Disaster Area Health and Environmental Monitoring Act of 2005

Mr. President, earlier today in morning business, the Democratic leader spoke in favor of the amendment that he has brought to the Senate floor which we will vote on shortly this afternoon. I rise in opposition to Senator Reid's amendment.

Mr. President, this is Senator Reid's amendment, and this is the port security bill. I can barely hold up the 507 pages of the Democratic leader's amendment. It is an interesting hodgepodge of provisions that are irrelevant to the underlying bill--to port security. It includes provisions that have already been rejected by the Senate. It includes provisions that have already been enacted by the Congress and signed into law. It includes provisions that have just recently been passed by the Senate and added to the port security bill.

What it does not include are provisions that have to do with port security. This proposal, 507 pages, includes 37 pages of findings, 16 senses of Congress, and no fewer than 95 reports, certifications, and determinations.

Let me tell my colleagues a bit about what is actually in Senator Reid's amendment. Let's go first to the category of provisions which have already been rejected by the Senate. Let me give two examples. The legislation includes, word for word, the exact same language regarding the involvement of the United States in Iraq that was soundly rejected by the Senate by a vote of 39 to 60 in June of this year. This is the language that calls for a phased redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq. It has nothing to do with port security, and it is legislation that this body has already thoroughly considered and voted against.

Let me give a second example of provisions of the Reid amendment on which the Senate has already spoken. The Reid amendment contains a first responder funding formula amendment that is almost identical to the one the Senate rejected earlier this year by a vote of 32 to 65. Indeed, the sponsor of this amendment voted against the formula change he has included in this bill, as did a total of 25 Democratic Senators, the majority of the Democratic caucus. It is not surprising that they did, for if the Reid amendment were to pass, 34 States would lose money for homeland security activities. It is also ironic that the funding formula included in Senator Reid's amendment is an implicit endorsement of the funding allocation decisions that were so widely and correctly criticized earlier this summer.

This bill would give the Department of Homeland Security additional discretion in allocating homeland security funds. We know what happened when we gave the Department additional discretion. The outcome was not a good one.

I mentioned that the amendment also includes provisions that have already been signed into law. Let me give an example. Mr. President, 105 pages of this 507-page amendment have to do with implementing the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on foreign policy and public diplomacy. The proposals outlined in that section of Senator Reid's amendment were signed into law as part of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. They are almost exactly the same as title VII of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Why do we need to repeat this? It is already law. How does enacting it a second time somehow improve our national security? It makes no sense.

Let's move to the third category; that is, provisions in this amendment which have already passed the Senate. There are many good examples of that, but let me just cite two. They have to do with the rail security and mass transit security amendments which we have already adopted.

Senator McCain's rail security amendment was adopted very early in the debate on this bill. The proposal offered by Senators Shelby and Sarbanes last night is identical to the mass transit security provisions in the Reid amendment. Since those two amendments have already been included in the bill, why would we want to do it all over again?

I think what most disturbs me about Senator Reid's proposal is that it is clearly a partisan amendment that has been offered to a bill, the port security bill, that has been bipartisan every step of the way, from conception to introduction to committee consideration to the floor deliberations. Port security is so important. I know the Presiding Officer understands that well, coming from Louisiana. We have gone to great lengths to make sure that the port security bill was bipartisan.

Patty Murray has been the leader on this bill on the Democratic side. Senator Lieberman worked hard on it in the Homeland Security Committee. Norm Coleman, Senator Coleman, on our side of the aisle, worked with Senator Levin to investigate port security programs.

Even in the House, this has been a completely bipartisan--indeed, a nonpartisan--effort, with the legislation being authored by Representatives Dan Lungren and Jane Harman.

At every step of the consideration, this has been a bipartisan bill. When it went through the Homeland Security Committee, it was bipartisan. In the negotiations with the Commerce Committee and the Finance Committee, it was bipartisan. It is very unfortunate that we are now having a blatantly partisan amendment offered to a bill that I had hoped would be the exception to the rule, a bill we could enact in a bipartisan manner, because it is so important that we act without delay.

As I indicated, from the very beginning of the discussions on this bill, from the hearings, through the committee markups, through visits to ports around the country, it has always been bipartisan. Let's not weigh this bill down with partisan amendments. Instead, let's get the job done and send this bill, a bipartisan bill, to the President for his signature without delay.

I reserve the remainder of the time on this side.

Mr. DeMINT addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I will be happy to yield time to the Senator from South Carolina, depending on how much time he needs.

That will be fine. I yield the Senator 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Ohio.

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

Mr. President, let me just add to the comments made by the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee about the amendment offered by the Democratic leader. I mentioned earlier that this amendment is 507 pages. This, in my hand, is the port security bill. Now, this, in my hand, is the Reid amendment. I can barely lift it. It requires no fewer than 95 reports, certifications, and determinations. It has 37 pages of findings. It has 16 sense-of-the- Congress resolutions. It requires 36 GAO reports and audits.

But what is not in there? There is virtually nothing in there that relates to port or maritime security. In fact, we have now done a search of the entire amendment. We found one--one--reference to port security and one reference to maritime and cargo security in the entire Reid amendment.

I think that makes the point. I think that says it all. This amendment is irrelevant to the underlying bill.

As I mentioned earlier, it includes provisions that the Senate has already decisively rejected on what our policy should be in Iraq and what the funding formula should be for the homeland security grant program. It is not as if those provisions were rejected years ago; they were rejected just a few months ago. So it makes no sense for this amendment to include formula changes and a change in our policy in Iraq that this body, by more than 60 votes in each case, decisively rejected.

In fact, when it comes to the funding formula for homeland security grants, the majority of the Democratic Caucus rejects the formula change that is included in the Reid amendment. As I mentioned, over 100 pages of the Reid amendment deal with foreign policy recommendations, public diplomacy recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that are already law. They are virtually identical to a title of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, which is already law. Other provisions in the Reid amendment we have passed during the debate on the port security bill--the proposals of Senator McCain and Senators Shelby and Sarbanes on rail and mass transit security. We already adopted those. Those are redundant at best.

What it comes down to is, unfortunately, this is simply a partisan amendment. That is so unfortunate because the work on this port security bill has never been partisan--never. There have been leaders such as Senator Murray and Senator Lieberman on the Democratic side. There have been leaders on the Republican side. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Homeland Security Committee did investigations of the port security programs that were completely bipartisan, headed by Senators Norman Coleman and Carl Levin. The committee consideration both in the Homeland Security Committee and the Commerce Committee was completely bipartisan. This has been a bipartisan effort in the House of Representatives, as well, where the bill was sponsored by Representatives Dan Lungren and Jane Harmon. It has been bipartisan since the conception to where we are today.

It is so unfortunate to have a blatantly partisan amendment, 507 pages, that swamps the bill and has nothing to do with the bill offered by the Democratic leader. So I hope our colleagues will take a look at what is really in the Reid amendment. I fear we may well have a partisan vote. I hope we do not. I think if my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle actually look at what is in the Reid amendment, I would be surprised if they vote for it because they voted against large chunks of it in the past.

So I hope once we have disposed of the Democratic leader's amendment, we can return to the constructive, bipartisan approach that we have taken on this bill. This is an important bill. It is a bill that matters to the security of our country. It is a bill that is too important to be bogged down in partisan politics. It has never been bogged down in partisan politics. It has been bipartisan every step of the way. Let's conclude consideration of this bill in a bipartisan way, in a way that reflects well on this Senate, and send this important bill to the President for his signature.

I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.

Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Kansas, the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, it is interesting to hear my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the 9/11 Commission and then imply that the Reid amendment would finish the job of the 9/11 Commission. In fact, as I pointed out earlier, over 100 pages of the 507-page Reid amendment already are law. They are the foreign policy and public diplomacy recommendations that were recommended by the 9/11 Commission and included in the Intelligence Reform Act which became law 2 years ago--2 years ago. Many of the other recommendations of the 9/11 Commission were enacted as part of that legislation.

Now, there is one area where the 9/11 Commission did recommend changes that have not been completely made, and that is in the area of congressional oversight and the reorganization of committees. Instead, the Senate and the House adopted some, but not all, of those recommendations. But, ironically, the amendment proposed by the Democratic leader does not deal with that unfinished recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. So I don't want to leave the impression that the 9/11 Commission's recommendations are what are largely found in this amendment; they are not, other than the more than 100 pages on the foreign policy and public diplomacy recommendations, which are already law and have been for almost 2 years.

