Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005

What is the parliamentary situation?

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to address a few remarks made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle during yesterday's debate on the class action bill. First, they repeatedly accused the leader of jeopardizing the chances of getting this bill passed by filling in the amendment tree. Give me a break. That is the phoniest argument I have ever heard. The fact is, they are trying to kill this bill, and they are probably going to be effective in doing so.

I hate to give up--and I haven't given up yet--but that is what is happening. I have been through it so many times around here that I know when there is a real desire to kill a bill. The way you do it is with nongermane amendments that are called killer amendments or poison pills, because they are political amendments one side or the other does not want. The leader filled the tree because he wanted to protect the bill from extraneous amendments that would eliminate any chances of this measure becoming law. Anybody who argues otherwise is being deceptive.

Everyone here knows the class action bill was an extremely attractive vehicle for extraneous amendments, especially those amendments that were sure to be offered for the sole purpose of scoring political points during an election year. But what my Democratic colleagues conveniently overlook is this bill will find itself in the recycle bin if it is saddled with a host of irrelevant amendments. While this is certainly a win/win situation for those on the other side of the aisle who oppose this bill, apparently including some of the Democratic leadership, I find it a truly puzzling outcome for those who say they support class action reform. Not only does a loaded bill risk peeling away Senate votes from the underlying class action measure, it will, in all certainty, undergo changes when it goes through the House. And what happens then? Do we have a conference to resolve our differences? I think the answer is a resounding no. I don't think the other side is going to permit this because this bill flies in the face of the demands of one of their greatest hard money constituent givers, and that is the trial lawyers of America.

We all know there is little time left in this Congress to go through the motion of doing a conference. I think the chances of getting a conference done in this election year with two conventions and with all the problems we have to address. The appointment of conferees is further cast into doubt by virtue of the minority leader's threat earlier in the year to the appointment of conferees for the rest of the year. So if you add these poison amendments to this bill, these extraneous amendments that have nothing to do with the bill, you are basically killing the bill. Everybody knows that. The majority leader had no choice other than to do what he did.

I certainly did not hear any assurances from the minority leader yesterday on whether he would consent to the appointment of conferees to this bill. As such, I am led to believe his position remains unchanged. But even if he did consent, I don't think there would be enough time to do a conference. We have 62 people who said they would support this bill. That means all 62 should vote for cloture so we can actually pass this bill. But unfortunately, we have some who agreed they would vote for cloture--that was the whole reason for the agreement last November--and are now changing their minds and saying, well, this is something I can't support because we want our colleagues to have their right to put poison pills on this bill.

(Mr. TALENT assumed the Chair.)

Well, they cannot have it both ways. Let me be clear. It is because of the potential feeding frenzy that the leader moved to safeguard the bill from an open season on nongermane, nonrelevant, extraneous amendments. He did it to advance the ball on this legislation so it can be considered without the same initiatives we saw with other measures that were considered by the Senate this year. He did it with the hope of reaching a time agreement on amendments. He was not being unreasonable. He even allowed one nongermane amendment the Democrats have tried to get an up or down vote on all year, which members on this side feel is a terrible amendment. But probably it would pass, who knows. At least some think it would probably pass. I think there needs to be a substitute amendment to it that would probably pass.

I want to remind my Democratic colleagues the majority leader made three extremely generous offers regarding the consideration of germane and nongermane amendments.

First, he asked unanimous consent that amendments be limited to five related amendments to be offered by each side. So nobody would be foreclosed from offering the amendments they might think are important. When the minority leader objected to the offer, he expanded the request to include 10 related amendments on each side. I don't know how he could have been more fair. When the minority leader rejected this even more generous counterproposal, the majority

leader yet again expanded the agreement to include an unlimited number of related amendments. In other words, amendments that are pertinent to the bill, that are at least germane. Again, the minority leader rejected this third offer. Of course, let us not forget each offer included an up-or-down vote on a nongermane amendment that the Democrats demanded, which is an amendment by Senator Kennedy on the minimum wage.

We also heard yesterday that filling the amendment tree was unprecedented, and we are somehow committing a terrible wrong against the institution of the Senate. How soon we forget the past. I remind my colleagues that the minority leader filled the tree in October of 2002 on the homeland security bill, which was even a more important bill than this one, although this is an extremely important bill for this country. Mind you, he filled the tree after promising at the beginning of his tenure as then-majority leader he would never fill the tree. But he did so, anyway. To be sure, we even saw Senator Byrd do it when he was the majority leader. Unprecedented? Come on, give me a break. Terrible wrong?

Let us not hide behind Senate process in order to play both sides of the fence on class action reform. I said it yesterday, and I will say it again today: S. 2062 represents a bipartisan agreement we reached in good faith with key Democrats who say they support class action reform. We agreed to a number of their amendments in order to get them to agree to vote for cloture. That was the agreement. And implied in that agreement was to vote down poison pill amendments that would kill the bill. Otherwise, they weren't sincere; we know they must have been at the time, but they would not have been sincere in the bipartisan agreement we reached. We reached a compromise because I thought the ultimate goal was to get class action enacted into law.

Let me be clear when I say my agreement to further moderate this bill was in no way predicated on letting this legislation become a ``Christmas tree'' for unrelated measures. This is never the way we have done business around here. Our agreement was about getting class action reform enacted, and that is the very direction our leader is moving us toward. I can only hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say they support this bill can see that. A deal is a deal. They should not break it because politically it might be in their best interest to do so. That works both ways. We should not break it because politically it might be in our best interest to bring up extraneous, nongermane amendments and make them vote on them.

Another argument my colleagues on the other side raised repeatedly yesterday was the Judicial Conference and the Chief Justice of the United States are somehow opposed to this bill. I have heard this point made over and over. I think it is about time to set the record straight.

Let me start by saying Chief Justice Rehnquist has never written a letter, issued a statement, nor published an opinion that comes out in opposition to this bill. Rather, my colleagues who make this claim rely on outdated letters from the Federal Judicial Conference espousing opinions on prior iterations of this bill--prior iterations, not the same language of this bill.

On two prior occasions, the Judicial Conference expressed opposition to earlier bills, as offered in the 106th and 107th Congresses that would have expanded Federal diversity jurisdictions over purported class actions. But in March of last year, a substantial shift in position occurred. In a March 26, 2003, letter to the Judiciary Committee, the Judicial Conference expressed its position on the bill by stating:

That Congress may decide to base a statutory approach to

remedy current problems with class action litigation by using

minimal diversity litigation. The Conference position

recognizes that the use of minimal diversity may be

appropriate to the maintenance of significant multi-State

class action litigation in the Federal courts.

The Judicial Conference also suggested employing provisions to raise the jurisdictional threshold and fashioning exceptions that would preserve a role for the State courts in the handling of in-State class actions.

Senator Feinstein offered an amendment during the ensuing markup that was directly responsive to these suggestions. Those changes were reflected in the version of the bill reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee in early April 2003.

Perhaps more important than what was said is what was not said. Nowhere in the letter does the Judicial Conference express opposition to the bill now in consideration. I think this silence is deafening and speaks for itself on where the Judicial Conference stands.

I ask unanimous consent that the March 26 Judicial Conference letter be printed in the Record.

To be sure, on the very day the bill was reported from committee, the ranking member sent letters to the Judicial Conference requesting comments on the revised version of S. 274 as reported out of committee and further urging that the Judicial Conference propose alternative legislative language reflecting its views on how the jurisdictional provisions should be structured.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter of April 11, 2003, from Senator Leahy be printed in the Record.

In its April 25 response, the Judicial Conference noted that the markup changes to S. 274 were responsive to its previous comments about changing the jurisdictional threshold and preserving the role of the State courts in handling State class actions. Indeed, the Judicial Conference expressed no opposition to the revised version of S. 274 reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee.

The Judicial Conference explicitly declined Senator Leahy's invitation to propose alternative language. The Judicial Conference's resolution deliberately avoided specific legislative language out of deference to Congress' judgment and the political process. The letter further noted that:

[T]hese issues implicate fundamental interests and

relationships that are political in nature and are peculiarly

within Congress' province.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter of April 25, the Judicial Conference response, be printed in the Record.

The Judicial Conference concluded its letter by stating:

We are grateful that Congress is working to resolve the

serious problems generated by overlapping and competing class

actions.

Finally, another piece of evidence that counters the Judicial Conference's purported opposition to the class action bill is Chief Justice Rehnquist's 2003 year-end report on the Federal judiciary. While this report criticizes various legislative measures considered by the Congress, absolutely no mention is made of class action reform efforts.

I suppose this begs the question then, if the Judicial Conference and Chief Justice Rehnquist stand opposed to this bill, why is there no reference to such a measure in their year-end report?

Again, I think the silence speaks for itself. I ask my colleagues to refer to the 2003 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary which can be found easily enough on the Supreme Court's website.

With all of this said, is it credible to suggest that the Judicial Conference, much less the Chief Justice of the United States, stands somehow opposed to the class action bill? I think not.

I will refer to this ``myth'' chart. The myth is that the Federal Judicial Conference opposes the Class Action Fairness Act.

These are the facts: The Conference's opposition was directed at class action bills in previous Congresses. In March 2003, the Conference strongly criticized the current class action system and suggested several areas to modify the Class Action Fairness Act.

After the Class Action Fairness Act was modified during markup, the Conference declined an invitation to criticize or revise the version favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee and thanked the Senate for its efforts to clean up the State court class action mess.

That certainly rebuts everything that was said on the floor yesterday and today by those who are looking for any excuse they can to scuttle this bill. Unfortunately, some of them are people who have agreed to support the bill. That seems apparent to me. I hope it is apparent to all of those in the various States who have relied on these agreements, and at least this agreement made last November, that we would at least vote for cloture. That was the whole issue. Then, of course, they could still have any amendment they wanted to bring up that would be germane, and they might even be able to bring up nongermane amendments if they could get a supermajority vote on them. So nothing would stop them from at least an attempt to bring up nongermane amendments.

I would like to also reply to comments made yesterday in defense--can anyone believe it?--of Madison County, IL. I heard suggestions that the Madison County court is not as renegade as we have portrayed it. After all, the number of certifications has not escalated at the same rate as the number of cases brought.

Now, this fact may have some appeal on its surface but when one looks at why the certifications are so low, I think they will find themselves right back to the inescapable conclusion that this court is a downright embarrassment to our civil justice system. Any attempt to defend Madison County's record on class certification must account for the number of class actions that were not certified because the defendants, knowing that the judicial deck was stacked against them, simply conceded defeat and settled rather than go through the motion of defending their lawsuit in this court.

As I said yesterday, the plaintiffs' lawyers who descend on this small rural courthouse in southwestern Illinois know class certification is a sure thing and that all they need to do is come up with a complaint in order to extort a settlement from the unfortunate defendants. These settlements come well before the class certification phase of the lawsuit and is exactly why this court is so attractive to greedy, dishonest lawyers--greedy, flagrantly dishonest lawyers-- looking to make a quick buck, money hungry lawyers looking to buy their next Gulfstream at the expense of everyday Americans such as Hilda Bankston, dishonorable lawyers looking to pay off their next multimillion-dollar mansion in Palm Beach, FL, at the expense of shattering public confidence in our civil justice system, and unscrupulous lawyers seeking to fund the next campaign of a State court judge who can tilt the playing field for them in yet another magnet jurisdiction.

There is something clearly rotten in middle America, and when it comes to Madison County, there is only one way to describe it: If you go there, they will pay. If someone is brought in as a defendant there, even though they do minimal business in that State, they are going to pay.

Finally, I would like to respond to the wild accusations from the other side of the aisle that the Republicans are trying to kill this bill because the measure does not go far enough to achieve class action reform. Give me a break. I do not think this accusation merits a real response, other than to observe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will resort to just about anything in order to justify their vote against this bill, in order to justify this filibuster against this bill.

Despite all the rhetoric we have heard from the other side about how they support class action reform, about how terrible this system has become and about how we have a modest bill that fixes the problem, we will know their true colors when we vote on cloture either tonight or tomorrow.

