would have made it even harder, as he put it, to sell the intelligence to policymakers; that there was no reason to believe the Soviets used deception was inaccurate, and no customer would use it unless he had concealed the fact it was tainted.

This was an extraordinary approach, as I saw it, but I think revealing as to what happens within the Central Intelligence Agency, within the Bureau, where the individuals have their empires, where they know better than anybody else, and transmit information to the President of the United States and the President-elect, knowing it to be tainted and not telling the President or President-elect that it was tainted because they then would not use it, and saying that the information was given because the CIA agent, the CIA individual, knew that it was correct. That is just the height of audacity but I think indicative of the kinds of problems we face with the cultures of concealment that we have in the intelligence agencies.

Another matter which I refer to, in the course of the committee hearings, is relevant for presentation; that is, the difficulty of having adequate oversight over the intelligence agencies and the duties that the intelligence agencies have to make disclosures to the oversight committee.

In the spring of 2002, when I chaired a subcommittee of oversight on the Department of Justice and had a wide-ranging subpoena, a document was presented which I ask unanimous consent

be printed in the Record, Mr. President.

The essence of the document disclosed that there had been an effort by ranking officials in the Department of Justice to try to influence the FBI not to pursue an investigation on campaign finance irregularities in December of 1996 because at that time Attorney General Reno was under consideration for reappointment. The relevant part of this document from Director Freeh to Mr. Esposito, who was his deputy handling this matter:

I also advised the Attorney General of Lee Radek's comment

to you that there was a lot of ``pressure'' on him and PIS

[Public Integrity Section] regarding this case because the

``Attorney General's job might hang in the balance'' (or

words to that effect). I stated that those comments would be

enough for me to take him and the Criminal Division off the

case completely.

This matter was not brought to the attention of the Judiciary Committee as a matter of oversight. In my judgment, this is the kind of a matter which the Director, on his own, without request, without knowledge by the oversight committee, without subpoena, as it was disclosed some 4 years later, should have turned over as a matter of oversight.

Another amendment which I intend to offer would give the national intelligence director a 10-year term on the analogy to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That would enable the director of national intelligence to have a substantial degree of independence since his term would outlast the term of the President--4 years or, with reelection, a total of 8 years.

We have seen in today's press reports of very substantial problems in the FBI, where there are inadequate translators and a great deal of information from al-Qaida has gone untranslated. I have talked to FBI Director Mueller, who tells me the information is dated, but there is still a significant problem in having sufficient translators to handle that important matter so we have our intelligence in hand.

The national intelligence director is going to have to be strong and independent, with enough stature, with a tenure of a 10-year term, to come to the Congress and be able to see to it that adequate funds are provided for the intelligence community.

The media reports are full of information that show very substantial problems on what would happen in Iraq after a military victory with the insurgents. The national intelligence director is going to have to be strong and independent and bring those matters to the attention of the Congress as well as to the executive branch.

It is my hope that in this legislation we will do a complete job and structure the responsibilities of the national intelligence director to give him the authority on budget and the authority on supervision, direction, and control to effectively manage and oversee the entire intelligence community.

That is an abbreviated statement of a great many considerations. At this time, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, by way of a very brief reply at this time, others will say the committee bill goes too far, and the committee bill stands between others who would reject any reorganization of the national intelligence community. The amendment I have offered doesn't go to that point.

The question is, what is the best way to reorganize the national intelligence community? When reference is made to the comments by Mr. Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, he made an analysis of S. 2811, which is a bill similar to the amendment now pending, but it is not the same. I think it is an overstatement to say that the 9/11 Commission rejects the amendment I have offered because it hasn't been considered by the Commission.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey, who was vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee during my tenure as chairman, called me, unsolicited, and said that he favored the elements which I had offered and thought it was preferable to have the national intelligence director with greater authority, which I was proposing.

I believe it is a fair statement to say that the 9/11 Commission would be pleased to see us move to establish a national intelligence director, whether it was along the lines of the committee report or whether it was along the lines of my amendment. I say, too, that it is important to establish a national intelligence director with as many powers as we can reasonably give the national intelligence director. I think that is what the 9/11 Commission is looking for. I don't think it can be accurately said that the 9/11 Commission rejects the substance of my amendment. Certainly, former Senator Bob Kerrey, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission, was not, as far as I can say from an unsolicited call. He said he liked the substance of what I was offering.

I think other Senators are going to be interested in participating in the debate. It was unknown, generally, what sequence would occur as to the offering of the amendment. But I think others will want to come and be heard.

I yield the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry: I believe we have 2 more minutes until 4:30.

I seek recognition to make a comment about the pending amendment.

Mr. President, we can get more into the details on rebuttal as to what Senator Collins has said. I do not think it is accurate that we are taking away key authority from the Department of Defense, but I want to print in the Record a letter signed by 14 Senators objecting to the committee bill saying that it ``does not give the NID additional authorities will be required to provide the unity of leadership and accountability necessary for real intelligence reform. In particular, we feel strongly that the NID must have day-to-day operational control of all elements of the Intelligence Community performing national missions.'' It is signed by Senators Roberts, Shelby, DeWine, Hatch, Lott, Snowe, Voinovich, Bayh, Graham, Wyden, Bond, Hagel, Chambliss, and myself. There is the current chairman, Senator Roberts, and three prior chairmen, Senator Shelby, Senator Graham, and myself.

I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record together with a memorandum from me to the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee dated December 5, 1995.

A December 9, 1996 memorandum has already been printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have listened with a keen interest, as I always do, when the Senator from Virginia speaks. The concerns which I have seen in my tenure on the Intelligence Committee and as chair-- and I served with the Senator from Virginia on the Intelligence Committee--is the dominance of the Department of Defense on the budget and the lack of coordination with the other intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the counterintelligence branch of the

Mr. President, I yield the floor. I had the floor, but I do yield it.

Then in that event I will stay standing.

