Assure Emergency and Interoperable Communications for First Responders Act of 2005

If the Senator will yield, I ask to add my name as a member of the committee.

Mr. President, I commend my chairman and the ranking member of the Banking Committee for all their hard work. This has been a wonderful bipartisan effort, and I am pleased it is included in the underlying bill. I commend the leadership of Senators Collins and Murray on the underlying bill.

I wish to speak about a piece of security that is so critical for us that I will be offering tomorrow, an amendment to provide our first responders with the interoperable communications equipment they need to effectively respond to emergencies. Whether it is port security, rail security, whether it is our local police and firefighters, we know that having radios that can actually talk to each other, actually work to be able to actually communicate with the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Defense or be able to speak to our armed services is absolutely critical.

We also know, in fact, right now that the system is not what it should be.

I also want to thank Senators Lieberman, Levin, Schumer, Durbin and Boxer for cosponsoring the amendment that will be offered tomorrow.

My amendment would finally give our first responders the resources they needs to be able to quickly communicate and respond to a terrorist attack or other kind of national emergency.

It would provide a dedicated source of funding for our communities by creating a 5-year $5 billion grant program for interoperable communications.

My amendment is based on the interoperability communications program included in the bipartisan Lieberman- Collins bill, S. 1725, which passed out of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support. Unfortunately, this has languished on the Senate floor for almost a year. There has to be a sense of urgency about this issue and getting the resources to our local communities so they, in fact, can respond.

My amendment authorizes, as I said, $5 billion in grants. It is slightly more than the $3.3 billion in the Lieberman-Collins bill but certainly very close in terms of our approach.

I think it is important to provide more funding in the early years so that communications can finally address this issue and be able to do what they need to do as quickly as possible.

Yesterday, we observed the 5-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. We took time to remember the victims and their families and to recount the events of that horrible day. Many of these victims were our brave firefighters and police officers who gave their lives to save others.

Every day, first responders all across our country, and certainly in my great State of Michigan, put their lives on the line to make our communities safer, a job they do bravely and with honor. Now is time for us in Congress to do our job and finally make sure they have the resources and the equipment they need in coordinated national efforts so they can respond and can communicate in case of a terrorist attack or other national emergencies.

Almost 2 years after the attacks, the 9/11 Commission Report outlined the numerous communications problems first responders had as they tried to save lives. The report details the problems police officers and firefighters in New York faced because they were on different radio systems. Over 50 different public safety organizations from Maryland, Virginia, and DC reported to

the Pentagon that they couldn't talk to each other.

This makes absolutely no sense. People running into buildings, into the World Trade Center, into the Twin Towers, when they should have been running out because they did not know what was happening. The radios did not work.

The 9/11 Commission concluded that ``the inability to communicate was a critical element at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Somerset County, Pennsylvania, crash site, where multiple agencies and multiple jurisdictions responded.''

They went on to say, ``The occurrence of this problem at three very different sites is strong evidence that compatible and adequate communications among public safety organizations at the local, State, and Federal level remain an important problem.''

The 9/11 Commission published its final report in July of 2004, 2 years ago, that the men and women in the first responder community knew the communications difficulties even before 9/11, 2001. Unfortunately, the Federal Government has not yet made a substantial commitment to solve this problem. It has been 2 years since the 9/11 Commission gave its report.

In fact, 10 commissioners gave Congress a failing grade, an F, for not yet providing adequate radio spectrum for first responders and not addressing the problem where our local communities are stretched too thin and have too many urgent and competing priorities to effectively and completely solve the problem by themselves.

We addressed the issue of the radio spectrum, in part, in the year 2006 budget reconciliation bill, which set a February 17, 2009, handover date and providing $1 billion in funding for interoperable communications for first responders in advance of the handover.

I support these positive steps. But now we have to build on that to provide a guaranteed stream of funding to resolve this overall crisis about radios not being connected, not being able to talk to each other.

The 9/11 Commission is not alone in the assessment of this critical problem. In June of 2004, a U.S. Conference of Mayors survey found that 94 percent of our cities do not have interoperable capability between the police departments, the fire departments, and emergency medical services--unbelievable, 94 percent. And 60 percent of cities do not have interoperable capability with the State emergency operations systems.

This is unacceptable. There needs to be a sense of urgency about changing that, and we have to be a major part of that solution.

The most startling finding was that 80 percent of our cities don't have interoperable communications with the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Justice.

Imagine if there were a terrorist attack and 80 percent of our cities did not have the capacity for interoperable communications with Homeland Security.

This vulnerability was again exposed over 1 year ago with the Hurricane Katrina disaster, where we know the New Orleans Police Department and three nearby parishes were on different radio systems. First responders were unable to communicate with each other as they attempted to rescue people trapped in New Orleans.

When I visited the gulf, I was very proud of seeing Michigan people there. I remember sitting for lunch outside the New Orleans Convention Center with a young man from the Michigan Coast Guard on one side and a young man from the Michigan National Guard on the other. I asked them: Do you have radios? They said: Of course. I said: Can you talk to each other on the radios? They said: No. How are you rescuing people? How are you communicating when you are out on the beat? Hand signals, was the response.

We can do better in 2006 than hand signals when we have a national emergency or a terrorist attack. How many more disasters need to happen before we fix this problem?

In May of 2006, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, said: ``The fact of the matter is we cannot effectively manage an incident if we do not, and if we cannot, talk to one another.''

I couldn't agree more.

He went on to concede that it is still the case that too many emergency responders are not able to talk to their counterparts, to their own organizations or to their companion organizations, let alone communicate with agencies in neighboring cities, counties or States during a crisis.

On the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I believe it is shameful that we have made so little progress on interoperable communications.

It is unacceptable that there is not a sense of urgency about getting this done now--frankly, about having not done it now. We should have gotten it done 4 years ago, 3 years ago, 2 years ago, 1 year ago.

I believe that our constituents would be stunned to learn that the Federal Government has not yet dedicated funding to specifically address this problem.

How many times do we have to hear this is an issue? How many experts, how many bipartisan reports before we do what we need to do urgently and to the maximum extent that we can?

We know that the lack of interoperable communications for America's first responders puts them and our communities in danger. Too many of our police, fire and emergency medical services and transportation officials cannot communicate with each other, and our local departments are not able to link their communications with State and Federal emergency response agencies--way too many.

Our first responders are making do with less and less each year which makes no sense. And they should not have to choose between communicating with each other and critical training and other means.

I think people would be shocked to know that there are fewer police officers on our streets today than on 9/11/2001. In Michigan alone, over 1,500 fewer police officers are on our streets because of cutbacks in law enforcement funding. This makes no sense.

In the 5 years since the 9/11 attacks, one of the too many requests for support that I receive every year from communities is for interoperability communications equipment. Every time I meet with police officers and firefighters and emergency responders and local mayors, others who are leaders in their communities, the issue comes up about the radios, about the lack of ability to communicate. I have done everything I can to help. I have come to this floor many times urgently requesting that we move forward in an aggressive way to address this issue.

I am pleased to be able to put together specific grants to be able to support individual communities, and that is a step in the right direction. But what we need is a comprehensive national approach. We need to make a commitment that we are not going to accept anymore any community in this country not having the ability to talk to each other, the neighboring communities, the folks at the State and the Federal Government. That is intolerable.

