To amend the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 to extend contracts for national dairy market loss payments through fiscal year 2007, to increase the payment quantity authorized under such contracts, and for other purposes.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are about to begin a series of votes. There will be five votes. Many of these votes are on proposals to spend money above the allocations which we have in this budget. That is unfortunate and I think probably not good fiscal discipline or appropriate action.

I do think, however, it is important to look at the underlying bill as to its substance and its implications because I believe, through a bipartisan effort on the Appropriations Committee, working closely with the Senator from West Virginia and other members of the committee, we have been able to put together a bill which responds to many of the concerns that our Senate colleagues and the American people have.

I think if you ask the American people what they most fear relative to terrorist acts in the United States, it is terrorists who get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction. We know if biological or chemical weapons were used or, God forbid, a nuclear device was used in any of our major cities, the damage would be overwhelming. We know from his own testimony that it is Osama bin Laden's intention and the intention of his organizations to obtain those types of weapons and to try to use them against western cultures. Why? Because they are willing to kill people indiscriminately to make their political points. They are people without regard for human life, and they are people who act outside the boundaries of any norm of civilization.

I think if you talk to most Americans, they will tell you they are concerned about our borders. The fact is they read every day in the papers and they see on the streets situations which reflect the fact that people are coming into our country unaccounted for, that we have approximately 3 million people every year who are entering this country illegally, that we have somewhere between 8 million and 16 million people who are in this country illegally, that of the 300 to 500 million people who come across our borders legally, we do not have any idea who most of these people are and what their purposes are.

The vast majority of those people coming into this country legally are coming here to take advantage of America's good lifestyle or our business climate or to visit us and see our Nation, which we appreciate. But a very small percentage, unfortunately, come here with ill intent. And the American people rightly ask, Why is the Federal Government unable to control our borders?

Of course, there is a history to this. We are a nation that has always honored the openness of our borders. I remember growing up in New Hampshire, as does the Presiding Officer. We took great pride as a nation in the fact that people in the northern tier could travel into Canada and people from Canada could travel into the United States at will. They did, and they still try to. They still do, to a large degree.

People along our northern border in the New England region shop in Canada for their groceries. They get their haircuts in Canada. They take their boats up across the Canadian border and go fishing. And the same goes the other way. It used to be historically, until the Canadian dollar got a little weak, that the No. 1 tourist in New England was a Canadian coming down to take advantage of our coastlines or our mountains and enjoy the summer weather.

So this relationship has built up over literally hundreds of years. But now we have to be more vigilant. We know that, and especially along our southern border, where not only are there people coming across the border who are coming here to seek jobs, but there are people coming across the border who wish us ill will.

This bill has attempted to address this issue. We have done it in an aggressive way. As I said, there are 3 million people coming across our border illegally, as this chart shows. Of that group, unfortunately, a large number are not Mexicans. This is the biggest change we are seeing. For the most part, we know most people coming across our border who are of Mexican lineage are seeking jobs. They are seeking a better lifestyle. They are trying to improve their quality of life.

We now also see a large number of people coming across the Mexican border illegally who are not Mexicans, almost 100,000 a year. This is a serious problem for us because we do not know what countries they come from, and we know some of the countries they come from have a history of producing individuals who wish us ill will.

So what we did in this bill is we radically increased the number of Border Patrol agents. We are trying to expand our capacity as quickly as we can in putting feet on the ground on the border. That is what we have done here. We have added 1,000 new agents in this bill. We added 500 in the supplemental. That is 1,500 new agents. That is actually more than the Border Patrol has the capability to train--about 200 or 300 more--but we are putting pressure on them to accomplish that.

We also have increased training facilities so next year we will hopefully be able to add 2,000 or 2,500, and the following year 2,500, and the following year 2,500. Our goal is to increase the number of Border Patrol agents by 10,000 people over the next 4 or 5 years. But we have to ramp up to it. This year we are making an aggressive step in that direction with 1,500.

In addition, we have added over 4,100 detention beds because we know when a Border Patrol agent catches someone who is in this country illegally that, unfortunately, they are having to let a lot of people go or send them out on their personal recognizance. That is not acceptable. So we added 2,200 beds in this bill. We added 1,900 beds in the supplemental. We are ramping up our capacity to hold people here who may be a danger to us.

This bill is focused on threat. That is the purpose of this bill. It realigns our efforts as a Senate to focus the Homeland Security effort on what are the priority threats, the No. 1 threat being weapons of mass destruction. The No. 2 threat is the fact that our borders are so porous.

I appreciate the courtesy of the Presiding Officer and the Senate.

Amendment No. 1219 To Amendment No. 1124

Madam President, this amendment would add to the deficit by $302 million. It exceeds the committee's allocation. More importantly than that--or equally important--the Department cannot spend this money. The Department does not have in place yet the plans necessary to pursue this type of technology.

The administration asked for $40 million in this account. The committee

put $50 million into this account. We believe the first focus should be on pilot security relative to cargo, which is what we are working on right now, and then moving forward with technology which we are also working on, but we should do it in an orderly way, and this amendment would create a disorderly process and, as I said, add $302 million to the deficit.

I hope people will vote not to waive the budget point of order.

Mr. President, I point out initially that this amendment exceeds the budget allocation of the committee and is a deficit spending item. More important than that, the Department of Homeland Security does not yet have the technology nor the pilot programs capable of doing this. They will be pursuing this course of action when they are ready to do this in an effective and comprehensive way, and we will fund it.

Again, there dollars are being put in a problem that there is no solution for at this time. The Department has not asked for money for this because they know they are not capable of handling it yet. We will certainly pursue this activity, if it is appropriate, as the Department gets their pilot programs in place and shows that they can handle this type of program. Right now it is premature. In addition, of course, it is deficit spending.

I hope Senators support the budget point of order and vote against waiving it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previously agreed to Hatch amendment numbered 1221 be modified with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. President, I suggest all time be yielded back.

I ask unanimous consent that after this vote, which is the final vote of this group, there be 3 hours to be divided in the usual form to be used concurrently on the amendments; provided further that following the use or yielding back of debate time, the Senate proceed to the votes in relation to the following amendments: Senator Byrd's amendment 1218; my amendment No. 1220, as modified; Senator Shelby's amendment 1205. Provided further that no second-degree amendments be in order and the amendments be prior to the votes.

The time will be divided as follows under the 3-hour agreement: Senator Shelby, 15 minutes; Senator Schumer, 15 minutes; Senator Reed of Rhode Island, 15 minutes; Senator Carper, 15 minutes; Senator Biden, 15 minutes; Senator Sarbanes, 15 minutes; Senator Byrd, 15 minutes; and I will retain an hour.