Mr. President, through the Chair, I would inquire of the Senator from Virginia, what does he see which would stop those various officers from complying with those requirements and still allow the national intelligence director to have overall management? That is my question to the Senator from Virginia.

I hadn't meant to promote Senator Warner.

If you are confused on the substance of the question, maybe the court reporter could repeat it.

There is nothing in the amendment which takes the so- called residual authority from the Secretary of Defense. The amendment gives to the national intelligence director management and supervision, but it does not undercut the directions of the statutes to which you have referred.

Mr. President, the concept of unintended consequences is not an unusual argument. It can be attenuated in many directions. My submission to this body is that the amendment is plain on its face, that it seeks to create a national intelligence director who has the authority to manage the intelligence community. When the Senator from Virginia cites responsibilities in existing law, there is nothing in my amendment which undercuts that law, nothing at all. Ambiguity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and in this situation, on the face of the amendment, there is no ambiguity.

Mr. President, I regret the Senator from Virginia is at a loss, but that doesn't affect the plain language of the amendment and the fact that it doesn't disturb the responsibilities under the section cited by the Senator from Virginia.

I think the amendment speaks for itself, I say to Senator Warner.

Mr. President, we are on the Homeland Security appropriations bill. We have two amendments pending for consideration. It is my understanding a briefing is being held right now and Senators are expected to be in the Chamber soon to either debate these amendments or make other comments about the bill.

We encourage those who do have amendments to let us know about them. We have some indication that there are amendments that will be offered before we complete action on this bill, but we intend to push ahead and work as late tonight as the leader permits and complete action on this bill tomorrow, if possible. That is our intention. We hope to have the cooperation of all Senators.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, I wish to thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his cooperation in the development of this bill that is now before the Senate. His assistance and participation in the hearings, the review of the President's budget request, our meetings with administration officials to fully understand the priorities as they saw them, and, in many ways, his experience and judgment in helping guide the development of this bill were very essential to the success we had in getting it to this point. His support in getting it through the committee and subcommittee was essential and very important.

This amendment, as the distinguished Senator has pointed out, will add money for many different areas of spending in the legislation that we have presented. Of course, it is because there are many needs there. There are many ways we can allocate and spend resources to try to upgrade our capability of protecting our Nation's homeland. So there is no end to the list of ways we could spend additional funds.

What we have tried to do, though, is be guided by the limitations that have been imposed on the committee by the budget resolution. We have a limited amount of money to spend in this bill. In fact, the amount we have been allocated to spend is $1 billion more than the President's budget request that was submitted to Congress earlier. So this bill provides $29.326 billion. We have tried to allocate it among all the competing needs that we have come to understand through our review of the budget request and the information we have been able to obtain as to what our needs are and what the highest priorities are, and that is what this bill reflects: the judgment of the Appropriations Committee of the priorities that exist and how we can best use the amount of money that is allocated to this committee for this next fiscal year, keeping in mind that we have already appropriated funds in the year we are in now, fiscal year 2003.

We have also added a substantial amount of money for homeland security in the supplemental appropriations bill that was just recently passed by the Senate and signed by the President. Therefore, since this amendment proposes to add another $1.75 billion to the bill that is before us with no offsetting suggestion of where the money would come from, I will be constrained to make a point of order against the amendment because it provides spending in excess of the subcommittee's allocation in violation of the Budget Act. Before doing that, let me make a few observations about the Senator's comments on some specific provisions in the bill.

Facilities along the land borders, which the Senator discussed, are maintained under the General Services Administration, and funds for upgrading, maintaining, and replacing facilities are funded through the General Services Administration and the appropriations bill that has that as part of its jurisdiction.

This committee does not have GSA jurisdiction. What we do have is the responsibility of trying to accommodate the deployment of facilities to implement the U.S. visitor and immigrant status indicator technology. This is a new program. It is to be deployed upon land ports of entry, and funds are included in the committee bill for that purpose.

In addition, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection has undertaken to hire additional inspectors to be deployed on these borders, to enforce the new rules and to better protect us from people who come across the border who may be a threat to the security of our homeland.

Our indications from the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection are that over 4,000 inspectors have been added to the workforce since September 11, 2001. That has increased coverage at these ports of entry by 25 percent. Over 2,600 inspectors are on the northern border, compared to about 1,600 prior to September 11. There are 613 Border Patrol agents who are assigned to the northern border compared to 368 before September 11. Commissioner Bonner says he plans to have 1,000 agents on the northern border by October of this year. So when the new agents who are funded in this bill are counted, are included, there will be over 11,600 Border Patrol agents in fiscal year 2004. That is funding already in this bill.

We added additional staffing in the wartime supplement. We put in the supplemental $75 million for additional northern border and maritime ports of entry personnel. This was in addition to the money that was previously appropriated for this fiscal year for new personnel. We also included $25 million to transfer Border Patrol agents to the northern border. It is an important new undertaking, and we are cooperating with the administration in trying to meet those needs.

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection can only hire so many people in any one year. This bill includes the maximum number of new border agents who can be absorbed in one year.

We also think it is important to preserve the Department's flexibility to assess its staffing needs nationwide. We should not come in and say they have to hire 1,000 more than they planned to hire this year. We have to leave to the good judgment of the administrators how they can absorb and find the qualified people to hire, how they can train them in their new duties and deploy them to the places where they can be used. I think it would be a mistake at this point for the Senate to try to superimpose our judgment about a detail of that kind.

We have the same goal. We are on the same team with this administration. We have to listen to the statements and suggestions they make to us about the funds they can use and what they need to do their job within the limits that we have. We have to allocate the funds according to the priorities as we see them.

Up to this point in time, it is the judgment of the committee at least that the funding we have made available for border security agencies, for personnel to carry out the missions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which the Senator mentioned, and other authorizing legislation is funded in the bill to the extent that it is possible to be funded in the bill.