This is the fourth time I have stood on the Senate floor and offered an amendment to provide the dedicated stream of funding to address our first responders' interoperable communication problems.

I am very hopeful that now will be the time that we come together right after this fifth anniversary of 9/11 and agree that we are going to turn that F, given by the 9/11 Commission, into an A, by finally coming together and solving this problem so in case of whatever the emergency is in the future, folks will not walk away and say part of the reason we lost lives, part of the reason we couldn't respond was because the radios didn't work. We have the ability to fix that in relationship to this important bill. I hope we do.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for and cosponsorship of this comprehensive piece of legislation that Chairman Collins and I are proposing based on our investigation into the failed preparations and response to Hurricane Katrina.

About 1 month ago, we introduced a bill to transform FEMA into the U.S. Emergency Management Authority to guarantee that our national emergency response system can handle a catastrophe--whether it is a hurricane the size and scope of Katrina or a terrorist attack. U.S. EMA would have special, protected status--much like the Coast Guard has within the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate overwhelmingly adopted that legislation by a vote of 87 to 11 as part of the Department of Homeland Security fiscal year 2007 Appropriations Act.

Today, we reintroduce that legislation backed up by additional reforms to improve emergency communications, planning, training, and to make necessary changes to the Stafford Act, which governs relief and emergency assistance to victims of disasters.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, at the request of the Senate leadership, spent 7 months culling through hundreds of thousands of documents, interviewing hundreds of witnesses, and holding scores of hearings into the botched Government response to that catastrophic hurricane.

We found that at all levels, our Government was ill-equipped to deal with the massive human suffering all along the gulf coast that followed the storm's landfall, suffering that shocked and angered the American people who expect more from their government when fellow Americans are in need. These failings were the result of many things--negligence, lack of resources, lack of capability. But most of all they were the result of a failure of leadership--by the White House, DHS, FEMA, the Louisiana Governor's office, and the New Orleans mayor's office.

To this day, the Department of Homeland Security does not make sufficient distinction between everyday problems that States must deal with on a seasonal basis and the larger catastrophes which, as Katrina demonstrated, quickly overwhelm local and State authorities.

The legislation we are introducing today is an effort to get the Department of Homeland Security to understand that distinction better and to target its preparedness and response to cope better with normal disasters as well as with those rarer but truly catastrophic events. It addresses--to the extent possible--many of the Federal shortcomings exposed by our investigation. And it reflects many of the 88 recommendations the committee reached in its final report on the Katrina investigation.

Let me briefly summarize the bill. First and foremost, we are concerned about our first responders who rush into the middle of catastrophes to save lives. First responders must have the tools they need to protect and save our communities. Think back to September 11. Hundreds of firefighters lost their lives that day for many reasons. Among them was that their radio equipment was not compatible with the police force radios, making it more difficult to learn of the warnings others had that the Twin Towers were going to fall.

During Hurricane Katrina, first responders not only lacked compatible radio equipment, but they lost communication completely when power lines and sub stations were knocked out of operation.

Whether responding to a terrorist attack, natural disaster, fire, a missing

child, or a fleeing suspect, police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and other responders too frequently cannot share crucial, lifesaving information at the scene of a disaster.

Senator Collins and I introduced a bill, reported out of committee last year, to improve emergency communications, the Assure Emergency and Interoperable Communications for First Responders Act of 2005, S.1725. We have borrowed liberally from it. For example, today's legislation, like S.1725, would require the development of a national strategy for emergency communications; the establishment of an emergency communications research and development program; and dedicated funding for State and local communications and interoperability grants, authorized at $3.3 billion over 5 years.

We would also establish a new Office of Emergency Communications within U.S. EMA by combining existing offices at the Department of Homeland Security that deal with various aspects of emergency communications. Among the offices to be combined are SAFECOM within the Science and Technology Directorate and the National Communications System, which was under the Infrastructure Protection Office during Katrina. This office will make sure that DHS actually has someone in charge of leading the Department's splintered efforts to fix these persistent communications problems.

This legislation also makes changes to the Stafford Act and improves upon other recovery and assistance benefits for the victims of disaster. Among other things, we would require U.S. EMA to develop housing and recovery strategies; we would increase the assistance provided under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program from 7.5 percent of funds paid out under title IV of the Stafford Act up to 15 percent, depending on the size of the disaster; and we would expand FEMA's authority so that in addition to providing temporary housing it could provide permanent or semipermanent housing, giving it greater flexibility to meet the needs of those affected by a disaster. Unlike FEMA, U.S. EMA would not have to reflexively rely on travel trailers to house victims when other types of housing make more sense.

Victims would be aided further under this legislation by elimination of the subcaps that limited the amount of specific assistance for repairs and home replacement during Katrina and by increased transportation benefits. We would clarify the statute by reinforcing Congress's intent to allow for the use of rental assistance to pay for utility costs and to provide treatment of mental health problems resulting from or aggravated by a disaster. And we would allow U.S. EMA to provide temporary residences to all parts of a household that necessarily must split following a disaster--because of multiple relocations or cases of domestic violence, for example.

If the President finds ``catastrophic damages'' to a locale hit by disaster, he would be able to provide even more assistance under our legislation. The President would be able to double the cap for individual assistance from $26,000 to $52,000, provide unemployment benefits for 52 weeks instead of 26 weeks, provide help with mortgage and rental assistance, and waive maximum limitations on the amount of assistance that can be provided under the Community Disaster Loan Program.

Other provisions in our bill call for increased planning for people with special needs, better ways to get disaster information to those who need it, and measures to assist with family reunification. We would also require government contractors to hire more local firms and local workers.

This legislation also has an extensive section dedicated to saving money for the taxpayers while preventing waste, fraud, and abuse. For example, we would require the U.S. EMA Director to establish an identity verification process to ensure that victims who apply for benefits under the Individuals and Households Program are who they say they are and are in true need. We would create a registry of contractors able to perform common postdisaster work and use advance, competitively awarded contracts for predictably required goods and services. And we would create a contingent of volunteer contracting officers from throughout the Federal Government to assist with additional contracting needs during emergencies.

Our bill would also require U.S. EMA to plan for a disaster far more extensively than it has previously. It requires the development of a national training and exercise program, involving both Federal and State officials, to prepare for natural and manmade disasters. And the U.S. EMA Administrator would have to review the National Response Plan and clarify overlapping or confusing law enforcement, search and rescue, and medical responsibilities.

Mr. President, we are approaching the 1-year anniversary of Katrina-- August 29. Much has changed since that time. Certainly, the gulf coast is better prepared to meet a disaster this hurricane season. Yet many victimized by Hurricane Katrina, as well as those vulnerable to natural disasters or terrorist attacks elsewhere, still face uncertain futures.

We cannot forget those still struggling to rebuild their lives from the devastation wrought by Katrina almost a year ago. This legislation was designed to address specific problems exposed by Katrina, so as it moves through the legislative process, we must do all that we can to ensure that the President has the authority he needs to provide assistance to past victims, as well as to victims of future disasters. We must also make certain that, unlike FEMA, U.S. EMA has all of the resources it needs to lead a national preparedness effort and to respond to whatever occurs in a manner that the American people have a right to expect.