The fact is, our country has made tremendous progress in strengthening our security since 9/11. We have taken many actions, and if we talk to the experts, they will all tell us that those actions have made a difference. Are we completely safe? Of course not. We can never say that we are completely safe, but we are clearly safer than we were 5 years ago due to actions taken by this Congress, this administration, and State and local law enforcement. We have a ways to go, and the underlying bill on port security will help advance the security of this country.

So for the reasons I have already spoken on extensively today, I hope that our colleagues will vote to sustain the point of order which I will shortly be raising against Senator Reid's amendment. It does violate the Budget Act, and I will be raising a point of order against it.

But aside from the budget issues, the procedural objections, I hope my colleagues will actually look at the Reid amendment and look at what it does contain. If they do, they will find only one reference in it to port security--only one reference in it to maritime and cargo security. They will instead find page after page of policy that this Senate has already rejected with regard to our engagement in Iraq and the policy on the formula for homeland security grants. They will also find legislation that is already law, and they will find amendments that we have already adopted having to do with rail and mass transit security.

So, unfortunately--and I mean this--sadly, this amendment is simply a partisan hodgepodge of provisions that have been cobbled together. I hope we can dispense with it quickly and then move back to the port security bill, an enormously important bill, a bill that many of us have worked on for years, a bill that has been bipartisan from the very start in both the House and the Senate. That is unusual, as the Presiding Officer knows. This bill is an exception to the rule. But, apparently, we couldn't quite get through the floor debate without having a partisan bomb lobbed at this bill, and I think that is unfortunate. But I hope once we get through this, we can go back to bipartisan consideration of relevant and germane amendments and we can get this work done.

This is a gap in our homeland security. When we talk to the experts, they all tell us they are worried about the security of our seaports and the 11 million shipping containers that come into this country each year. We have a carefully crafted, balanced bill that strikes the right balance between the need to strengthen security and the need to facilitate trade.

Again, I recognize the work that Senator Murray has done on this bill. She originated a lot of the concepts in this bill. It has been that kind of bipartisan partnership that has brought us to where we are today. So let's get this partisanship out of the way, and let's return to a bipartisan debate. This bill is so important to the security of people living near our seaports, to those working on our seaports, to the retailers in this country that rely on the cargo brought into our seaports, to our farmers who rely on shipping their crops out of our seaports. Let's remember the impact of this bill on communities not just on our coasts where the seaports are located but communities all across this country that rely on the products brought to our shores by cargo ships, or rely on the cargo ships to export these products.

So I hope we can return to the underlying bill. It is a good bill, and it deserves continued bipartisan support.

Could the Presiding Officer inform me how many minutes are remaining on our side?

Madam President, has all time expired under the time agreement?

Madam President, I raise a point of order against the Reid amendment because it violates section 302(f) of the Budget Act.

And without checking with the managers of the bill. We have a great number of Senators who are seeking to bring up their amendments or speak on the bill, and it would be helpful if the Senator from New York would work through the managers of the bill.

Mr. President, the reports recently released by the Mount Sinai Center did reveal disturbing news about the long-term health effects suffered by those working in recovery efforts after September 11. It is very disturbing because, clearly, we should make every effort to respond to and monitor the health problems of those who were at or near Ground Zero on that day--the heroes who risked their own lives and, apparently, their long-term health by rushing in to rescue others.

This amendment would direct the Secretary of HHS, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to award grants to entities to provide medical and mental health monitoring, tracking, and treatment to individuals whose health has been directly affected as a result of the attacks on New York City on September 11.

I do have some questions about the amendment, however. For one--and I see the sponsors otherwise engaged, but I am going to pose the question anyway. Again, I am very sympathetic. I think we have an obligation to those rescue workers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, police officers, and others who risked their own lives and health to respond to the needs of others.

I am concerned that the amendment only applies to those first responders in New York City. There may well be health impacts that were suffered by the rescue workers, firefighters, police officers, and others who responded to the Pentagon. I am concerned that the Senator limits the nearly $2 billion in funding to only New York, and that doesn't seem fair to me. It seems to me that it should apply to both jurisdictions. I don't know whether there were similar problems in Pennsylvania, as well, but it seems to me it should be broader.

I am happy to yield to the Senator from New York to respond to the question.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from New York. The conditions in New York, as far as respiratory equipment, may have been different. But I have worked closely with Senator Voinovich on his broader bill. We reported it from the Homeland Security Committee. He offered it today as an amendment. I hope, perhaps, we can have a meeting of the minds on what is a real problem. We do not want those who were so brave that horrible day to not receive assistance, care, and monitoring for health problems associated with their bravery, regardless of which environment they were in.

The second issue I have to raise is the extent of the resources that will be needed to deal with this issue. I don't know the basis for the nearly $2 billion authorization that the Senator has come up with, so I cannot comment on it.

That leads me to my third point, which is the way the Senator has drafted this amendment, directing the Secretary of HHS, through the Director of the CDC, to allocate the funds. That means it is not in the jurisdiction of the Homeland Security Committee, or

even the Commerce Committee or Finance Committee. It is in the jurisdiction of the HELP Committee. So I have asked staff to notify the HELP Committee of this amendment so that they have an opportunity to review it.

With that, let me again repeat that I think the Senator from New York has identified a real problem. It is not germane to the underlying port security bill, but it is an urgent and real problem. It is in another committee's jurisdiction. We have a different approach that the Homeland Security Committee has taken in working with Senator Voinovich because this even goes beyond 9/11.

I know the Senator from New York has also worked with Senator Voinovich on his amendment, which is under the Homeland Security Committee's jurisdiction. So I suggest that we get some input from Senator Enzi and Senator Kennedy, since they are the committee of jurisdiction.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Will the Senator yield?

There is not necessarily an objection. I don't know because it is not under the jurisdiction of the committee that I am privileged to chair. So I don't want to prejudge whether there is an objection from the HELP Committee or not because I don't know. I have saluted the Senator from New York for bringing a very real problem to our attention, although I wish it were on a different bill. I wish we would move the Voinovich bill separately, which has been on the calendar for a long time. I don't know that there is an objection on this side.

Mr. President, the port security legislation we are considering requires that radiation detection equipment be installed in the busiest 22 ports of entry by the end of next year. That would result in 98 percent of all cargo coming into this country being screened for radiation or radiological devices.

The Senator's amendment raises the question of, What about those smaller ports? Doesn't this invite, for example, terrorists, knowing they will be screened at the 22 largest ports, to instead divert dangerous cargo to a small port?

The Department of Homeland Security wants to make sure it has flexibility to do, perhaps, handheld devices for screening rather than the expensive, large radiation portal monitors that are at big ports, such as Seattle.

I would pose a question, through the Chair, to the Senator from Florida, whether there is anything in his amendment that speaks to the type of equipment that must be installed, because obviously, if you have a very small port that only gets a couple of cargo ships per year, it may not make sense to invest in radiation portal monitors, but it may make sense to, instead, assume that the Customs and Border Patrol agents are equipped with handheld screening devices, which still screen.

So I would ask, through the Chair, my colleague from Florida whether his amendment, as I read it, gives flexibility to the Department as to the types of equipment, in keeping with the fact there are different needs and different volumes?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his clarification.

With that understanding, I am pleased to recommend that the Senate adopt his amendment.

I yield to the Democratic manager of the bill to see if we could clear this amendment.

Mr. President, we have had a lot of amendments offered on the Democratic side, and there are Republican Senators who are eager to come to the floor--Senator Coburn, Senator DeMint, Senator Voinovich--to complete the action on their amendments. I thought we had an understanding that we were going back and forth, but instead we seem to be doing Democratic amendment after Democratic amendment after Democratic amendment. So until I get some clarification on how we are going to proceed, I do object.

Mr. President, it would be helpful if the Democratic manager of the bill or the sponsor of the amendment gave us some idea as to the subject of the amendment and whether the Senator from New Jersey is seeking a full debate on it or just wants to call it up briefly--or what his intentions are.