In the case of the Transportation Security Administration, the additional funding suggested in the amendment is $100 million for screening of air cargo. First, the authorizing committee assessed the needs for new authorities and how the responsibilities for screening air cargo would be changed to meet the new threats. Congress responded by passing the Air Cargo Security Improvement Act, S. 165. It authorizes the development and deployment of something called a known shipper database, strengthening security enforcement and compliance measures for indirect air carriers and implementing mandatory security programs for all cargo carriers.

The Transportation Security Administration has undertaken a comprehensive, strategic plan for air cargo security. It is based on threat assessment and risk management.

As I understand it, there are three elements to the approach of the Transportation Security Administration. They strengthen the current known shipper program to verify shipper legitimacy. They have developed a cargo prescreening and profiling system that targets shipments based on a set of guidelines to indicate which shipments may be suspicious. They have a targeted inspection system to identify suspicious cargo utilizing explosive detection systems, explosive trace detection, canine detection, and other approved methods for inspecting air cargo.

This comprehensive approach is consistent with the Department's approach in securing containers that cross our borders by all modes of transportation, and the funding that was requested in the President's bill has been respected. The bill we have before the Senate provides $60 million. Ironically, it is $30 million more than the President requested for this function.

The Transportation Security Administration, according to my understanding, can use this money. But this amendment that has been offered by the Senator from West Virginia would add an additional $100 million in addition to what is already in the bill. I am not sure the administration can use that and use it effectively.

The amendment has additional money for grants for public transit agencies, for enhancing security against chemical and biological threats. We already have $71 million for the Science and Technology Directorate to develop and deploy chemical, biological, and nuclear sensor networks throughout the country, including public transit facilities. That would duplicate and be over and above what is already being spent to try to make sure that we deploy the right kind of defenses to this kind of threat.

Again, I think it is important for us to work with the administration and say: Okay, we have so much money that has been allocated to us to spend for homeland security. How can we best spend that money right now? How much do they need this year? What can they use? What are the highest priorities? Where do we need to spend the money first?

The amendment the Senator has offered also increases port security grants by $460 million, as he pointed out. We already have $150 million in the bill for port security grants, and this is in addition to $365 million provided in 2002 and 2003.

Of the $365 million already provided by the Congress, only $260 million has been obligated by the administration. So think about this: We have a proposal to add $460 million to an account where the money is still there and has not been obligated that has previously been appropriated. How much can be spent is something that has to be taken into account as well, not how much we can appropriate. That is not going to be a measure of the success of this bill or whether or not it has been thoughtfully expended to protect our security. We have to make sure it can be used and that it can be used thoughtfully, consistent with a plan that has been developed by the administration.

The Transportation Security Administration can only obligate about $150 million a year because assessments of ports have to be conducted, they have to be given some kind of priority, and then an application process by the ports for the funds has to be analyzed, assessed, and careful decisions need to be made. It cannot be just a rush to apply for a grant: Hey, they have a new fund in Washington. If you are a port director, if you get your application in now and put pressure on the administration, you may get some funds.

Will it be consistent with the overall national plan? Will it be targeted where the threats are the most imminent and most troublesome, where the money really needs to be spent? Are

other agencies going to be able to take up the slack in helping to deal with threats that are known to exist in our ports?

There is a capacity only to spend so much money at one time. That is the point. The rush to spend money can put the agency in disarray, can give a false sense of security to the people in the country, saying, look, we spent $460 million in addition to what had already been appropriated. But that may not actually help improve our security.

There is no doubt there will be a need for these funds later. There will be a need to increase security at our ports over and above what we are doing in this fiscal year or next fiscal year--and not just in ports but in all modes of transportation. But we need to take a measured, thoughtful approach, and weigh the funding provided for the security of our Nation's homeland security needs. That is what we tried to do, take a balanced approach and make an assessment based on limitations we have and the realities we face.

There is a proposal in this amendment to add $70 million to the Coast Guard operating expenses account to increase the total funding of the Coast Guard. The bill already provides $4.719 billion for Coast Guard operating expenses. This is $12 million more than the President has asked for operating expenses, excluding environmental compliance and restoration, and reserve training, which are funded separately.

Included in the bill for acquisition, construction, and improvements is the amount of $1.035 billion which is $238 million above the President's budget request.

Funding to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) was not requested in the President's budget because that Act had not been passed until after the President's budget was prepared. No request was made for funding to implement MTSA in the fiscal year 2003 supplemental either. We know funding for the implementation of the MTSA is a priority for the Coast Guard. If we had additional funds available, we would agree to increased funding in fiscal year 2004. But the bill has been very generous to the Coast Guard. We believe funding for the implementation of MTSA should be included in next year's budget request by the President.

The Office for Domestic Preparedness is targeted in this amendment with a funding increase. Mr. President, $729.5 million is provided in this amendment to increase funding for grants to State and local governments.

One of the first calls I made when I realized it was going to be my obligation to chair this subcommittee was to Warren Rudman, our former colleague from New Hampshire, who has been, with Gary Hart, part of a study to assess our homeland security needs. They had published reports and made some presentations in New York, Council on Foreign Relations, and other places.

One of the things I remember former Senator Rudman suggesting to me is, it is impossible to know precisely what is needed and how much it will cost. That is something I have kept in mind.

The fact is, this is not an exact science. We have to use our judgment, make choices, understand that we cannot do everything at once. What we are trying to do is maintain a base level of preparedness through this program.

The Department is going to be better able to assess true needs once the States have had a chance to submit their updated homeland security strategies. We cannot just assume right now the States can identify all of the areas where they need to spend the money, which local governments continue to have needs, and which ones ought to be funded first.

In my judgment, we run the risk of being irresponsible if we increase funding over and above an amount that can logically and systematically be provided through the grant program to State and local governments.

We will have provided through the funds recommended in this bill almost $9 billion through the Office for Domestic Preparedness and the firefighters assistance grants since September 11. A lot of money has been spent already. In addition to those expenditures and the funding in this bill, the Senator suggests we ought to spend another $729.5 million.