The committee's investigation found that FEMA had never been prepared for a catastrophic event but also that it had budget shortages that hindered its preparedness and impeded its performance. Scott Wells, FEMA's Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer in Lousiana, summed it up. He said, ``This was a catastrophic disaster. We don't have the structure; we don't have the people for catastrophic disaster. It's that simple . . . If you want a big capability, you've got to make a big investment. And there is no investment in response operations for a catastrophic disaster. It's not there.''

Clearly, if the Federal Government is to improve its performance in the next disaster, we must give it sufficient resources. This legislation takes an important step in that direction by providing a $49 million increase for FEMA's two key operating accounts in fiscal year 2008 and an additional $53 million in fiscal year 2009. However, I believe even more is necessary, and I will work to secure additional resources as U.S. EMA becomes a reality.

The Department of Homeland Security was established not to address average disasters--the hurricanes that reliably strike certain parts of the country each year or flooding from heavy rains. DHS was established to prevent, prepare for, and if necessary respond to horrific catastrophes that demand all the resources our Federal Government has to offer in times of need or when local and State governments are overwhelmed by what has befallen them.

This legislation is a reminder of that original purpose, an effort to get the Department of Homeland Security back to where Congress originally envisioned it should be. This bill will help the Department be as prepared for and able to respond to catastrophes as the American public expects it to be.

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

Mr. President, before I make my statement, which will be on the Reid amendment, I would like to congratulate Senator Collins, Senator Inouye, Senator Murray, and all of the Members who worked in committee on this bill. Although one doesn't often tell tales of what happened in a Democratic caucus, I would like to quote Senator Murray in that caucus. She said, ``This bill will make a difference.''

I think that is a very dispositive, definitive, and positive statement. So I would like to offer my congratulations to the chairman of the committee and all who worked on it and thank them very much.

Amendment No. 4936

Mr. President, I would like to speak about this very long Reid amendment which has been offered to be part of this bill. The amendment, much like the Real Security Act introduced last week, is a comprehensive package of ways to strengthen our national security through improved intelligence, military, diplomatic, and homeland security tools. But in particular I would like, as a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, to address the issue of electronic surveillance to identify and prevent terrorist attacks.

All Democrats support giving the President the tools he needs to find the terrorists before they have a chance to strike us again. This cannot be said too many times in too many ways. It is a fact, and I have never heard anything to the contrary.

We also agree, though, that these intelligence tools, especially electronic surveillance of telephone content--the content of a phone call or wiretapping of a phone call--can and should be done in a way that protects constitutional and privacy rights of all Americans, because whatever is done here will go on for decades and because whatever is done here will likely impact tens of thousands of persons in the United States.

I am pleased that the minority leader has endorsed these concepts, as they are the key pillars of legislation that Senator Specter and I have introduced. That is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Improvement and Enhancement Act. I thank the minority leader for ``Rule 14'ing'' my bill, which now appears as the Feinstein-Specter bill as hotlined, S. 3877.

Tomorrow in Judiciary we will be marking up FISA bills. This same bill but under a different bill number, namely S. 3001, will be subject to markup along with the other bills. Senator Specter's Administration bill, Senator DeWine's bill, and a bill by Senator Schumer will be marked up tomorrow morning and Thursday morning.

My legislation, which is pretty simple and pretty limited, is aimed at providing our intelligence agencies with more authority, more resources, and more flexibility to conduct electronic surveillance. In doing so, the legislation reaffirms that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, is the exclusive means for conducting electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence in the United States. I believe this is very important.

We have had hearings in Judiciary. The Attorney General has testified. The head of the NSA program has testified. It is pretty clear to me that this terrorist surveillance program can be fit into the confines of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed in 1978. What has to be done is a streamlining of the process leading up to it and some revised provisions for emergency hot pursuit. So what I have tried to do is take what the Attorney General has said to the committee were obstructions to using FISA and solve those obstructions but keep FISA because it is so important.

The legislation that I have introduced would recognize that further changes are needed in this shadowy world of asymmetric terror. That is why the legislation would give the executive branch the authority to listen in to conversations between terrorists and their conspirators inside and outside the United States.

At the same time, we preserve the cornerstone of FISA, and that is that it is by warrant, that a Federal judge reviews and approves every individual warrant request for content to ensure the Government is not spying on innocent Americans.

I think it is useful to remind ourselves why this body wrote and enacted FISA in the first place. In 1976 a committee headed by Frank Church, which became known as the Church committee, provided a report to the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.

There are three books just like this, on what went on in our Nation prior to 1976. It is startling. I will get to it in a moment. But it was the genesis for the 1978, very carefully considered Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This committee reported--and please read it, Members--on a series of excesses and abuses that had taken place in the intelligence community. These included some of the worst civil rights violations our Government has ever committed, such as the secret campaign to smear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and domestic targeting of Americans peacefully advocating civil disobedience in areas such as civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam war.

The Church committee found these abuses stemmed from a lack of oversight and checks on Government power. Watch lists were established on people whose views ranged from Joan Baez on the left to members of the John Birch Society on the right.

The Church committee's report led not only to FISA but also to the establishment of the Permanent Intelligence Committees in both Houses of the Congress. It was a historic report.

So discussions today that the President has the authority to go around FISA and doesn't need court approval should cause Members of this great body serious concern. It was a surprise to almost every Senator to learn last December that the President had authorized the National Security Administration to electronically surveil U.S. persons without following the law.

As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I have received many briefings on the President's program. There are still some unanswered questions, and the administration has a responsibility to provide Congress with answers. But basically the Senate Intelligence Committee has been briefed on the program in the main.

But from what I have learned to date, I am convinced of two things: First, the work that NSA is doing is important to prevent terrorists from attacking us again--and I support it. Second, the surveillance that is done under the ``terrorist surveillance program'' can be done under FISA's framework with some changes. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I participated in the hearings, and I thank my chairman, Senator Specter, for holding these hearings.

The conclusion I draw from them, and from the briefings, is that fairly modest changes can be made to FISA which would remove the barriers standing in the NSA's way while also restoring the FISA Court oversight that is necessary to protect a citizen's constitutional right.

Let me briefly tell you what we have done.

We have expanded hot pursuit. Currently, the law states that during specified ``emergency'' periods surveillance can proceed without a warrant for 72 hours. At the recommendation of former FISA judges, we have extended the time for hot pursuit to 7 days. So if something happens and the NSA wants to immediately wiretap someone, they can, provided they notify the Attorney General within 24 hours that it is happening, and then go to the FISA Court.

Attorney General Gonzales testified to us that he personally has to approve applications before they go to the FISA Court. That was a problem. So we created additional flexibility to handle the increased caseload by allowing the Attorney General to delegate this authority to two Senate-confirmed officials: the Deputy Attorney General, and the Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

Wartime authority: Currently, FISA provides the President with authority to wiretap without a warrant for 15 days after a declaration of war. That is a good thing, I believe.

Our bill would expand Presidential authority by allowing the President to also order wiretaps without a warrant for 15 days following a congressional authorization to use military force and a terrorist attack on the United States.

Additional resources: The staff and court need additional resources, and Members have expressed concern about a backlog of FISA applications. We would authorize additional judges as necessary, additional OIPR assistant United States attorneys as necessary, and additional NSA and FBI staff as necessary, so that this problem would be taken care of.

Then we clarify ``foreign to foreign.'' It has often been said that in the 28 years since FISA was written changes in technology have made the law outdated. Communications that start and end outside of the United States but may switch through the United States--communications that FISA never attempted to cover--are now regularly put before the FISA Court.