It makes absolutely no difference whether Senators vote no because they oppose the bill or because they want to preserve the sanctity of the Senate process. A vote against cloture is a vote against class action reform. It does not get any simpler than that.

By the way, how can they make that argument when they have a right to bring up any amendment they want to after cloture is invoked? True, nongermane amendments will have to have a supermajority vote to pass, but all germane amendments only have to have a majority vote to pass. How can they make these types of clownish arguments?

To make a long story short, it is apparent that sometimes money does count around here, and the only reason this thing is fought so hard is because the major funding institution in this country happens to be the trial lawyers for those on the other side of the aisle.

Now, what galls me is that last November, when we had 59 votes for cloture, 1 less than was necessary to end the debate, we then made all kinds of concessions to three more Democrats--and I think the business community knows who they are--that are now in this bill to get their agreement that they would vote for cloture when the time came. There was no misunderstanding. Everybody knew there would be an attempt to load this bill up with poison pill amendments or killer amendments, if one wants to call them that. It meant that we at least go to cloture and get 62 votes for cloture, and I believe it meant more than that.

I think when we make a deal, those who enter into that deal agree to support the bill, against all amendments, unless we can agree otherwise. Unfortunately, that is not the interpretation of some who agreed to the deal last November. But there could be no misunderstanding. Their agreement last November was to vote for cloture. The whole issue was we lacked one vote in putting this bill before the Senate as a whole and letting it have its day in court, so to speak, in a court that is much more fair, much more balanced, and much more considerate than the courts in Madison County, IL.

There is no excuse for the arguments that have been made by the other side. If this bill goes down because we cannot get 60 votes for cloture, then shame on those who entered into the agreement with us. It was not an easy agreement for some of us because we had to make changes that literally some of us would not have made otherwise. So anybody who says this side does not want this bill to go forward is being less than candid, and I will put it in those terms, although I think probably more stark terms would be acceptable.

This is an important bill. This bill will correct some of the major wrongs in our society from a litigation standpoint. This bill is fair. It is not going to stop truly in-State lawsuits from being tried, even in Madison County, but this bill does correct some tremendously rotten situations in our country. It also would be supported by decent, honest lawyers throughout the country, at least lawyers who do not always think of the almighty dollar as the only reason they are practicing law.

This is a very important bill. There are a lot of great trial lawyers out there who I believe are embarrassed by some of the arguments that have been made by my Democratic colleagues. There are a lot of great trial lawyers who do not need phony courts, or dishonest courts, or courts that go way beyond reasonability, or courts that favor them, or magnet courts to win their cases. Great lawyers are going to be able to win their cases whether they are in State court or Federal court. In fact, I suggest they probably have an easier chance in Federal court because people automatically think those courts are more august and the cases more serious.

But here we have a case where true advantage is being taken of the class action system by a limited number of lawyers in our society who are getting fabulously wealthy and rich because of forum shopping to courts like the Madison County court that are going to find for the plaintiffs no matter what the law or the facts say. That is wrong. When plaintiffs are right, they ought to recover, but when they are not right, they should not recover. The courts ought to be the bulwark of standing for what is right and not what is wrong. In the political system that exists in Madison County, IL, it is a system that, if it is not corrupt, it is the closest thing to it.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this afternoon, I have listened to my colleagues speak courageously about their family members they have lost to suicide. My heart goes out to all of them, especially, my colleague and dear friend, Senator Gordon Smith. By speaking openly about the circumstances of his son, Garrett's death, he has raised awareness to the serious matter of youth suicide. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. I believe the Senate will approve this legislation today due primarily to Senator Smith's courage to speak openly about his own family's experience.

This legislation is necessary because it raises awareness of the alarmingly high rate of youth suicide--it is much higher than most would believe. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 24, and the fourth leading cause of death for children between 10 and 14. My own State of Utah is ranked among the top 10 states in the nation for suicide.

I cosponsored this bill because it provides grant funding to states so each may develop a youth suicide and intervention strategy through the administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in order to prevent teen suicide. This money may be used to develop statewide early prevention and suicide intervention strategies in schools, educational institutions, juvenile justice

systems, substance abuse programs, mental health programs, foster care programs and other child and youth support organizations.

The bill also creates a federal Suicide Technical Assistance Center to provide guidance to state and local grantees on establishing standards for data collection and the evaluation of this data. Finally, this legislation provides grant funding to colleges and universities to establish or enhance their mental health outreach and treatment centers and improve their youth suicide prevention and intervention programs.

I became deeply interested in this issue when I found out that my home State of Utah suicide rates for those ages 15 to 19 have increased almost 150 percent in the last 20 years. According to the CDC, in the mid-1990s, Utah had the tenth highest suicide rate in the country and was 30 percent above the U.S. rate. This is one statistical measure on which I want to see my state at the bottom.

Teen suicide is an issue that is rapidly becoming a crisis not only in my State of Utah but throughout the entire country. Young people in the United States are taking their own lives at alarming rates. The trend of teen suicide is seeing suicide at younger ages, with the United States suicide rate for individuals under 15 years of age increasing 121 percent from 1980 to 1992.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. In a 1997 study, 21 percent of the nation's high school students reported serious thoughts about attempting suicide, with 15.7 percent making a specific plan. Although numerous symptoms, diagnoses, traits, and characteristics have been investigated, no single fact or set of factors has ever come close to predicting suicide with any accuracy.

We need to understand what the barriers are that prevent youth from receiving treatment so that we can facilitate the development of model treatment programs and public education and awareness efforts. This bill provides the funding to get these types of initiatives started.

Again, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of this legislation and I commend my colleague, Senator Gordon Smith for his commitment and dedication on this matter. I know it is such a difficult subject for him but his openness today will make a difference tomorrow.

In fact, I believe our floor discussion today on the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act has already made a difference because families who have lost someone to suicide now know that they are not alone. And, if one life is saved because of our consideration of this bill today, we have done our job.

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

Mr. President, I would like to be standing here today to debate the merits of why we should be voting for cloture on this bill. But since we all know how this vote will turn out, I just want to congratulate in advance some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for killing yet another civil justice reform measure this Congress.

The constituents that they serve--the powerful and well financed plaintiffs bar--owe them a deep debt of gratitude for not only killing class action reform but also derailing the asbestos trust fund bill, the medical malpractice reform bill, and gun liability reform bill, to name a few. Their truly special interest constituent has survived yet another year devoid of tort reform, and as a result, will continue raking in millions of dollars in cash to help finance the Democratic party in the coming months.

I am hoping the 62 people who committed to vote for cloture last November will vote for it. We can even lose two of them as long as we have 60 to vote for cloture. If we have 60, then I will feel a lot better than I do in giving these remarks.

But unlike the caution chorus that they rolled out to kill the asbestos bill, the tactics used by my Democratic colleagues to defeat class action reform have been disappointing at best, and downright disingenuous, at worst. We tried to proceed on this bill last year and were led to believe that we would command enough votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Indeed, before the cloture vote, we had certain members declare their support publicly for the bill. But when the moment of truth came, there was at least one member from the other side who voted against proceeding on the bill despite statements to the contrary. And what happened? We fell one vote shy of invoking cloture.

After the vote, we had three additional Democratic members come to us just days before our Thanksgiving recess eager to strike a deal on class action reform. So we listened, and we negotiated, and then we compromised. And at the end of the day, we reached an agreement on a more modest version of the class action bill. But the honeymoon certainly did not last long as the supporters of the measure started demanding extraneous labor-oriented amendments that included a measure to raise the minimum wage; a measure to extend unemployment insurance; and a measure to overturn the administration's overtime regulations.

We gave them votes on two of the three and then offered yesterday to give them a vote on the third. But of course, we all know that three was not enough.

We heard the stories of how the Senate must work its will, and how the hallmark of this institution's procedures cannot be compromised; that we must take on more extraneous amendments that have absolutely nothing to do with the business at hand. But what these colleagues know very well is that the more amendments this bill takes on, the less likely it will become law.

We have a bipartisan deal on class action reform that now stands on the verge of collapse--a broken deal that will forever stain the honor of this hallowed institution the minute the supporters of this bill cast a no vote on cloture. In a court of law, we would call it a breach of contract, but in the Senate we are not governed by common law principles when we legislate. Rather, we are governed by honor and credibility--attributes that will lose stock the minute this bill fails.

Let me just finish by saying that a vote against cloture means that you are not committed to class action reform. Let us not dance around the issue any further, and just call a spade a spade.

A vote against cloture means that you care more about helping certain unscrupulous plaintiffs' lawyers rather than every day consumers like Martha Preston, Irene Taylor and Hilda Bankston. These are the real victims whose horror stories will fall on deaf ears.

And a vote against cloture means that a deal will never be a deal unless strings are attached. That true bipartisanship will always come at a price to be disclosed later.

I have been here 28 years. I have never seen, when we finally put a deal together, people who have not been willing to live up to their commitment.

Everybody knew back in November of last year that we needed one more vote to get cloture. We compromised. We accepted amendments which we probably wouldn't have accepted because we had--we had 59 who would have voted for the bill as it was--to get those extra votes. Now there is some indication that those three votes will not be there, and we will probably lose on cloture again. I am hoping that is not true. I am hoping all three votes will be there, or at least one that will be there so that we can invoke cloture and proceed on this bill. If we can't, then I have to say this is one of the few times that I have seen where commitments are made that have not been honored that should have been honored, and it is a disgrace to this institution, in my humble opinion.

Keep in mind that if we invoke cloture, that doesn't mean those who want to bring up extraneous, nongermane amendments or nonrelevant amendments can't do it. They can bring them up after cloture, but they are going to have to get a supermajority vote to win. That doesn't foreclose them.

Anybody who argues that they ought to be able to bring up any amendments they want when it is hurting the Senate, is not shooting straight. The fact is, they can bring up any amendments they want. They just have to get the votes to win. Maybe they will postcloture. I don't know.

But in all honesty, we all know the game. It is either we are going to get cloture and people are going to live up to their commitment or not, and bipartisanship is even hurt more than it has been up until now. It has been in shambles as far as I can see almost all year long. This has been one of the worst years in my Senate career because of the lack of partisanship, the lack of comity that normally exists in this body in the desire to make everything political and the effectiveness of making everything political as well.

This is one bill that does not deserve that kind of unfair treatment, especially since we compromised last year and took amendments we would not have taken and changed the bill we would not have changed, all for the purpose of getting enough votes to vote for cloture. And now we are here again this year--another year, 6 years in a row--whereby the same people who said they were for this bill and talked us into all these amendments on the basis that they would vote for cloture may not. I personally hope they will. If they will, it will do more for comity in this body, more for bipartisanship than we have seen all year. It would be a ray of hope to everybody in this body that maybe there is a chance of us getting together on things that are important, the things that are right, things that we promised, things that will benefit the business community, things that will correct the ills which literally have been wrecking this institution and hurting our country immeasurably and will put the screws to these jurisdictions, these magnet jurisdictions, that do not seem to care about the law or anything else.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I am very pleased to present this appropriations bill to the Senate. It is the culmination of a lot of hard work by all of the members of our subcommittee, as we conducted hearings to review the proposed budget from the Department of Homeland Security, and as we listened to those who have responsibilities for managing the various directorates and other agencies and activities that come within the ambit of the responsibilities of the Homeland Security Department.

We learned a lot in the hearings. We learned about new procedures that were being developed and deployed. We learned about new technologies that were being explored. In the bioterrorism area, we were learning about the research that is being done to make our capacity more sophisticated and capable of protecting the health and safety of all Americans from attacks in that area.

We have been challenged as we have never been challenged before to look again carefully at how we go about protecting the citizens of our great country. The experience of September 11, of course, stays in our mind as something that is unthinkable. The fact that it did happen is still unbelievable, and we realize that we have the responsibility-- representatives of the people of this country serving in Congress today--to try to get it right so that kind of thing can't happen again.