We are suggesting the funds appropriated in this bill, in this account, for this fiscal year, are a responsible level of funding for first responders, given the other needs and other demands that come under the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security.

The amendment also suggests we earmark $80 million for information analysis and infrastructure assessment, a directorate, to conduct assessments for chemical facilities. I am impressed with the concerns reflected in this suggestion. We do not have funding made available to individual industries involved in the chemical business to make these assessments. I am not enough of an expert in that business to know the assessments that have already been made and the security arrangements that many of these businesses and industries already have. One thing we need to keep in mind is that self-interest has motivated business and industries, and anyone who owns a business or a home should do what they can to protect themselves, to be sure their workers are protected, to be sure their families are protected. We all feel that obligation. It is not like everyone has been assuming they had no responsibilities for self-protection.

Businesses and industries have done a great deal, invested huge sums of money, to protect their own assets.

The suggestion is we need to give them more money to do some more analysis, to do some more assessments.

There may be a need for additional critical infrastructure assessment; however, this bill already provides $293.9 million for key asset identification, field assessments of critical infrastructures, and key asset protection implementation to help guide and support the development of protective measures to improve the security of industrial facilities and assets.

Of the amount provided for critical infrastructures, $199.1 million is made available for critical infrastructure and vulnerability assessments of the highest priority infrastructures and assets. But we need the benefit of the advice of the administration, those who are in charge of the programs, to tell us what those are. This amendment that is offered by my friend from West Virginia says it is the chemical industry. That is the only earmark in this part of the bill--$80 million for chemical facilities. There may be other facilities that are more vulnerable or that would cause more damage and displacement of American businesses than the chemical facilities would if they were under a threat of terrorist attack.

The priorities that have to be made and assigned have to be based on a combination of factors: threat, vulnerability, and risk analysis. And we have to leave that up to the administration. I don't feel competent to make that kind of decision. I don't know of any Senator, if this amendment were to be voted on this afternoon, who could just walk in here and decide should that be an earmark or should it not. But it is folded into this big amendment and we are asked to decide whether to target $80 million for just these kinds of facilities. Who is to know whether that is a good decision or not, if they have not been through the hearings, they have not had the opportunity to assess the other options?

So I think it is an unfair choice that we present to other Senators, to have them make that decision right now. Why can't the administration make that decision? I think they are better suited to make that decision than we are right now. We have to work with them and not make prejudgments.

The prioritization is going to be based on a lot of factors. There are 14 critical infrastructure areas--including the chemical sector--5 key asset categories that further break down into about 99 distinct segments, all of which must be considered based on changing threat assessments. So this is not necessarily an effective way to improve our Nation's security, just to earmark money for one particular kind of industry requiring a specific amount of funds to be spent. Why not $180 million? Why not just $40 million? Where does $80 million come from? I don't know. Who knows?

So without the corresponding analysis that helps advise the Senate, it is a mistake for us to be asked to make this kind of choice.

We are telling the terrorist organizations, aren't we, that we are going to spend the money in this sector? We are going to target this sector and emphasize it and make it a high priority, but

not the others? Is that a good way to make decisions in this area or should we let the administration and the infrastructure protection experts decide where the threats really are? What does the intelligence show as to where the threats are? These need to be taken into account.

This amendment, adding $1.75 billion to the bill, violates the Budget Act because it does not offset the spending, it exceeds the subcommittee's allocation that is given to us, and at the appropriate time I will be constrained to make a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. President, I make a point of order under section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act that the Byrd amendment provides spending in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation.

Mr. President, I thank my good friend, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and of the full committee, the Senator from West Virginia, for his constancy in sounding the alarm. He is the Paul Revere of the homeland security debate. Because every time we come to the floor to debate and consider provisions that we believe will make our country safer, the Senator from West Virginia is there sounding the alarm.

This time I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will respond to that alarm which he has once again sounded, because his amendment reflects a full and complete understanding of what we know, what the experts tell us is absolutely essential to meeting the homeland security needs of our Nation.

As has already been referred to in many different settings, the amendment the Senator presents to us contains the best thinking of people who

have considered our vulnerabilities and have honestly assessed what it will cost so we can look into the eyes of our constituents and say: We have done the best we knew to do.

Recently the independent Homeland Security Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations, a task force chaired by former Senator Warren Rudman, issued its third report regarding the state of our homeland defense. While the report noted that we had made progress and that positive action in a number of areas had occurred since September 11, there was still much to be done and we remained woefully unprepared.

The report, ``First Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared,'' says it all in its title. It reminds us as to how much work we truly have in front of us if we intend to address these needs honestly and to equip our frontline homeland defenders with the resources they desperately need.

Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared

The United States has not reached a sufficient national

level of emergency preparedness and remains dangerously

unprepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil,

particularly one involving chemical, biological,

radiological, or nuclear agents, or coordinated high-impact

conventional means.

How much more specific and dramatic a conclusion from independent experts do we need to have before we act to pass overwhelmingly the amendment that has been presented to us?

The report also emphasizes the pivotal and primary role our first responders play in our national homeland defense:

America's local emergency responders--

We are talking about our police officers, our firefighters, our EMTs, and others who are on the front line, who need to be given the resources that will equip them to prevent horrific attacks, as well as to respond--

will always be the first to confront a terrorist incident and

will play the central role in imagining its immediate

consequences. . . . the United States--

Namely, the U.S. Government, not the New York State government, or the New York City government, or the Buffalo government, or the West Virginia government, but the United States Government--

has both a responsibility and a critical need too provide

them [our first responders] with equipment, training, and

other necessary resources to do their jobs safely and

effectively.

Again, I don't know how much more specific we need to be. The efforts of these first responders in the minutes and hours following an attack will be critical to saving lives, reestablishing order, and preventing mass panic.