General Alexander expressed his frustration that foreign-to-foreign communications impede the FISA process.

This bill--which again has been ``Rule 14'd''--would explicitly exempt these telephone calls and e-mails from FISA while preserving the existing process for the appropriate handling of communications involving a U.S. party that were inadvertently wiretapped.

We believe these provisions will go a long way. We also would mandate that briefings on electronic surveillance conducted for foreign intelligence purposes be given to the full Intelligence Committee of both the House and the Senate, really to prevent what was happening, which was the beginning of a major wiretapping program where only eight Members of Congress knew very early on about the program, and therefore there was virtually no congressional oversight that was meaningful in any way, shape, or form.

In this bill is a two-page sense of the Senate beginning on page 313 of the Reid amendment and going through pages 314 and 315. Essentially, it states up front that the U.S. Government should have the legal authority to engage in electronic surveillance of any telephone conversation in which one party is reasonably believed to be a member or an agent of a terrorist organization.

It goes on to say that absent emergency or other appropriate circumstances, domestic electronic surveillance should be subject to judicial review in order to protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens or Americans with no ties to terrorism.

I strongly support the Reid amendment. I support the Sense of the Senate. And I look forward to being able to debate the bill which Senator Reid has agreed to cosponsor, as well as Senator Specter--it is a bipartisan bill--at the appropriate time when bills to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are before the body.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Once again, I indicate my very strong support for the bill before the U.S. Senate today.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside.

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

Mr. President, I wish to talk about the current hiring limit on TSA screeners at our Nation's airports. That is what this amendment deals with--to eliminate the current hiring. One can ask: Why can't we just add more funding to TSA's budget and let them hire the personnel they need?

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Each year, in the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the House Republican leaders tie the hands of TSA officials by setting an arbitrary limit on the number of screeners they can hire.

This cap has no basis in security. It is not what the security experts at TSA want. This cap only undermines our security, while forcing Americans to wait in longer security lines at airports.

This arbitrary cap currently restricts the TSA screener population to 45,000. Now, 45,000 is a large number, until you consider that 2 million people fly within the United States every day. In our discussions with TSA officials, it is clear that we need more than 45,000 screeners.

Mr. President, we are at a point in time, I am told by the managers of airports, particularly at Newark Liberty Airport, that we are likely to be exceeding the gross travel numbers in aviation that were achieved in the year 2000. So here we are with more people traveling, more concern about terrorist invasions of our country and particularly in aviation.

So why do we have this cap? Well, it is not for security, it is not for efficiency. Believe it or not, it is based on ideology.

Conservatives in the House want this cap to limit the growth of a so- called big Government workforce. But do you know what? The American people want this workforce, and they want it fully staffed, as I do; we should all want it fully staffed.

The result of this ill-advised cap is the shortage of screeners. We witnessed this last month when British and U.S. authorities foiled a plot to attack airliners headed to our shores using liquid explosives.

In the days following the British threat, DHS raised the security alert level and overworked screeners at American airports. They had to doublecheck bags, conduct random searches at gates, and help calm anxious crowd fears. At Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, screeners worked 12-hour shifts and 60-hour weeks for several weeks after the London incident. There were reports of exhausted screeners falling asleep at x-ray machines. One screener said that his colleagues ``can't maintain these

12-hour days.'' Remember, this work is on your feet. You are mandated to look at every little detail in front of you. It is exhausting work. Overstretching this workforce puts the American people at risk, and that is unacceptable.

Now, with my amendment, TSA will be able to hire enough well-trained, alert screeners to give us the safety and efficiency we deserve. Since 9/11, long lines have been the rule rather than the exception at our Nation's airports. Each year, 760 million people fly in the United States, and by 2015, we will hit 1 billion passengers a year.

Anyone who has traveled by air in the last few years has seen this congestion at airport security checkpoints. To give an example, this is Orlando Florida International Airport. The lines are waiting to go through security. We see the same thing throughout the country. This is Denver, a very efficient airport, but one cannot get through security in time enough, in many cases, to reach the flights. It is an unacceptable condition. This is the international airport in Nashville, TN--lines and lines. We see it wherever we travel in almost any part of the country.

The Senate accepted an amendment I offered in July to the Homeland Security appropriations bill to eliminate this arbitrary cap, but the Republican majority in the House of Representatives wanted to remove my amendment in the final bill that will be sent to the President. They want to keep the 45,000-worker cap rather than letting TSA decide what its workforce needs are. Security cannot be based on arbitrary numbers. Conservative ideology must not trump commonsense security needs.

Americans stuck in long security lines at airports don't care about ideology. They want to get through, and they want to get through on time. The mission for our system to operate efficiently is to have no longer than 10-minute waits, and we can only accomplish that if we have the people and the equipment to review this baggage as it comes to them.

The American people want to know that they and their families are safe when they fly. This body needs to go on record on this issue so it can scrap this limit once and for all. I hope my colleagues will look carefully at this amendment. Listen, remember, it might be their family who is on an airplane, it might be their friends who are on a particular airplane, it might be anybody who is entitled to feel secure when they are in an airplane. But judge it by one's personal attitude and say this is a responsibility we have as Senators to want enough people to assure security wherever we can get it. One way to do that is to have enough of these screeners working these lines, fully awake, able to handle their jobs, and reduce what we find is significant growth in sick days among the screener population. There are a lot of absences.

Perhaps we will hear: We have a 45,000-person limit, but we only have 43,000 people working. The problem is we will always have some absentees. We will always have some job turnovers. These are not easy jobs. So we are going to have a difference between the number hired and the number at work at a given time. We should raise the limit so we know we are increasing the likelihood that all of the places will be covered, that the flying public will be able to get through their security check within a 10-minute timeframe.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

How many do we need, Mr. President, for the yeas and nays?

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

I wish to ask the Senator from Alaska a question, if I might, in relation to his comments.

Is it not possible that with the increased passenger volume we are seeing--and it is about to break the record held since the year 2000 in terms of volume of people traveling--is the manager, the committee chairman, aware of the fact that TSA has said that in order to have a 10-minute wait or less, they need more screeners than they have? They need as many as 48,000.

Mr. President, if I may ask the Senator from Alaska another question, and that is, if we had a higher cap and were able to persuade the management of TSA to search for a larger pool of people, might we have more people available presently to serve? My experience from my corporate life tells me that you never quite reach the level you have. We see that in our staffing here.

I urge the Senator from Alaska to respond to whether the Senator thinks we can improve our population of screeners who are readily available if we search a little bit harder, train a little bit better, reduce the fatigue factor which now occurs and causes so many sick days, so many absences, and so much turnover because the job, at 60 hours a week, as many of our people are working, is a strain on them and they just can't take it.

I have so much respect for the Senator from Alaska. He is on top of the issues of security, as well as aviation. But is the Senator aware that many of the screeners are on military duty or medical leave because of exhaustion? Shouldn't we try to improve the pool of people from which we can choose? We have as much as 10 percent of the workforce out at a time. If it is 10 percent of 48,000, that is 4,800. That is quite different from having a population that is short on the job. We don't have enough time.