We are blessed to be served in the administration by people such as Tom Ridge, the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The President recommended this new Department be created. The Congress responded. The Governmental Affairs Committee, on which I served at that time, dealt with the challenge of the legal framework of defining the responsibilities of a new department and what activities would come under the Department. We brought together under this one Department 22 different Federal agencies, or at least parts of 22 different agencies. Some, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, were transferred underneath the jurisdictional responsibility of the Department to help make our effort more coherent, more effectively and efficiently managed, and to achieve the goal of making our country safer and more secure for the citizens who live in the United States. I think we have made great progress.

This bill specifically provides funding of $33.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security for this next fiscal year, 2005. This is the second appropriations bill to fund the Department which began its operations short of a year and a half ago. The new Department has made substantial progress to merge the agency functions and the employees who were transferred under its responsibilities and to undertake its new duties to better secure and more effectively protect our great Nation.

We also have seen a new system put in place called the US VISIT Program to screen visaholders and to stop potential terrorists and those who may be dangerous, because they have committed crimes in the past, from entering our country to start with. US VISIT, through biometrics and other new innovations, has already identified, apprehended, or arrested more than 400 individuals. Through the science and technology directorate, the Department has aggressively moved forward on the successful testing of the first commercial portal monitors and handheld radiological identifiers to detect the smuggling of materials which could be used to build weapons of mass destruction. Federal air marshals have been deployed. State-of-the-art technologies have been introduced, and cockpit doors have been modified to increase the safety of air travel.

I know there can be criticism leveled at the efforts of the Transportation Security Administration which has been the agency identified with the responsibility for overseeing aviation security and many other areas of responsibility. But let me remind Senators--and this is contained in our committee report--I invite the attention of the Senate to the report, on page 31, where we talk about aviation security. My good friend, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, mentioned people who might bring in bombs or material that can be used as explosives to blow up planes and otherwise harm us.

The Transportation Security Administration aviation

security account [in this legislation] provides for Federal

aviation security by employing the most efficient screening

of all passengers and baggage, deployment of onsite law

enforcement, continuation of a uniform set of background

requirements for airport and airline personnel, deployment of

the most current explosive detection technology, and creation

of a model workplace.

The aviation security activities include funding for

Federal and private contract passenger and baggage screeners,

including personnel compensation and benefits, training, and

human resource services; passenger checkpoint support; air

cargo security; procurement and maintenance of explosive

detection systems; and checkpoint support.

I suggest that the $4,386,083,000 for aviation security contained in this bill is designed to meet the needs we have for improved and safer air travel, working with the airlines who are spending

their own money in many of these and other areas. I suggest we have the safest air transportation system in the world. And we are going to continue to monitor the activities. We are going to continue to engage in oversight and interaction with the Federal agencies involved, as well as Department of Homeland Security officials, to see that we stay on course and that we continue to upgrade, improve, and take advantage of the latest technologies to guarantee the safety and security of American citizens.

Looking at another area, efforts have been undertaken to increase our stockpile of antibiotics, vaccines, and other medications to protect Americans in the event of a terrorist attack and to identify and develop new countermeasures to protect Americans against new biological threats. Today our first responders, those who work at the fire departments, the police departments, the emergency medical centers, have been provided with resources from the Federal Government to buy necessary equipment, to increase training to better protect our communities throughout the country.

Including the resources in this bill we are presenting today to the Senate, over $12 billion will have been appropriated to our State and local partners across the country, over $2.5 billion to firefighters alone.

The Department of Homeland Security has made important strides in this last year. The bill we present to you today will allow the Department to continue to build on its success and make our Nation even more secure.

If Senators look at the provisions in the bill, they will see that it reflects suggestions made by Senators on both sides of the aisle. This is a bipartisan bill. It is not a Republican bill or a Democratic bill, it is an American bill. It is a bill to protect the safety and security of all Americans. Our committee held hearings and listened to every suggestion made by all Senators for the levels of appropriations for all of these activities.

This is the second year of this bill, as I said, but I think we have made important strides forward. I particularly thank again the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his cooperation, his support, and his assistance during the development of this bill and the conduct of our hearings and the presentation of the final work product to the Senate today.

I am going to close my remarks--and I will be prepared to receive any suggestions for changes in the bill or amendments or other statements from Senators--by quoting from something Tom Ridge said with which I was particularly impressed. Our Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said:

Homeland security is about the integration of a nation,

everyone pledged to freedom's cause, everyone its protector,

and everyone its beneficiary. It's about the integration of

people and technology to make us smarter, safer, more

sophisticated, and better protected. It's about the

integration of our national efforts, not one department or

one organization, but everyone tasked with our Nation's

protection. Every day, we work to make America more secure.

Every day, the memories of September 11th inspire us to live

our vision of preserving our freedoms, protecting America,

enjoying our liberties, and securing the homeland.

I am happy to compliment the distinguished Senator for his description of the damages in Florida. We are all keenly aware, because the of the images on television, and the description in the newspapers, conversations with friends and family members in that State, how terrible those storms have been and the devastation that has been caused.

One thing that reminds me of the history of my own State is the terrible force of the wave action. I can remember when Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast in, I think, 1969, that storm did more damage than any other hurricane that had ever hit that part of the gulf of Mexico. I recall going down to the gulf of Mexico and visiting that area, seeing how devastating the damage was and how long it took to recover from it. As a matter of fact there are still scars. There is one shrimp boat about 2 blocks inland now that is sitting there as a reminder of the force of that hurricane.

The fact of the matter is, and the Senator is correct, the $2 billion the Congress has approved for a supplemental appropriation for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is targeted just to the Disaster Relief Fund. This is, as the Senator knows, to provide emergency assistance of food, shelter, debris cleanup--taking care of the emergency situation that exists. That fund was going to be exhausted this morning when the President signed the bill appropriating this additional money. So, with this funding, that account is taken care of.

As the Senator indicates, there is a lot of other damage that is outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Department of Agriculture and other Federal agencies may have responsibilities and they may not have sufficient funds to meet all the needs for which some people are entitled to reimbursement or some kind of disaster relief under Federal law. For that reason the President indicated in his request to Congress which he submitted on September 6--and I'll read this. He said:

The enclosed request requires immediate action by the

Congress to ensure that the immediate response efforts to

these recent disasters continue uninterrupted. I anticipate

making a further request in the coming days that will provide

for a comprehensive response and recovery effort addressing

the impact of both of these hurricanes. In addition, federal

government agencies will continue their response and recovery

efforts using existing resources and programs.

What we get from that is the President is submitting and, we have been advised by the President's staff, that in the coming days there will be another supplemental appropriations bill requested by the President. It will not be the bill that we are considering today, though. This is the annual appropriations bill that funds the entire Department of Homeland Security, Coast Guard, the Secret Service--the 22 various agencies that are combined within the ambit of the Department of Homeland Security.

I suggest to the Senator we would welcome any suggestions he has for inclusions in the additional supplemental that will be before the Congress soon, at the request of the President.

Mr. President, before we start agreeing on times for votes, that is above my pay grade. We have a distinguished majority leader, and we will have to consult with him and other Senators.

It depends on what his amendment is. We may all rejoice and vote for it. Who knows? Again, we may not.

Mr. President, a point of order. I have no objection to the dispensing of the reading of the amendment, but a point of order. Is there already an amendment pending from the Senator at the desk? Is this the second amendment or is this a different amendment?

Fine.

Mr. President, it is always instructive to listen to the distinguished Senator from New York talk about programs and activities that are of major concern to his constituents, particularly in the New York City area, but New York State generally. We appreciate his observations and his expression of concern about technologies and advancements and new ways of protecting the citizens of his State and our country against nuclear threats or other threats to our security. We think the Department has made important progress in these areas, analyzing and understanding the technologies that are available.

We have included, for example, encouragement for additional investigations in this area. I am reading from page 84 of the committee report now. It says:

The Committee expects a significant expansion of the

Countermeasures Test Bed being conducted with the Port

Authority of New York and New Jersey in testing technologies

to detect radiation/nuclear threats to include railway,

general aviation facility monitoring, expanded roadways

coverage, and an additional seaport.

The Committee is aware of technology proposals developed

with national laboratories to facilitate the inspection of

containerized cargo for fissile materials as a part of the

normal off-loading process at the Nation's seaports.

The Department is focused on the importance that we all believe should be paid to this area of interest and concern. We know that existing technologies are being deployed by agencies at ports of entry, including the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. They provide an effective nuclear countermeasure system, but continued focused development can considerably extend these capabilities in order to develop technologies for application to specific locations, including those in the intermodal transportation system, in the maritime domain, at border ports of entry, and in the aviation industry.

Specifically, the committee included in this section of the bill to which this amendment is directed great latitude in approving grants that can be the subject of applications from not only States but local jurisdictions such as port security areas.

Of the total provided by the committee for urban area security initiative grants, $150 million is for port security grants; $150 million is included for rail and transit security grants; $10 million is available for inner city bus security grants for the improvement of ticket identification, the installation of driver shields, the enhancement of emergency communications, and further implementation of passenger screening; $15 million is also included for trucking industry security grants to continue the Highway Watch Grant Program.

This committee had the responsibility of trying to help ensure that across the broad range of urban area security concerns funds were available for grants to local areas and to States to deal with these new challenges.

The committee believes the Department's practice over the past 2 years to allocate appropriated funds could be improved. We suggested, for example, that they all not be made available

early in the fiscal year but to leave some opportunities for later grantmaking authority so that if any new discoveries or intelligence of recent terrorist threat information became available, these funds could be targeted to higher risk areas and where we would get more for our money.

It is easy to offer an amendment to double an appropriation, and that is what this amendment does. We have $150 million in the bill for this one particular grant program within the broad urban area security initiative grants. What the Senator from New York is doing is asking that be doubled.

You can just about go through this bill, I suggest, and find every incremental amount that is in this bill and pick out one and offer an amendment to double it and make a good persuasive case why it would be better off if we could spend twice as much money as we have allocated for that one activity. That is a pretty easy argument to make. But it is also a cheap shot, and the reason I am calling it a cheap shot is that we have within this Urban Area Security Grant Program $1.2 billion for discretionary grants to high-threat urban areas. The Secretary has to make these decisions on the basis of the applications and the proposals that are submitted to the Department.

If we in the Congress are going to go back through the bill and try to second-guess every one of these accounts and double it and ask for a vote, you could easily double the whole cost of the bill. We have a $33.1 billion bill. It probably would be harder to get a vote to double that to $66 billion, but you could make some arguments why we could spend that amount of money. But could we spend it in a thoughtful way that would efficiently and responsibly use the taxpayers' dollars in this area of concern, homeland security?

We have had 2 years of experience in writing this bill. Last year, we ended up having to make points of order on the basis of the fact that some of the amendments were in excess of the allocation that was given to this subcommittee.

I understand the full committee has been meeting this afternoon during the last hour to review the amount of funding that would be available to each subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. And I understand soon, if it has not already been done, there will be filed with the Senate this allocation, and this subcommittee will have a limited amount of money to use in writing this bill.

I am not suggesting we have gotten the cart before the horse, but I am suggesting that before we vote on this amendment, I want to be sure I know what the allocation amount is for this subcommittee. It is not just targeted to the amendment of the distinguished Senator from New York that I do this, but any amendment that would come in and double an amount without any more justification than it would be good if we could spend twice as much as we are spending. And that is really the argument.

Sure, it would be good if we could spend twice as much as we are spending in a lot of areas, but we have to make the choices within a framework of funds available to the committee for a wide range of activities, all of which are very important. We have to choose among programs of the U.S. Coast Guard, programs of the Transportation Security Administration, of the Secret Service, of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and many others whose accounts are funded in this annual appropriations bill.

I am hopeful we can withhold action on this particular amendment and let us have an opportunity to review the committee's work.

So awaiting the further advice of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee or his staff, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Senator talks about we have sort of rubberstamped what the President has asked for in some of these areas. We have agreed with the President on some of his initiatives because we thought he was right, but when we thought the administration was wrong or where they have requested funds, as he pointed out, in the railroad area, for security programs there, this committee has recommended and the Congress has agreed to add funds over and above what has been requested by the President.