The report speaks about the heroic police and fire professionals who entered the World Trade Center on September 11. They acknowledge what all of us saw: that our emergency responders will be there; they will answer the call; they will perform their duties. What will we do for them?

In providing just a few examples of the needs of these brave police officers and firefighters and EMTs that are unmet, I have picked a few very representative, dramatic examples from the report:

Two-thirds of our fire departments do not meet the

consensus fire service standard for minimum safe staffing

levels.

On average, fire departments across the country have only

enough radios to equip half the firefighters on a shift, and

breathing apparatuses for only one-third. Only 10 percent of

fire departments in the United States have the personnel and

equipment to respond to a building collapse.

Most States' public health labs still lack basic equipment

and expertise to respond adequately to a chemical or

biological attack. Seventy-five percent of State laboratories

report being overwhelmed by too many testing requests.

Most cities do not have the necessary equipment to

determine what kind of hazardous materials emergency

responders may be facing.

Police departments in cities across the country do not have

the protective gear to safely secure a site following an

attack using weapons of mass destruction.

I read these statistics, but I also know firsthand from speaking to police officers and firefighters, police chiefs and fire commissioners, and others throughout New York who tell me exactly what we were reading here from this report.

Now, I have to say it is troubling to me that, while we know we have not done enough to equip and fund and provide the resources needed by our first responders, we are seeing, because of budget constraints, cities and counties cutting back on their personnel. According to the International City-County Management Association, the average number of full-time, paid police employees for jurisdictions between 250,000 and 500,000 residents, today, is 16 percent below the figure for 2001. Why is anyone surprised by that? We have seen countless stories about the budget cutbacks that States and counties and cities are experiencing.

Police departments and fire departments are not immune. In the city of New York, after the heroic, incredible performance of these brave firefighters, they watched helplessly as fire stations were closed. So this is something that we know is happening. So not only are we failing to fully fund our first responders, we are seeing the numbers cut back.

When you think about what this report tells us and what the estimate is as to what is necessary for us to protect ourselves, clearly, we are asking that we honestly assess where we are and the funding that is needed. The report says we need approximately $100 billion over the next 5 years--approximately $20 billion a year for 5 years. We spend $5 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are asking for 4 months of the expenditures of those two military actions and postconflict activities to make sure we are safe here at home.

These preliminary figures are based on the assessments that are coming directly from first responders and from communities. They were developed in partnership with the Concord Coalition and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. It may be conservative, but it is the best assessment we could find.

First, it assumes, however, that State and local governments will continue to spend somewhere between $26 billion and $76 billion of their own funds for homeland security over the next 5 years.

Second, in looking at specific needs, particularly the need for a communications system that actually works and includes everybody, the task force erred on the side of conservative figures they obtained from communications policy experts.

Third, many law enforcement associations could not even assess their own needs. They don't have time to stop and do a survey or try to hire a consultant. So they did the best they could in assessing what they thought their needs were. Clearly, as the task force has pointed out, we should have a thorough national needs assessment. Under Senator Byrd's leadership, he did hold very thorough hearings out of which we got some specific information, and we need to continue a comprehensive needs assessment so that we do know what our needs are so that we can better plan how to meet them.

We certainly would not do for our men and women in uniform what we do for our men and women in uniform at home. I have the honor of serving on the Armed Services Committee. It is a painstaking process to determine what our troops need and how to best plan that they can be protected. I am very proud of that process.

I think it is time we did the same for our front-line defenders, our soldiers in the war against terrorism here at home--primarily our police officers, our firefighters, and our EMTs.

Among the many things we need to be doing, the task force concludes-- and I agree--is to create those interoperable communications systems so that first responders can communicate seamlessly across borders, between police and firefighters, and certainly across borders of jurisdictions. We need to extend nationally the Emergency 911 system. I am very proud to be working with my colleague from Montana, Senator Burns, on groundbreaking legislation to extend the E-911 system. I think it will certainly move us forward as long as we fund it.

We need to enhance our urban search and rescue capabilities. We need to enhance our public health preparedness, particularly by strengthening and expanding the quality and number of laboratories that can track diseases, that can quickly diagnose some kind of biological, chemical, or radiological event.

This report reflects what I hear from all over New York and, of course, from all over the country, whether you are in Los Angeles, where every time the terror alert goes to orange, it costs that city $1.5 million a week and another $1 million a week to protect the Los Angeles International Airport; or whether you are in Denver, a city that has incurred many millions of dollars for emergency preparedness and has purchased mobile emergency equipment but still doesn't have an adequate communications system; or whether you are in Douglas County, NE, which needs resources to buy protective suits for first responders, this is a national problem. Certainly in New York, I know firsthand how inadequately funded many of our brave men and women are.

I know that under the leadership of the chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, whom I commend, the committee has worked very hard to come up with a good bill and, given the budgetary constraints under which the committee has operated, they have done an incredible job.

The problem is that the budget resolution we adopted last spring did not adequately reflect the real costs of homeland security. That is why the Senator from West Virginia has an amendment which more honestly assesses those needs. It provides an additional $1.7 billion: $729.5 million for first responders; $602 million for maritime and land security; $238 million for border security; $100 million for air cargo security; and $80 million for chemical facility security.

It is hard to argue with the EPA's own figures that we have 123 chemical facilities located throughout the Nation that have toxic worst-case scenarios where more than 1 million people would be in the so-called vulnerable zone and could be at risk of exposure to a cloud of toxic gas.

Remember the terrible accident in Bhopal, India? Remember that? We have 123 chemical facilities that could produce this kind of extraordinary horror.

We have 600 facilities that could threaten between 100,000 and 1 million people, and 2,300 more that would threaten between 10,000 and 100,000 people in these so-called vulnerable zones.

When I read statistics such as that, it has to make one feel vulnerable, and it certainly makes me, as a Senator with responsibility for my constituents, sick at heart. I do not think any of us want to see these scenarios ever come true and, thank goodness, we have been spared that since September 11.