I can simply add that at Newark Airport, we are about 10 percent short of the number we need, something over a thousand. We can't get them. The recruiters can't search for them because they will be bumping up against the cap. I think and I hope the Senator will reconsider. I believe--and I throw this in for the Senator's consideration with my question; that is, aren't we better off taking the limit off and trying to find a way--we are talking about security of the people. The Senator doesn't need any lecture from me. But aren't we better off knowing that everybody who can make a connection can get through in 10 minutes, thoroughly screened, and having a population that is equal to the growing population of those who want to travel by air?

Mr. President, is the Senator aware of the fact that this was an amendment which was already there, it was already conferenced and was dropped in conference? The Senator is certainly aware of the process here. If you don't like it, accept it; it will die of its own weight.

For the Senator's information, before the screeners were federalized, the turnover rate was 400 percent and we were ignoring the risks we were putting people under. That was a porous thing. You could walk through there with almost anything.

What we want to do is get a stable workforce of screeners who have passed the vetting, who work normal hours, who have--and by the way, the Senator is absolutely right about the improvement in equipment so the baggage lifting doesn't have to be as strenuous as it is.

So I would ask the Senator whether we can have a vote.

And when we meet with the House, let the conferees, when the issue goes to conference, look at the issue and review what it is that is keeping them from----

Mr. President, if I may respond to say I am so pleased that the Senator is asking for more money for screeners, and we will try to convince the appropriators jointly to increase the funding for those workers.

Mr. President, we obviously don't agree. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

I appreciate that.

Mr. President as we are now prepared to consider the amendment, in the minute I have--which I assume is the time--I would like to tell everybody that the purpose of this amendment is to ask that we take the cap off the number of TSA screeners we can hire. The cap is 45,000. We have had it in legislation before, but the House insisted on the cap being continued. It is silly, when passenger volume on airlines, as of this point in the year is almost at the alltime high, and it is expected this year we will see the largest number of airline passengers in the history of the country.

We have these constant reviews to protect ourselves from terrorist attack from those who want to sabotage an airplane. So it is simple. Just remove that cap. Remove it and let the TSA figure out what to do with it.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4931

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

Mr. President, I previously offered an amendment to the pending bill. My understanding is it will likely be accepted. I did not have a chance to speak at any length on the amendment. I want to do so now. I recognize we have a vote in about 10 minutes. I will be mindful of that.

The amendment which I offered says that our U.S. trade officials will be prohibited from agreeing to any future trade agreement that would preclude the Congress from blocking the takeover of a U.S. port operation by a foreign company. I offered this amendment in the shadow of this morning's announcement that our monthly trade deficit--get this--was the highest in U.S. history. It was announced this morning-- $68 billion in 1 month.

If anyone needs additional information about the failure of our trade strategy and the failure of this so-called ``free trade'' nonsense we have been hearing around here, take a look at this morning's announcement--$68 billion trade deficit in 1 month.

This is not money we owe to ourselves. That is money we owe largely to Japan, and China, and other countries and will be repaid someday with a lower standard of living in this country.

I offer this amendment dealing with trade as a backdrop to this morning's announcement of the highest trade deficit in history, a trade strategy fraught with error--and this is injuring this country.

Let me describe the need for this amendment.

You might recall that earlier this year it was announced that Dubai Ports World was going to begin to manage a number of ports in this country. Dubai Ports World, in February of this year, indicated that they were going to manage ports in America in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Miami, and some others. Dubai Ports World is a company that is operated by the United Arab Emirates.

In February of this year, the Bush administration gave the green light to Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, to manage these American ports. The President said that he felt it was fine for our ports to be managed by a company owned by the United Arab Emirates.

In fact, when a firestorm erupted over this issue, here is what the President said, brushing aside objections from Republicans and Democrats alike. President Bush endorsed the takeover of shipping operations in six major U.S. seaports by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. The President pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.

Even more than that, the head of Homeland Security, Mr. Michael Chertoff, strangely enough said this: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff reported yesterday that the proposed takeover of terminal operations at five U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World would give U.S. law enforcement a better handle on security at U.S. terminal operations.

Here is a member of the Cabinet in this country saying that if we turn our port management over to a foreign company, it will actually improve security.

I don't know what he might have had for breakfast that morning, but I am telling you it didn't agree with his thinking process. It is going to improve security to turn the management of American ports over to a company that is owned by the United Arab Emirates? I don't think so.

There was a firestorm of protest. The President said he would veto any legislation that we would provide that

stopped this takeover of management of these American seaports. Despite that, at some point, it was quite clear the Congress was going to say to the President--Republicans and Democrats--we are sorry. It doesn't matter what you threaten with respect to a veto, we will pass legislation that prohibits this.

We believe the security of our seaports is best maintained by not turning the management of our seaports over to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. Dubai Ports World, at some point, announced that they were going to find another way to do this and sell their interests. My understanding is that has not yet been done. But in any event, the administration backed away.

However, the trade agreements that we are negotiating now include it. Past agreements have included it. I don't intend to interrupt that with this amendment. If I could, I would. But I don't have the votes to do that.

But the trade agreements say this, including the Oman agreement, which I am told will be brought to the floor of the Senate on Thursday of this week. I intend to speak at some length on that agreement. I am opposed to it. But it includes this provision, and other trade agreements have included the same provision. U.S. port operations that we couldn't block Oman from acquiring under the FTA, under our Free Trade Agreement with Oman, we would be prohibited from blocking an agreement that included landside aspects of foreign activities, including operations and maintenance of docks, loading and unloading of vessels, directly to or from land, marine cargo handling, ship cleaning, et cetera. In point of fact, we are negotiating trade agreements that include provisions which say we are not able to block a foreign company owned by a foreign country from coming in and managing our seaports.

That is what we are doing in trade agreements. Most of our trade negotiators have been fundamentally incompetent from the start.

It was Will Rogers who said many decades ago that the United States of America has never lost a war and never won a conference. He surely must have been talking about our trade negotiators. They don't wear uniforms so they do not remember whom they represent. I have often threatened to buy them jerseys so they can look down and see whom they represent--the good old U.S.A.--just like Olympic athletes represent the U.S.A.

We negotiate trade agreements that we are told will strengthen this country, and month after month and year after year we sink deeper into this abyss of red ink, with now a $68 billion trade deficit in the last month alone.

Is it surprising then that the same incompetence that has led to the largest trade deficit in history--the same incompetence that lead to that--led them to do this, to undermine the very debate we had in February of this year about the management of American ports by a United Arab Emirates-controlled company, Dubai Ports World?

Just as an aside, let me describe the incompetence. Let me describe one example. I could give a hundred. Next year, according to a report, we will be getting imports of Chinese cars into this country because the country of China is now beginning a substantial automobile export industry. They have announced they will begin exporting cars from China to the United States next year. So we will be able to see Chinese cars driving up and down the streets of America. Guess what. Our trade negotiators agreed that when Chinese cars come into our country, we will impose a 2.5-percent tariff on Chinese cars that come into the United States.

We also agreed that any U.S. cars we could sell in China, they could impose a 25-percent tariff.

A country with which we had a $200 billion trade deficit, we agreed they could impose a tariff on automobiles 10 times higher than the tariff we would impose.

Is that brain dead? It is where I come from. Is that incompetence? It is incompetence in my hometown.

That doesn't represent our country's interests.

We come back to the point. I could give you a hundred examples similar to that, where soft-headed foreign policy is masquerading as trade policy.