In this particular area, where the Senator is coming in now and doubling the amount of money we have in this one particular grant program--we have appropriated for this program almost $500 million, specifically for port security grants, since fiscal year 2002. We are addressing this issue. This is the point, and I am not apologizing for the decisions this committee has made and that have been ratified by both Houses of Congress and approved in the appropriations conference report. We have appropriated almost $500 million specifically for this program. We have asked for another $150 million this year. That is not enough, he says; double it.

We can talk about it on and on and on and go into all the other accounts that involve security in urban areas, high threat areas, but we have to realize there is a limit. Some Senators think we can come in and double the amounts in individual accounts and it will not matter, but if we keep on doing that before this bill is passed, we will have added no telling how much to the deficit. We would have put the administration in a position where they are going to have to either ask for deferrals or recisions of funds. If they cannot possibly get grants out to people who are qualified to use the money or can justify the use of the funds, we cannot pour the money on the ground, and I am not going to stand here and go along with suggestions that amount to spending more because it sounds as if we are going to be doing more. It does not necessarily follow.

I am hopeful we will have in place within the next few minutes some information about the total allocation of funding to this committee, because without that we can continue to add money for individual accounts in this bill for the rest of today and tonight and on into the weekend and then we will have to go back through and start striking funds that have been added so we will be consistent with the allocation to the subcommittee.

What I am asking the Senate to do, and the reason I put in the suggestion for a quorum when I first made the point of order, is to await the advice of the Committee on Appropriations. I am told they sent the information over electronic device, but we need it written on paper so Senators can read it and can understand what the limitations are. So I am hopeful we can await the advice of the full committee on the action that has been taken today. I would appreciate it very much.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I indicated earlier that the Senate Appropriations Committee met earlier this afternoon to approve the subcommittee funding allocations. The allocations approved are the same as those provided earlier by the full committee, for this subcommittee's information. For Homeland Security appropriations, the approved fiscal year 2005 discretionary spending allocation is $32 billion in budget authority and $29.873 billion in outlays. The bill reported by the committee is at the $32 billion discretionary budget authority allocation and $144 million below the outlay allocation. The allocations for this bill are $897 million in budget authority and $730 million in outlay above the President's request, showing the priority the committee has placed on Homeland Security accounts and its appropriations.

This is a fiscally responsible allocation and Members will be required to provide offsets for any additional spending proposed by amendments to be added to this bill, or the amendment will be subject to a 60-vote Budget Act point of order, I am advised. Therefore, I make a point of order against the Schumer amendment under section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act that the amendment provides spending in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation.

Mr. President, I think the Senator asked for a parliamentary inquiry. I don't have standing to rule on parliamentary inquiries. That is the responsibility of the Chair.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the motion to waive in relation to the pending Schumer amendment at 4:45 p.m. today, with the debate until that time equally divided in the usual form.

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

Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Madam President, it occurs to me that this is an issue that probably ought not be on this bill. As a matter of general principle, it is a legislative decision. It seems to me the committee of jurisdiction would probably be the committee chaired by the distinguished Presiding Officer.

Having said that, that doesn't make this amendment go away by itself. We have to dispose of it. We have to deal with it. Frankly, I am confused about how the amendment got added to the House Appropriations Committee bill. I am told it was an amendment offered on the floor and it was adopted by the House. This seems to me an amendment that ought to be at least discussed in conference. If we adopt the Leahy amendment without changing it at all, then we are stuck with the language, it seems to me. I don't know how you get away from having this provision in the final version of the bill, and this appropriations process would have been subverted and it would have been distorted.

This is not an appropriations amendment. We are not talking about an amount of money to be appropriated for any particular purpose. Immigration services are provided, of course, by the Department of Homeland Security and apparently the Department feels it ought to have flexibility in the administration of that program. We are singling out an employment circular to prohibit its effectiveness on an appropriations bill. I think it is fairly convoluted.

I don't like the process. The Senator from Wyoming comes in and offers a modification, which basically requires the Department to provide information on its intentions.

It must submit to Congress not later than 60 days before making an award.

This is an award for providing services under the auspices of the Bureau of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Before it makes an award to someone to provide these services, it has to go through certain steps and make this disclosure to the Congress.

It seems to me that this is an appropriate place to at least call time out and let us put this issue on hold and give the Appropriations Committee an opportunity to consider it in conference. We would have to resolve the differences between this amendment and this provision in the Senate and the one adopted by the House.

I fully support the amendment offered by the Senator from Wyoming.

Let me add one other note. The administration submits to the committee after we write a bill in the Appropriations Committee a Statement of Administration Policy. Looking at their Statement of Administration Policy on the bill as reported by our Appropriations Committee, you get down to the bottom of page 2 where it talks about competitive sourcing, it states:

The administration has adopted a reasonable and responsible

approach for ensuring the fair and effective application of

public-private competition. On a government-wide basis,

competitions completed in fiscal year 2003 are estimated to

generate savings, or cost avoidances, of more than $1 billion

over the next 3 to 5 years. The House version of the bill

contains a provision that would block DHS from using

competition to choose the best public or private sector

source to handle basic administrative tasks associated with

the processing of immigration applications and benefits. We

understand an amendment may be offered on the Senate floor

that would also preclude public-private competition and turn

back DHS' efforts to significantly improve customer service

for immigrants. If the final version of the bill were to

contain such a prohibition, the President's senior advisers

would recommend that he veto the bill.

So I can't stand idly by and see this provision be included in the bill and risk the veto of this Homeland Security appropriations bill that we have worked very hard to craft, after hearings and hearings, and with the good assistance of other Senators on the subcommittee such as the distinguished Senator from Vermont. I would hate to see all of our work go for naught and have to start over with a vetoed bill.

I am urging Senators to vote for the Thomas amendment and let us take this issue to conference and see if it can be resolved in a way that gets the bill signed and takes care of the concerns expressed by the distinguished Senator, my very good friend from Vermont.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. President, so there is no illusion about who is responsible for suggesting we have a vote on the Thomas amendment, it is me. It is not the majority leader. As the manager of this bill, I think we ought to follow the regular order. The Senator from Vermont laid down an amendment. The Senator from Wyoming offered an amendment to the amendment. It is in order.

We have had a debate on it. He is entitled to a vote on his amendment. We ought to have it. If his amendment prevails, then we vote on the amendment as amended. Nobody is going to filibuster the bill on this side. I am not going to. I am not going to filibuster my own bill because of this amendment. I want people to understand it is not this big an issue. It is not going to bring down the Senate and block consideration of this bill as far as I am concerned.

I thank my colleague from Nevada. I would be happy to set a time limit and then have a vote on the amendment.

That is fine with me. Maybe we could have a few minutes for the majority and a few minutes for the minority.

If my colleague will yield, I can assure him it is a good one.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will be offering an amendment on nuclear security in a few minutes. But first I would in general address this bill.

Let me first say at the outset I am glad we are doing this bill now. As you know, many of us on this side of the aisle asked that this bill come up much sooner. But to do it right here as our first order of business when we return from the summer break after the two conventions I think is very good. I am glad we are on this bill.

The second point I would make is this: I don't think anyone on this side--certainly not the senior Senator from New York--wants to obstruct or not have this bill pass. We want it to move forward. So there is no intention to delay. As my good friend from Mississippi has seen by my asking for a short period to debate this amendment, having spent 18 years in the House of Representatives, 45 minutes is a lifetime there, but here in the Senate it is a relatively short amount of time. There is no intention for dilatory tactics or anything of that sort.

I believe, being head of our Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security, and having talked to many of my colleagues about further amendments, my friend, our chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security Appropriations, will find similarly short time limits are being called for. That is all the good news. The bad news is many of us think this amendment being brought before us is woefully inadequate. I would like to discuss that in general.

I have been quite hawkish on the war on terrorism, having supported the President's request to go into Iraq. I supported the $87 billion and I believe we need a strong and muscular foreign policy overseas. Mistakes are often made. We should do a lot better in terms of those mistakes. But inaction is perhaps the greatest mistake of all.

I am for fighting a vigorous war on terror overseas. I believe what our President said--former President Bill Clinton--is exactly right. To have strength and intelligence--that is exactly what he said, something to that effect--are not mutually exclusive categories when fighting a war on terror. If we are fighting a strong war on terror overseas, we are certainly not doing it here at home.

If I had to choose perhaps the greatest weakness of this administration in its war on terror, it would be the inadequacy of what we are doing here at home. The bottom line is this: We get a lot of rhetoric. We don't get the focus, the thoughtfulness, or the resources, the dollars to do what we need to do. Sure, if you think this is a 20- year plan, maybe we are doing enough. But we sure don't think it is a 20-year plan when we go overseas, nor should we. It is not a 20-year plan here.

Let me say this. This is my own view. We have a window in this global war on terror. In other words, my view is that this war on terrorism we face can be described in a single sentence; that is, the very technology which has blessed our lives and accounted for so much of the prosperity we have seen over the last two decades here at home has an evil underside, and that is that small groups of bad people can get hold of that technology and use it for terrible purposes. You can be in a cave in Afghanistan, and as long as you have a wireless connection to the Internet you can learn as much about America as any of us knows. If you took 500 random people anywhere on the globe from the most highly intelligent and well-read and studied to maybe the guy who sweeps the floors at night and injected them all with an evil virus so that they all decide to spend the next 5 years figuring out how to do terrible damage to the United States and then implement it, the odds are too high they can succeed.

This is not simply a war against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is the first group who learned how to use this technology to cause the terrible events in the city from which I hail and which I so love. Al-Qaida is on the run. We have not done enough maybe in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but clearly al-Qaida is weaker today than it was then. But it is only a matter of time before new groups--maybe the Chechens, maybe the East Timorese, maybe even the skinheads in western Montana--figure out they can use this technology and do terrible damage. So we have a window. It may be 2 years, it may be 4 years, it may be 6 years, but it sure as heck ain't 10 or 20 where we can tighten up our defenses, because even though we have to fight the war on terror overseas we also have to prepare a defense at home.

If 500 people can do such terrible things, the odds we will be able to catch all of them before any of them implement the first strike against us is rather small.

Like anyone who follows sports knows, to win a game you need a good defense and a good offense. Whether you agree with this administration or disagree, you can't take away that they are focused on that offense. When it comes to defense, they are not home. They would be ranked as one of the worst defenses around. I have tried to figure out why this is, why we are doing so little on homeland security at home; why when it comes to our ports or our trucks or our rails or our borders, we are making such slow and halting progress, almost grudging progress, if you will.

I am not a person inside the brain of the President or his chief advisers, but having talked to people who have worked there and left-- some of them in disgust--I can tell you that part of it is a lack of desire to spend the dollars necessary. Spend whatever it takes overseas, fine; spend whatever it takes here to make us secure, the money is not there.

There is also the mistrust of Government, a sort of antigovernment view that Government is not a good thing, that Government is not going to do it right, that Government should be the place of last resort. Unfortunately, when it comes to the war on terror, it is only the Government that can do it, whether it be overseas or here at home.

But as a result, this administration, in my judgment, whatever grade you give them in fighting the war overseas, would get a D or an F in most areas in terms of fighting the war here at home.

Let me give some general places where we are not close to doing

enough. Regarding the air, we have done a good job making sure another September 11 does not happen specifically in the way it did; in other words, simply bolting the cockpits of all our planes greatly cuts down the average of a plane being hijacked. Putting air marshals on the planes makes a great deal of sense. We have made progress inspecting baggage and luggage. In fact, I think the TSA has done a good job and is an example that Government can do a good job. They are doing better than the private sector did when they were hiring people at minimum wage who hardly spoke English. However, even in the air we are vulnerable to terrorists using shoulder-held missiles and taking down our planes. We can stop that.

There will be an amendment offered here either by me or by somebody else that will push us to do more, much more quickly. Are we doing nothing in these areas? Absolutely not. We are doing a little bit. Again, if you believe that we can take 20 years to tighten our defenses before, God forbid, terrorists strike again, that is fine. If you believe we have a window that may be 3 or 4 or 5 years, it is a dereliction of duty. It is a dereliction of responsibility, the same as not protecting our troops overseas.