But that is not the way a great country plans to defend itself. If that were the case, we could have shut down our entire military. After the War of 1812, we could have just said forget it. After the Civil War, we could have said forget it. We could say we do not think we will ever have anything bad in the world happen again, so let's just send everybody home. Let's just let the tanks rust. Let's just give up preparing for the worst-case scenario which will more than likely make it possible for us to avoid such an occurrence.

That is what we are doing when it comes to homeland security. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it will take $80 million to conduct vulnerability assessments associated with our chemical plants. This amendment provides the money for that purpose.

Regarding the first responder funding in the Byrd amendment, there is additional money for State and local grants, $250 million, and I especially appreciate an additional $250 million for high-threat urban area grants; $150 million for FIRE Act grants so we can fund the program fully at the authorized level; and, finally, $79.5 million for the interoperable communications equipment I have talked about in this Chamber so many times since September 11.

We learned tragically that our police and fire departments could not talk with each other. We learned that people coming to our rescue to assist us could not communicate with the New York City police and fire departments.

Later in the debate, I will talk about State and local grants and how important they are and how strongly I believe the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Ridge should disburse those funds using a threat base rather than a per capita formula. Right now I want to underscore how important it is to get more money into this high-threat urban area category.

In January, I gave a speech at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. In that speech, I made some recommendations and released a survey about what I had found as I surveyed cities and counties throughout my State: Seventy percent of New York cities and counties had not received any Federal homeland security funding since September 11. Since January, some money has come forward; more has been appropriated.

But I was in Buffalo, NY, on Sunday speaking with the mayor. They have not received a penny of the money we have appropriated. It is either tied up in Washington or it is tied up in the State capital.

Either explanation is, to me, unacceptable. We need to do more, and in that speech I called for a domestic defense fund.

In March, I proposed that we provide direct funding and we include $1 billion for high-threat urban areas. Later that month, I offered an amendment to the budget resolution that would have provided funding for the domestic defense fund, including the $1 billion for high-threat urban areas for fiscal year 2003. Unfortunately, the amendment was narrowly defeated but at least we began a dialog and a debate about high-threat areas with critical infrastructure, with dense populations.

We are making some progress and, in fact, the supplemental we considered for funding the action in Iraq in April did include $700 million for high-threat urban areas. I thank my colleagues for that funding. I think we all recognize how critical that funding is.

The Department of Homeland Security has begun to allocate high-threat funding based on factors such as credible threat, vulnerability, population, mutual aid agreements, and identified needs of public agencies. And many communities, not just New York and Washington but Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Kansas City, New Orleans, Memphis, Cleveland, Charleston, among others, across our country have received this high-threat funding. This will help us shore up our defenses against our most vulnerable targets.

Regarding New York, I would give anything if terrorists did not have such an interest in New York but we have to accept that reality. New York is such a symbol of our Nation. It is such an incredibly diverse, dynamic place, the most fascinating and exciting city in the world, and it is going to draw that kind of attention. Therefore, we need the support we have been getting and that the Byrd amendment will provide in additional funding that, believe me, we can put to good use.

In recent articles that have appeared in national newspapers, such as USA Today, I read about communities that got homeland security funding and did not know what to do with it. I said: If you really do not know what to do with the money, send it to New York; we have more needs than we can possibly meet.

If we are serious about defending our Nation, then we have to be serious about putting money behind that commitment. What the Byrd amendment does is to say very straightforwardly: We have not done enough. We may have done all we could within the constraints of the budget resolution, and for that I commend the chairman and the ranking member, but the budget resolution was inadequate.

We do not have a budget resolution for our military and occupational expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not even in the budget. There is not one penny. We passed a $398 billion defense budget last week and there is not one penny for Iraq and Afghanistan.

We did not worry about the budget resolution when it came to supporting our troops. We did what we thought we had to do. Well, we should do the same when it comes to protecting us at home. How on Earth can we do less?

So, yes, we have made some progress since we were attacked. How could we not? How negligent would we have been if we had not done what at least we have started to try to achieve in providing more support? But we have not done nearly enough.

History will judge us harshly if we are found wanting when it comes to defending ourselves on our own soil.

So I hope for the sake of our country, for the sake of our citizens, we will listen to former Senator Warren Rudman

and the task force, we will listen to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, and we will do our duty, we will vote for the Byrd amendment, and we will send a clear signal to friend and foe alike that we intend to prevent, in every way possible, any further terrorism on our shores. But if anyone dares to take us on, we intend to be ready.

Yes.

I certainly would agree with the Senator from Nevada. I believe that is a factor that Secretary Ridge should consider in a threat-based formula where we have large crowds of people who come for attractions such as those that the Senator has in Las Vegas or we have in New York City and certainly other places around our country. That should be taken into account because our police officers, our firefighters are constantly on duty because there is a constant stream of people coming from all over the world to enjoy the attractions.

I certainly do agree with that.

I thank the Senator from Nevada.

Certainly.

I thank the Senator from West Virginia and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment which I cosponsored with Senator McCain. This is the first of several he and I will be introducing, along with other Members, which would implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission not included in the underlying bill that Senator Collins and I have introduced which focuses on intelligence reform.

Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment of Senator Hutchison. I thank her for proposing it. She was ahead of her time because she has been on this case, along with members of the Commerce Committee, at least since March of last year, when the bill came out of the Commerce Committee; in fact, the Senate passed this bill unanimously in May of 2003.

Unfortunately, there has been no action that meets up with this bill in the House. So Senator Hutchison is quite right to introduce this as an amendment to our underlying reform of the intelligence community. This is directly relevant to the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that ``major vulnerability still exists in cargo and general aviation security. These, together within adequate screening and access controls, continue to present aviation security challenges.'' That comes from the 9/11 Commission.