We come back to the newest trade agreements, including Oman, which we will have on the floor of the Senate next Thursday which includes this provision. It is identical to provisions that are included in previous agreements as well.

I say we ought to block this from ever occurring in any future free trade agreement. This provision undermines the entire position that we have taken with respect to deciding that it is not in our country's security interests to have the United Arab Emirates engaged in the management of our seaports.

For that reason, I believe we ought to pass the amendment I am proposing, prohibiting this from happening in the future. I would like to go back, frankly, and undo that which was done in previous trade agreements.

There is a little thing that people outside of this congressional system don't recognize very easily. It is called fast track. Fast track sounds so innocuous--just fast track.

Fast track means Congress has decided to give up its opportunity, which exists in the Constitution, to be engaged in trade activities so that when a trade agreement comes to the Congress, this Congress has no opportunity to review it with the understanding of wanting to amend it.

Fast track means we have put ourselves in the straight jacket and no amendments.

That is why, when a trade agreement comes to the floor of the Senate such as Oman--and there will be others. We are now negotiating nine additional trade agreements with nine additional countries right now. The House of Representatives announced they will take up two additional trade agreements in November. When those agreements come to the floor of the Senate, because the Congress, in its lack of wisdom, decided to put itself in a straight jacket, no one can offer an amendment to strip out this kind of provision of a trade agreement. It surely escapes my line of reasoning why the Congress would want to decide to limit its capability to improve a trade agreement, but it has.

Some will say, notwithstanding what trade agreements say, notwithstanding all the other issues, the President can, for national security reasons, decide to back an agreement such as this. Yes, that is true.

It was this President who said: I agree that we ought to allow the United Arab Emirates and Dubai Ports World to come in and manage seaports. I agree that we should do that. We have already evaluated it. It makes sense.

He is wrong about that, of course. His Secretary of Homeland Security says not only does it make sense, but it will make America safer if we have the management of America's seaports being done by a foreign company through a foreign country.

That is the most absurd thing I ever heard. Yet in this country, in this town, it passed with thoughtful debate. Again, it doesn't meet the test of thoughtful debate in my hometown cafe.

I am offering this amendment. My understanding is it will likely be accepted, for which I am very appreciative. I will speak more about the general subject when we have the opportunity to talk about the free trade agreement with the country of Oman. My understanding is it may be this Thursday.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, amendment No. 4931, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, my amendment would increase the number of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers by 275. This would bring the total of new U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in this bill to 1,000.

In my State of Texas, the Customs and Border Protection officers are assigned in the Houston region are responsible for the seaports along the Texas coast from Port Arthur to the Port of Corpus Christi. Some of these officers are also assigned to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport. The CBP officers work at the Port of Houston in the morning and leave the port in the afternoon to go work at the Houston Intercontinental Airport. Sharing these U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers between port duties and airport duties is unacceptable.

With increased security demands being placed on our Nation's ports and the desire to increase the number of containers inspected as they enter the United States, local port officials have long expressed the need for additional personnel in order to carry out the tasks that are so critical to our Nation's economy. With an unprecedented 11 million containers entering the United States annually, cargo doesn't stop when there isn't a Customs agent there to inspect the incoming shipments. What happens, of course, is that the cargo is not inspected. So I hope we can pass my amendment.

I believe the Port Security Improvement Act of 2006 is a very good bill, and I particularly commend the leaders of the respective Senate committees for working together to bring all of the port security bills that have been introduced in Congress into one comprehensive bill so that we can address this issue.

In the last 5 years, we have significantly strengthened our national defense. I think we saw yesterday that so many things have been done to keep our country safe and secure, because yesterday, of course, was the 5-year anniversary of the attack of 9/11. We have engaged the enemy before they have reached America since 9/11 of 2001. We have improved our homeland security. We have passed the PATRIOT Act to give law enforcement officials the tools they need and the resources necessary to protect our Nation. We must remain vigilant in pursuing terrorists who seek to harm our country. An integral aspect of our national defense and our economy is the security of our ports.

Our Nation has more than 360 federally regulated, thriving ports, any one of which could be a target for our enemies. One terrorist incident at a U.S. port could impact an entire coast, and the financial impact of closing one of these ports could be devastating.

Texas is home to 29 ports, including 4 of the 10 busiest in the Nation. The Port of Houston is one of the most important ports in the world. It ranks first in the United States in foreign waterborne tonnage, second in total tonnage, and is the sixth largest in the world. It is also home to one of the biggest petrochemical complexes in the world. It is also part of our Nation's U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world's largest oil stockpile. Due to the volume of hazardous materials, a terrorist attack in the Port of Houston would be an enormous disaster. An attack in the Port of Houston could also disrupt our Nation's energy supply, delivering a blow to our economy at a time when we cannot afford such a disruption.

For years, I have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for more stringent port security. In the 107th Congress, my colleagues, Senators Feinstein, Kyl, Snowe, and I introduced the Comprehensive Seaport and Container Security Act of 2002. This bill called for container seals and tracking numbers for goods being shipped to the United States. It also called for a plan to increase inspection of merchandise at foreign facilities as well as for a shipment profiling plan to track containers and shipments of merchandise imported into the United States that could be a threat to security.

In the 107th Congress, we passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act. This bipartisan bill was landmark legislation that closed a large hole in our national security. I was an original cosponsor of this bill as well. However, when it passed the Senate, I made the point of saying the legislation only laid the foundation for port security and more needed to be done.

The following year, I introduced the Intermodal Shipping Container Security Act in both the 108th and 109th Congresses. This was comprehensive legislation, and I am pleased that many of the key provisions in that bill, such as the random inspection of containers, the establishment of minimum standards and procedures for securing containers in transit to the United States, and the implementation of an improved container targeting system, have been incorporated into the legislation before us today. I thank Chairman Stevens and Cochairman Inouye for working with me in the Commerce Committee on these provisions.

In addition, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman have added so much to make this bill even more powerful and more helpful in our overall goal of securing the ports in our country.

This legislation calls for the Department of Homeland Security to develop and implement a plan for random inspection of containers in addition to any targeted or preshipment inspection. This significant provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and implement a plan to conduct random searches of containers in addition to any targeted or preshipment inspection of the containers as required by law. This would allow the U.S. Customs inspectors to do more at the point of embarkation with the random sampling of different cargo that has been inspected.

Another important provision in this legislation is the establishment of minimum standards for securing containers in transit to the United States. The Secretary of Homeland Security is encouraged to promote and establish those minimum standards for the security of containers moving through the entire international supply chain. This is a key element and I am hopeful the Secretary will take this action. We cannot inspect every piece of cargo, or our international commerce as we know it today would come to a grinding halt. However, if we have better technology, such as a seal which is tamper-proof, we will know when the contents of the cargo have been altered.

My amendment would add to the numbers of Customs and Border Protection officers. A thousand new officers, when you have more than 360 federally regulated ports in this country, is not asking a lot.

We must do more. We must do more at the point of embarkation, the point of origin, at the point where ships come into our U.S. waters, and at the ports themselves. We need more inspectors to be authorized in order to do that.

I am asking that my colleagues support my amendment to raise this number to 1,000. We cannot afford, as we are passing this major legislation, not to do it right, not to authorize everything we need and give the Department of Homeland Security the tools they need to do the job of securing our ports.