Take the rails. We learned in Madrid that terrorists may want to hurt people by blowing up trains and railway stations. The best way they do that, the most efficacious way, is by using regular explosives. We have the technology to develop devices that can be like smoke detectors. They can be put on every railroad car, in every railway or subway station. If someone walks in with nitrates, they will be detected. We do this, of course, on airplanes. We have sniffing devices which are now used in a few airplanes. I went through one of the devices in Rochester. It works well. That does not work for crowded trains and commuter rails and subways. We can increase the technology and it can be like a smoke detector. Place it on the ceiling, and it goes off if somebody carries explosives, thereby thwarting a blowing up of a train or a railroad station. We are not doing that.

Nor are we protecting the egress and ingress at most of our train stations in case, God forbid, something blows up. Penn Station, the busiest rail station in the country, still has tunnels a mile and a half long without ventilation and without escape routes. Two or three years ago we allocated $500 million to improve that. Only $100 million has been spent.

My colleague from California, Senator Boxer, will have an amendment on rail security that will address some of these concerns. She and I will be talking about that.

What about the ports? We are still only inspecting, at best, 5 percent of all incoming containers. I was speaking to a few people who run the container operations in parts of New York. They say it is more like 1 percent that we are inspecting. Who knows what is in the containers? Shoulder-held missiles, nuclear weapons, terrorists themselves. They caught someone actually in a container trying to smuggle himself into Toronto. We do not inspect these containers. Almost anything can be in them. Again, the technology is there to do more, quicker, and better inspections, to detect explosives or biological or radiological compounds and to put a lock on the container so it cannot be opened again and something be placed in it. My colleague from Washington will be offering an amendment on port security.

How about trucks? We have learned al-Qaida is now using truck bombs as a weapon of choice. This is what our intelligence picked up when we had the last scare that said something might occur during the political season, either at the conventions--which, thank God, it didn't--or maybe closer to the political season. There were indications that truck bombs might be used. There are things that can be done, things that are technologically available and feasible to deal with truck bombs. We can, for instance, require any truck that carries hazardous material have a GPS system so we know exactly where they are going. If they go off course, we will know. If they are stolen, we will know. A truck was stolen in Pennshauken, NJ, my neighboring state, that contained hazardous material. It is missing. It has been missing for 3 months. Who knows who has it. The odds are it was robbery, but it is always possible someone for far more evil purpose was stealing that truck.

In Brazil, a country hardly as technologically advanced as we, every truck has a GPS system. When they go off course, it cuts off so the truck cannot run any further if they are worried. Brazilian truck companies did this to prevent theft. Why aren't we requiring it here? The cost is minimal. Put a GPS system in your new Cadillac, it costs a couple hundred bucks more. We can do the same thing for trucks.

We can have some controls on how ammonium nitrate is sold, which is used in truck bombs. We cannot stop it or limit it; our farmers need it. But certainly when someone buys a lot we could require they identify themselves and call an 800 number to make sure they are not on a terrorist watch list or a previously convicted felon.

We can put taggants in the explosions. With nanotechnology, the marking devices are very tiny and do not interfere with either the cost or the effectiveness of the explosive. That way, we can find out who tried to buy certain materials. It serves as a deterrent, as well. We are doing virtually none of that.

By the way, there will be an amendment on truck security.

Are our chemical plants secure? Absolutely not. My colleague from New Jersey, Senator Corzine, has been the leader on this issue. His State is one of the leading chemical producing States in the country. A terrorist can easily scout out a chemical plant and make plans to blow it up, creating huge damage. All these areas are not areas where we do not know what to do. We know what to do. They are not areas where the technology is not yet able to be developed. It is able to be developed.

I have talked to experts in all of these areas until I am blue in the face. We do not have the urgency coming from this administration when, time and time and time again the Senator from West Virginia, who has been such a leader on this issue, Senator Byrd, or any who have been focused on this area, have brought amendments to the Senate to provide the dollars to make these things feasible, we have been told we do not have enough money.

I ask, would most Americans rather see these things being done and have maybe half a percent less cut on the top tax rate? In other words, say we go, instead of from 39 to 35.5 percent, that would give us enough money to do all of these things. This is not a political choice. This is hardly pork. This is protecting our homeland every bit as much as providing our soldiers overseas with the weaponry, the backup, that they need. Yet no one is home. There is some rhetoric, but every time the dollars aren't there, there is not the focus, there is not the alarm, the sense of urgency some Members feel.

As we debate this bill, many Members will offer a series of amendments on each of the areas I have talked about and then some others.

These amendments are not intended for any political purpose. They are intended out of a sense of urgency, out of a sense of anxiety, out of a sense of even anguish that we are just not doing enough. I will be here making sure we vote on every one of these amendments. It will probably take us a day to debate them all, a full day, and if others say we do not have that kind of time, I would argue we do. If the majority leader thinks we have to work late to consider these amendments, so be it. But we are just not doing the job.

One final issue which I will be bringing up is our first responders. Our hospitals, our police departments, our fire departments--Senator Mikulski will have an amendment on the fire grants--are stretched. They have done a great job in their respective areas. Our police do a great job on the war on crime. Our fire departments keep us safe. Our hospitals are more and more advanced. But each of them has been asked to do special things since 9/11. Each of them has new burdens placed upon them and we are not giving them the dollars they need to do it.

Now, you may say, well, let the localities pay for it. But the hospitals in the localities are not paying. With Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements what they are, with the HMOs being more and more efficient, they do not have the money on their own. So if we do not do it, no one will.

With police and fire, it is not much different. We all know how our localities' budgets are strapped. We all know that the property taxes are a huge burden on people. To ask them to raise the property tax burden to do this means it either will not be done or will not be done in the full way that it should. Yet we are not helping our first responders: our police, our firefighters, our hospitals.

So there will be another amendment, I neglected to mention, which I will offer to increase funding overall for first responders. Senator Mikulski will have an amendment on the fire grants. But the bottom line is this: There is, as I said, a dereliction of duty, a dereliction of responsibility on homeland security. This administration almost has a disconnect. Dollars do not matter when it comes to fighting the war overseas, when it comes to defending our soldiers. Dollars cannot because their lives are precious. But dollars almost are the end-all and be-all when it comes to homeland security, and we do not do close to what we should be doing.

So in terms of my general remarks, I look forward to debating this bill. I hope some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us in supporting these amendments.

The bottom line is very simple: No one knows how the war on terror is going to twist and turn over the next generation. That is why I tend to like proactive policies both abroad and at home. But no one is a genius. There are a few geniuses, but not enough of them. No one can foresee the future, so we do not know what is in store for us. We certainly want to cut down the odds of a terrible, terrible incident occurring again the way one did on 9/11 in my city.

I wear this flag in memory of those who we lost. I put it on September 12, and I wear this very flag every day. I knew some of the people. I was friends with a firefighter who died, a guy who I played basketball with in school who died, a businessman who helped me as I was on my way up politically. So it is sort of personal. But the anguish I feel is maybe one-tenth the anguish, one-one-hundredth the anguish, one-one-thousandth the anguish of the families who live with this every day. But they would want us to do everything we can, and we are not.

It is my hope this debate will, at the very least, elucidate places where we are not doing what we should, and maybe even provide the kind of dollars, resources, and focus that have been so sorely lacking thus far.

Amendment No. 3580

With that, Mr. President, I now send an amendment to the desk to address the critical issue of nuclear security in our ports in terms of research and development.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment deals with, to me at least, the greatest nightmare that--how much time does our side have, Mr. President?

Oh, we did not have a time agreement? Thank you, Mr. President. I only intend to take another 10 to 15 minutes on my own, and then maybe if my colleague from Mississippi speaks in favor of the amendment I will not even speak further. But if he speaks against it, I will try to answer what he has to say.

Mr. President, if you think of all the terrible things that terrorists could do to us--and there are so many you almost run out of mental space thinking about them--perhaps the worst that I can imagine is that a nuclear weapon, and I am not talking about a dirty bomb, which would be bad enough, but a real nuclear weapon would be smuggled into this country and exploded anywhere in the country, but particularly in one of our large cities.

The damage would be unimaginable. It is guessed if it were even a 10- kiloton device--smaller than the devices that were exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki--that over 100,000 people would die immediately, hundreds of thousands more in the next month, and then perhaps even millions over the years from the radiation. The economic loss would be incredible, not just in the city where it was exploded but wherever the wind currents blew in terms of where the radiation blew. It would probably, in many ways, change the way of life that we cherish for every American, no matter in what part of the country you lived.

So it seems to me we should be doing everything we can to prevent a nuclear weapon from being exploded here. Part of that, of course, is to try to buy up the nuclear weapons we know parts of the former Soviet Union have had and a few other countries have had. We should be funding Nunn-Lugar. But the amendment does not go to that. The other is to prevent them from being smuggled in.

There is good news and bad news about nuclear material. The good news is, in terms of detection, every one of them emits something called gamma rays which can be seen and detected through metal, through anything but lead. Lead is very heavy, so it is hard to detect a device totally surrounded by lead. And then you can detect lead anyway.

The bad news is, right now the detection devices we have are not very proficient. They still have to detect the nuclear material at relatively close range. A Geiger counter needs 3 feet. Some of the other ones that have been developed need a little bit more space.

They are not foolproof, to say the least. I have talked to scientists in my State at Brookhaven National Laboratory and to scientists in many other States, and devices could be developed that, No. 1, detect any kind of nuclear materials from 70 or 80 feet away and detect them in a far more foolproof way than the present devices.

Now, the only way a nuclear device can be smuggled into this country very easily--the only remaining way--is in large containers that come into our ports by the tens of thousands every day or in a truck that goes over the Mexican or Canadian border.

It is very easy to imagine that we could place these detection devices on every crane that loads a container coming to our country. You may say: Well, there are thousands of cranes all over the world. That is true, but already we only allow containers to come into this country that are loaded from 15 ports. I do not have the list of them, but it is Antwerp, Singapore, places such as that. You do not want to detect them here because then they could be exploded while the ship approaches our shores and is not yet here. It could be placed on every toll booth. We would basically prevent any nuclear weapon from being smuggled into the country.

But the devices that really work well and can detect radiation far enough away and do it well and sensitively are not yet developed.

Scientists say that with a couple of years of research they can do it. They right now detect small amounts of nuclear material in cyclotrons and atom smashers at a great distance, but those devices are too large and delicate. They can't be bounced around very much to work.

All it takes is spending some dollars, maybe $150 million, maybe $250 million--it sounds like a lot, but it is not in terms of the $1.7 trillion budget--and then installing them in the ways that I have stated.

I have tried for 3 years to get this body to do it. A few years ago we accepted an amendment that would have at least put in $150 million for these devices. But when it came back from conference, only $35 million was left. Guess what. That was in the 2003 budget. They still haven't spent it. Is that amazing? It is $35 million to start on this research, and Homeland Security still has not let the contracts.

What is going on here? This is a huge catastrophe that could, God forbid, happen, and we are just asleep at the switch.

This amendment seeks to rectify that. This amendment will provide all of the necessary funding to develop the devices and then install them in places we need them. My guess is the whole process would take 2 to 3 years, if we really put the energy and the muscle into it. It is true that there are a few places where we are doing this with rudimentary, more primitive types of detection devices. Yes, one of them is in my harbor, Howland Hook on Staten Island. I have visited. I see how it works. It is better than nothing. But it isn't close to good enough. That is one container port, and there are 40 or 50 in New York alone.

We all know the terrorists have access to the Internet, and they know exactly where nuclear devices are being detected, the few ports that they are, and the huge number where they are not. They also know that the detection devices could be a lot bigger.

What we really want to do is develop a super Geiger counter, one that can detect nuclear materials from a distance and one that is more accurate. Again, you put it on every crane that loads a container bound for the U.S., on every toll booth that has a truck that will go into the U.S., you have dramatically reduced the odds of this type of catastrophe occurring.

Is there anyone who doesn't believe we should do that? Is there anyone who thinks the funding we are asking here, which is an additional $150 million, isn't worth the cost? Yet my guess is that when we have this rollcall vote in a short while, people will just march up to the podium and vote no, and there is no good answer.