The Commission concluded that we are safer than we were on September 11, 2001, but we are not yet safe. This underlying bill is aimed at reforming our intelligence community so we will be safe, so we can see the threats coming at us, hear them, and stop them before the terrorists are able to strike, but also that we may adopt other provisions of the 9/11 Commission report.

Senator McCain and I introduced an amendment that was the first to pass a short while ago. I hope this amendment will pass as well, because it tightens existing weaknesses, loopholes in the screening of cargo transported in passenger aircraft, opening up a vulnerability that we all fear terrorists may exploit to strike at us.

I thank the Senator from Texas for not only being foresighted last year in seeing this weakness in our defenses to terrorism but for coming forth and introducing this amendment. It will strengthen the bill Senator Collins and I and other members of the Governmental Affairs Committee have brought out and, therefore, I urge its adoption.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if I might say a word before that and then I will be happy to yield the floor to Senator Nelson. Maybe I should yield to the chairman who will probably say the same thing I will be saying.

I am very grateful to the Senate majority leader and to the Senate Democratic leader for this agreement and for the pace they are setting for consideration of this bill on a bipartisan basis. These are not ordinary times. This is not ordinary legislation. It goes to the heart of our security. We want to have thoughtful debate.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Collins, and I found in the committee that when we let some time for debate occur, people came to very thoughtful conclusions, totally without regard to party. The votes on all the amendments went all around the lot. I think people ultimately felt good about the process.

By setting these deadlines now for amendments to be noticed and then filed, we are going to expedite exactly that kind of thoughtful consideration so we can get this done with the same feeling of, well, confidence that we are doing the right thing. We are not only doing something we need to do quickly, but we are doing it the right way. So I thank the majority leader and Senator Daschle for their help on that matter and the help they have given to Senator Collins and me.

Mr. President, with great respect for Senator Specter, friend and colleague, I rise to oppose this amendment.

I want to say that Senator Specter has been a very constructive member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, not just on this matter but on so many others that come before the committee. He has contributed substantially to the strength of the bill that is before the Senate that Senator Collins and I have offered. He and I talked quite seriously about this earlier in the year, and ultimately my conclusion was that it would construct a bridge too far.

We have a crisis, which the 9/11 Commission documents, which is that we have an intelligence community, as we discussed yesterday and showed on the graphs, without a leader, without anyone in charge. It is so frustrating to the point of being infuriating to read the lengthy narrative at the beginning of the 9/11 Report to see documented the failure to connect the dots. The cases that Senator Specter mentioned-- one agency knowing something, not telling it to another agency, which might well have either kept out some of the terrorists who struck us on September 11--should have--or would have opened our eyes to the plot that was being hatched that FBI agents came face to face with, this is a system, the American intelligence community, without a leader.

The most urgent recommendation, according to Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, that the Commission makes to us is to create a strong national intelligence director and then, right alongside that, a strong counterterrorism center--connect the dots. We have done this. Senator Collins documented the various powers we have given to the national intelligence director.

First, this has been a recommendation of commission after commission. Going back to the late 1940s, when the National Security Act was adopted and the Central Intelligence Agency was created, post Second World War, there was the creation of the Director of Central Intelligence who was supposed to be not just the head of the CIA but the overseer of our entire intelligence community. The position was taken but hamstrung. It was not given the power. The DCI was the same person as the head of the CIA. That contributed to the community being without a leader.

In this bill we separate these two positions. We create the overarching national intelligence director, separate from the head of the CIA, and we give that national intelligence director real budget authority, personnel authority and tasking, assignment coordinating authority, which we are convinced will make us a lot safer and stronger against the threat of terrorism here at home and against Americans and others throughout the world.

The Specter amendment goes further than that and would provide that not only would the national intelligence director in the underlying bill direct, oversee, and execute the budgets of these agencies, but he or she would also supervise, direct, and control their day-to-day operations. That approach would create a department in everything but name and put the national intelligence director in charge of multiple agencies on a day-to-day basis.

One of the witnesses before our committee was Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. We asked Dr. Zelikow: Did the Commission consider creating a department of intelligence, giving the national intelligence director the powers that the Specter amendment would give?

Dr. Zelikow said: Yes, the Commission considered creating such a department but decided against it on several bases.

And they are the bases of my opposition to the Specter amendment. First, the current job that the Director of Central Intelligence had-- which was CIA Director, director of presumably the overall intelligence community and principle intelligence adviser to the President--was in itself more than one person could do. To give powers to the national intelligence director for day-to-day operations of the agencies under his or her control would again give more authority, more responsibility than the Commission decided was appropriate and manageable.

The Commission also opted for what they considered to be a more modern management approach. They didn't want to create another big Federal bureaucracy; they wanted to create, really patterned after some very large and very successful private corporations in this country, a central management system, strong as our national intelligence director would be, with budget, personnel, tasking authority, but not top heavy, agile, and not in response or in charge of the day-to-day decisions of all of the agencies under that position. That is what we have in the approach we are taking in this bill.

Senator Collins said some people will say--and you will hear of amendments on this floor, as the debate goes on, from Members and those outside the Chamber who feel the bill Senator Collins and I have put before the Senate gives the national intelligence director too much power. They will try to strip away that power or fuzz it up so that it is not clear and the status quo can remain. There will be plenty of opportunity to argue against that when those amendments are filed.

But here we are in the middle of a war on terrorism, struck as we were on September 11, under a continuing threat of attack, alerts all over, particularly in Washington and New York--real concern--and to do what looks like protecting the status quo of the particular authority of existing agencies doesn't make sense. There will be those who feel our bill goes too far.

I don't mean to put words into Senator Specter's mouth because he is very eloquent, but this amendment suggests we have not gone far enough. The Commission deliberately decided not to take the National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and National Reconnaissance Organization out of the Department of Defense. The Commission was concerned, Dr. Zelikow said, about the balance between national and departmental guidance, and they didn't want to tilt the balance too far away from defense. The Commission's executive director portrayed the Commission's idea of a lean, creative command center this way:

Since terrorism poses such a revolutionary challenge to old

ways of executive management in our national security

bureaucracy,

counterterrorism requires an innovative response.