I yield.

Proceed.

As I understand it, the prior unanimous consent request that I asked for reflects the Democratic leader's time was also agreed to.

Thank you.

Amendment No. 1217

Reserving the right to object.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I have no objection to the request by the Democratic leader.

Mr. President, I understand I have a minute now in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, this will be a $5 billion budget buster. It is $5 billion above the allocation. Just as significant, it is declared an emergency. Now, under the budget rules, an emergency is something that is sudden, urgent, or unforeseen. Clearly, this is not a sudden, urgent, or unforeseen event. In fact, we have spent over $1.8 billion already on interoperability. There are significant dollars in the bill for interoperability.

The problem with interoperability is, quite simply, no one can agree on what the interoperability should be yet. In fact, we spent 10 years trying to reach a regime on this. It is called standard P25. It has not been reached yet. We will continue to put money into interoperability, but this money will be misallocated and misspent if it is put in at this level. And it would clearly add to the deficit by $5 billion.

So I hope people will support the budget point of order to make the point this is not an emergency. Should this point of order be sustained, there may be another vote. We will have to wait and see what the Senator from Michigan wants to do.

Mr. President, I thought the motion was on the emergency designation. The amendment would survive that, and we would need a vote on the amendment. I ask for a voice vote on the amendment.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, we are now proceeding under a prior unanimous consent agreement relative to debate on the three amendments dealing with mass transit and rail. I hope that Members who have time allocated under that agreement will come over and begin the debate. Otherwise, I recommend that the time be equally divided in the quorum call between my hour and the 2 hours on the other side and that the time come off those in the proper proportion.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1117, Senator Nelson; amendment No. 1118, Senator Nelson; amendment No. 1137, Senator Collins; amendment No. 1108, Senator Lott; amendment No. 1197, Senator Lautenberg; and amendment No. 1194, Senator Nelson, which are at the desk, be called up and agreed to en bloc.

Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk of amendment No. 1111, on behalf of Senator Dorgan, and ask unanimous consent that it be agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw amendment No. 1113 of the Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Akaka.

Mr. President, what is the status of the time?

Mr. President, I want to review this issue because it is important in the context of London to understand our purpose and how we are proceeding from a policy standpoint to try to address terrorism. To begin with, we all know and understand and are all concerned about the threat to public transportation, specifically mass transportation, in our Nation and in any western culture because of what has happened in Madrid and in London and because the people who have decided to pursue this heinous approach of killing innocent individuals see this opportunity as a soft target, an easy way to kill indiscriminately. It is hard for western cultures to understand that people would do that. Unfortunately, that is what our enemies do.

We as a nation must decide how we can best address protecting ourselves. It is important not to take the attitude that if we just throw money at this, we will solve the problem. That doesn't work. What we need to do is address the risk, the threat, and determine what is the best way to respond to that risk and that threat.

When we were attacked on 9/11, we recognized as a nation that the individuals who seek to harm us are willing to take what we would consider everyday modes of transportation and use those modes of transportation as a weapon against us. Those airplanes were used as missiles. So as a nation, we decided we were not going to allow that to happen. We have committed vast resources--no question about it--to making sure that our aircraft are secure from being used as missiles. Have we secured them from being able to be blown up or destroyed in the air? No, we have not, quite honestly. We have had test after test that has shown that regrettably, even though we have this massive structure of the TSA and even though we have committed literally billions of dollars, we are still unable

to essentially protect aircraft, a high percentage of the time, from someone who wishes to bring on that aircraft a destructive weapon such as a bomb. In fact, we are having trouble keeping out individual types of weapons such as knives and guns. The percentage of those going through the security systems has been shown to be, in some instances, unreasonably high.

The reason is because a committed professional terrorist--and that is what we are dealing with--has the capacity to use weapons systems which can go undetected, going through this massive system that we have set up known as the TSA. That is something we are trying to address. We are trying to develop new technologies. There are new technologies emerging which will hopefully allow us to detect explosives that might go on an aircraft. But as of now, our capacity is not overwhelmingly good, even though we have spent billions of dollars.

What we have been able to accomplish is that it will be very difficult for a terrorist to actually take control of an aircraft again and use it as a weapon. That was our priority.

Now we have seen what has happened in London. The simple fact is, even though we spent billions of dollars at very confined ports of entry--in other words, an airport is a pretty confined place, pretty easily managed compared to other places when it comes to the movement of people in and out, everything has a fairly focused place--we have not yet been able to adequately or fully secure aircraft from a variety of potential attacks. It has to be obvious to anyone who is honest about it that our capacity to fully secure transit in New York City, where you have literally factors of a hundred more people using aircraft as entering and exiting--the number is something like 10 million people a day use that system. We have tracks that go on continually through populated areas that could be where IEDs could be put under the tracks, where you have innumerable places where people can jump on and jump off, thousands of different entry points--anybody who has any intellectual honesty about how we pursue terrorism must be ready to say: There isn't enough money in the Federal Treasury to effectively address securing the entire transit system in the manner which is being proposed in these amendments, which is that you put more police officers on trains, more bomb dogs on trains, more detection facilities in the entryways, more electronic surveillance.

We wish it could be done, but we haven't been able to do it in the aircraft area where we have spent billions, and the ability to do it in the transit area is a factor of complication 1,000 times more difficult with which to deal.

Thus these dollars which are being proposed today are not going to dramatically increase safety. They well may have some visual impact, and they will give people personal confidence. But as the mayor of New York said a couple days ago, a committed professional terrorist who is willing to give their life in order to kill other people is going to be able to attack that train, to attack that bus system.

How do you address this? The key to addressing it is as Secretary Chertoff has made very clear. It is unfortunate that his words have been hyperbolized so much on the floor of the Senate and have been used in a political manner. This is a sincere man who is trying to do a good job. He is just getting started as Secretary. For him to be subjected to politicization in the Senate is not constructive to the process of the defense of our country from terrorists, but he has been, as so often happens around here. What he has pointed out in his review is the way we protect our transit systems is to get better intelligence. It is intelligence that is the key. You have to find these people before they find us. You have to catch them before they get to our systems, and then you deal with them.

How do you increase intelligence? First, you go to where the breeding ground is for the people who are most likely to attack you--Iraq, Afghanistan. Most of the good intelligence we are generating today comes from the fact that we are in Iraq fighting these terrorists over there rather than fighting them over here. We are in Afghanistan finding these terrorists before they can find us. And then we either get intelligence from them there or, if they are really bad people who are fundamentally evil, we take them to Guantanamo Bay and we lock them up. Then, under very strict regimes which meet all the responsibilities of a civilized society, we interrogate them and find out information, intelligence.