I hope my colleagues will not do that. One hundred fifty million dollars is not going to break this bank. It is quite broken already. It is not going to break it much further, and it will do a world of good.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I hope, if we are going to support the amendment, that we will see it through in conference and not do what happened a couple of years ago where it was knocked out in conference and a much smaller amount of money was provided for and then that money was not spent.

I am ready to sit down. I know my colleague from Mississippi wants to move the bill forward. I do not disagree with that. I think the argument is pretty clear and pretty succinct. I hope we will be off to a good start on this bill by supporting this amendment and by not ignoring homeland security, particularly a catastrophe that could occur if a nuclear weapon were smuggled into this country.

Amendment No. 3580, As Modified

Mr. President, I have a modification of my amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that it be so modified. It is just changing one number.

It is actually a reduction in the amount of money by $50 million.

I urge my colleagues to support this deeply significant but, in terms of dollars, modest amendment so we can cut down the odds of a nuclear weapon being smuggled into this country and, God forbid, creating a catastrophe.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum be dispensed with so I might answer my friend from Mississippi.

Mr. President, I make this point. We were here 2 years ago, and a year ago, and my good friend from Mississippi, with the same eloquence, made the same argument: The amount of money is the amount of money we have; yes, we could double it, but let's leave it up to the wisdom of the Department and the committee.

We did that, and in the last year, we have had no money spent on developing better nuclear detection devices. That is a cheap shot? In all due respect to my colleague from Mississippi, and I would say in all due respect this could happen in New York and it could happen in Houston, TX, and blow over to Mississippi--this could happen anywhere in the country, and I am sure just as I would want to protect the citizens of every other State, so would my colleague from Mississippi.

This is hardly an urban issue. Chernobyl did not occur in an urban-- it may have been in an urban setting, but it ruined millions of acres of farmland, which I know my colleague cares a great deal about, as do

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: My friend from Mississippi said the outlays were still $144 million below what had been allocated by the committee. If I were to ask unanimous consent to make this amendment instead of $150 million, $144 million, within the outlays, would a point of order still lie?

I ask the Chair. Given the Budget Act, if this amendment were to be modified instead of $150 million of new money, given what we just heard, if the outlays were below $144 million, below the full committee allocation to the subcommittee, would a point of order still lie?

Continuing my parliamentary inquiry, that would mean a point of order would lie even if we were within the outlays?

Just one further parliamentary inquiry: If we said zero budget authority but $144 million in outlays, would that be in order?

Mr. President, I imagine it is not. So pursuant to section 904 of the Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable section of that act for purposes of the pending amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first of all, let me thank both of my colleagues from Nevada and Oklahoma as well. Their remarks were very moving today. In the midst of all these other matters we debate and discuss--matters we think are of such great and global and national importance--I don't think anything we have listened to has been as important as the comments that have been made by our good friend and colleague from Oregon, Gordon Smith, and my good friends and colleagues, Harry Reid and Don Nickles. I was aware of the circumstance of my friend from Nevada. I was not aware of the circumstance of my friend from Oklahoma. I appreciate both of them adding their voices today to this discussion. Particularly, though, I think we all feel a special bond with Senator Smith and what he and his lovely wife Sharon have gone through. I commend him for his courage and determination to share his story with us and the country today.

Time does heal wounds. I suspect my friend from Nevada and friend from Oklahoma still feel tremendous pain, and I suppose that time does remove some of the bitterness. But we know that our friend from Oregon lost his son only a matter of months ago, and we know the fact that he came to me, to Mike DeWine and Senator Reed, to others, asking with great determination if there was a way to clear the legislation before us this year. I am so glad that he came to us. I will forever remember the hour or so we spent--not many weeks ago--talking about this legislation in my office and trying to find a way to clear it. Gordon, it is because of you that we are here today.

I commend the majority leader and the Democratic leader and others for insisting that we find some time here to allow this legislation to be considered and, I believe, adopted unanimously by our colleagues. I know the other body is considering legislation as well.

If I could, I would like to spend a couple of minutes speaking about this important issue, and I hope this time maybe there are people listening. I know occasionally people follow C-SPAN. There are probably times when they wonder why they are watching us at all, but maybe today, as a result of our conversation and the tremendous remarks by our colleagues who have talked about this issue in very personal terms, in addition to the underlying legislation, there will be people listening whose lives might be transformed. My admiration for the three of our colleagues who have spoken today, particularly our colleague from Oregon, is unlimited. He has done a great service, if nothing else, by sharing his story with America. That has great value.

There are people listening to this who I know full well are going through similar circumstances and wondering how to cope, or a child out there who may be wondering whether anyone can pay any attention to his or her needs, or trying to find a place he or she can go to try and resolve these conflicts. I think this discussion is a worthy one for this historic Chamber to be engaged in.

Adolescent years are the most difficult in many ways. We spend a lot of time talking about early childhood development, and rightfully so. Those are formative years in a child's life. There is much more we could do to try and assist parents and young children beginning the journey of life to get it right from the beginning. And we spend a great deal of time talking about higher education, talking about the cost and getting jobs and the like. Certainly that has great value as well. However, we don't spend enough time talking about those adolescent years, those middle years from age six to 24. I can think of only a few instances where we have actually had hearings and talked about the problems of adolescents, those tremendously changing years that can be so terribly complex for an individual of that age.

I hope that as a result this discussion, the legislation we are introducing will have some ability, some impact, maybe, in focusing our attention on those questions. Let me go back and, first of all, again thank my colleague Senator Mike DeWine, with whom I have worked on this issue, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who has done a tremendous job as well on this legislation, and my colleague Richard Durbin of Illinois, who wants to be added as a cosponsor. I ask unanimous consent that he be added as a cosponsor to this legislation.

As has been pointed out by our friend from Oregon, suicide among our Nation's young people is an acute crisis that knows no socioeconomic boundaries. My State of Connecticut, as well as all other states in the nation, suffer from this tragedy. In fact, my hometown of East Haddam, Connecticut--a small rural community of 8,000 people--has not been immune.

In 2001, I chaired the first Congressional hearing on youth suicide, and I was alarmed at the disturbing statistics that were read at that hearing. Well, those statistics have not changed and they are worth repeating again today. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 3,000 young people-- 10 percent of all suicides--take their lives in the United States every year. It is the third overall cause of death between the ages of 10 and 24. Young people under the age of 25 account for 15 percent of all suicides completed. In fact, more children and young adults die from their own hand than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, and chronic lung disease combined.

Equally alarming are the numbers of young people who consider taking or attempt to take their own lives. Again, recent CDC figures estimate almost 3 million high school students or 20 percent of young adults between the ages of 15 to 19 consider suicide each year, and over 2 million children and young adults actually attempt suicide. Simply put, these figures are totally unacceptable and of a crisis proportion.

Sadly, we rarely find these facts disseminated widely among public audiences. We rarely read them in newspapers or hear them on television. Individual cases, yes, but not the national numbers.

We know youth suicide is integrally linked to mental health issues such as depression and substance abuse. Yet we also know all too well that both youth suicide and children's mental health continue to carry an unfortunate stigma, a stigma that all too often keeps these crucial issues unspoken and discourages children and young adults from seeking the help they so desperately need.

We have a societal obligation to break through this stigma attached to youth suicide and children's mental health. Again, the comments of our colleagues this afternoon have taken a major step in that direction. When people in public life can address these issues in public forums and talk about them in personal terms, then they help us break down the barriers and stigmas that exist. That is why I feel so strongly about the willingness of our colleagues today, particularly Senator Smith, to share their personal thoughts with us.

We also have a societal obligation to instill in our young people a sense of value, of self-worth and resilience. All too often children and young adults considering suicide lose sight of themselves, their talents, their potential in life, and all too often they lose sight of the love their families, friends, and communities have for them, as our friend from Oregon so eloquently described.

I am pleased our Nation has already taken positive steps toward better understanding the tragedy of youth suicide and its emotional and behavioral risk factors. Several recent reports like the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, and the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent Suicide have made youth suicide a top national public and mental health priority.

Today hundreds of community-based programs across the country offer a variety of early intervention and prevention services to thousands of children and young adults--services that include comprehensive screening, assessment, and individualized counseling. Every State and many tribal nations have begun developing or already have implemented a youth suicide early intervention and prevention strategy that coordinates appropriate services in schools, juvenile justice systems, foster care systems, mental health programs, substance abuse programs, and other youth-oriented settings.

Furthermore, the Federal Government has stepped up in its role in both supporting these community-based activities and conducting relevant research and data collection. Several mental health and public health agencies have shown a great interest in youth suicide, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. However, despite these important gains, we still face significant challenges.

Today a large number of States, localities, tribes, and service providers are finding themselves with unprecedented budget deficits, making the establishment of new services and the retention of existing services increasingly more difficult.

Furthermore, youth suicide early intervention and prevention strategies are often underfunded or understaffed to be properly effective. And while a number of Federal agencies have supported youth suicide activities, there have been no comprehensive interagency strategies implemented to share data, disseminate research, or evaluate the efficacy of youth suicide early intervention and prevention programs.

Today I am introducing bipartisan legislation with my colleagues Senators Mike DeWine, Jack Reed, Gordon Smith, Harry Reid, and Dick Durbin, named in memory of Garrett Lee Smith. This legislation further supports the good work being done at the community level, the State level, and the Federal level with regard to youth suicide, early intervention and prevention in four principal ways.

First, it establishes new grant initiatives for the further development and expansion of youth suicide early intervention and prevention strategies and the community-based services they seek to coordinate.

Second, it authorizes a dedicated technical assistance center to assist States, localities, tribes, and community service providers with planning, implementation, and evaluation of these strategies and services.

Third, it establishes a new grant initiative to enhance and improve early intervention and prevention services specifically designed for college-age students.

And last, it creates a new interagency collaboration to focus on policy development and the dissemination of data specifically pertaining to youth suicide. I continue to believe that funding for concrete, comprehensive, and effective remedies for the epidemic of youth suicide cannot be done by lawmakers on Capitol Hill alone. They must also come from individuals, such as doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, nurses, teachers, advocates, clergymen, survivors, and affected families who are dedicated to this issue or spend each day with children and young adults who suffer from illnesses related to youth suicide.

I believe we have made an important first step with this legislation today. That step has been implemented by the comments of my colleagues on the floor of the Senate. However, I also know that our work is not done. I sincerely hope that as a society we can continue to work collectively both to understand better the tragedy of this incredible problem of youth suicide and to develop innovative and effective and public mental health initiatives that reach every child and young adult in this great Nation of ours, compassionate initiatives to give them encouragement, hope, and love, and most important, life.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I was going to ask my colleague to yield, but he has spoken eloquently enough. I was

just going to once again thank him and Nancy, his lovely spouse, as well, who have been real champions on this issue for as long as I have been here, almost a quarter of a century.

I was thinking of the number of times, in my own public service of now almost 30 years, that I have been with audiences--50 people, 100 people, 200 people--talking about this subject matter. I oftentimes will turn to the audience and say to the audience: I want any of you here who have not been affected by this issue to raise your hand. If there is someone in the audience out here who has not had a father or a mother or a sister or a best friend or a cousin who has been affected by one form of mental illness or another, just raise your hand. I am curious to know if there is anybody here who has not been touched by this issue. I have never, in my 30 years of public service, in my home State of Connecticut, when I have ever raised this issue, ever had anybody raise their hand--in 30 years. Everyone--every single American--has been touched by this issue.

You would think, in this kind of environment, when we all understand this issue--and we have gone through one of the most moving moments of my 24 years in the Senate today, listening to the eloquent comments of my colleagues from Oregon and Nevada and Oklahoma speaking about their own personal experiences--you might think at a moment like this we would be able to come together to not only deal with the legislation that we have authored together to deal specifically with teenage suicide and related issues, but we might also find some time, right now, in the midst of this, to bring up and vote on a bill that enjoys overwhelming support in this body.