I believe the underlying bill does exactly that: real authority, decisionmaking authority, but lean and, may I add, mean, because the people who are threatening us are very mean.

The other thing the kind of structure we have created does is make it harder for the problems that many in the Senate and Committee on Intelligence cited in its report on prewar intelligence are worried about, which is group-think. There is an increased danger that persons at the top of the daily operations of the organizations--there is a danger that you will begin to have not the competition of ideas we want to see in our intelligence community and that we feel strongly will be encouraged by the national intelligence director we are creating by the language in the bill, the focus on independence and objectivity of intelligence and by the national counterterrorism center, which is ultimately the place where everybody who knows anything about a particular problem--in this case terrorism--and maybe the director will create other centers on weapons of mass destruction for particularly problematic countries like Iran or North Korea. Everybody in the Government who knows anything about that will sit down together to share what they have collected in the way of intelligence, share their analysis of it, and then plan jointly on how to stop it, how to deal with the threat represented by those situations.

So I believe Senator Specter's intentions are very good, and I admire him for them. But I think at this moment they are a bridge too far, both in the substance of where he would take us and also, frankly, in terms of the probability of any such measure passing Congress. There is an urgency to our deliberations, as we have said over and over again. I think if we reach too far, we may end up with nothing and nothing maintains the status quo, which failed us on September 11 and will fail us again unless we act.

I oppose the amendment. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for not more than 1 minute.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise to support Senator Hutchison's amendment. It really strengthens the basic bill that we brought before the Chamber. It would reorganize our intelligence community to better deal with the threat of terrorism. We want this core proposal to be a vehicle for responding to the other recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and to close as many of the points of vulnerability that we have in America to terrorists as we possibly can.

The Commission said major vulnerabilities still exist in cargo and general aviation security. This amendment would go a long way toward ending those vulnerabilities. I thank the Senator from Texas, and I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Warner, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, which the chairman of our committee and this ranking member are privileged to serve on, for his statement, his reference to sections of statute that could be compromised and indeed overridden if this amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania were adopted.

I thought that the colloquy between Senator Warner and Senator Collins was very illuminating. I hope our colleagues had a chance to listen to it because it did, I believe, ultimately explain why this is a bridge too far, a motto from the Second World War, where the troops were sent to take one bridge too far--I have the feeling that Senator Warner is going to know the background of this ``bridge too far'' reference--too far to hold the bridge and, as a result, the overall effort collapsed.

I am afraid this stretches too far and it weighs down the reforms we are trying to make. I believe the colloquy between Senator Warner and Senator Collins is a great argument for the balance we have struck. We leave the line authority over these national intelligence agencies with the Defense Department. Without going into details--because it is classified--thousands of men and women in uniform serve in these agencies. So we want to leave that line authority with the Secretary of Defense but create a reporting authority to the national intelligence director because the NID will oversee the entire intelligence community.

This has been a wonderful learning experience for Senator Collins and me. We met with the head of the NSA, General Hayden, and the head of the NGA, General Clapper, and it was fascinating to hear the extent to which they are not only providing day-to-day technical military intelligence to help their personnel in the field at Central

Command today, and other commands, but the way in which they are also providing, because of their extraordinary capabilities, daily assistance and intelligence security to law enforcement agencies. That is the balance we tried to strike.

I thank the Senator for his question, my chairman of the Armed Services Committee. It is an important question, one that Senator Collins and I weighed as we went through this process of accepting the assignment from the bipartisan leadership to consider and recommend to the Senate on the 9/11 Commission Report. We both take not only our responsibility to protect America's security under the Constitution seriously, we take our membership on the Armed Services Committee seriously. We have a purpose here. We want to put somebody in charge. The 9/11 Commission Report says the intelligence community doesn't have a leader. They are not coordinating their effort. As we do that, we said we want to make sure we don't compromise the quality and availability of intelligence to our warfighters. In fact, we believe our proposal not only doesn't compromise the quality of intelligence, but will ultimately improve it because there will be better coordination.

Even from within some of these agencies, national assets under the Defense Department, high officials said to us that they don't benefit, they don't think the military benefits, the warfighters benefit from the current ambiguity. Make those lines clear, and all the customers, if I can use that term, of intelligence will benefit, including the military.

Senator Warner knows that in specific regard to the so-called TIARA, or tactical intelligence budget of the military, that remains totally within the Defense Department, and so do most of the joint military intelligence programs. So the answer is a resounding yes. We understand the uncertainty, the anxiety because of our bill. The 9/11 Commission recommendations represent change. It does take the budget authority and put it under the national intelligence director for national intelligence programs, including these three within the Defense Department. So we understand the anxiety. But we think we put together a balanced system that will not only first provide the No. 1 customer of intelligence, the President of the United States, with the best intelligence, with the coordinated unity of effort that he requires, but do the same for the warfighters. That is our firm belief.

Mr. President, the sentence is subject to more than one interpretation. So I am not sure what the meaning of it is, but I can assure the Senator about what the intention of the underlying bill is and that is the way in which I look forward to continuing this discussion and debating any amendments the Senator might have.

I found a quote that may be reassuring to the Senator. It is from General Hayden, Director of the National Security Agency, when he testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence on August 18 of this year about the 9/11 Commission recommendations. He said an empowered national intelligence director, with direct authority over the national agencies, including his own, should not be viewed as diminishing our ability or willingness to fulfill our responsibility as combat support agencies, which I found reassuring. That is certainly our intention and I hope the Senator from Virginia will find that reassuring as well. That, combined with the possibility that the administration might oppose one of the Senator's amendments, I hope will lead the Senator to reconsider.

Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, my understanding is, as the Senator said, this is not a complete bill. It was legislative language for parts of what ultimately have been covered in our bill.

I have no objection.