A large percentage of our intelligence comes out of Guantanamo Bay. So you aggressively pursue the intelligence efforts, and that means you aggressively pursue the war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and you use places such as Guantanamo Bay.

In addition, you use our laws effectively. The PATRIOT Act, which has been so aggressively maligned from some of the Members actually offering this amendment, is a key element in developing the intelligence necessary to find out through electronic means what is up with the people who might want to attack us before they do so.

Some of the same people who want to put a billion dollars into initiatives which we know cannot significantly impact our capacity to secure the transit systems are so resistant to allowing the PATRIOT Act to be reauthorized, which provides the tools that will give our people at the FBI and other intelligence sources the capacity to find out what these people are doing by electronic means.

And then, of course, there are issues like profiling. The simple fact is there are certain people coming from the Middle East whom we know are going to be the type of folks who are going to potentially attack us. Profiling is a necessary element of finding them and getting them before they can attack us. Most of that activity--intelligence gathering--does not fall under this bill.

What does fall under this bill is border security. That is a big part of this whole question of how you protect the transit systems and everything else in America. It is not just transit systems; this doesn't stop with transit systems. If you are a terrorist--if you follow the logic of the Senator from Rhode Island--you are going to just move on to the next site of soft opportunity, which may be a sporting event or a utility system where they are transmitting power or maybe some other facility where people gather.

We are an open society and a massive democracy. We simply cannot lock ourselves down completely. So that is why the intel exercise is so important. Part of that is securing our borders, which is critical. Putting more money into securing our borders is what the bill does. Putting more money to making sure we are able to detect a weapon of mass destruction before it is used against us is what this bill does. Those are threats we can handle with more dollars. Those are the threats we can have an immediate impact on with more dollars--with a lot more dollars. This bill moves a lot more dollars into these accounts--over $600 million in the Border Patrol, and hundreds of millions in weapons of mass destruction issues. But to simply throw another billion dollars on the table because there is a political element behind the implications of doing that is not going to resolve the problem.

In fact, in the end, that will probably aggravate the issue because we will be taking scarce resources--which we have to allocate because we live under a philosophy that we only have so many funds--and putting them into an account where we cannot, A, use it; or, B, if we use it, it might be wasted, and if we use it ineffectively, its impact might be at the margin versus if you move the funds into areas where we get a response that produces results, such as in the intelligence area, Border Patrol area, weapons of mass destruction area. That is why this bill has been set up the way it has been set up.

So, yes, I don't deny that we can spend another billion dollars on mass transit. I am sure every mass transit authority in the country will be happy to replace their local spending with new Federal dollars, or even add it onto their spending. But will it dramatically impact the security of those transit systems, other than a visual impact? No. Let's be honest, it will not.

The only way we are going to secure transit systems or sports events or other major gathering sites is to find these people before they find us. That is why the war in Iraq is so important and the war in Afghanistan is so important, and that is why maintaining a vibrant facility in Guantanamo where we

can incarcerate and interrogate these people in an appropriate way, aggressively, is important. It is why the PATRIOT Act and profiling and border security are important.

Those are the priorities on which we should be focused. So I have to oppose both amendments by Mr. Shelby and Mr. Byrd. I respect them both, and I understand where they are coming from. I respect their initiatives to try to do something here. Within the context of the budget, we have put the money where we think we can most effectively use it, which, as I have outlined, has been weapons of mass destruction, border security, and airlines.

So I will be opposing both of these and making a point of order that they will exceed the budget allocation and exceed our allocation within the Appropriations Committee, and that both amendments would add a billion dollars to the deficit.

I have, however, listened to my colleagues saying we need more money in mass transit. We have offered an amendment which would move $100 million out of first responders into mass transit. It would mean we would be $50 million above last year's spending in those accounts. If Members wish to pursue that course, I hope they will vote for that amendment because it is a responsible amendment and an affordable one, done within the context of the bill, which has a structure built around addressing threat first.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, how are the quorum calls being charged?

Mr. President, I am fairly confident that earlier, at the beginning of this section, I asked that all quorum calls be charged equally in relationship to the time allocated. In fact, I am absolutely confident that I made that unanimous consent request. However, I will renew that unanimous consent request at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be restored in the context of that request, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have a modification of my amendment No. 1220 which I send to the desk and ask be accepted.

Yes. I reserve my request and make a point of order a quorum is not present.

I ask again the modification I sent to the desk be accepted.

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

I ask all time be yielded back, if the Senator from West Virginia is agreeable.

I ask unanimous consent the next two votes be 10 minutes in duration.

I also ask unanimous consent that prior to the next two votes there be 2 minutes equally divided.

Mr. President, this is an amendment to increase funding in the mass transit area by $100 million which is done by taking that money out of a different account, specifically the State and local first responder account. The reason that account was chosen was, as we discussed before, there is over $7 billion of unspent money in those accounts.

To the extent the States have the capacity to handle that money, we will make sure they get additional moneys, but right now they have more money than they can handle in those accounts.

This will be within the budget. I hope Members support this amendment.

Amendment No. 1205

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. President, we have had substantial debate on the substance of this amendment, the fact that the $1 billion probably will not impact dramatically the security situation. It might actually misallocate funds that could otherwise be used for intelligence and for Border Patrol agents and for other activities that are so critical and that are threat-oriented.

But the practical bottom line is this amendment is $1 billion over the budget and will add to the deficit by $1 billion, if it is adopted. I urge that the motion to waive be defeated.

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

Mr. President, I am told that the time has been running against the 15 minutes, and I may have less than that. But if I run out of time, I have been authorized to maybe take as much as 5 minutes off of Leader Reid's time. Hopefully, I will not get to that point.

I rise today to support the Byrd rail security amendment. I know even though the Presiding Officer is new to this body he is aware I have been like a broken record for the past 4 years about rail security. When I look at the clerk, she probably thinks: Here he goes again because I have been talking about this so much since 9/11.

Quite frankly, we have an abysmal record, an irresponsible record, dealing with rail security. For the longest time, we had trouble in 2002, 2003, 2004, up until 2005, getting any traction. We have passed serious rail security bills, including Amtrak, in the past under the leadership of Senator McCain, and Senator Hollings, who was my seatmate for years, who is now gone. The McCain-Hollings-Biden amendment that was passed called for $1.2 billion. We even passed a $1.7 billion amendment. The House and the President seem--I do not know what it is. I just do not get it. I thought that maybe this time around my colleagues in this body would understand that, as my dad, God love him, used to say before he died, if everything is equally important nothing is important.