The Senator from New Jersey has an amendment that we are trying to put in a block of amendments to deal with the issue of scanning cargo. There are three such amendments that are pending: the amendment of the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer; the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey; and the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota. I need more information about the Senator's intentions, given he has filed more than one amendment.

Mr. President, then I am going to have to object to the Senator proceeding at this time because we have proposed that all three amendments that deal with the scanning or screening of cargo be considered together, including the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey. If we can get an agreement where we could consider and debate all three amendments and then have three consecutive votes on those amendments, then I would not object. But if we cannot get that agreement, then I do object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 4 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Coleman amendment No. 4982, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Menendez amendment No. 4999, with no amendment in order to either amendment prior to the vote; finally, that the time until the vote be equally divided between the two managers or their designees, and that there will be 2 minutes equally divided of debate prior to each vote.

Mr. President, I listened carefully to the comments of the Senator from New Jersey in which he advocates for 100 percent scanning. He says, for example, that is the only way we can be safe, that we would never scan just 5 percent of the people coming to the White House. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about how the current system works, so let me start with an explanation of the layered system of security we have at our ports right now.

First, all cargo manifests are submitted to authorities 24 hours before ships pull into ports. The automated targeting system is a sophisticated analysis that looks at where did the cargo come from, what is its destination, what is the cargo, who are the shippers involved, who is the retailer or other recipient of the cargo. Through a classified system, those and other factors are considered, and the cargo is assigned scores depending on this analysis.

Let me first be very clear. Every single container goes through that step, and that is called screening. There is a lot of confusion among the terms ``screening,'' ``scanning,'' ``integrated scanning,'' and ``inspection.'' So what I have described is the screening process that uses this automatic targeting system to identify at-risk containers.

After the at-risk containers are identified, they are supposed to be scanned or even physically searched by Customs and Border Protection. However, an investigation by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Homeland Security Committee, which Senator Coleman led, indicated that this system didn't always result in an inspection of the high-risk container, despite it being identified. Senator Coleman is going to be offering an amendment shortly that will ensure 100 percent scanning of those high-risk or at-risk containers. So that is one aspect of the system we have now.

Another layer is the Container Security Initiative. Under this program, our American Customs and Border Patrol officers are stationed at foreign ports. The CSI program is currently operational in 44 ports which cover approximately 75 percent of containerized cargo heading for the United States by sea. What we do is we work with the host government, and again, the process is to push hazards away from our shores, identify the high-risk cargo, and make sure it is never loaded onto our ships in the first place.

In addition, there is another system, which is that many containers are also scanned for radiological material at U.S. ports. When I visited, with the Senator from Washington State, the Seattle Port, we saw the radiation portal monitors that do this kind of scanning. Our bill requires that by the end of 2007, the largest U.S. ports must have radiation scanners which will ensure that 98 percent of inbound containers are scanned.

There is also a Department of Energy program called the Megaports Initiative that is currently scanning containers in foreign ports for radiological material.

Yet another layer of security is the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Program, the so-called C-TPAT Program. This is a program whereby manufacturers, retailers, and shippers secure the supply chain so that security is assured from the factory door to when the container arrives at our shores. Every step of the supply chain is secured. Senator Murray has improved upon that concept with her GreenLane concept which will give additional benefits to shippers who undertake even stronger security measures. This involves making sure, for example, that containers are sealed with electronic seals that can reveal whether they have been tampered with or opened en route. In other words, this is a risk-based approach to enhancing the security of our containers.

At the same time--and this is the approach our bill builds upon--the layered approach to security allows the maritime cargo industry in the United States, which moves more than 11 million containers per year, to function efficiently. That is important. I have seen the giant VACIS machines that do these x-ray screenings. It is not that quick a process. It takes a while. It takes probably 4 minutes or so for them to go around the container, and then the analysis of those images can take up to 15 minutes.

With 11 million containers entering the U.S. seaports every year, the delay caused by screening all containers would cause a massive backlog of cargo at the ports. That doesn't mean that someday--someday soon, I believe--we are not going to have the technology that will allow us to do an integrated scan, both in x ray and a scan for radiological material, in a far more efficient way and have a method of triggering an additional review if something is found.

The Washington Post said it very well in an editorial yesterday when they said:

The ``inspect all containers'' mantra is a red herring that

exploits America's fears about what might slip through in

order to score political points, ignoring the fact that there

are much more cost and time effective ways of keeping

dangerous cargo out of the country.

Our bill we have brought before the Senate would do just that by strengthening and improving upon the existing

programs. I believe with Senator Coleman's amendment, which I am proud to cosponsor along with the Senator from Alaska, we can even improve it further and set the stage when someday--soon, I hope--we do have the technology that allows us to do 100 percent integrated scanning.

The Senator from New Jersey just calls for scanning, so I don't know whether he doesn't want an integrated system which includes the radiological scan. But in any event, it has an integrated scanning system that will work and allow us to move cargo quickly. That is where we should be headed. We can't ignore the reality that we don't have the technology yet to do that effectively and efficiently now but that we can put in place a layered system that gives us greater protections than we have today.

We have to realize also that we have limited resources. I remember an expert in port security once telling me that if you inspect everything, you inspect nothing. You have to focus on risk and you have to come up with systems that build a layered approach, starting with securing the supply chain, working with the governments of foreign ports, having radiological scanning, making sure we put into place a layered security system.

I would note two other issues that I see in the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey.

First, much to my surprise, the language on page 2 of his bill suggests that all outbound cargo from the United States would have to be scanned. I can't imagine what the impact on trade would be. They would be using the same equipment as the inbound containers, so it would cause a tremendous backlog in scanning containers.

Second, he has some troubling language where he calls for a description of the consequences to be imposed on foreign ports or U.S. ports that don't meet the benchmarks described in his language, which may include the loss of access to U.S. ports and fines. What are we saying--that we are going to threaten ports with fines rather than working with them? That kind of language just invites retaliation by foreign governments, and I think it is misguided in the extreme.

So I think the bill is a very good bill that we have brought before our colleagues and a balanced bill to deal with this issue, but I think we can strengthen it further, improve it further by adopting the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota, which I am proud to support and cosponsor.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining on the majority side?

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the Senator from Minnesota, and I retain a minute for myself.

Mr. President, if you think about it, those who are advocating that we go to 100 percent scanning prior to having the technology in place to do it efficiently without slowing down trade are, in fact, rejecting the whole notion of the C-TPAT Program. Why should a shipper, retailer or manufacturer, secure its supply chain from end to end if they are going to be subjected to the same kinds of inspection as a shipper who has high-risk cargo in an unsecured supply chain? That doesn't make any sense at all. It completely undermines the C-TPAT Program, the container security initiative, because it embraces the concept that all cargo is alike. It is not all alike. There are low-risk containers.

I think we should think very carefully about the implications of this amendment. I think Senator Coleman has come up with an excellent amendment. He has done a great deal of work, and I urge my colleagues to support the Coleman-Collins-Stevens amendment and to vote against the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Coleman amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4999

Mr. President, we just agreed to an amendment that will require 100 percent scanning of high-risk containers and put us on the path to having 100 percent scanning of containers, once it is feasible, once the technology is there.

I am concerned about the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey. I don't think it has the kind of thought in it that was in the Coleman amendment. There are two provisions, in particular, that concern me.

One, it requires a plan for scanning containers that are going out of U.S. ports. That is going to slow down trade incredibly and will be a real problem for our farmers who are exporting their crops.

Second, it has a provision requiring consequences to be imposed on foreign ports or U.S. ports that do not meet the benchmarks described in the plan, which may include a loss of access to U.S. ports and fines. This will lead to retaliation by foreign ports.

I urge our colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding time to me.

Mr. President, last Thursday I introduced a bipartisan resolution urging the President to take immediate action to avert a looming tragedy in Darfur, Sudan. I urge the Senate to pass it today. The Government of Sudan has launched an all but military offensive in Darfur that could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The United States must lead the international community to save those lives. It is urgent that we act.

Over the past 2 years the situation in Sudan has remained dire. As many as 400,000 people have died. Two million people have been displaced from their homes, over 200,000 are refugees in Chad, and 3 million rely on international aid. Those numbers haven't diminished over time, they have gotten worse. And now, they may be on the brink of becoming even more catastrophic.