It would be one thing if the Senator from New Mexico and others who have joined him in this matter were in a minority, but there is a majority of us who believe exactly as does the Senator from New Mexico, that it is the 21st century--we are not in the 17th, 18th, 19th, or even 20th century--and we are still treating this issue as if somehow it belongs in the recesses and shadows and darkness of some corner, despite the fact that almost every single one of our fellow citizens understands this issue because they have confronted it very directly in their own homes and in their own neighborhoods. Yet we can't seem to find, as the Senator from Nevada has suggested, the 15, 20, 30 minutes or an hour to give us a chance to vote. Maybe people will want to vote against it. If they do, that is their business. But I believe there is a majority of us who would like to see this get done.

So I want to say to my friend from New Mexico, who I have worked with on this issue--and I appreciate our colleague from Nevada raising the name of Paul Wellstone, who was a great champion of this issue as well during his service in the Senate--that I don't know when this is going to happen--I hope sooner rather than later--but I want my friend from New Mexico to know: Don't you ever doubt for a single second this is not going to get done. It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow or next week, but I promise you that before long--hopefully before this session ends, if not sooner--we are going to get this legislation passed, and we are going to give the President an opportunity to sign it into law to begin to make a difference for the people in this country. So then I can not only ask the question to those audiences in my own State, ``Is there anyone who has not been affected by this?'' but I can ask, ``Is there anybody who cannot get help?'' because we have insisted the insurance companies and others start treating this condition as if it were any other ailment people can get coverage for and their families get protection.

Once again, I thank my friend from Oregon, and I thank his lovely wife Sharon and their family for their courage and their willingness to share with the country their feelings.

There have been many moments of pride when you watch a piece of legislation become law. There are very few that will equal the moment we are going to have this evening. My hope is that we will adopt this legislation named after Garrett.

Mr. President, I might add, I think Senator Kennedy as well wants to be added as a cosponsor. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kennedy be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I do not know if there is any further discussion on this subject matter. If not, I want to move back to the subject matter of the bill.

I see my colleague from New Mexico.

Mr. President, I am glad to yield to my colleague.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, I want to let my colleagues know what I am going to do at the end of these remarks. So that there will be no surprises, I am going to ask unanimous consent that the anticipated vote on cloture that is going to occur later today or tomorrow morning be vitiated indefinitely. I am not making that motion yet, but I am going to make the motion. I want to give them notice so they can find someone here who may want to object. I am going to make the motion because my view is that we have worked long and hard on getting this class action reform bill done. This bill is not perfect, but it is a reasonable bipartisan compromise that will reform the nation's class action system.

Having worked on this legislation last fall with a number of my colleagues, we now find ourselves in the middle of July dealing with this issue. I still have never received an adequate explanation of why this matter was not brought to the floor in January, February, March, April, or any point earlier. Why we waited until as late as we have to bring up an issue that has been as important as this makes little sense.

But my plea to the leadership, particularly the majority leader, is to not insist upon this cloture vote right now. Instead, I would like to give the leadership some ample time over the weekend to see if they can't fashion a compromise which would allow for the consideration of a number of amendments, both relevant and nonrelevant, as is the normal course of Senate business. Then we would come to a final vote and go to conference on the class action reform act.

I thought the decision to invoke cloture was one that was made last evening out of frustration because we were not getting very far with the class action reform bill. We began Tuesday night, but there were no votes that evening. On Wednesday morning, before any amendments were offered at all, the majority leader filled the amendment tree, precluding any amendments from being offered without getting his approval. Then Wednesday night, the decision was made to file cloture.

I am looking at a piece of correspondence dated July 6, the day before the decision to invoke cloture, from the National Association of Manufacturers. In his letter to all 100 Senators--dated July 6, not July 7--he notes a cloture vote will occur and that it is going to be considered a vote that will be scored on their annual legislative report card.

I ask unanimous consent to print the letter in the Record.

My point is, I would have thought this letter might have been dated on July 7, not the day before the decision to invoke cloture. It raises some suspicion that maybe the intention was all along to file cloture and not to give us a chance to go through the normal processes of debate and amendments.

Apparently the fix was in even before we started, which indicates to this Senator that the intention was never to get to this bill. There were numerous meetings over the last several. One of the things we talked about was the importance of setting aside an adequate amount of time for the full consideration of this bill.

The Democratic leader offered a proposal of limiting several nongermane amendments and a limited number of relevant amendments. The majority leader countered and offered to have even fewer nongermane amendments and an unlimited amount of germane or relevant amendments. I was mystified by that offer because had it been accepted, we could have spent weeks on this bill without ever invoking cloture if we had had hundreds of amendments filed that were germane to the underlying bill.

I am convinced there is still a formulation of germane/nongermane amendments that would allow us to consider those in a relatively expedited fashion and then get to final passage of the class action reform bill. My plea will be at the appropriate time that we vitiate the cloture vote, let the leaders over the weekend see if they can't come up with some formulation on amendments, and then next week or so to return to the legislation.

It is a great travesty that we are going to abandon this bill many of us have worked long and hard on because a small minority are unhappy over the possibility that we might consider as amendments several proposals that enjoy broad support in this institution. I realize that can be difficult. But nonetheless, it seems to me you don't shut down the underlying bill entirely because there are some proposals that may be offered that are unappealing to only a handful. Yet that is the situation in which we find ourselves.

For those who have worked on this, we are about to miss this opportunity, maybe not only for this Congress but for many years to come. That can happen. I have been around here long enough to know if you don't strike when the iron is hot, you may lose the opportunity for a long time down the road.

I appeal to the majority leader, who filed the cloture petition last evening, to vitiate that cloture motion. Give himself, the Democratic leader, and others who are interested a chance over the next several days to see if they can't come up with a formulation that will allow for the consideration of several amendments under time agreements. That ought to be the way we proceed, rather than abandoning this effort.

I am told the next two issues to be brought up--and the minority whip can correct me if I am wrong--are a constitutional amendment on gay marriage and a flag-burning constitutional amendment, neither of which have any chance of passage in this body. I don't believe anyone agrees there is any chance of them becoming the law of the land. Yet we are going to shove class action reform, based on the decision of the majority leader, off the table, maybe permanently, in order to consider two matters that have no chance of being adopted whatsoever.

If that is in fact the situation, then those who have been such strong supporters of this proposal outside of this Chamber ought to understand what the game is. As I have often said, I was born at night, but not last night. I think I understand what is going on here. Maybe all this time was only a game to bring the issue up with the full knowledge that once you close the opportunity for further amendments, you are then guaranteeing the outcome we are about to have.

I am terribly disappointed, after a lot of time being spent on this effort, that we have come to this particular moment. We just listened to the eloquent comments of our colleague from Oregon on legislation that will be adopted later this evening or next week dealing with teenage suicide. We have listened to the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, who has worked for 15 years on trying to achieve parity in the provisions providing coverage for people with mental illnesses. There is a significant majority of us in this body who believe that legislation ought to be adopted and then sent to the House for their consideration. They may reject it. It may not be adopted in conference, but we owe those who have fought long and hard a chance to vote on these measures. Certainly the American public might be more impressed with the Senate if we were to deal with the issue of mental health rather than with the issue of gay marriage or flag burning.

Literally thousands of cases, I am told, by people out there are being filed in State courts when they belong in Federal courts. I am a strong supporter of that effort. Are people here to tell me the flag- burning amendment and a gay marriage constitutional amendment are more important than dealing with reforming the class action system or the issue of mental health parity? I hate to see what the outcome would be if I polled the American public what they felt about the priorities of the Senate so close to the election.

What issues would America like to see us address? We have the issue of the minimum wage. Senator Craig of Idaho has an issue dealing with immigration and joblessness which enjoys the cosponsorship of three- quarters of the Members of this body and the support of the White House. We can't get it to the floor of the Senate. We have the provisions offered by our colleagues from Hawaii who are seeking some support for legislation that is critically important to their State. I mentioned the minimum wage. I mentioned mental health parity. These are only some of the issues.

On the question of importation of drugs, we are constantly being told that matter is going to come to the Senate floor for debate. Yet we are finding all of these issues being scuttled, including class action reform, to the sidelines so we can deal with a couple of issues that have limited support in this Chamber and I think marginal support if people thought about them out across the country.

So I am disappointed by the priorities here. I realize the majority has the right to set the agenda; it is their business to set the agenda. The majority party controls this Chamber, they control the other body, and they control the White House. They set the agenda. They have decided that the agenda--America's agenda--ought not to be class action reform, ought not to be mental health parity, ought not to be the minimum wage, ought not to be immigration reforms, which the Latino and Hispanic community and agribusinesses care about so much, and ought not to be the legislation offered by my colleague from Hawaii. Instead, it ought to be gay marriage and flag burning, neither of which have any chance of being adopted by this body.

My colleagues know full well constitutional amendments require supermajorities in order to leave here for consideration by the various States.

I see the presence of a colleague on the other side. I wanted to make sure someone was here before I make a unanimous consent request.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to invoke cloture, scheduled for tomorrow morning, be vitiated indefinitely, and that the reason for doing it is to give the leadership an opportunity to try to formulate a structure that will allow for the consideration of the class action reform bill in some manner that we can all endorse, support, and allow us to get to that issue. I make that request.

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

Mr. President, what is the current business before the Senate?

I thank the Chair.

The Chair has indicated that the Senate is presently considering the class action bill; therefore, I would think it appropriate for me to add a title to the remarks I am about to make, a title which would be as follows: ``Protecting the People's Interests Instead of the Campaign Interests.''

This morning, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Mueller briefed Senators, and I am told that he indicated that al-Qaida cells are operating in the United States and that multiple and simultaneous attacks are possible before the November elections.

Now, I have been listening, as I sat home with my sick wife, to talk about an amendment to the Constitution. I have been married now more than 67 years to a coal miner's daughter, and I have been listening to all of the wrangling that has been going on on this floor. I therefore felt it appropriate to make these few remarks, especially in the light of what I am told Secretary

Ridge said; namely, credible reporting now indicates that al-Qaida is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our Democratic process.

Just a month ago, the Attorney General announced that he had credible intelligence from multiple sources that al-Qaida plans to hit the United States hard in the next few months.

In the weeks following the Madrid railway bombing, the Washington Post reported that the President informed the Republican congressional leadership that he was all but certain that terrorists would attempt a major attack on the United States before the November elections.

Why are we wrangling over this political bill? Why not be talking about protecting the people of the United States and their properties against such an al-Qaida attack? It would seem to me that should have priority over politics.

Your lives, the people out there who are watching this Senate floor through those electronic lenses, your lives, we are told, are at stake. Then why do we have before this Senate this class action bill? Why not talk about the people's lives that are at stake? The administration says the people's lives are at stake and that we may expect multiple attacks. What a sinister threat we are obviously facing in this country. What are we doing on this floor? Wrangling, wrangling, wrangling over a class action bill. That is not going to sit very well with the American people, I don't believe, once they stop and think about it.

It would also be appropriate at this point, although it isn't very common that it is done on this floor--the Holy Bible is probably not something that one should carry onto the floor of the Senate, but I am going to read just two verses of Scripture from the book of St. Luke, chapter 13. These two verses are the sixth and seventh verses:

He [meaning Jesus] spake also this parable; A certain man

had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and

sought fruit thereon, and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold,

these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and

find none: cut it down;--

Cut it down--

why cumbereth it the ground?

I believe there is a day of reckoning coming and it isn't afar off, when the American people are going to look at this fig tree and say: These 3 years I come looking for fruit on this fig tree and I found none, cut it down. They are going to say that to this administration, to this White House. These 3 years--these 3 years--behold, these 3 years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none.

Where are all the wranglers? The people of this country are going to render a reckoning to those who are in the leadership in this country and they are going to say: Behold, these 3 years I came here seeking fruit on this tree and found none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

Just a few weeks ago, the 9/11 Commission released interim reports concluding that the terrorists who are intent on doing us harm are cunning and agile. These reports also indicate that our Government agencies were not prepared to deter or respond to such attacks. I fear that we are still not prepared to deter or respond to such attacks. Despite the threats, despite the dangers, despite even today's warnings from Secretary Ridge, the Senate this afternoon continues to debate legislation to reform the class action lawsuit process.

The Senate has spent 3 days on the bill without a single rollcall vote. Next week it is expected that the Senate will debate a proposed constitutional amendment on marriage.