There are priorities. How there could be anything from a tax cut to even an education program that could take priority over dealing with our homeland security is beyond my comprehension. I do not get it. But obviously we are not prepared to do what I was prepared to introduce, and did introduce the beginning of the week, to add $1.1 billion for rail security, which would have brought the total number for rail security up to $1.2 billion, which was in the bill we passed last time around which would have provided $670 million to deal with security in tunnels and the places where cataclysmic events could take place--$65 million, $4 million immediately to Amtrak to go out and buy canine patrols, put more cops on, put in cameras and detectors, secure the switching stations, and all the things that lend themselves to providing for a catastrophe. The bottom line is I do not have the votes to get that done.

So I joined with Senator Byrd, who has been a leader in this area, in my sincere hope that $265 million for rail security in this amendment, which is one-fourth of the amount passed in the Rail Security Act of 2004 last October, will actually pass.

The positive piece is that although it does not give us a straight line to deal with the long-term security interests of rail, it would give them enough money and all the money they could reasonably spend in 1 year to be able to begin to upgrade our system.

The tragedy in London has focused the Congress and the Nation on rail security again this week, but quite frankly I learned from Madrid. I thought Madrid would be a wake-up call. I thought after Madrid people would say: Hey, Biden, you are right, man. We have a real problem with rail. We should really do something about this.

Nothing, nothing, nothing happened. Now, our closest ally and friend maybe gives us a different perspective on the floor. The Madrid attacks should have done it, but they did not. Our negligence to this point has been inexcusable.

Many of us have been talking about this for years. The bottom line is that nearly 4 years after September 11, over 1 year after Madrid, our rail system is as vulnerable as it was 4 years ago.

I met earlier this week in my office with the head of Amtrak security and all of his attendant folks. I cannot reveal publicly everything I learned, but it is quite alarming. Let me talk about a few things I can reveal. Critics argue that we cannot protect, for example--there are 22,000 miles of rail in this country, and critics say: Joe, you cannot protect all 22,000 miles.

That is a little bit like saying we cannot protect the airlines. We should not have air traffic controllers because we get baggage put in the holds that are not inspected? Now, is there anybody on the floor saying that?

Right now one gets on a plane and the baggage that is put in the hold is not inspected thoroughly like the baggage that is carried on. But is anyone

saying we should not spend the money on TSA to inspect the people going through the gates? Of course not. Let us not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

The fact that we cannot do everything does not mean we do not do anything. That has been the mantra with regard to rail.

As I said, the argument is 22,000 miles cannot be protected, but guess what. We can prevent a Madrid or a London-style attack in the United States. We can make our rail system much safer and reduce the chance of attack because we understand that the terrorists want spectacular, cataclysmic attacks with large body counts in this Nation. Because we know that, we can narrow our focus to critical areas such as stations and tunnels, areas that security experts and common sense, as well as the CIA, tells us are the most vulnerable.

When I first did this 4 years ago, people said, oh, my God; do not point out that the Baltimore Tunnel was built in 1869, has no ventilation, no lighting, no escape, no way out. You are going to alert the terrorists. The terrorists know this. They know all the vulnerabilities. The problem is the American public does not know. So there is not enough pressure put on all of us here to make the right decision.

For example, every day over one-half million people pass through New York's Penn Station. This morning there were more people sitting in an aluminum tube below New York City--aluminum tube meaning a train car-- than in a half dozen full 747 aircraft. Tell me what happens when sarin gas is released there. Tell me what happens when there are a series of explosions that far underground. Tell me what happens if anything remotely approaching a chemical weapon is used. There is no ventilation.

Riding in New York City today in the tunnels one will see construction going on, as it should, with these great big things that look like jet engines being put up in the ceiling. That is ventilation, exhaust. So, if something goes off in the tunnel, 2 people or 20 people die, not 200 or 2,000.

Do you know what the single most visited facility in all of Washington, DC, is? It is 2 blocks down the street. I walk to it every night: Union Station. More people visit Union Station than any other facility in Washington, DC.

Go down there with me, Mr. President, and get on a train with me, as I do every night, and stand on the last car as you ride out of the station. Look; tell me if you identify a single camera. Tell me if you identify any barbed wire fencing around the switching devices. Tell me whether you see any security. Tell me whether you see any guards.

There are a half-million people going through the station at Penn Station, and do you know how many police officers are on duty at any one time there? Twelve. There are 12 in New York, 5 in Union Station.

As I said, if you walk over there with me right now, you will find no real police presence, no fencing, inadequate security cameras, all of which anybody with common sense would say made no sense.

For some reason, there is an animus toward Amtrak in Washington. I kind of figured it out, actually. I think a lot of folks here think that it is a back-door way of funding Amtrak. Otherwise, I can't understand why you wouldn't do this, after the billions we spend on airlines, as we should. I am not talking about Amtrak subsidies here; I am talking about protecting American lives.

In addition to the 64,000 daily riders on Amtrak, there are 23 locations where Amtrak facilities, stations and rails, overlap with transit facilities. In the Northeast corridor, Maryland Area Regional Commuter, has 400,000 daily commuters that utilize Amtrak--400,000 daily commuters on MARC that utilize Amtrak facilities. They walk in the station, get in a car, and it gets on an Amtrak track.

My friend from Rhode Island can tell me more about the transit systems in Rhode Island, and New York Transit, and Long Island Transit, and Connecticut Transit--et cetera. They all use Amtrak facilities.

Amtrak can only pay a starting salary of $31,000 to its police officers, and I cannot pay them more than $38,000, no matter how long they have been there, and they have a 10-percent vacancy rate on the force right now. Most of these positions are in New York and Washington where they need them most, but very little anyplace else. As I stated, in an amendment I proposed to add $1.1 billion for rail security, but the Byrd amendment only comes up with some $240 million right off the bat. We can use it. We can use it desperately. It is my understanding the Committee on Commerce and Transportation is going to mark up a comprehensive rail bill again next week, but we cannot wait for that. We need this $200-plus million right now. The $265 million in the Byrd amendment will provide urgent funding for Amtrak, including 200 additional police officers, 40 additional canine patrols, and improved fencing, lighting, and basic cameras--just basic block-and-tackle equipment that, if we have them, we can save thousands of lives.

The London bombers were identified by an expansive system of closed- circuit television in the London Metro. They have roughly 6,000 high- quality cameras there. We don't have anywhere near that capacity. We need that capacity.

Another area that needs attention is the transportation of hazardous chemicals. We have already voted this down before but, God, we should rethink this. The Naval Research Laboratory was asked what would happen in an attack on a traditional 90-ton chemical tanker. If you look at a train at a railroad crossing, you see the freight rail go by and you see these tankers--not containers, tankers; the whole car is one unit. You see them go. They are about 90 tons.