In May of this year, the Government of Sudan and rebels in Darfur-- specifically the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army-- signed a peace agreement. Tragically, instead of improving the security situation, the Darfur Peace Agreement has made things worse.

The agreement never had the support of the entire SLA, or the other major rebel movement in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement. Nor did it have the support of people living in displaced persons camps in Darfur. In the days and weeks after news of the agreement spread, violence in camps increased either because people misunderstood what was in the agreement, or they felt the agreement was flawed. And violence on the ground became worse, as the rebel factions split and fighting erupted between those who had signed the Darfur Peace Agreement and those who had not.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in fighting since May--50,000 in the last 2 months alone. Many of them have taken refuge in camps for the internally displaced. Attacks on humanitarian aid convoys have increased by a factor of more than 10 compared to this time last year. Twelve humanitarian workers have been killed in the past 4 months--more than during the entire previous year. Two hundred internally displaced women have been raped and another 200 violently assaulted over the course of the past 5 weeks.

The United Nations, after months of delay, finally extended the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Sudan--UNMIS--to Darfur at the end of August. And, through U.N. Security Council Resolution 1706, it authorized the deployment of over 17,000 peacekeepers and 3,000 civilian police to Darfur.

However, the Government of Sudan has categorically rejected the deployment of the U.N. force. In fact, the Sudanese Government has launched a military offensive in the region. Khartoum has sent over 10,000 troops to Darfur and has resumed aerial bombardments. Seven villages--villages, not military targets--were bombed just this weekend. African Union officials have stated that they will not extend the mission in Sudan past the end of this month. I understand that the African Union Peace and Security Council will meet in New York on September 18, just before the U.N. General Assembly meeting takes place. But it is unclear if the AU will reverse its decision to terminate its mission in Sudan. If it does terminate it, ``Katey, bar the door,'' all the carnage going on now will be increased multifold.

Even if the impediments I just mentioned did not exist, it would be months--we are talking January--before a U.N. mission could fully deploy, so we need the AU to stay in place a while longer.

In the mean time, Khartoum is doing its level best to be sure that no U.N. force comes to Darfur. The Government of Sudan's tactic seems to be to scorch enough earth--and people--such that there will be no need for the peacekeeping force because there will be no one left to protect and no peace to keep.

At this point in time, right here today, we are at a pivotal moment. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese are in camps, vulnerable to aerial and ground attacks from government forces. We cannot stand by and do nothing.

This resolution is very straightforward. It calls on the President to undertake three key actions, some of which the Senate has asked him to do before:

First, it once again calls on him to pursue the imposition of a no- fly zone through the U.N. NATO or NATO allies. The Senate asked the President to propose that NATO consider how to implement and enforce such a no-fly zone in March of this year. If anything the need to enforce a no-fly zone has increased.

Second, it asks that the President secure the necessary support from United Nations member states to schedule a special session on Sudan in the United Nations Human Rights Council. The international community must speak out on the atrocities which continue to unfold in Sudan--and it must act.

Third, it asks the President to appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan to head the office that Senator DeWine and I established at the State Department through the supplemental appropriations bill signed into law in June. The administration has avoided naming a Special Envoy to Sudan for years, and our diplomatic efforts have suffered as a result.

I am under no illusion that these actions alone will stop the Sudanese Government's murderous actions in Darfur. The international community must put a credible international force on the ground as soon as possible. NATO should be prepared to help the AMIS hand-off to the United Nations. The U.S. should impose targeted financial, travel, and diplomatic sanctions against the Sudanese leadership, rebel forces, and others determined to be responsible for the atrocities and pursue the immediate imposition of similar sanctions by the U.N. Security Council and the European Union as called for by U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1556 and 1564. It is long past time for the Security Council to take such action. If the Council cannot act because of threats of a Russian or Chinese veto, then the United States and Europe should do so together.

I visited the camps across the border in Chad. It is an absolute tragedy. There are tens of thousands of people in that one camp alone, with no real protection. When the appropriate time comes I will introduce this resolution. I hope it meets the approval of my colleagues. I hope the President will listen.

I thank the managers of the bill for yielding me this time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, since I only have 2 minutes--and I am not going to ask for a vote on it now--my amendment talks about the dirty little word no one wants to talk about: How are we going to pay for all this? The fact is, we are arguing over peanuts. The fact is, we should set up a trust fund as we did with the violent crime trust fund. We should fund everything everyone knows we need to fund here, all those elements the 9/11 Commission called for, plus reinstating local law enforcement.

The whole cost of that would be less than 1 year--1 year--of the tax cut for people making over $1 million. My amendment sets up a trust fund, has $53 billion put into that trust fund, displaced over 5 years--$10 billion a year--to pay for all we are doing here.

Rich folks are just as patriotic as poor folks. It instructs the Finance Committees to go out and find the means by which they would deal with that, take it 1 year or take a piece of it over 5 years.

The bottom line is, this is crazy. We are talking about all that we do not have. We are passing amendments like the Biden-McCain amendment or the McCain-Biden amendment on rail. We know it is never going to be funded. We know the cost is about $50 billion to fund what we all need. Yet, at the same time, we are spending three times as much on a tax cut as we are spending on how we are going to do it.

This is only for people making over $1 million. Again, I floated this with millionaires. I have been with groups who are millionaires. I have asked them: Would you object to giving up 1 year of your tax cut?

The response is: No, if you guarantee me it is going to go to provide for security.

This amendment would guarantee that, set up a trust fund. For those who are skeptical about trust funds, let me remind you, we did it with the violent crime trust fund. It worked, and it reduced crime. We should step to the plate and say how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone in this body knows that we are not yet safe enough. Independent experts, law enforcement personnel, and first responders have warned us that we have not done enough to prevent an attack and we are ill-equipped to respond to one.

Hurricane Katrina, which happened just over a year ago, demonstrated this unfortunate truth and showed us the devastating consequences of our failure to act responsibly here in Washington.

And, last December, the 9/11 Commission issued their report card on the administration's and Congress's progress in implementing their recommendations. The result was a report card riddled with D's and F's. And, to add to this, the FBI reported earlier this summer that violent crime and murders are on the rise for the first time in a decade.

Given all of this, it is hard to argue that we are as safe as we should be. To turn this around, we have to get serious about our security.

If we establish the right priorities, we can do the job. We can fund local law enforcement, which the President has attempted to slash by over $2 billion. We can give the FBI an additional 1,000 agents to allow them to implement reforms without abandoning local crime. We can secure the soft targets in our critical infrastructure, to ensure that our chemical plants and electricity grids are protected from attacks. We can immediately re-allocate

spectrum from the television networks and give it to our first responders so they can talk during an emergency.

I know what many of my colleagues here will argue. They will argue that it is simply too expensive to do everything. That is malarkey. This is all about priorities. And, quite frankly, this Congress and this administration has had the wrong priorities over the past 5 years.

For example, this year the tax cut for Americans who make over $1 million is nearly $60 billion. Let me repeat that, just 1 year of the Bush tax cut for Americans making over $1 million is nearly $60 billion.

In contrast, we dedicate roughly one-half of that--approximately $32 billion--for the entire operations of the Department of Homeland Security.

We have invested twice as much for a tax cut for millionaires--less than 1 percent of the population--than we do for the Department intended to help secure the entire Nation.

For a nation that is repeatedly warned about the grave threats we face, how can this be the right priority?

The amendment that I am offering would change this by taking less than 1 year of the tax cut for millionaires--$53.3 billion--and invest it in homeland security over the next 5 years.

By investing this over the next 5 years at just over $10 billion per year, we could implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations and do those commonsense things that we know will make us safer.

For example, under this amendment, we could hire 50,000 additional police officers and help local agencies create locally based counterterrorism units.

We could hire an additional 1,000 FBI agents to help ensure that the FBI is able to implement critical reforms without abandoning its traditional crime-fighting functions.

We could also invest in security upgrades within our critical infrastructure and nearly double the funding for State homeland security grants.

And, the list goes on.

The bill that we are debating today is a good bill, and I am sure it will pass, but does anyone really believe that the $400 million in port security grants authorized in it will really be funded? A look back at our recent appropriations bills tells us that this is not likely.