We have done a lot. We have passed maritime security laws since 2001, since our country was attacked. But this bill adds to the measures that we know are lacking in the system today. We are taking more steps every week, every month, and every year to secure our country.

I thank Chairman Stevens and Cochairman Inouye, Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Lieberman, Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Baucus for their leadership in this area. I appreciate that they have come together. It is very difficult in this Congress, when more than one committee has jurisdiction over a major part of the Government of this country. In homeland security we find that the Commerce Committee and the Homeland Security Committee do have overlapping jurisdiction.

This bill could have been brought down with in-fighting among the committees, but it has not been brought down because of the leadership of the committees on a bipartisan basis. I appreciate what we are doing today. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, while we are waiting, I would like to respond to the Senator from Maine and thank her. She and I have had a conversation about the situation at the Port of Houston. It is particularly dire, in that it is such a busy port and one that has so many unique features. I think the fact that she is supporting the amendment will go a long way toward getting us to the point we need to be.

I think her point is very well taken that giving the Secretary of Homeland Security the capability to reallocate personnel within this mandate that we are giving is also the right thing to do, just as we should be allocating our resources for homeland security based on terror threats, based on needs, not based on politics or anything else. We need to secure our homeland, and we need to do it in a professional way. I think this bill goes a long way in a very bipartisan spirit toward giving our Department of Homeland Security the tools it needs to do the job. I am very hopeful we will be able to agree to my amendment and go forward to conference and send this bill to the President very shortly.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment No. 4931.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Kyl and DeWine as cosponsors of the amendment.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. It increases the number of Customs and Border Protection officers by 275 for a total of 1,000.

In my home State of Texas, where the Port of Houston is the sixth largest port in the world, we have officers who have to leave the port at noon and go out to the airport. Because of this, we don't have enough officers to cover our ports.

This amendment will add just 275 officers for a total of 1,000 new officers.

I think this is an amendment that is very important to add for the overall security of our ports. I urge everyone to vote for it.

Mr. President, the Senate is now considering a long overdue--a long overdue--authorization bill to address the security of our ports--yes, our ports. I applaud the efforts of Senators Lieberman, Stevens, Inouye, Murray, Collins, and many others for their steadfast commitment to address this vulnerability.

The administration has let the issue of port security languish for far too long--far too long. Oh, yes, the President has made a series of speeches in recent days about the threat to the homeland and the great desire and capabilities that al-Qaida possesses to attack us--yes, to attack us, the United States. Yet when one reviews the President's homeland security budget, gaping holes can be found in funding to address known vulnerabilities. After 9/11, we learned that our first responders could not communicate with one another. How about that. We learned that our first responders could not communicate with one another. How awful that was. The cost was lives, human lives.

It now appears that we have a similar problem in the White House, where the administration's speech writers and its budget writers don't communicate. They operate in alternate worlds--worlds far apart.

In his speech last Friday at Georgetown University, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff urged Congress to pass this port security legislation. He said that passing the bill:

Would be not only a fitting tribute to the fifth

anniversary of 9/11, but would also be an important set of

tools that we can use in achieving the goal that we have set

for ourselves over the next couple of years.

Now, this is the very same rhetoric and, if I may say, it is the very same hot air that we have been listening to and we have been hearing for 5 years--5 years. Yes, we have been listening to it for 5 years, the same rhetoric, the same hot air that is used for lifting balloons, lifting balloons into the heavens.

The administration, time and time again, uses tough talk when it comes to homeland security, but, sadly, that tough talk rarely is followed up with real money, cash on the barrelhead.

This month the majority leadership is once again playing a clever rhetorical game with homeland security. The port security bill that is before the Senate authorizes $400 million for port security grants. These grants would provide essential resources to our most vulnerable ports for building fences, deploying cameras and sensors, training security personnel, and for verifying the identity of the thousands of port workers who access our ports every day.

The House-passed bill which authorized the same $400 million level was adopted by a vote of 421 to 2. But, I ask my colleagues, where, oh where is the $400 million? Where is it? Right now, the Senate and House are conferencing the Homeland Security appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007. The Senate-passed version of the bill includes an amendment that I offered with the support of my illustrious, inimitable chairman, Judd Gregg, which provides an additional $648 million for port security. The amendment would appropriate the full $400 million authorization for port security grants along with critical funds for cargo container inspection equipment, for Coast Guard ships and planes, and for increased cargo inspections at foreign and domestic ports. That is real port security, but--oh, there is that conjunction here--but, regrettably, the House majority has refused to make the $648 million available to the conference. What a sad state of affairs.

Our citizens watching the Senate today are being led to believe that this bill will secure our ports. Here it is:

H.R. 4954, an Act to Improve Maritime and Cargo Security

Through Enhanced Layered Defenses, and for other purposes.

They believe this bill will secure our ports. Here is the bill. It doesn't weigh very much, but it means security for our ports. However, it will be a charade if the port security funds are not appropriated. How about that? Money. What does the Bible say about money? The love of money, what does it say about it?

Did the White House step to the plate? How about it? ``Hey, Mr. President--hello there, down at the White House.'' Did the White House step up to the plate to address security risks at our ports? No. No. One of the hardest words in the English language to say: No.

If the administration were really serious about port security, it would have voiced support for the $400 million in the Senate bill for security grants. Yet there was not one mention of port security in the administration's letter--not one mention. It has been more than 3\1/2\ years since the Coast Guard estimated that the security cost at our ports would be $5.4 billion.

Senator Collins, bless your heart, to date not a cent of that amount has been funded despite the fact that U.S. seaports handled over 95 percent of U.S. overseas trade.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security was able to fund only 24 percent of the critical projects requested by the port authorities. These funds are critical, absolutely critical for ports to improve communications, access control systems, and provide waterside security. Where, oh where has the administration been? ``Where, oh where has my little dog gone?'' Where has the administration been?

Of the $816 million the Congress appropriated since 9/11 for port security, only $46 million was requested by the President. Did you get that? Let me say it again. Of the $816 million the Congress appropriated since 9/11 for port security, only $46 million was requested by the President. There is an odd disconnect at the White House when it comes to port security funding.

While I applaud the efforts of my colleagues today for moving this authorization legislation forward, and hopefully to the President's desk, authorizations of funding are not worth a hill of beans unless we provide real money, real dollars to fund them. That funding is in jeopardy. Why? That funding is in jeopardy due to an irresponsible indifference from the White House and objections from the House majority.

I challenge the White House--yes, come on now--I challenge the White House and the majority, not only to talk the talk on port security but also to walk the walk by supporting the funding that will actually make us safer. Our ports are seriously vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Potentially, thousands of American lives are at stake. Think about it. If we are truly determined to tighten security at our ports, we should send the Homeland Security appropriations bill to the President with the $648 million to fund port security.

My amendment includes the funding to address many of the provisions in this bill that are being debated today. In addition to port security grant funding, my amendment includes $40 million to hire 354 additional Customs and Border Protection officers to conduct cargo container inspections at our seaports and $211 million to purchase additional nonintrusive inspecting equipment for U.S. seaport and rail border crossings.

There you have it. Currently, only 5 percent of the 11 million containers entering the United States are physically inspected by opening--take a look at it by opening the containers. Only 5 percent of the 11 million containers entering the United States are physically inspected by opening the containers.