A 90-ton chlorine gas tanker, having an IED like those that explode in the streets of Baghdad placed under it on a track or under the tanker, exploding in a metropolitan area, according to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, will kill up to 100,000 Americans. Do you hear me now? One chlorine tanker exploding in a metropolitan area will kill 100,000 Americans. And we have trouble getting Homeland Security to come up with a plan to force these kinds of tankers to circumvent the population areas? Because it costs more money? It costs business more to do that. It costs more in the products we will buy. My Lord, what are we doing?

I might add to my friends in the Congress, when you leave Union Station and you head south to Richmond, you go under tunnels. Do you know what the tunnel goes under? Straight under the Supreme Court and under the House Office Building. If you explode a chlorine tanker underground, under that, you implode the Congress, you implode the office building called the Supreme Court.

If you want to make a statement--again, these are the IEDs, the roadside bombs that are killing our brave soldiers every day in up- armored humvees. There is no camera to detect anybody walking through those tunnels. There is no security. And we sit here like darned fools and say, No, that costs money. That is going to cost us money.

I understand the procedural restrictions will prevent us from considering that bill today, but I think this is a critical issue, one we simply have to address. I am going to be pushing this legislation until the cows come home.

After Madrid and London, we simply have run out of excuses not to act. This Byrd amendment does not solve every problem, but it goes a long way toward dealing with the beginning attempt to prevent catastrophic damage to American infrastructure and American lives. We will never be able to stop someone placing a bomb on a track somewhere along the 22,000 miles of track we have. We will only be lucky, one in three or one in ten times, with a dog getting someone who walks on a train with dynamite or K-2 strapped to their body or carried in their knapsack.

But to use that as an excuse to do virtually nothing, or to use it as an excuse that this breaks the budget--give me a break. We are breaking the budget on the inheritance tax. We are breaking the budget on an additional tax break for the superwealthy. We are breaking the budget on so many less worthy expenditures than homeland security.

There is much more to say, but I know my colleagues, over the last 5 years, are tired of hearing me say it.

I have a prayer, a literal prayer, that I never have the occasion to walk on

this Senate floor and say: We should have done this and we failed.

For God's sake, you guys and women who are going to vote on this, think about it in terms of how will you explain to the American people if something tragic and preventable happens after having voted against measures that, if put in place 4 years ago or put in place now, had a reasonable prospect of preventing it? That is a question I think you have to ask yourself.

I will end where I began, with my dad. My dad used to say:

Champ, if everything is equally important to you, nothing

is important to you.

Every hard decision we make is about priorities. I ask the rhetorical question: What priority is higher than the public safety of the American people in the face of a demonstrable threat that isn't going away?

I yield the floor. I see my friend from Maryland is on the floor.

If the Senator will yield for a comment, the Senator, who lives in Baltimore and has commuted to Baltimore every day for the last 20-some years--more than that, from when he was in the House--he will remember that there was a fire in an automobile tunnel going into Baltimore Inner Harbor a couple of years ago. It shut down all of Baltimore in the harbor region.

Just that fire. Even if there were not a terrorist threat, the idea that we are continuing to have, in and out and under the Baltimore harbor, this antiquated, 150-year-old tunnel, without any reasonable upgrade, is mind-boggling.

If the Senator will yield, I compliment the Senator from Maryland. This is not a mutual admiration society, but he has jurisdiction in the Banking Committee over surface rail, intracity rail, and he has taken care of this amendment. I realize he wanted to reach out further and take Amtrak into this, but he does not have that jurisdiction.

I know.

That is my point.

But the Senator wanted to do it, and he could not jurisdictionally do it. That is why I appreciate his support for the Byrd amendment as well. That is the only place we could pick up a piece of Amtrak.

I see my friend from New York. There are a million people in Penn Station today--more people, as I said--sitting at rush hour in an aluminum tube underneath New York City than a half dozen full 747s, and we are doing nothing about it.

I thank the Senator from Maryland. He has done a great job. And I thank Senator Shelby. I hope we can move it.

Madam President, this amendment seeks to strengthen the borders, which is a good goal, but at an awful price. It could take 24 percent of our money away from our first responders--police, firefighters, emergency technicians. In every one of the States we had an argument the other day that we don't get enough money for these people, that whether you are from Wyoming or Kansas or Maine or New York, there is not enough money for our first responders. There is nothing that says we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. That is the problem here. It is not in strengthening the borders. It is in taking money away from the people every day who defend us and, since 9/11, have new duties. That is why both Senator Gregg and Senator Byrd, the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, are against this amendment. There is bipartisan opposition to it because our police, our firefighters, our medical technicians are the ones who need the help. Don't take money away from localities to put into this Federal pot.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote be 10 minutes on this amendment and the next one.

Mr. President, this amendment deals with air cargo. We have done a very fine job in making our air travel safer when it comes to passengers. They are checked very well to prevent them from smuggling not only metal but now explosives onto planes.

However, most passenger planes--more than half--carry cargo in the belly of the plane. That cargo is not inspected. So somebody who, God forbid, would want to do damage could smuggle explosives into the cargo and detonate it and do just as much damage as a passenger.

This amendment very simply provides $302 million to provide for air cargo security, $200 million for existing air cargo security countermeasures, $2 million for a pilot program on hardened containers, and $100 million for research.

We have learned since 9/11 that terrorists look for our weakest pressure point. Cargo is our weakest pressure point on air travel, and I urge support of the amendment.

Madam President, what I have been attempting to do in some of these amendments is look for our weakest pressure points because the terrorists also know where we have done things, and they know where we have not done enough. A place where we are completely weak is truck security. We have seen that terrorists have used trucks to hurt us--in New York City at the World Trade Center in 1993, of course in Oklahoma City a few years later, and in Europe and around the world as well. A truck loaded with explosives can do terrible damage at a football stadium, at a skyscraper or another place that is heavily populated.

The interesting thing is that technology does exist to track trucks the way we track airplanes. It is GPS. It is not very expensive. But since the truck market is so fragmented, no one company does it alone, even though many companies have GPS systems in their trucks, mainly for theft.

We provide just $70 million, not very much, to develop and implement a system for identification and tracking only of hazardous material trucks--those that carry gasoline, explosives, chlorine--that could be used for terrible purposes. If we can't afford $70 million to do this-- and I disagree with my friend from New Hampshire, we are not doing enough now--then we ought to look into the mirror. I hope this amendment will be supported.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately after Senator Sarbanes speaks for his 7 minutes that I speak for the 10 that I have been allotted.