Just this July we passed the Department of Homeland Security appropriations budget. In that legislation, the Senate allocated only $210 million for port security grants--just over one-half of what we are advocating be authorized in this bill.

Another example of this problem is our shameful record on providing funding for rail security. For the last two Congresses. the Senate has passed bipartisan rail security legislation sponsored by myself and Senator McCain, and others.

This legislation authorizes $1.2 billion to secure the soft targets in our rail system, such as the tunnels and stations. In fact, this legislation was added as an amendment to this bill 2 days ago. I thank my colleagues for including it, but we all understand that there is no chance of fully funding it unless we change our priorities.

Indeed, this body has voted against funding rail security when I have offered it as an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill the past 2 years. During that time, only $150 million per year has been allocated for rail and transit security with less than $15 million allocated for Amtrak security.

So while I thank my colleagues for recognizing the need for increased rail security by adopting the McCain-Biden amendment, it is clear that it won't mean much. Unfortunately, this is an example that is repeated over and over.

We know that the murder rate is up and that there is an officer shortage in communities throughout the Nation. Yet, we provide zero funding for the COPS hiring program and we have slashed funding for the Justice Assistance Grant.

We know that our first responders can't talk because they don't have enough interoperable equipment. Yet, we have not forced the networks to turn over critical spectrum, and we vote down funding to help local agencies purchase equipment every year.

We know that only 5 percent of cargo containers are screened, yet we do not invest in the personnel and equipment to upgrade our systems.

We know that our critical infrastructure is vulnerable. Yet, we allow industry to decide what is best and provide scant resources to harden soft targets.

The 9/11 Commission's Report Card issued last December stated bluntly that ``it is time we stop talking about setting priorities and actually set some.''

With this amendment, we set some priorities.

I won't go through the entire amendment on the floor, but I would like to touch on the highlights.

First, we provide the funding necessary to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Next, we take the commonsense steps to make our Nation safer.

We make sure that law enforcement and first responders have the personnel, equipment, training, and are sufficiently coordinated to do the job.

With this trust fund we could provide: $1.15 billion per year for COPS grants; $160 million per year to hire 1,000 FBI agents; $200 million to hire and equip 1,000 rail police; $900 million for the Justice Assistance Grants; $1 billion per year for interoperable communications; and $1 billion for Fire Act and SAFER grants.

We could invest in screening technologies: $100 million to improve airline screening checkpoints; $100 million for research and development on improving screening technologies.

We set aside funding for our critical infrastructure: $500 million per year for general infrastructure grants; $500 million per year for port security grants; $200 million per year to harden our rail infrastructure.

And, the list goes on.

Mr. President, I will conclude where I started. This is all about setting the right priorities for America. Instead of giving a tax cut to the richest Americans who don't need it we should take some of it and dedicate it towards the security of all Americans.

Our Nation's most fortunate are just as patriotic as the middle class. They are just as willing to sacrifice for the good of our Nation. The problem is that no one has asked them to sacrifice.

If we adopt this amendment, we will be asking them to sacrifice for the good of the Nation, and I am convinced that they would gladly help us out. We have done this before with the Violent Crime Trust Fund.

This amendment is about reordering our homeland security priorities, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from Washington, for yielding me the time, and I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent to call up Senate amendment 4957.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment to call up an amendment.

I ask unanimous consent to call up Senate amendment 4943.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside, and I call up amendment No. 4958.

I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Schumer as a cosponsor to 4958.

At this time, I ask that we return to the regular order. I am going to yield 2 minutes to Senator Kerry and then reclaim the remainder of the time set aside for me on the Democratic side with unanimous consent.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside Senator Schumer's amendment and return to the regular order.

Madam President, I ask to speak on amendment 4958, which I ask to be pending at this time. The Senator from Massachusetts asked for a 2-minute timeframe. I was trying to accommodate the Senator. I had been told by our side I would have 20 minutes to speak on amendment No. 4958.

Madam President, could I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kerry be given 2 minutes and I follow with 20 minutes and then we go back to the other side with their procedure as to their speakers?

Madam President, I spoke with the Senator from Washington who is managing the bill on our side. That was the direction I received from the Senator from Washington. I would like the record to reflect that I am following the direction of the manager of the bill on our side.

I hope we can move forward now with a unanimous consent order as to how we will proceed going forward.

Mr. President, is the pending business before the Senate amendment No. 4958?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, this amendment goes to the heart of our obligations to one

another with respect to homeland security. It arises out of the attacks of 9/11, the extraordinary physical damage that has been done to thousands and thousands of New Yorkers and other Americans because they responded to that disaster, because they worked in the area of Ground Zero, because they lived or volunteered there.

Each of us is marked in our own way by the events of 5 years ago. I need not recount them. We have just gone through a very painful anniversary of those attacks. My hope is we would not mark this 5-year anniversary merely by replayings and speeches and solemn readings of the names of the victims but that it would serve as a reminder of our unfinished business and a call to action on behalf of the service and sacrifice of first responders, workers, and volunteers who participated in the rescue and recovery at Ground Zero.

I have worked over the past 5 years to honor the memories of those who died, to take care of their families, and to help rebuild New York. I have fought for the funding that has generously been offered by the American people to support the economic recovery of downtown New York, building new buildings, helping to support small businesses, creating new transportation infrastructure to replace that which was obliterated. And I have worked to secure funding, starting in the fall of 2001, to monitor those who were affected by the exposure to the toxic gases and substances in the air as a result of the attacks and the implosion of the buildings.

I believe we have a moral obligation as a nation to take care of those who both took care of us and who attempted to return to their ordinary lives as a way of demonstrating solidarity and commitment, resilience and courage, in the face of the terrorist attacks.

There is much we have to do, which is why we are debating this bill about port security. But there is so much more than port security. Democrats offered a comprehensive amendment to this bill that contained the recommendations of many experts, including the 9/11 Commission. Sadly, it was unsuccessful. But that does not mean it was not merited. We cannot rest until we have a comprehensive, well-funded strategy to deal with the threats we face.

But I rise today to talk about a very specific issue. The toll of that fateful day goes beyond the families and friends and colleagues, the brave responders who saved 25,000 people in the greatest rescue mission in the history of the world. Their lives will always stand in our memory and in honor. But thousands of others rushed into that burning inferno. Thousands of others were there when that enormous, devastating cloud of death and destruction covered much of lower Manhattan, crossed the river to Brooklyn, crossed the river to New Jersey.

We have been working to understand the health implications for the people who breathed that air. That is why I fought to get money for a monitoring and screening program that was established, both at the fire department to take care of our firefighters and also at one of our great hospitals, Mount Sinai, to figure out what happened to everybody else.

The work that commenced from the moment the first plane hit was hazardous and difficult. For as long as 9 months, we had firefighters and police officers, trade and construction workers, other workers, volunteers, residents--we had probably at least 40,000 people coming and going and staying on that site. They worked and lived amidst the dust and the fog and the smog--a toxic mix of debris, smoke, and chemicals.

I first visited the site about 24 hours after the attacks. I was within blocks of the epicenter of the attack, and I could not see anything. But I could smell it. I could taste it. I could literally feel it. And as I watched that curtain of darkness part and the firefighters walking out, covered in black soot, dragging their fire axes, barely able to stand after being on duty for probably 24 hours, I had the first inkling that the damaging effects of 9/11 would last far beyond the actual attack.

Now, unfortunately, our Government officials in charge of making sure health and working conditions did not negatively impact our first responders sent mixed signals, at best. I would go further. They misled people. They said the air was safe. They made no effort to reach out and share the dangers that people knew were in this air.

It was not only people from New York who responded; it was people from all over the country. My colleague, Senator Voinovich from Ohio, and I have a bill that would set up a system for the President to carry out a program for the monitoring of the health and safety of first responders who are exposed to harmful substances as a result of the disaster, rather than reacting on ad hoc basis, as we have had to do in the wake of 9/11.

Because of what I witnessed firsthand, and what people started to tell me, the trademark World Trade Center cough appeared within days. People had trouble breathing. They had trouble swallowing. They were coughing. That is why I was so insistent upon getting $12 million to establish the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program at Mount Sinai. We quickly realized they would need a lot more workers because thousands and thousands of people were signing up and coming. So we secured an additional $90 million, and we expanded the number of workers and volunteers, and that was in addition to what we did for the fire department, which ran its own program.