Now, hear me, listen to that, a proposed constitutional amendment on marriage. There are few people in this Chamber who know as much about that subject as I do. My wife and I having been married now 67 years, going on toward 70, if it is the Lord's will.

It is expected that the Senate will debate a proposed constitutional amendment on marriage. Well, these are important matters. Nobody would say otherwise. But, frankly, they are not that urgent. They are not life or death issues, but they are the priority for the Senate majority leadership.

I believe there are other, more urgent matters that we should be considering. The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously reported the Homeland Security appropriations bill 3 weeks ago, on June 17. Since June 17, the bill has sat collecting dust. Why are we not debating that bill? I say to the leadership: Why are we not debating that bill?

In response to the Madrid train bombings, both the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee reported bills authorizing new Federal programs to secure our mass transit systems and our rail systems. The Governmental Affairs Committee has reported a bill authorizing first responders grants. The Senate has passed an authorization bill to increase resources for the Coast Guard. But where is the bill? The bill is mired in conference.

Why are we not moving forward on these bills? Why are we piddling around here, talking about a political bill, class action suits--class action suits? In the face of all the dire warnings that this administration, this White House, this Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, this President--all of the dire warnings that we have heard, in the face of that yet we are here piddling around, dawdling, arguing, wrangling over a class action bill. How about that, those of you people out there in the prairies, out there on the rivers and the river valleys, out there in the Rocky Mountains, those of you in Appalachia? How about that? Your life, the lives of your children are at stake.

They say these terrorists are prepared to strike in multiple places and yet the Senate is dawdling, talking about a class action bill.

We only have 2 weeks left after this one. We need to act. Are we going to wait until we go home? Are we going to wait until after the conventions meet? Are we going to wait another 6 weeks and then come back and bring up the appropriations bill making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security? Is that what we propose to do, daudle? Fiddle-faddle? What is wrong with the Senate?

The Senate is a do-nothing place these days, a far cry from what the Senate has been in the years I have seen go by.

While the Bush administration has consistently promised the American people that they are making this country safe, the facts show the administration has consistently put homeland security on the back burner. Time after time after time, the distinguished Democratic whip who sits on the Appropriations Committee of the Senate, not only a highly respected member of that committee but a very able member of that committee, knows that we have tried time and time and time again to add moneys for homeland security in that committee and here on the Senate floor. And time and time and time again, we have been turned down by a Republican administration and by the Republican leadership of this body. Deny that, if you may. I can furnish chapter and verse regarding the amendments that we have called up trying to bring greater safety to the American people against a terrorist attack, and time and time again those amendments have been defeated on the floor of the Senate.

For this administration, homeland security can wait and wait and wait and then wait. What do they want to do, wait another 6 weeks now until we come back after the August recess and then take up the Homeland Security appropriations bill? Is that the game? What might happen in the meantime?

This administration created a new Department of Homeland Security that rearranges the deck chairs, but it cannot energize that Department with the financial resources that it needs to make America and the American people safer, and many of the resources that are provided to the Department have yet to be spent. Get that. Many of the moneys are still in the pipeline. They have been in the pipeline. They have yet to be spent.

What a dawdling White House.

In response to the terrorist threat, one might have anticipated that the President would have requested the supplemental appropriations for securing our mass transit systems, for inspecting more containers coming into our ports, for increasing inspections of air cargo, or for increasing the number of Federal air marshals. One might have expected that the President would have amended his 2005 budget request

to increase his anemic, 3-percent proposed increase for the Department of Homeland Security. What a shame. What a sad commentary on a White House that plays Russian roulette with the lives of the American people.

Instead, the White House did nothing. Instead, the Department seems satisfied with a go-slow, business-as-usual approach to homeland security.

The Department issued advice to mass transit systems for improving security but provided no funding to increase law enforcement presence or to deploy K-9 teams.

Despite the approach of a busy summer season for airline passengers, the Department of Homeland Security has allowed the number of Federal air marshals to shrink precipitously, and the President's budget would result in even deeper reductions next year.

I have worked with the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens of Alaska, year after year, month after month, time after time to increase appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security. Senator Stevens and his committee have brought out bill after bill, and we brought bill after bill to the Senate floor over these years. We have joined together hand in hand on many occasions to seek the administration's help and have asked the administration to send up Tom Ridge before the Senate Appropriations Committee to testify back before he became a Secretary and subject to the confirmation of the Senate. Our requests fell upon deaf ears.

Despite concerns about the safety of our borders, the Department, in March, imposed a hiring freeze on Customs officers and Immigration inspectors. Millions of dollars that Congress approved for port security, for bus security, for hazardous materials grants 9 months ago have not been awarded. Millions of dollars that Congress approved in February of 2003, 17 months ago, for the purchase of additional emergency equipment for the 28 urban search and rescue teams have not been spent. Millions of dollars have not been spent.

Having this money sit in Washington, DC, does not make any American citizen any safer.

As a result of the President's decision not to seek supplemental appropriations, the Transportation Security Administration was forced to cut funding for training passenger and baggage screeners and for purchasing equipment for airport checkpoints.

You who listen today, it is your life and the lives of your family members and your neighbors and your friends that are at stake.

As the lines at our airports get longer and longer this summer, our citizens will wonder who is responsible. Who is responsible for this lackadaisical, careless attitude on the part of our government? Where are our government leaders? Where is the Senate? Why is the Senate so mute? That great deliberative body, where is it? Why is it so mute? Why are we today debating a class action bill when our lives are at stake?

It has been 2\1/2\ years since Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, tried to blow up an aircraft in flight over the ocean with explosives that he carried onto the aircraft. Are we any closer to deploying systems that could check passengers for explosives? Sadly, sadly, the answer is no, no, no.

It has been over 2\1/2\ years since the Congress passed the USA Patriot Act and set a goal of tripling the Border Patrol and Customs officers on the northern border. Have we met the goal? Sadly, we are 1,428 officers short of the goal.

It has been nearly 3 years since 9/11 when police and firemen in the World Trade Center could not talk to one another on their radios and tragically hundreds of them perished never to rise in this world again.

Are we any closer to providing police and firemen across the Nation with interoperable communications equipment? Sadly, the answer is no.

The EPA has estimated that there are 100 chemical plants in this country--several of them down in southern West Virginia, where one of the greatest chemical complexes in the Western Hemisphere exists. The EPA has estimated that there are 100 chemical plants in this country, each of which if attacked could harm over 1 million people. In February of 2003, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, which is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a threat warning that al-Qaida may attempt to launch conventional attacks on nuclear or chemical plants. A year and a half later, has the Department actually hardened the security of the chemical plants? Sadly, that same old refrain: No.

More than 95 percent of the Nation's overseas cargo moves through our ports. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that a 1-month closure of a major U.S. port would cost our national economy $60 billion. We inspect only 9 percent of the cargo containers that come into our ports. There are 361 ports.

In order to help secure the ports, the Coast Guard estimates $1.1 billion is required to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act in the first year and $5.4 billion over 10 years. How much did the President request? The President requested only $46 million for port security grants, a cut of 62 percent.

We need to do more than that. The American people expect more than that. The American people have a right to expect more than that. The American people have a right to expect from this administration, this White House, better consideration, better safety, greater concern.

There is a day of reckoning coming, and it is not far off.

Let me turn to this old book our fathers and mothers read.

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and

he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

He found none.

Then, said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold,

these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and

find none; cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground?

The owner of that vineyard is coming soon, just a few more months. The American people are coming to that vineyard seeking fruit thereon and they are going to say these 3 years we have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and found none. Cut it down.

Listen to that, White House. Cut it down.

On March 11 of this year, terrorists attacked commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, killing nearly 200 innocent passengers. The President of the United States has not requested a dime for mass transit security. No one is suggesting we set up a passenger screening system at our train stations like we have at airports, but we should be investing in additional guards, better training, additional K-9 teams, better surveillance. Americans use public transportation over 32 million times per workday. The Senate Banking Committee has reported a bill authorizing over $3.5 billion for fiscal year 2005 for mass transit security and the Senate Commerce Committee has reported a bill authorizing $1 billion for rail and Amtrak security. Our citizens deserve to be secure as they travel to work and back home again.

Time and time again over the last 3 years I have offered amendments to provide funding for securing our mass transit systems and the White House consistently called the amendments wasteful or unnecessary spending. We need to do more.

The Hart-Rudman report on the terrorist threat in this country recommended a $98 billion investment in equipping and training for our first responders over the next 5 years, yet the President did not request an increase in first responder funding. Instead, the President has proposed to cut first responder funding in the Department by over $700 million, including a $246 million cut in fire grants, and governmentwide the President is proposing cuts of $1.5 billion. We need to do more, not less. We are living in perilous times. Perilous times. We are a country that faces increasing threats from terrorists right here at home.

As Secretary Ridge was said to have explained to the country this morning, there is a growing concern about a potential terrorist attack before the November election. We are vulnerable, and the continual warnings and calls for vigilance only magnify that vulnerability.

What is our response to the Secretary's warnings in this Senate, in this dear old body which has been my home for almost 46 years? We give whistles to staff in the Capitol and we hope for the best. We sit back and wait and wait and wait on an appropriations bill that is right here that could have been called up days ago. We sit back

and wait and wait on this appropriations bill that would improve Homeland Security. Instead of action, we delay. Instead of action, we call up a class action bill. Instead of action, we get wrangled in political arguing. We delay Homeland Security funds for police officers and firefighters. We delay immediate investments in border security and port security. We say loudly for all the country to hear, Homeland Security can wait.

No, it cannot wait. Homeland Security cannot wait. And remember, there will be a day of reckoning. It will come as surely as I stand here in this place, as sure as the sparks fly upward. That day of reckoning is coming ever near around the corner.

Indeed, the majority leader could have scheduled the Homeland Security appropriations bill this week, but rather than bring up that critical legislation this week the majority chose to go to the class action bill. And once the Senate began consideration of the class action bill, then it was decided that Senators could only offer those amendments the leadership deemed appropriate. Now, how is that? How is that for filling the tree?

Here we are in the middle of July, with 11 more legislative days left before the Senate recesses for the respective party conventions; and that is going to be for 45 days we will recess, take or give a little. So the Senate has acted on exactly one appropriations bill, the Defense Appropriations bill.

Now that is not the fault of the Senate Appropriations Committee. No, you can bet on that. That is not the fault of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It is said that actions speak louder than words, and I believe that to be true in this case. Given all of the priorities facing this country, the majority leader has said, I am told, the most urgent need the Senate should consider is the class action bill and has further indicated that next week the Senate will consider a constitutional amendment that no one believes has the number of votes needed for adoption. Amend the Constitution of the United States--here it is, folks. I hold it in my hand. Let's just amend it one more time.

Homeland security funding will sit on the sidelines. Is that what the Senate should be about, I ask you, the people out there? This Senate should step back from this folly and put the people's interests first-- the people's business, the people's lives.

I simply do not understand why the Senate is twiddling its thumbs on legislation that could be considered at some other time rather than addressing homeland security issues when it matters most.

I watched them tear the building down,

A gang of men in a busy town;

With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell,

They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman, ``Are these men skilled,

And the men you would hire if you had to build?''

He gave a laugh and said, ``No, indeed;

Just common labor is all you need.

I could easily wreck in a day or two

What builders have taken years to do.''

I thought to myself as I went away,

Which of these roles have I tried to play:

Am I a builder who works with care,

Measuring life by the rule and square,

Am I shaping my deeds to a well-made plan,

Patiently doing the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,

Content with the labor of tearing down?

Think about it.

Now, I had not been told about my dear friend's, the chairman's, proposal about taking this up, even though I am the ranking member, actually the senior member of the committee, the only person on that committee who has been on it for 46 years, the senior Democrat in this whole creation here. I was not told about any proposal that my chairman was about to make.

I would be happy to consider any proposal. I want to work with the chairman. I say, why not take up this bill on Monday of next week? Why not? Why not bring this bill up on Monday, and let's have at it? I will leave that question for the leadership. I hope it will receive some consideration.

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and

he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold,

these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and

find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.