I ask unanimous consent, that my colleague from Rhode Island immediately precede me with his allotted time.

I have already gotten unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I am here to address the various amendments we have on rail security, but I also must speak about something that occurred in the last few hours related to mass security.

Mr. President, I know Secretary Chertoff. I was proud to support his nomination. I was proud to support his nomination to the Federal bench. He is a smart man, he is a thoughtful man, he is a capable man. But when I read the statements that he made this morning, I was aghast. These are some of the most appalling comments that I have heard coming from any Government official in a long time.

First, Secretary Chertoff said that the responsibility for transit security must rest with the localities. And then he said the following:

``The truth of the matter is that a fully loaded plane with

jet fuel, a commercial airliner has the capacity to kill

3,000 people,'' Chertoff told Associated Press reporters and

editors.

And then he continues:

A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start

thinking about your priorities, you are going to think about

making sure you don't have the catastrophic thing first.

I would like Mr. Chertoff to ask the people in London if what happened last week was minor in passing or the people in Madrid--the chaos, the loss of life. To say what happens on the subways because it might only kill 30 people is less of a priority for this Federal Government than what might happen in the air is an appalling statement that leaves me aghast. I am asking Mr. Chertoff immediately to withdraw his statement and apologize, apologize to those who have lost loved ones and apologize to every transit user in New York and around the country.

Our responsibility, I would tell the Secretary, the responsibility of the Federal Government is to prevent terrorism in the homeland wherever it occurs--in the air, on the rails, in the water. To simply wash the Federal Government's hands of responsibility at a time when this Government is cutting back on mass transit funding and the localities have very little money is an abdication of responsibility.

I know I am speaking in strong terms, but if Mr. Chertoff professes these views, then I am not sure he should continue as the Secretary of Homeland Security. And as I said, I respect him. He is a smart man, he is a bright man. But I could hardly believe it when I read this and when a reporter asked me about it that it came out of his mouth. When I sat down with Mr. Chertoff when he was the nominee, he didn't voice any of these views. In fact, Senator Clinton and I took a tour with him of Grand Central Station, and he seemed fully to understand the needs of mass transit in terms of homeland security. And now we have a 180- degree about turn?

I hope and pray that Secretary Chertoff misspoke, because every one of our citizens on transit--whether in the air, on the water, on rail, or on the road--is our responsibility to keep safe and prevent terrorism from afflicting them.

If this administration has embarked on a new policy which says that we will protect people in the air but not on the rails and washes its hands of that responsibility, then they ought to let America know, and they will be facing the fight of their life on this floor and in this country.

Here we are, debating amendments to try to get some more money for homeland security on the rails because we know we are so short of dollars, and at the same time we are hearing from the Secretary of Homeland Security that our rails, our commuters don't need that money. I would like Mr. Chertoff to go to Grand Central Station or Penn Station or to the Atlantic Avenue Station in Brooklyn or the Woodlawn Station in the Bronx and tell the commuters there that Washington doesn't have the responsibility to protect them from terrorism. Let him face them directly and say that to them. Let him go to them and tell them that it is all up to the local governments even though we know we have declared since 9/11 that the war on terror is largely a Federal responsibility.

So it is really that I rise to speak about this subject with some sadness because, as I said, I like Mr. Chertoff, I have respect for Mr. Chertoff. And, again, I would repeat my plea. Secretary Chertoff, please retract your remarks. Apologize to those who use mass transit and the rails and let us agree that the Federal Government has a real responsibility to protect the rail riders of this country from terrorism.

Now, in my remaining time I would simply like to address the amendments. I salute my colleagues from Alabama and Maryland and Rhode Island for their amendments. We have learned since London and Madrid that transit seems to be the terrorists' target of choice. Madrid may have been our first wakeup call and London was our second. We ignore it at our peril.

Mass transit systems are open. They bring in lots of commuters all at once. And they prove to be, unfortunately, a tempting target for terrorists.

What is our responsibility? It is not what Mr. Chertoff says. It is, rather, to step up to the plate and provide funding as we do in the air. For every air passenger, we spend $7 on homeland security. For every rail passenger, we spend a penny. That is out of whack. The amendment by Senators Shelby and Sarbanes, Reed, myself, and many others moves to address that.

We need to do so many things in mass transit. I have called my folks in New York. We hope in the longer run we can develop detection devices that, like smoke detectors, can tell when explosives are brought on a train or in railroad stations, whether on someone's person or in a knapsack. But until we do, their No. 1 need is for explosive-sniffing dogs. They are desperately short. Yet the President's proposal does not allow that to happen. There will be a colloquy that urges that to happen.

We are short of transit patrolmen. I have been told, for instance, on a heavily populated commuter line there is only one police officer who patrols about 10 stations that handle tens of thousands of commuters every day over a 30- or 40-mile expansion of commuter rail on Long Island.

Structure changes are needed to strengthen subways and tunnels so that, God forbid, if a terrorist attack occurs maybe the structures will withstand it. We need signage and help for the tunnels to have escape routes and ventilation to minimize loss of life if terrorism, God forbid, occurs.

I rise in support of this badly needed amendment. We have neglected mass transit when it comes to homeland security. We are trying to redress that in a bipartisan amendment.

I also mention, of course, Senator Byrd's amendment which deals with transit and rail, which I will support. Senator Gregg's amendment, which takes $200 million out of port security and adds it to transit and rail, is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The terrorists look for our weakest pressure point and strike there. Rail at this point is our weakest pressure point. We should strengthen it. To take money from ports, where we have not

done the job, and put it in rail does not make much sense because if we strengthen air security, they will look to the rails. If we strengthen rail security, they will look to the ports. If we strengthen port security, they will look to the trucks.

As the war on terror overseas must be fought on many fronts, so must the war on terror at home. To pick, as Mr. Chertoff does, one place where the Federal Government is going to put its efforts and ignore the others, is not doing a service to our citizens. Therefore, we must do more to strengthen security on the rails.

The best thing we can do to show the Nation that Mr. Chertoff's statement was not what America needs is to vote for the Shelby- Sarbanes-Reed amendment and the Byrd amendment, as well.

How much time have I used?

I will take my 20 seconds to yield the floor.

I ask the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 1208.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss one of the most glaring vulnerabilities in our Nation's homeland security--chemical plant security. This is an amendment which is agreed to on both sides. At the conclusion of my remarks, I will ask for unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.

It is a very simple amendment. It is a sense of the Senate that Federal standards should be established to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attacks.

I understand it is an indication of a consensus that is building across this Senate and across this country and in the Department of Homeland Security that we have a serious issue with regard to the infrastructure surrounding our chemical plants and the danger they present to the population that surrounds them--the neighborhoods, the people who live in these densely populated communities that surround these chemical plants.