Well, last week, Mount Sinai released a report that confirmed our worst fears. It confirmed an earlier report of the New York City Fire Department study. Tens of thousands of firefighters and all the others who were there were not only exposed but were suffering from significant medical and mental health problems. We are seeing young men and women in the prime of their lives, who were in excellent physical health, experiencing asthma, bronchitis, persistent sinusitis, laryngitis. They are suffering from serious diseases, reactive airwave disease. Their lungs are collapsing. Their livers are polluted. In fact, we are now seeing the first deaths.

It is not enough to say we stand with the brave men and women who responded when we needed them. We have to do more. We appropriated $125 million. And after a year and a half of struggle, money that was meant to go for the workers' comp system--because so many of these people cannot work anymore. They are on disability. They are forced into retirement. And so many of them--about 40 percent of them--who were screened at Mount Sinai had no insurance, so they cannot even get the treatment which they now know they need.

We have met with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has promised to get the money released to begin treating these brave men and women. We have worked with Dr. John Howard, the Director of NIOSH, who has documented so many of the diseases and chronic conditions we have seen. But we have a long way to go, and we need to start now.

I cannot give you an exact amount of money that it will take to take care of these thousands of people, but we know it is going to be a lot more than the $75 million we are waiting to be released on October 1. That is why this amendment would authorize $1.9 billion in grants to begin the process of setting up the system and over the next 5 years implementing a system to take care of thousands of people who are getting sick and who are dying.

We had a bipartisan, bicameral hearing in New York City last week. One of the witnesses, Steve Cetrone, who is a Federal employee, sat before us--his skin yellowed from the disease of his liver, his memory shot, his lungs collapsing--and described in detail how his Government has let him down and left him behind.

If we do not take care of these people now and start putting up a system we can have in place for the next several years, we are going to betray a fundamental responsibility to those whom we salute whenever it is convenient, when it is political. But enough with that. They do not want our speeches; they do not want our flowery rhetoric; they want our help.

My amendment uses rough estimates of about $5,800 per individual per year to provide for the continuing monitoring, but, more importantly, to provide for the treatment of these individuals. These are the rough estimates, the best we have right now from the fire department and Mount Sinai.

But we already know there are people on lung transplant lists who were on that pile. We already know people who have been disabled are unable to work and therefore have no insurance any longer. We know there are those who have died because of these exposures.

Now, did everybody get sick? No. Will everybody who got sick die? No. Much of it depends upon where you were, what you were exposed to, what the intensity and the length of the exposure was. Some of it also depends upon your predisposition, your susceptibility, your genetic makeup.

But take the case of Detective James Zadroga, a 34-year-old detective who joined the NYPD in 1992.

He did not smoke. He had no known history of asthma. He was an exemplary New York PD detective, the kind they make TV shows about, someone with a shelf full of commendations, who put himself in harm's way time and time again to protect the people of New York. I spent time with his father Joseph, a retired police chief. You will hear about the 450 hours that this decorated detective spent working on recovery efforts on the pile at Ground Zero in 2001. It filled his lungs with fiberglass, with pulverized concrete, and other toxic chemicals that destroyed his lungs. The stress and strain of his deteriorating physical condition was followed by the death of his wife, leaving him responsible for his 2-year-old daughter. He died on the floor of his bedroom with his little girl trying to wake him.

I know this is an authorization bill, and I know that it doesn't appropriate money, but it does something equally important: it sets a marker, makes a statement, and it takes all of the words and claims of concern and puts them into action. It says we are not only with you in word and deed, but we will not abandon you in your time of need.

If, as we hear, September 11 was a day that changed our Nation forever, and it is one that Americans will always remember, then let's not lose sight of its lessons. Let's finally heed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission by fully implementing them. Let's do everything we can to make our bridges, tunnels, transit systems, rail lines, our entire infrastructure as safe as possible; otherwise, we are going to have a lot of autopsy reports like we had for James Zadroga. We are going to read about the deaths and disability of thousands of our bravest, most courageous men and women. We are going to see construction workers who, before 9/11, could lift three times their body weight in steel and do whatever was necessary to construct those skyscrapers but are now bent over in pain, unable to breathe and sleep. I don't think that is what we want as our legacy as a Nation coming out of 9/11.

This country has been supportive of New York, and I am extremely grateful. But we were on the end of the spear when it came to absorbing the attack and reacting. Now we have to continue to keep faith with those who did our country proud in the hours, days, weeks, and months following that horrific attack on our Nation.

Mr. President, I ask for the consideration of this amendment to honor those who honored us and to create a system to make sure that they do not go without care, that they get the treatment they need, that their life can be saved and prolonged, that we don't lose any more like that 34-year-old detective. In his autopsy report, the pathologist said:

It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty

that the cause of death in this case was directly related to

the 9/11 incident.

Let's not have any more victims of the terrorists. Let's not let bin Laden and al-Qaida claim any more Americans who die as a result of their evil attack on us. Let's band together and support those who need us in their hour. I hope we can make such a statement with this amendment today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, may I respond to the Senator?

I greatly appreciate the Senator's awareness and commitment to doing something to help those who were affected. Certainly, from her position as chair of the Homeland Security Committee, she knows as much or more about these issues than any one of us. I appreciate greatly the suggestion that we include everyone. I make the following two additional points: Apparently, the rescue workers at the Pentagon were given respiratory equipment, given appropriate garb to wear, and were put into decontamination showers. They had the kind of worksite I wish we had had after a couple of days when the emergency immediately passed. So I wish we had that at Ground Zero. If there are those suffering from ill effects, I completely agree with the Senator. That is one of the reasons Senator Voinovich and I have joined together to try to expand the ability to treat first responders who come from anywhere. He had a rescue unit that went back to Ohio and they are sick.

The final point in response to the Senator's question is, our issue in New York is somewhat complicated by the fact that the EPA, under then-Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, consistently stated that the air was safe, told the city, the State, and the workers that, and that there was no effort made to try to even obtain the respiratory equipment and other protective coverings the workers might have needed. I agree that we should not leave any of our responders behind, no matter where they came from or who they are.

A point of clarification, Mr. President. I believe the amendment builds on the World Trade Center monitoring program which did go through Homeland Security. That may not be the best way to proceed in the future, but that is an existing structure.

I absolutely agree with the Senator from Maine that the Voinovich bill will give us an opportunity to avoid these problems in the future, which has to be one of our primary goals.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. President, my amendment is amendment No. 4999. It is to ultimately have a plan to move toward the scanning of cargo. I intend to speak for about 10 minutes on the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4999 be called up at this time.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, Senator Inouye, Senator Murray, and Senator Collins, for their work and attention to this critical subject. I am pleased to stand with them in trying to work to ensure that a concrete port security measure takes place that makes our Nation's ports safer than they are presently.

We have just commemorated the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I cannot think of a way in which we can learn from those lessons more than to finally come to an agreement on a strong, well- funded port security bill. For those of us who represent States such as mine, New Jersey, with the largest ports in the country, it is not a moment too soon. In fact, some would argue that it comes rather late in the game. I have to agree.

Five years after that tragic September day, nearly 4 years after Congress passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act, and 2 years after the September 11 Commission issued its report and its 41 recommendations, our Nation's busiest ports remain underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed. A myriad of new stories over the last week in the runup of the fifth anniversary of September 11 have consistently pointed to one irrefutable fact: our ports remain vulnerable to a terrorist attack. This is not news for some of us.

In December of 2001, I introduced a port security measure in the House of Representatives which sought to fully understand the vulnerabilities we face at all of our ports. I certainly hope this will move us along in that way. I urge, certainly, that we come to that conclusion.

Let's remember that an attack at our ports would not just hurt trade and commerce. Such an attack at a port would devastate surrounding communities. In August, the Rand Corporation released a report concluding that ``a nuclear explosion at the port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people immediately, expose 150,000 more to radiation, and cause 10 times the economic loss of the September 11 attacks.''

In my State of New Jersey, the Elizabeth-Newark Port, the largest container seaport on the east coast, handled more than $132 billion in goods in 2005 and creates over 200,000 jobs. Imagine what would happen to the Nation--not just New York or New Jersey--if commerce were shut down in this port. Imagine the number of lives in that immediate region, one of the greatest concentrations of population in the Nation.