The Coast Guard has only 34 inspectors to review security plans at foreign ports. Of the 144 countries that conduct maritime trade with the United States, the Coast Guard has assessed security at only 59.

I have to say that again. I have a duty to say that again. Of the 144 countries that conduct maritime trade with the United States, the Coast Guard has assessed security at only 59--59 out of 144. At the current rate of inspections, U.S. inspectors will visit countries that trade with the United States only once every 4 years. Does that make you feel safer? Think about that tonight when you are laying your head on the pillow. Think about that.

My amendment includes $23 million to double the presence of inspectors at foreign ports and increase security compliance checks at domestic ports.

Finally, my amendment includes $184 million for Coast Guard deepwater assets that are critical to securing our ports and surrounding waterways. These funds will allow the Coast Guard to address an immediate shortfall in boats and planes needed to patrol our ports and adjacent waterways. The President and Members of Congress may applaud each other and congratulate themselves for protecting lives with this port security authorization bill, but the truth of the matter is that this bill will do little to secure our ports if the President and those same Members of Congress do not provide the money--there you go again-- the money to actually scan for dirty bombs, inspect containers, and implement the security systems that are so desperately needed. What on Earth is wrong?

Can we please stop playing these dangerous political games with homeland security and actually come together to protect the precious lives of people?

Unless we provide the funding authorized in this bill, we will be playing fast and loose with the security of our people.

Hear me. Hear me now. I say it again.

Unless we provide the funding authorized in this bill, we will be playing fast and loose with the security of our people.

I yield the floor.

Shame.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her good work. I thank Senator Collins for her work on port security. I am proud to say that in the Commerce Committee, in a bipartisan way, we have worked over and over again to make this country safer. I was part of that

under the leadership of Senator McCain at the time, and first Senator Hollings and now Senator Stevens.

I want to show you a little bit of history about what has happened in the Republican Congress every time we have voted out one of these good bills because you can say what you want about partisan politics, but the fact is, almost every single time we reported one of these bills out of our committee, it simply died and went nowhere. I want to talk about that history because, of course, Senator Collins is right that protecting Americans is our job. It has nothing to do with being a Democrat or a Republican.

Here is what happened. In the 107th Congress, we passed the Ship, Seafarer, and Container Security Act; no action by the full Senate. In the 108th Congress, we passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2004. It passed the Senate on September 21, 2004, and was not even considered in the House of Representatives. In the 109th Congress, we passed the Transportation Security Improvement Act of 2005. Commerce passed it on November 17, 2005; no action by the full Senate.

There you have it. Do you wonder why the 9/11 Commission has given this Congress and this administration failing grades? You can talk about bipartisanship. We reported these bills out of the committee on a bipartisan basis, but the leadership never bothered. So when I heard that the last days of this session were going to be about homeland defense, I said thank God for that, thank goodness for that. Whether it is an election driving it or anything else, I could not care less. Let's get it done. This Congress and this administration have received failing grades from the 9/11 Commission.

I ask unanimous consent to have this document printed in the Record, which is a final report on 9/11 Commission recommendations.

Mr. President, here are some of the things on which we received bad grades: We are not providing adequate radio spectrum for first responders. We are not establishing a unified incident command system. We are not allocating homeland security funds based on risk. We are not protecting the critical infrastructure. We don't have a private sector that is prepared. We don't have a national strategy for transportation security. We are not prescreening passengers like we should be. We don't have screening checkpoints detecting explosives. We are still not screening the cargo that goes into passenger planes, even though they are taking away our lip gloss. I don't care about giving up my lip gloss, believe me. I would give up my lip gloss and everything else, but how about protecting the cargo that goes underneath that passenger plane? How about making sure it is safe, making sure it won't explode?

I have an amendment that I will offer to this bill--unless the majority shuts me down--to say that until we are screening all of the cargo, let's make sure there is a blast-resistant container on these aircrafts. That is a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that has not been followed. So when you have a suspect piece of cargo and you are not sure about it, put it into the blast-resistant cargo container. We pushed this in the Commerce Committee. TSA tested it and we know it works. But it is not happening.

I could go on, page after page of this document, where this Congress and this administration have failed. I say they have been soft on homeland defense. Why? I say two reasons: They cannot afford it because they are spending our money in Iraq instead of protecting us from the terrorists at home, instead of going after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The President says over and over again that it is one

and the same. Do you know what? The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee was right out there and said Saddam Hussein--the tyrant though he is, and he deserves whatever fate awaits him--had not one thing to do with al-Qaida. As a matter of fact, he was threatened by them because he had a secular government. He was fearful of them, and rumors were that he wanted some of them assassinated.

The war in Iraq has strengthened Iran. It is a recruiting tool for Osama bin Laden. It is busting the budget. It is causing the debt to explode, not to mention the deaths of close to 3,000 of our service men and women, and 20,000 have been severely injured. The money going there is about $10 billion a month. We could protect every single American aircraft today from the threat of shoulder-fired missiles with the cost of Iraq in 1 month.

Then there is the other priority of this administration--tax breaks for billionaires. That is costing trillions. Look at every other President in the history of our country; they didn't do that in a time of war. So you have the war in Iraq, and the only strategy we have from this President is that we are going to be there ``as long as I am the President.'' Well, that is not a strategy; that is a recipe for more death, more destruction. That is clear.

There are many ways that we could begin reducing the cost over there--the cost to our troops. We can say to the Iraqi people that our people have fought and died for you; now take the reins of your own government and protect yourselves. If you cannot figure out how to protect neighbor from neighbor, you have a problem. Nobody did it for us. Everybody always says compare what happened in Iraq to the American Revolution. I don't get the comparison, but if we go with that for a minute, it is true that other countries helped us in that battle-- France, for example--but at the end of the day, we had to take over the security on the ground and make our new country a success. So we cannot force democracy and force people to love each other at the point of a gun. It is their business.

We have spent our treasure and are spending our treasure to the point where we cannot afford a comprehensive bill. You heard Senator Collins say, ``I hope you will vote against this broad bill.'' Why? We have been condemned by the 9/11 Commission for not doing enough in a broad way. This bill just does port security. Thank goodness we have amendments to add rail and transit. It is moving toward the Reid bill. Let this go on because the more we debate and the more we offer amendments, the more this bill looks like the Democratic alternative. It has taken a big step in that direction.

We know what happened in Madrid. We saw what happened in London. We know our infrastructure is at risk. But 5 years after 9/11, we get failing grades. It is a sad moment.

I thank my colleague, Senator Collins, and I thank my colleague, Senator Murray, two fantastic women who fought hard to get a port security bill to the floor. But let's welcome this as an opportunity to protect our people, not just focus narrowly on one problem.

I hate to say it, we have an array of problems. We have 41 problems and 41 recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the bipartisan Commission we have not listened to, and that is what the Reid bill does. It is very important.

I thank my colleagues for going as far as they have gone, but I hope we will go even further and change this truth that this Congress has been soft on homeland defense. We can change that, and I welcome the fact that we will be debating security from now until we get out of here because if ever there were a place we have neglected, it is homeland security.

I am very happy to be part of this debate. I look forward to supporting the Reid amendment and all the other amendments that will make our country safer. We can scare people. We can make speeches and frighten them. That is not our job. Our job is to protect them, not to scare them. We haven't done that, and we have an opportunity to do that between now and the time we get out of here and go home.

I yield the floor.