The State of New Jersey, which is the most densely populated State in the Nation, has seven plants where more than a million people could be impacted by an explosion and the release of toxic chemicals. It is a real danger for our broader community, but it is true across the Nation as well.

The Pentagon and the United Nations together spent over $900 million over a 2-year period searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, when in fact those weapons, chemical weapons, anyway, are right in our backyard. Unsecured chemical plants, arguably, are pre-positioned weapons of mass destruction right in the backyards of Americans.

That is why I offer this amendment today, to express the sense of the Senate that Congress should pass legislation establishing enforceable Federal standards to protect against a terrorist attack. There is a lot of work going on. The chair and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are holding a series of hearings on chemical plants, I believe one even today, and they have done tremendous work.

I compliment Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and others in pursuing full efforts with regard to trying to establish a formula, a format for securing our chemical plants across this country. I will work with them shoulder to shoulder as we go forward on this effort. It is something I have been working on since October of 2001. So I compliment them. I also thank Senators Judd and Byrd for their cooperation in allowing for this sense of the Senate to show there is momentum behind this effort as we go forward.

This is something that has been recognized by every expert as we have gone forward, particularly post 9/11. On February 6, 2002, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified:

[A]l Qaeda or other terrorist groups might also try to

launch conventional attacks against the chemical or nuclear

industrial infrastructure of the United States to cause

widespread toxic or radiological damage.

The threat continues to become more apparent almost by the day. On the day before last Thursday's criminal attacks took place in London, the Congressional Research Service released a study saying there were 111 plants in 23 States, such as those 7 in my State of New Jersey, that could kill more than a million people. Preventing such a terrorist attack, especially against plants where they are in these densely populated areas, should be one of our highest priorities.

These chemical plants present a clear and present danger to the American people. We have one that sits under a freeway that feeds the Holland Tunnel in metropolitan New York, northern New Jersey. Literally, hundreds of thousands of people transverse right over the top of a chlorine plant. It is open to exposure, surrounded by 12 million people, in that particular case.

The GAO reported on April 27, 2005:

Experts agree that the nation's chemical facilities present

an attractive target for terrorists intent on causing massive

damage.

Economic damage and loss of life. This is an important recognition. The GAO went on to say:

Terrorist attacks involving the theft or release of certain

chemicals could significantly impact the health and safety of

millions of Americans. . . .

In January of this year, Richard Falkenrath, the former Deputy Homeland Security Adviser to President Bush, called the threat of industrial chemicals ``acutely vulnerable and almost uniquely dangerous.'' He said:

These poorly secured chemicals, which in some cases are

identical to the chemical

weapons used in World War I, are routinely present in vast,

multi-ton quantities adjacent to or in the midst of many

dense population centers.

Falkenrath went on to testify:

Toxic-by-inhalation industrial chemicals present a mass-

casualty terrorist potential. . . .

I could go on and on. Expert after expert after expert has testified to this. On June 15 of this year, Thomas P. Dunne, the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response of the EPA, testified that:

[O]nly a fraction of U.S. hazardous chemical facilities are

currently subject to Federal security requirements. . . .

This is a real problem. We are not doing enough. As a matter of fact, there are investigative reporters who have been able to walk on to many of these plants with unchallenged efforts. We need Federal standards to address a real problem. It needs to be done now. So I hope this sense- of-the-Senate amendment moves us forward. It is right in line with what is being asked for by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security testified that the Department:

has concluded that from the regulatory perspective, the

existing patchwork of authorities does not permit us to

regulate the industry effectively.

He further testified:

The Department should develop enforceable performance

standards. . . .

There is widespread agreement on this. I think we need to move forward. I encourage and support the efforts of Senators Collins and Lieberman. It is time we move forward so we are not looking back after the fact on something we have been warned, and warned time and again, is a danger to the American people. I hope this amendment will help us proceed on that.

Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the amendment at the appropriate time. I do believe the amendment has been agreed to on both sides, but I do not see either of the managers on the floor, so I suppose----

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains on this side?

Mr. President, I rise in support of the Shelby amendment of $1.1 billion. I come even more to express complete frustration with the statements today of Secretary Chertoff on mass transit. This is a national issue. It is one that is connected with interstate commerce. Most importantly, protecting the American people is a primary responsibility of Government. The idea that we would turn our backs on the 228 million riders a year on mass transit in the State of New Jersey and put it at some second-class level of consideration makes no sense at all. Tens of thousands of riders every day ride the trains in and out of New York City from New Jersey, in and out of Philadelphia.

I support the $1.1 billion Shelby amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for up to 8 minutes from the time of Senator Reid of Nevada.

Let me go back to the start of my comments. I support the Shelby amendment of $1.1 billion for mass transit and rail. It is absolutely essential that we think of our Nation as one, where all aspects that pull us together and provide for the services of the people of this country are protected. We are not dividing up those who fly on airlines versus those who drive on highways. When Americans are at risk, Americans are at risk. The concentration of risk can be different in different places at different times. I suggest anybody who wants to see large concentrations of people at any moment in time come with me to Hoboken train station. Every workday you will see literally tens of thousands of people transferring from one train track to subway system or bus system.

It is hard for me to conceive, frankly, that we can get ourselves to believe that the only exposure of the American citizenry is to air travel. Two hundred twenty-eight million riders per year in New Jersey use mass transit. Many of these congregate in large areas. It is absolutely essential that we enhance our security, and this is what the Shelby amendment is about.

I hope my good friend, Secretary Chertoff--and I do consider him a good friend and someone for whom I have great respect--will reconsider the thought that was expressed today that somehow or another this is a lower priority. It certainly is not a lower priority on the terrorists' minds. It wasn't in Madrid or Moscow and, unfortunately, it was not in London most recently.

Not only is this a mistake with regard to our homeland security policy, but it is like putting a bull's-eye on a certain sector of our infrastructure where people and the economy come together. It is to say that we are going to lay all this responsibility on already budget- strained State and local governments who have not been able to provide the security and say: Come get us. We don't want to give the emphasis to an area where there are many people and where our economy moves back and forth and through which it functions.

The principle that we are not going to focus on rail and mass transit protection makes no sense whatsoever. The way to stand up to that is to vote for the Shelby amendment, put $1.1 billion into mass transit, rail security. I hope my colleagues will follow that path.

I yield the floor.

I am informed we have to go back and forth. I ask to modify the request that when Senator Cornyn concludes, I would be recognized.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment proposed by Senator Shelby, Senator Sarbanes, myself, and Senator Schumer to increase the allocation for transit security to $1.1 billion. Let me put that in perspective.