According to retired Coast Guard CDR Stephen Flynn, the cargo containers ``are a potential Trojan horse in the age of terrorism.'' He is right. Mr. Flynn pointed out that we are not keeping pace with the terrorists' capabilities. The threat continues to evolve. When we patched up one security hole, they found another gap, another vulnerability.

In December 2005, small undercover teams of investigators from the Government Accountability Office were able to carry small amounts of Cesium 137, a radioactive material used for medical and industrial purposes, in the trunks of rental cars in the States of Washington and Texas. The Washington Post reported that the radioactive materials did set off alarms, but GAO agents were able to use phony documents to persuade U.S. border guards and Customs officers to let them pass into the country.

As long as cargo containers remain a mainstay of international commerce, and as long as we cannot verify what is inside each and every one of them, we are vulnerable.

Right now, only 5 percent of containers entering this country are inspected. That is a number which I believe would shock most Americans. Let me be clear. It would be unacceptable to screen only 5 percent of White House visitors every day, so why is it acceptable to scan only 5 percent of cargo entering our country every day? Scanning anything less than 100 percent of cargo that enters our ports is irresponsible and downright negligent. Only scanning 5 percent of cargo containers that enter our ports is the equivalent of locking the car doors but leaving the windows down and the keys in the ignition. It is unacceptable.

Even the system we now use to determine which of the 5 percent of containers to inspect is riddled with flaws. Customs inspectors rely on manifests and intelligence data--both of which can be unintentionally incorrect or even manipulated--to develop algorithms that tell them which container to open. We cannot take the risk that complex mathematical equations relying on faulty inputs will catch a chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon shipped into our ports. We need to develop a system that will eventually ensure that 100 percent of containers bound for this country are inspected, either physically or through effective nonintrusive scanning that will find and detect weapons no matter how they are disguised.

We need to take advantage of existing technologies that can scan the inside of a container, even before it leaves a foreign port, and create a downloadable image of what is inside. That image can be reviewed in real time by security officials in the United States so we know exactly what the container holds before it even sets sail for our shores. By combining this technology with scans for radioactive material, we can find dangerous materials before they ever arrive in our ports.

Port security is a serious matter that should be addressed with a comprehensive and consistent plan, not a game of ``Eeny Meeny Miney Mo'' to figure out which cargo container to scan. Five years after September 11, we must have a plan, a clear roadmap that describes how we will move our Nation to 100 percent scanning at our ports. To accomplish this, this amendment would require just that: to produce an initial plan, a tangible document that clearly outlines how to increase scanning to 100 percent at our ports. The plan must include yearly benchmarks and consequences for supply chain entities that fail to comply, and this could include loss of access to U.S. ports and levying of fines.

My amendment also includes a requirement for an update of the initial 100-percent scanning plan that would include lessons learned from the pilot system.

The definition of 100 percent scanning is very important here, and I hope

our colleagues will focus on this issue. The American public should not be misled by anyone stating that screening is sufficient or that offering amendments for 100-percent screening is a step in the right direction.

Let me be very clear: 100 percent screening means just looking at manifests, manifests that are often incomplete and incorrect. Relying on manifests is simply not the way to ensure cargo containers do not contain items they should not, items that could endanger the security of our ports, the surrounding communities, and the people in our country.

I want to emphasize that I am not calling for all containers entering the United States to be opened up and examined. What I am calling for, and something that is well within our technical capabilities, is to ensure that all containers entering the United States have been scanned using nonintrusive technology.

But to get to 100 percent container inspection and to have true container security, we also need to take immediate steps to put scanners in place here and abroad to track containers as they move across the ocean and to start protecting against not only nuclear but chemical and biological agents.

In conclusion, we have been debating the details of this cargo inspection regime for far too long. It is not a new issue. But the time has come to act decisively and with one voice to make our ports safer than they are now.

Five years after September 11, we still do not know what is entering our ports. Recently, a commercial airplane was diverted because someone forgot their BlackBerry on board. Yet thousands of cargo containers stream into our Nation every day without us knowing exactly what they contain.

Just this past Monday, we commemorated the fifth anniversary of the attacks that shocked the Nation and took the lives of 3,000 Americans, including 700 New Jerseyans. We must remember the terrorists used methods beyond our wildest imaginations and spurred the Congress into some action to better protect our Nation. Here we stand 5 years later and we are still not scanning 100 percent of the cargo that enters our country. We are tempting fate in a most reckless way. We have identified a clear vulnerability and we must do everything we can to decrease the threat before it is too late.

If we could roll back the clock 10 years and spend a few billion dollars to raise the levees in New Orleans to be able to withstand a category 5 hurricane, we would have saved hundreds of lives, as well as the billions of dollars it will take to rebuild that city. I don't want this country to look back in hindsight a few years from now with the realization that if we had taken action today, we could have prevented a major terrorist attack. Who among us would be satisfied in the aftermath of an attack that we did not take the steps that could have prevented it because we were unwilling to dedicate the necessary resources? That is the choice the Congress faces and the Senate faces today. And for the security of our country, it is essential that we make the right one.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment so that we can do so and move toward a plan that will give us 100 percent scanning.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding time.

After listening to this debate, I think my distinguished colleagues are talking about another pending amendment, not my amendment. My amendment is very clear and forthright. It asks for a plan to achieve 100 percent scanning--a plan.

Now, after listening to the debate, the reality is that after all of the items that were discussed, that still is only 1 percent scanning of 5 percent of the cargo. Let's not get confused. Words matter. There is a difference between screening and scanning.

Who in our country will be satisfied with a mathematical equation being used as the way in which we determine what 5 percent ultimately gets taken care of? What it still says, notwithstanding all those layers of security

that the distinguished Senator from Maine spoke about, is that still only has us reviewing 5 percent of the cargo. That is what it does. So who among us is willing to allow mathematical equations that are based upon information that can be either intentionally or unintentionally faulty to ultimately protect the ports of this country, the people who work there, the communities that surround them, and the commerce of the Nation? I wouldn't.

If Hong Kong can do this, the United States of America can do it. All we say is let's have the Department of Homeland Security develop a plan to achieve it. We do not insist on specific ways in which we do that. We allow them to develop the plan. But let's get to a plan for 100 percent of the cargo.

As for domestic, we say it will include benchmarks that they will determine in the plan for what type of cargo inspectors are inspecting here in the United States before they leave. It doesn't say specifically the amount, and as it relates to the loss of access to U.S. ports and fines, it says it may include such loss of access if we believe that is the way in which we should seek enforcement. It doesn't say ``it shall.'' It says ``it may.''

At the end of the day, if we adopt the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota, we are still saying: OK, 5 percent is something we are willing to live with. At the end of the day, we do not move to a plan of 100 percent scanning of the Nation's cargo. Doesn't the Nation deserve a plan to get there, a plan that largely can be devised to ensure that both technological accomplishments, as well as security concerns, are brought together to achieve the goal? I think the Nation deserves a plan. So it is very important to understand that when we keep saying screen--screen means looking at a cargo manifest.

I had the Port of Elizabeth in Newark in what was my former congressional district for 13 years and dealt with them for quite a bit on a number of issues. Screening just means let's look at what is in that container. Let's see the list. Where is it coming from? What port is it coming from? Let's ultimately take all of that and put it in a mathematical equation and look at what is inside the cargo. But that is not scanning 100 percent of what comes into the Nation. Let America not be confused by that.

Also, this is about scanning it abroad. When we wait until it comes into a port of the United States, if it has a nuclear device in it, it is a little late. We need to be doing that scanning abroad.

I urge my colleagues to understand the difference between these amendments. Ours produces a plan to get us to 100 percent of scanning, and it gives flexibility for the Department to do so, but it does move us toward that ultimate goal.

With that, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Washington, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Lautenberg as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and ask for the immediate consideration of amendment No. 4982.

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

First, before I begin talking about my amendment, I wish to thank the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Collins, and her cosponsor for the work they have done on port security. The Senator from Washington has been a champion. Although she is not on our committee, she has spent as much time sitting in on these hearings as many committee members. It has been a magnificent display of bipartisanship and a magnificent display of the best in the U.S. Senate.

Looking at the issues today, we have serious challenges, and I believe the bill before us does a magnificent job of addressing some of the greatest vulnerabilities our Nation faces. We have vulnerabilities, and our subcommittee did its own work in looking at some of these areas.

For about 3 years, we have looked at these issues of trying to bolster America's port security and supply chain security. During the course of that, we identified numerous weaknesses. The subcommittee found at one point in time that only a de minimis number of high-risk containers were actually inspected. It was a very serious problem.

The subcommittee found that an overwhelming proportion of C-TPAT companies that Chairman Collins talked about enjoy the benefits without having been inspected, without having the certifications you need to make sure that if you are going to give people the benefit of operating this program, they do it the right way. We found a flawed system that Homeland Security uses in identifying high-risk containers entering the United States. We raised concerns about the percentage of cargo containers entering U.S. ports that are actually screened with radiological devices. So these are just a handful of the significant problems we discovered.

The bottom line is that the underlying legislation tackles these concerns and many other weaknesses head-on--head-on. So as someone who has spent 3 years looking at this issue, I look at the underlying bill and say the concerns that the subcommittee raised in terms of inadequate nuclear and radiological screening will be taken care of in a set period of time. There are deadlines in here. When Secretary Chertoff testified before our committee this week, he indicated that by the end of next year, 2007, we will have 100 percent screening of radiological material in this country. So the bill addresses it. The actions of the committee have moved the agency forward, and I think that is a good thing, although there is more to be done.

One of the things I have been a champion of is the idea of screening and scanning all containers coming to our country. That is a goal. There are 11 million--11 million--that enter into our country, and the goal is it would be ideal to be able to scan every one. It is important, by the way, that we screen every one.

One of the things we worry about here as we get closer to election season is that some language is generating some fears on the part of the American public about our vulnerability. People in this country should know that every container is screened. There is a system in place. Our chairman did a tremendous job of describing the layered security that is employed. There are layers of security that highlight high risks and allow us then to do a targeted job of dealing with the issue of security.

We never have a 100-percent guarantee. We live in a world where there are few 100-percent guarantees. But we have a system that allows us to have this layered security, improved substantially by this bill, that allows the flow of commerce to go through.

If my colleagues recall, Osama bin Laden said he wanted to destroy us economically. He wanted to cripple this country. He understood that if you destroy the economy, you destroy the country. So as we deal with this issue of supply chain security, we have to do everything we can to make sure we are secure. We also have to make sure we don't put things in place that achieve the goal of the terrorists, which is to destroy the flow of commerce and destroy the economy. That is the balance, and it is difficult. We are always erring on the side of safety.

One of the things we saw during the course of our investigation--I had a chance to go to Hong Kong as well as the Port of Los Angeles and other ports throughout this country. But we saw in Hong Kong a system where they actually scanned every container. It was a very good system, by the way, in terms of getting a picture--I would call it kind of a moving CAT scan.

The Senator from Maine talked about the systems we have here--a very slow process. Literally, the container is in one place and the system goes over it. In Hong Kong, they have a system that scans on kind of--I would call it a moving CAT scan. The trucks come through, they never stop, they are rolling right through, and on each and every one of them there is a picture taken and you get a scan, and then there is a radiological detection device that is over that and it goes through and it is magnificent. I think some of my colleagues saw that and said: We have to have that right here, right now. That sounds wonderful.

It is important to note that, in fact, there are 40 lanes of traffic in Hong Kong, and only 2, only 2 have this system. So what we have in the underlying bill is an amendment that says we are going to set up a pilot project, and in that pilot project what we are going to do is we are going to test this system.

By the way, it is also important to note that of all the images we get, they are not processed. We have a library of images where, God forbid there was an attack, we could go back and pinpoint where it came from and not shut down every port. But there is no use of those images today. They are not being fed into Langley, they are not being fed into our intelligence system, they are not being fed into anything. So in the end, when the Senator from Maine talks about an integrated system, integration means not just integration of a standing image with a radiological detection device but integration of the information that is being gathered, which is substantial, to be used then in terms of our own analysis of what is in that cargo--does it represent high-risk, et cetera.

There is a great opportunity here, a great opportunity. But we are only at a point now where we have in one place in the world--we have two lanes of traffic that are using a system, and we now have the opportunity in this bill to get a pilot project, and I think it is magnificent. But there are also weaknesses we have which we then can address with this amendment, amendment No. 4982. What it says is--we kind of walked through and looked at what was in the bill, and we realized that, in operation, 100 percent of high-risk containers weren't being screened. This amendment says they will be. So every citizen out there should know that 100 percent of those containers which are identified as high risk will be screened, and that is important.

Then we go to the next step, and we do it in a responsible way. I have always believed that good policy is good politics. We do this in a good-policy way. We say that the Secretary shall ensure that 100 percent of the containers that have been identified as high risk are scanned before such containers leave a seaport facility. And then we say: The Secretary, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy and foreign partners, shall fully deploy integrated scanning systems to scan all containers entering the United States before such containers arrive in the United States as soon as the Secretary determines that-- and this is the key--the integrated scanning system has a sufficiently low false alarm rate, is capable of being deployed and operated in ports overseas, meets certain requirements set forth in the statute-- very basic requirements--does not significantly impact trade capacity and flow of cargo at foreign and U.S. ports.

So we have a system that says: OK, Mr. Secretary, this is what you have to do, because we want this system in place, but we want it to be done in a way that doesn't cripple the supply chain and that practically can be done. It is nice to be able to say we want 100 percent. I think we have about 704 operational seaports in 147 countries today, and we have a scanning system that is used in 2 lanes and one that is not even integrated into our entire system. We are not there yet. We want to get there. This amendment puts us on a course to get there.

Then, to make sure we are not simply leaving it to the discretion of the Secretary to say when he decides it should be done, we tell him to come back to us, to come back to our colleagues in Congress, and we want to know where you are. So it says that not later than 6 months-- and the underlying pilot project requires the Secretary to come back-- it is a 1-year pilot project--come back within 120 days with a report and tell us how the pilot project worked. And then this amendment says that not later than 6 months after the submission of this report and every 6 months thereafter, the Secretary shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees describing the status of full- scale deployment under subsection B and the cost of deploying the system at each foreign port.

So what we have in place here is what I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would say is the right way to go. We set in place a pilot project. We ask that the pilot project be evaluated. The Secretary is required to give us a report on how that pilot project is working, and then we tell the Secretary: Every 6 months, come back, because we want to know how close we are to getting to 100 percent scanning, how close we are and what else has to be done. It gives us the opportunity in a responsible way--a responsible way--to come back to see if we can put in place a system where we scan 100 percent. But scanning 100 percent on arbitrary deadlines, scanning 100 percent on impossible deadlines doesn't make any sense, and I am glad we are not at that point right now. We are at the point right now where we have in place the ability to significantly improve the level of safety and security in those 11 million cargo containers which are entering the United States.

We have an underlying bill that does a magnificent job of addressing weaknesses that have been identified, and now we will take care of them. We have an amendment in place that builds on a pilot project, and building on that pilot project puts certain obligations on the Department of Homeland Security to come back to us in Congress and tell us how you are doing, and if you are not moving quick enough, we will be on your case. We will be on your case. We know what the goal is, and we share a common vision, and we have now a responsible way of doing it. That will allow the free flow of commerce, will allow jobs to grow, giving people economic security at the same time that we protect national security.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to my colleagues listening, the difference between the Menendez amendment and mine is America doesn't need another plan. There are some technical infirmities. There are some questions about what it may do in terms of our relations with other countries. Put all that aside. We don't need another plan. We need action. Maybe it is the ex-mayor in me. The underlying bill and the pilot project and the Coleman amendment will provide action. They put in place a pilot project to test how 100 percent scanning can work, and then it directs the Secretary to fully deploy, with a series of steps put in front of him, and then requires him to come back to Congress. It is not about planning, it is about action.

The American public wants action. We are giving the action. We are strengthening our port security. We

are putting in place a pilot project. We are directing the Secretary to ensure there is 100 percent screening of every high-risk container, and then requiring him to fully deploy an integrated scanning system 100 percent, lays out the conditions, and has him report back to us.

I am not sure we can do any better today based on the technology we now have.

I move to reconsider the vote.