That is roughly 1 week's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe the American people would look at us and say: If we cannot invest that fraction of money to protect Americans here, how can we so consistently invest that money overseas? I think it is essential, obviously, to protect our forces and our troops and to make those commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I think it is also essential that we protect Americans here at home. That is the essence of our amendment.

We have 6,000 transit systems in the United States. They have 14 million riders every workday. All these transit systems need assistance from the Federal Government to provide increased security, to protect Americans here at home. That is the purpose of our amendment and the purpose of our debate today. The purpose of this bill before the Senate is to provide resources to protect Americans here at home.

Like my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer, I was dismayed to hear of the comments by Secretary Chertoff today essentially saying there is no Federal support for transit, that it has to be done by the States. Not only do I object to the conclusion, I question the logic. According to the press report I heard, Secretary Chertoff said the U.S. Government, the Federal Government, has to support airlines because they are almost exclusively a Federal responsibility, but, by contrast, U.S. mass transit systems are largely owned and operated by State and local governments.

Well, I do not know where the Secretary flies in and out of, but in Rhode Island, TF Green Airport, the major airport in the State, is owned by a State corporation. The airlines that fly in and out are private airlines, not Federal airlines. Yet we have provided significant resources--and properly so--to enhance the security of the airline sector in the United States because of several obvious and compelling reasons. The threat is there. After 9/11, we would have been derelict if we did not recognize that. These are key parts of our economy.

Oh, by the way, for most of the airline systems, the terminals are owned by State and local governments, and the operators are private entities, much like transit facilities. Similarly, with transit facilities, the threat is there. After London, we would be derelict if we did not recognize the potential for an attack on our transit systems in the United States and to respond before an attack, not after an attack. That is why we are here today--to respond before any attack could evolve here in the United States, to respond effectively at home.

Indeed, Federal support of transit has been historically a fact of life over the last several decades. Since 1992, we have invested in the order of $68 billion in Federal money to construct and improve our transit systems. There has been Federal money going to local transit systems for construction and improvements. And then to argue--either Mr. Chertoff or others on the floor--it is inconsistent for us to support these systems with security money is illogical and unsustainable.

The threat is there. The need is there. I believe the responsibility should be here to provide some assistance. Again, we could not possibly do all that we must do. There must be cooperation by State and local governments. There has to be. They have responsibilities to their citizens and the passengers on these systems also. But there is a real Federal responsibility, one we will recognize today, I hope, by supporting the Shelby-Sarbanes-Reed amendment.

This is not just a regional issue of one part of the country. Most cities in the United States today have some transit system. Our largest cities have rather elaborate transit systems. Miami has light-rail and bus. Las Vegas is constructing a monorail with private funds to supplement their transit system. All of these are very attractive targets to terrorists.

There is one other disconcerting factor that is emerging after London. We have to be terribly concerned about those al-Qaida operatives, who have been training for years, who have been plotting for years to enter this country, or they may already be here, to conduct some type of terrorist attack. But, unfortunately, after London, we have to be concerned about another category, and that would be the homicidal and suicidal amateur, young men who are influenced by someone else to go ahead and sacrifice themselves. For these relative amateurs, what is a more attractive target today? An airport with a pronounced police presence?

As I drive off to TF Green Airport in Rhode Island, there are always two or three police cars parked outside. It is a modest, medium-sized airport with police officers on patrol. When you go into a lobby, it is full of TSA personnel with screening devices, and you have to take your shoes off, your coat off, to get through the screening to get on an airplane. Also, by the way, since we monitor passenger lists, every airline has an algorithm to determine whether you are subject to special searching. It happens occasionally to me. Is that their target of choice? Or just simply getting on the local bus or going into the local subway today, which is virtually without protection?

So we really have significant responsibilities in this regard. To suggest otherwise is inappropriate. It is wrong. I believe we have to support this amendment. We recognize that over the last several years transit has become one of the most significant targets for these terrorist groups.

After 9/11, in the Banking Committee, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation, I convened a hearing and we had witnesses. They came forth. They indicated, first, the lack of preparedness of our transit system for potential attacks by terrorists. Industry experts estimate we would need roughly $6 billion to bring our transit systems up to a level of security that we would be comfortable with. That is one factor.

The other factor is the fact that those resources are not easily obtained by local communities. We understand the pressures for local transit agencies. It is difficult to raise fares. It is difficult to get increased subsidies in State legislatures or local communities. All of that really compromises the ability to move dramatically and aggressively with transit security.

We also asked the General Accounting Office to do an evaluation. Their conclusions were interesting. First, they estimated that a third of the terrorist attacks in the last several years have been directed at mass transit. Again, it is a target of opportunity for these terrorists. And their conclusion speaks volumes. In their words:

[I]nsufficient funding is the most significant obstacle

agencies face in trying to make their systems more safe and

secure.

Now, in light of that, Senator Sarbanes and myself have repeatedly urged this body to adopt more robust funding for transportation security. We have proposed amendments with respect to supplemental appropriations bills. We have proposed amendments on other bills appropriating funds for the Department of Homeland Security. And we have offered amendments with respect to the National Intelligence Reform Act.

Indeed, the Senate recognized this need quite dramatically just last Congress, where, working with the chairman of the committee, Chairman Shelby, who is, again, leading this great effort, we were able to pass authorizing legislation that would authorize approximately $3.5 billion over several years to begin to deal with this issue of transit security. The authorization recognized our Federal responsibilities. And as my colleague, Senator Sarbanes, pointed out previously, this appropriations bill would be consistent with that authorization, which passed this body unanimously on a bipartisan basis.

So today we are here simply to do what should be obvious to all of us, particularly after the dreadful, horrific events in London. People who think it cannot happen here should think again. People who think this is not our responsibility should think again. We have an obligation, a responsibility. We have already spoken as a Senate last Congress with respect to the authorization. Now it is our obligation to put the resources there to the task. The task is improving the security and the safety of passengers on our transit systems throughout this country.

I urge all of my colleagues to support the Shelby amendment.

Also, Mr. President, I am supporting Senator Byrd's amendment because he, too, recognizes the need for additional security, not only for transit systems but also for intercity train systems. I also recognize that significant need. So I would hope we could come together and vote enthusiastically and appropriately.

The irony here, of course, is we all recognize--and we all pray this will never happen--but if there was a terrorist transit incident, we would be on this floor within hours voting for much more than $1.1 billion. If we act today, promptly and appropriately, we may be able to avert that situation. I hope we can.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. President, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Mr. President, I would be happy to yield the 30 seconds to the Senator, if that is appropriate.